Dear Readers, I am a person of faith and have been my whole life. No, slight retraction... most of my life... When I was younger, I was in a tragic car accident, where one of my friends was killed. Following that accident, I was suddenly and jarringly *not* a person of faith. I was where Griffin is today -- I doubted the very God I had believed in and served since childhood.
I was touring in a theatre group at the time, and along the roads of my travels, I befriended a man who was an Episcopal priest. Since I grew up in a legalistic Baptist Church I was pretty sure he was going to hell because he drank wine and smoked a pipe.
But here's the thing. He's the person God sent to bring me through my dark night of the soul. He's the one who named it my dark night of the soul. While my former church friends searched my life to find the "secret sin" that made God punish me by killing my friend in an auto accident, God gave me the gift of a wine-drinking, chain-smoking pastor to actually love me through my heartache. He saved me. He changed the way I saw God, the way I saw all the religious rules, and the way I lived life.
Why am I telling you this? Because after I watched GH today and saw Sonny speaking into Griffin's life about God and faith and grief, I thought of the man who saved me when I was hopeless and lost. Sure, Sonny may seem like the most unlikely person to help a former priest through a crisis of faith, but that's who God sent to do the job. (Or the GH writers, if we take ourselves out of the soap bubble.)
I understand why Griffin wants to save Anna. I understand he wants to find a way to put good into the world when he feels responsible for leaving Kiki alone the tragic night she was killed. Matt Cohen had some beautiful scenes this week. He's doing stellar work. Every doubt and regret that Griffin had shone through his troubled eyes and went straight to my heart. Matt Cohen is doing a magnificent job with this storyline, and I wanted to highlight it this week.
I also want to shine a light on my very first GH crush -- Kin Shriner. I started watching GH before Luke entered the picture, and the hot teen storyline at the time was Laura and Scotty. They were the Josslyn and Oscar of the day. They were married in 1979, which is the year I graduated from high school. Laura was my age, and she was getting married and doing exciting things! Oh, how I loved them. If you're curious to see young newlywed Scotty and Laura, here's a treat from YouTube. It's not the best quality, but it's probably a digitized version of an old VHS recording. Kids, ask your grandparents about VHS.
And a bonus clip, just because.
Now that we got the history lesson out of the way for people who aren't as old as I am... Scotty saved Laura's life again this week by walking into the boxing gym just as Ryan (masquerading as Kevin) was about to strangle her with the laces of a boxing glove. I was cheering, "SCOTTY!" in my living room like a lunatic. But do the math, 2019 - 1979 = 40 years of loving Scotty.
I know I should probably be rooting for real Kevin to break free and reunite with Laura, but I'm not. I want Laura to find comfort in her first love, Scotty, and Kevin can have Lucy back when he finally busts out of Ferncliff.
Who do you think Ryan is going to kill next? He has both Laura and Carly in his sights, and if Lulu doesn't slow her roll with all the investigating, she will be on the list, too. Judging from Ryan's giant creepy wooden box of driver's licenses, it appears he's killed more people than we have seen on camera. All the licenses in his creepy box look new -- I mean, during his last killing spree, driver's license didn't have holograms or bar codes...
Although I don't really understand the motivation for Franco breaking into Kevin Collins' office, I understand that the writers had to move this plot along. The daytime drama clock is ticking. Sweeps are in February, and we are only two weeks away, so perhaps this will wrap up in the next few weeks. Franco's fingers are about five inches from the evidence, but will he get there before Ryan bursts in and catches him? Maybe there will be a serial killer vs. serial killer showdown! Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, Franco's brain tumor is gone, but if he found Kiki's license in that box, he'd find a way to channel the old Franco. It bugs me that Mac had to go and blabbermouth the thing he swore to tell NO ONE directly to Ryan. Sure, he thinks Ryan is Kevin, but doesn't he remember that Kevin lost his mind once? Ugh.
I got a little excited when Jordan mentioned Sean Donnelly and thought maybe John Reilly was going to make a cameo, but no such luck. He's in his 80s now and probably not wanting to work. I already know I won't want to work when I am 82!
On a side note, in my best and worst of GH column, I said I wasn't crazy about the recast of Jordan. Readers, I want to amend this because she's really growing on me. Every week I like her a little more. I'll call it the A.J. Quartermaine syndrome. A.J. was once played by Sean Kanan, a tall blond guy who looked a lot like Steve Burton (brothers), and then he left, and they recast him with Billy Warlock, a much shorter brunette guy with a totally different vibe. The change in both physical appearance and attitude of the character was jarring. I just hated it! But now, when I think, "I wish A.J. could come back," I'm always thinking of Billy Warlock because he's the A.J. that Sonny hung on a meat hook. I swear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP0ze4hWj4M Maybe someday I will think of Nu-Jordan as just Jordan. :
But I digress... Once this Ryan Chamberlain storyline wraps up, it's going to be powerhouse scene after powerhouse scene. Imagine Ava realizing she's been involved with Kiki's killer. Imagine Laura realizing she'd been living with a serial killer. It's going to send a ripple effect through the entire town. Mac, Felicia, Lulu, Kevin, Franco, and everyone who had contact with him is going to go nuts.
