February 18, 2008

The Text Message Killer - AKA "My Little Exterminator"

So I have been watching this TMK story with only a slight modicum of interest, that smidgeon being a nod of appreciation for the fairly effective (as nearly as the TMK knows) elimination of one of my very least favorite characters, Emily Quartermaine.  I have disliked Emily since she was a squawking, spoiled little Amber Tamblyn girl bitching to Alan and Monica about not getting her way 99% of the time.  I tried to like her when she came back from rehab looking like Natalia Livingston, but then the whole breast cancer story got underway and I pretty much wanted to shoot myself.  Right on the tail of that came the Undoing of Zander which made me want to shoot her instead...about 3 times as many times as Zander was shot on their front porch, that cheating little cow.  Boy, did the Zan Man ever get sold a bill of goods.  From there on it trudged on through that awful Pirate Shirt and into the affair with Sonny and on and on until by the time Emily finally died off, I was having to center up and focus on reality to make sure I hadn't actually hired someone to kill her off. 

Next, the TMK killed off Poor Georgie, who will forever after now be referred to as "Poor Georgie," which was a damned shame except that she wasn't really doing too much anyway and so despite being the spark that brought Felicia back for a few days (thereby reminding me that I don't really like her either and should have fed her name to my lacky, I mean the TMK) and a really good funeral, we don't really miss her so much.  We weren't really seeing her anyway and if anything, we miss the potential promise that she might one day have a story.  Another thing Georgie's death did was to bring up a really fantastic scene for Scott Clifton as he played out all the levels of his grief over his ex-wife's murder.  Yep, if he'd just loved her enough, she'd be alive and well and with him in Movie Making Heaven. 

As if continuing on a mission to win my heart, TMK then went on to attack both Alexis and Sam, two more of my least favorite characters, and actually make it a long way towards kicking the snot out of them if not actually killing them off, as would be my extreme preference.  If I hired a GH exterminator with a hit list, the TMK could not have been more effective and here I get all of the benefits and none of the risk, except that despite a few good efforts on the part of the TMK, Sam still lives.  Alas.

This past week, I came out of my ecstatic swoon long enough to do some thinking about the whole TMK story.  Aside from the obvious benefits of the noble attempts at eliminating some fairly annoying characters, the story has not grabbed me.  There are way too many red herrings and it has just dragged on frickin' forever.  I also keep wanting to type "Music Box Killer," which is frustrating, but then, that was a OLTL murder mystery that went on for way too long, so there is a correlation.  Additional, the Music Box Killer was played by Matthew Ashford, who played Tom Hardy on GH, so there's another little segue we'll leave unexplored. 

As I said in my most recent column before this, my money was on Jerry, but then they started making it look like Jerry just as they have made it look like Coop and look like Logan, so we know it's none of those guys.

Personally, I now think it's Diego.  Consider the evidence:

We never did see Diego dead other than when he was scrunched down all crumpled in the stairwell after Sam shot him.  Given the circumstances that he was trying to be a mob kingpin, it would not be at all inconceivable that he might be wearing a bulletproof vest.  What if Lorenzo got him all roused after everyone left and gave him the, "See?  SEE?  This is why I don't want you in the mob, estimado chico pequeño.  Then he whisked him away to parts unknown to live out his life without having to take responsibility for his crimes. 

When Jason killed Lorenzo, Diego did not hear from Daddy for a long time and when it got to be too long, came looking for him.

Now look at the victims and attempted victims:

Emily:  She was on the anti-Diego train for a good long while.

Georgie:  Killed Sage Alcazar, Diego's cousin.  (At least in Diego's opinion - she was only indirectly responsible for her death)

Alexis:  Killed Luis Alcazar, Diego's uncle.

Carly:  Really - let's face it - led Diego's father on and then utterly screwed him over, treating Diego as family and then as though she didn't even know him.

Sam:  Tried to actually kill Diego himself.

Cooper:  Had a good lead on the identity of the killer and was about to blow the whistle. 

As nearly as I can tell, everyone who the TMK has hit wronged the Alcazars in some way.  Now one could say that it is actually Lorenzo who is doing this, but the fact is that it was Ignacio Serricchio who was recently seen at the GH studios having a conference with Jill Farren Phelps, not Ted King, who has pretty much (in that gracious, "I want to work in this town again" way) told GH to kiss his sweet ass.

Most telling is the fact that our resident delicate flower, Kristina, got all screamy and catatonic when she saw him.  Maxie and Spinelli pointed out that just seeing the Text Message Killer would not likely have caused that reaction, so it must have been something about the killer that caused her to shut down.  The last time she went catatonic was when she saw Sam "kill" Diego.  If she saw Diego outside her house, wouldn't she think he was a ghost?

That would sufficiently freak me out if I happened to be permanently 6 years old!

My question is this:  Has anyone checked in on Skye and Dillon lately???

So that's my theory for this moment.

A reader's observations added:

I forgot about Leticia, who Diego could have killed while waiting for Carly. 

Maxie was attacked and she also was very anti-Diego.

Emily was Jason's sister and Carly is his best friend and Jason was an enemy of the Alcazar family.

Dr. Devlin said the drugs in Cooper's room were from South America where the Alcazar family is from.