Faison as Beetlejuice, Patrick as Indiana Jones, Carly as Sexy Kitty. (I was super jealous. I would look more like Garfield in that get-up.) Emma as a super hero I have never heard of, but more adorable every day, Josslyn as "Children of the Corn" which...is apropos, Obrecht embracing her German heritage, Felix and Brad as the Operation Game Guy, and Elizabeth as Snow White -- oh what a week in Port Charles!
It might have been Halloween this week, but in my heart it felt like Christmas when I saw my first glimpse of Delia Reid Ryan-Ryan Coleridge Crane (I think I have all her last names, but it's been awhile.) I want to brave the drive from San Diego to L.A. and bake brownies for the GH writers, or kiss them, or buy them shots of tequila at some soap writers' watering hole or whatever would make them happy for having the vision to merge Ryan's Hope characters into General Hospital. I teared up as if some honey had just handed me a dozen roses and a diamond.
I have history with Ryan's Hope. In 1975 when it started, I was 14. (Yes, I'm old, I know.) Before it aired its first actual episode, ABC aired a primetime preview of Ryan's Hope where you got to meet all the characters. My mother and I were thrilled with this concept -- we had never come in at the beginning of a soap before -- we had always had to play catch-up trying to figure out who was who -- so we gleefully watched the nighttime premiere and started Ryan's Hope from day one.
It started airing in July, and we were going to Canada on vacation in August, and we did not want to miss any episodes, so I remember Mama and me sitting in some little rustic cabin in the woods of Ontario -- my Dad out on his boat, fishing, and mom and me with some little portable TV we dragged along sitting on top of some wood burning stove with coat hanger antenna extensions pointed toward Niagara Falls to get a snowy but audible episode of Ryan's Hope.
So, seeing Ryan's bar and Delia lit me up like a candle inside because it wasn't just a familiar face, it was opening up the memories of my childhood and letting me relive them and remembering my hot 14-year-old girl crush on Jack Fenelli and understanding why I still have a deep affection for Irish pubs that has nothing to do with Guinness.
Delia is Ava's mom, and that opens the door to 100 new storylines. Ron Carlivati saved GH, and now he's resurrecting Ryan's Hope, too. He's like Soap Jesus. I started spinning possibilities in my mind. Mary Ryan comes to work as a reporter for Derek Wells -- if everyone else can come back from the dead, why not her? Kate Mulgrew is probably sitting by her phone, waiting to get that call. Sonny's long gone dad, Mike, played by the superb Ron Hale, can come back to GH as Roger Coleridge, because if Todd can become Franco and McBain can become Clay and Starr can become Kiki, then Mike can be Roger again, too.
But I digress. Ryan's Hope dreams must be set to the side to get back to talking about the mother ship -- General Hospital.
Dear readers, I will now confess something to you that may make you hate me...I've never been an especially ardent Robin fan. I loved her unconditionally from the time she was a little girl up until the day she told A.J. about Michael. Even though she was probably morally right to do so -- I just wanted her to keep her big trap shut. She came to represent every judgmental shrew that meddled in everyone's life that I ever knew. It's more socially acceptable to openly loathe a fictional character than a real person, so I hated Robin for a good long time. (Kind of like I hated Danny Glover in the next 5 films after he did The Color Purple.)
But I must admit, I am rooting for Robin right now and feeling sympathetic to her again and getting anxious that Patrick might marry Sabrina before Robin can reveal herself to her family. Being imprisoned has softened Robin's edges a little bit, and she is only spewing her venomous hatred at the people who deserve it: her insane clown posse of captors.
When Emma hugged Robin while she was masked, I could barely stand it. I wanted someone to come along and knock her mask down and have Emma scream "Mommy!" -- of course if that happened, no one would believe her, and Kevin would do some kid shrink session with her and convince her that she was just upset that her Daddy was getting remarried.
It's a very compelling comeback, but I want to hit fast-forward and get to the good stuff.
