August 6, 2008

I’m impressed that Jax managed to resist Carly while she was lying on the hotel bed, playing with chocolate-covered strawberries.  I wouldn’t have been able to resist her and I don’t even swing that way.  Loud, opinionated women may not be my style but never underestimate the power of chocolate!  As always though, I’ve got to admire Carly’s capacity for self-delusion.  She protests again and again that she’s going to fight for her marriage with Jax and never give up.  Too bad she wasn’t thinking about this battle while climbing all over Sonny in a limo.  Honey, that’s not fighting, that’s waving a white flag and handing Jax the gun to just get it over with.  This break-up/make-up storyline does get brownie points (mmm, chocolate!) for all the mentions of history, though.  It’s so rare that the show’s rich past gets delved into that my jaw dropped multiple times while Carly recounted the list of Jax’s failed marriages, complete with one-line summaries.  Then he actually brought up being on the federal watch list since he pled guilty to those RICO charges years ago to save his father and Jerry from jail.   I remember the episode when they were all arrested—it was pretty powerful stuff!     

And the piano makes its return!  Once again, I’m seduced by Johnny’s flowing fingers and if seems that I’m not the only one.  Lourdes seems just a bit too into him, if you know what I mean.  I’m expecting her to pull a Misery on him soon, strap him to a bed, and whack at him with a sledgehammer.  At the very least, she’ll probably blackmail her way into bed with him, taking a page from Lucy Coe’s and Maxie Jones’ books.   

Claudia’s running around town acting like she’s everyone’s best friend these days.  She seems to think she understands the dynamics of the relationships between Sonny, Jason, and Ric yet I’ve never seen her have a heartfelt conversation with any of these men.  She bops around from mobster to mobster, claiming how she needs their help for this or that and never really making much sense.  I don’t know why people don’t just ignore her or throw her out.  She’s the daughter of the rival mob boss!  Not to mention that she’s even acting this way with Sonny, whom she tried to kill not that long ago.  Heck, Jason won’t even kick her out of his receiving room; oops, I mean the PCPD interrogation room.  It’s so hard to tell the difference.  He should really have Carly decorate to brighten up the gray walls, don’t you think?  Sure, he’s out now, but he’ll be back in before the week’s over, I’m sure.  It might as well be his home away from home.  He’s probably got a monogrammed towel hanging in his cell and an extra leather jacket under his cot. 

You know what would have made this Karpov storyline much more interesting?  If Jason and the audience actually believed that Sonny was working against him.  Tension would build for months until the day Sonny turned the tables on Karpov and his plot to protect Jason was revealed.  Instead, the storyline has lasted about a week and I’m supposed to think that Sonny’s BETRAYING! Jason because he’s trying to make sure that Jason’s interests are protected.  Oh, and apparently Carly’s cool with Sonny getting “eliminated” if needs be.  As long as she gets to stick it to Kate, of course. 

For the record, I do not buy that Scotty didn’t care about Logan while he was alive.  First of all, he didn’t know Logan existed until last year.  Secondly, I seem to recall him making overtures on a few occasions, once with grocery bags and a turkey for Thanksgiving.  He also stood vigil when Logan was in his coma and stood up for him a number of times during brushes with the law.  How does that translate into not caring about his son?  

The bright spot of my General Hospital viewing is definitely the drug smuggling storyline.  You can’t go wrong with Laura’s boys teamed up to fight crime.  It’s almost too much hotness for any one scene to contain.  Plus, Nadine’s involvement just adds fuel to my Nadine/Nik shipping heart.  I take his insistence that she not try to investigate Dr. Hunter as proof that he cares about her more than he realizes yet.  Also, this has given us our most solid evidence yet that Nikolas has no idea how the real world works.  He offers to give Nadine a $2000 per week pay raise?  I’m lucky if I get half that much of a raise per year from the state.  I need to find a free health care clinic with a wealthy benefactor to work at, STAT! 

Did anybody else catch that After School Special last week about how fathers who don’t raise their children are worse than pond scum?  I think it came on some time between a Rick Springfield concert and Finola Hughes’ kickboxing show.  It was almost as thrilling as that one about how children shouldn’t play with guns or their father’s girlfriends might get shot and left in a dark alley.  See you next time, when we’ll learn that blond wigs give awesome mother-daughter talks!

The Gourmez