Now to the righting of the great wrong of previous years. Laura is finally the mayor of Port Charles, and more importantly, Genie Francis is back on canvas and front and center. When she was running for mayor before and suddenly vanished mid-storyline and we learned she'd been let go, I was floored. I was angry. I was perplexed. Why? I mean, you don't have Scandal without Olivia Pope. You don't have Dallas without J.R. Ewing. And you don't have General Hospital without Laura.
Something that struck me during the Port Charles mayoral election -- in magical soap land, there were two kind, decent, and honorable candidates. If Ned won, Port Charles would be in good hands. If Laura won, Port Charles would be in good hands. Do you think America will ever get back to elections like that? Two decent candidates who both have the best interest of the nation at heart, and no matter who loses, everyone wins? Dear Lord, let it be so.
Okay, readers, did we really have to have Anna go blind for her and Peter to bond? No, we didn't. I have a friend who just found her real dad via Ancestry this year, and they met and got to know one another without any health crisis, and it was a happy ending for all involved. Couldn't Peter just read her WSB file and ask questions? Nope, we have to have Anna go blind. Is it a brain tumor? Was she drugged? Was it some Faison thing we don't know about? (You know he's probably still out there somewhere with Helena, right?) I love that they are having them bond but don't think the blindness was a necessary vehicle to drive them there.
Other interesting observations:
• Lulu randomly decided to become a reporter one day with no journalism training and no related job skills, and now she is the reporter in town who got to host the mayoral debates even though her mom was one of the candidates. I wish I could insert 50 laugh emojis here.
• Sonny said next time Dante calls, Lulu should tell him to come home. And he said it in such a way that makes me believe if he doesn't come home, Max and Milo will be sent to retrieve him.
• I love Nina and Valentin with my whole heart, but there is no way that Liesl Obrecht will be able to keep Valentin's secret about Sasha. She is dying to tell Nina, and if she doesn't do so by the end of the month, I'll be shocked.
• Drew speaking up at Cameron's trial was a sweet scene. Getting the judge that they didn't want was 100% predictable. All this trouble, and no one even got the pot brownies! This is odd to me because I live in California, where you can just have them delivered to your door if you want them.
• Shiloh sometimes seems like a genuinely nice guy and sometimes seems like a creepy cult leader. What's your take? Do you trust him, or do all the coincidences lead up to T-R-O-U-B-L-E?
• Tamara Braun's scenes this week with Nancy Lee Grahn were stellar. Kim pouring her heart out to Alexis over Oscar made me cry. GH is an embarrassment of riches sometimes, so many great actors and so many touching scenes, I wish the Daytime Emmys was actually still a thing people watched so we could celebrate all the talent on Daytime properly.
• I am also really loving the mother/daughter relationship of Carly and Joss. Eden McCoy was the most perfect casting to be Laura Wright's on-screen daughter -- not only their physical resemblance, but their innate ability to be both fierce and vulnerable. Their emotional ups and downs through this storyline have been downright riveting.
• This storyline with Joss, Oscar, and Cam is the best one in years. The casting of William Lipton as a SORAS'ed Cam was perfect. All three of these young actors are laying the foundation for a long career in acting. When Oscar dies (unless a miracle cure is found online), Cameron and Joss will help each other through their grief and fall in love, super hard, like Jason and Robin after Stone's death and Jason's accident.
What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Franco spray paint CO77X on Ryan, or will Ryan put Franco's license in his creepy trophy box? Will Obrecht get hired at Mercy Hospital and get a whole new staff to torment? Will Anna be able to see in time to watch the Oscars? Will Cameron's heart break when he finds out Oscar really isn't getting better? Will Lulu get to host the Oscars, since she's been a local reporter in a small town in upstate NY for a year?
Will Olivia go back to being the Bensonhurst Eliza Doolittle after she got to be the Fair (First) Lady of Port Charles? Will Liz and Franco ever have time to get married between round of her kids being in trouble? Will people stop mentioning Lucky if he's not really coming home? Will Willow kidnap Wiley and end up in Ferncliff in Carly's old room and hear Kevin yell for help? Will you write and tell me about YOUR "Dark Night of the Soul"?
Only tomorrow knows, dear readers, and I will tune in tomorrow as long as there are tomorrows.
Tamilu
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