I'm also waiting for the good stuff to happen in the ongoing custody dispute of Baby Connie/Georgie. I want Spinelli and Maxie to get their baby and to be happy. I want Dante and Lulu to get Britt's baby (which I presume is theirs) and for everyone to get along and have play dates. Britt can have a new and super attractive baby with Nikolas next year -- let's face it, those two gorgeous people's DNA combined would make a beautiful, but surely certifiably insane, baby.
But before we arrive at the happy ending, there is going to be a lot of heartache in the form of two best friends who have turned on each other. Readers, I don't know about you, but my BFF and I have been friends for 30 years. On any given day, should she decide she wanted to ruin my life, she could, and vice versa. We have decades of dirt on one another, sinful confessions, eyewitness accounts, a spreadsheet of lies we've told, all waiting to unravel a carefully constructed façade of decency. Although I am much less afraid of that now that my Dad the pastor and my Mom the saint are gone -- no one else cares if I was promiscuous in the 80s...
Lulu and Maxie are both determined to win at any cost. They are each mentally compiling an arsenal of the other's mistakes and misdeeds to fire into the open courtroom in a custody case. And let's face it -- they have both made some doozies of mistakes. The outcome I fear is that they will both look like unfit mothers, and Dante and Spinelli will have to move in together and be Two Men and a Little Lady. Or, as Ellie suggested, Damien could distance himself from Maxie, look to be the most stable of the baby's biological parents, and end up raising his daughter with Ellie. Seeing as how Kirsten Storms-Barash will be heading out on maternity leave, maybe this is the way the writers are building in that time -- Spinelli gets the baby; Maxie starts drinking, checks into rehab, and comes back in three months to fight for her family? Who knows, just using Soap Logic to try to come up with a plausible exit?
Readers, here's my problem with Soap Villains -- we don't normally get to keep them for long. They come to town, do horrible deeds and either get arrested or killed, or slink off into nothingness to return and do evil another day. The comedy team of Kathleen Gati and Anders Hove as Obrecht and Faison makes me laugh every day. I'm not talking chuckle, I'm talking laugh so loud that I embarrass my husband, and he gets up and closes our patio door for fear the neighbors will hear me howling.
I know they are bad people who did bad things and are creepy and kooky and altogether ooky, but damn, I love them. When Faison opened the door as Beetlejuice and Leslie passed out, I laughed. When Liesl wanted to dress baby Ben up like Rosemary's Baby, I laughed some more. It's like having the Addams Family living in Port Charles. Pretty soon, Alfred will be dressed as Lurch.
Sonny, while not a villain, is definitely an anti-hero, and a big mob battle is brewing. Readers, I love Shawn, and he's really buff and handsome, and I enjoy looking at him, but as an enforcer, he's no Jason. With Shawn and Max the only two goons in Sonny's employ, I have a feeling that Heather Weber could outwit them and take them down. While Jason was always two steps ahead of Sonny's rivals, Shawn is a step behind Sonny, and Sonny isn't always mentally stable, so this is not a good thing.
Sonny confronted Derek/Julian and asked him to print an article about...himself. I was terrified Derek would assume that Morgan ratted him out and end his life. Can you imagine the scenes on the day when Sonny finds out that his own son bugged his office and betrayed him? It will be worse than the day when Brenda wore the wire!
What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Kitty-Cat-Carly kiss Andy Warhol Franco? Will Heather retaliate by refusing to paint anymore stripe paintings? Will Snow White and Vampira Britt tussle over Dark Prince Nikolas? Will Olivia have a vision of Sonny choking Derek Wells? Will Michael have A.J. ask his friends over at The Chew for new recipes for the Mob Pasta menu? Will Luke's blood be the key to a cure for Jerry and freedom for the two superspies who were outwitted by him? Will Felix find a more suitable love match than sleaze-master Brad to date? Will Duke realize Anna's hands are slightly manlier and ponder why she's wearing a London Fog raincoat inside at Wyndemere and become suspicious?
Only tomorrow knows, dear readers, and I will tune in tomorrow as long as there are tomorrows.
Tamilu
