For those of you whose sport is ranking Carly's - I sure hope you'll give Laura Wright the credit she deserves for her stellar work as a mother clinging to hope in spite of tragedy. Her performance this week absolutely wowed me. Her scenes of rage and anger toward Sonny and Kate (justified, IMHO) turned suddenly into self loathing and despair as she traced Michael's path all the way back to her own selfish choices. Ms. Wright touched realistically on every emotion a mother might feel in such a situation with passion and conviction, tenderness, grief, self loathing, resignation, hope - a myriad of emotional waves cascading over her minute by minute.
One of the most difficult views in life is the sight of our own face in the mirror when we are ashamed of what we see. She began by blaming Sonny in a tirade spat out through tears and ending with the dramatic conclusion, "You are NOT Michael's father anymore." But suddenly, Carly saw her own reflection. She stopped ranting and asked herself why Sonny was Michael's father in the first place and remembered all too well the choices she made that lead her down that path. She questioned her choice to keep Michael away from AJ and the Q's by going to Jason, and eventually to Sonny. She called herself out on her own manipulative schemes and all the lies she told to get her way - and said ever so softly "I'm such a great liar, I even convince myself."
I wept for Carly and for Michael, and a little for myself, too. I know exactly what it is to have made choices that seem like a good idea at the time but end in tragedy.
Heck, I even felt a little bad for Claudia- she was genuinely horrified that Michael was shot. Sure, it was her ordered hit on Sonny that started the ball rolling, but she truly would not have hurt a child. When you take into consideration that she was a witness to violence and bloodshed her whole life, and it's been hinted at that she was abused, it's no wonder she behaves so badly. Generational curses continue on unless the current generation makes a conscious effort to break them.
I feel less sympathy for Sonny. Sonny has spent years insisting that everyone he knows have body guards on them every minute of the day, and then he goes out with his child and gives the body guards a night off. Michael gets shot, and Sonny blames Jason. Um, wasn't it Sonny who told Max and Milo to go away? He has his own guilt and grief to deal with, but he hasn't dug as deep as Carly has in his soul searching. He said the magic words, "It's my fault" but doesn't really know why yet - he hasn't taken the road in reverse and seen how he could have made better choices to have different outcomes. Keep probing Sonny, you'll get there.
Max and Diane blame themselves, too. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a village to wreck one, too. The commiserated over a drink, and then Max and Diane had "guilt sex" which a horrified Alexis walked in on, but Diane didn't seem remorseful or ashamed that her best pal caught her naked. :
Jason went to visit Monica in rehab in a very poignant scene - he broke the news about Michael and expected her to lash out at him. She didn't. Instead, she comforted him. I loved seeing her comfort him, as if her were just her baby again and not a mob enforcer. Next, Jason took his guilt over to Liz's house and told her he didn't think they could be together because he couldn't let what happened to Michael happen to Liz or her boys. Sadly, he realized this on the same day he told her he wanted to marry her.
Liz asked the exact right question in next week's previews, "Are you choosing that life over me and the boys?" because, as we discussed in last week's column, our daily choices define our lives. We've already been waiting for Jason and Liz to be happy together for about a decade now. Jason could choose to get out - especially now with the great excuse of damaged hands and compromised reflexes. But will he make that choice?
Nikolas has a choice to make, too - and No Name Nurse thought the best way to help him decide was to throw toys at his hallucination. I was actually on the verge of using her name and acknowledging her as a character, but then she threw the blocks. When they were petting the horse and she and Nik and the newly S.O.R.A.S'ed Spencer were playing trains, I thought "I might actually use her name this week. But then she came in and did the crazy toy throwing and I decided against it. And just for the record, I think she totally faked hurting her ankle.
I saw a fake excuse to hang out with a guy today at the beach. This morning I went to Pacific Beach and there was a flyer outside of a beach dive with 4 really hot guys on it. The caption said "If this is you and your friends, I accidentally took your camera." And it listed some girl's name, phone # and email address. As soon as I saw it, I thought "She totally took their camera on purpose so they would call her."
When I saw No Name Nurse stumble as she was about to leave Wyndemere, I thought the same thing. She didn't want to leave, and now Nikolas has insisted she stay. Total scam. And if you're saying "Takes one to know one." that once was true, but not anymore, I am old and frumpy now and can't pull that crap off anymore. But back in 7th grade I joined golf club just to hit on some hottie, and "accidentally" left my homework in his Mom's car every frickin' week so I had an excuse to call him.
Robin and Patrick took Michael's shooting to heart, too - but juxtaposed with their upcoming parenthood. Patrick looked at Michael's shooting and saw how Sonny was left out of the picture and more and more he realizes he doesn't want that to happen to him. He may not have wanted to be a father at the onset, but now that his child is growing inside of Robin he can't help but want to be part of the child's life. Patrick saved Michael's life, but the situation depressed him enough to get tanked at Jake's and drunk dial Robin. When she arrived to rescue him, he was nearly in the clutches of the predatory Claudia.
Claudia's remorse was real, as was Johnny's - but the two of them tried to use it to stir up suspicion around Trevor who just happened to be innocent this time. Lulu is marching all over town telling anyone who will listen that Johnny isn't responsible, but when she finds out that he knew about this hit on Sonny, maybe she will free herself from him for good and go back to poor haunted Logan.
Our country is at war right now, and GH introduced Logan and Coop as Iraq war vets who had been damaged by what they experienced there. Now that was a compelling concept. Why GH is focusing on mob violence instead of using that intriguing storyline is beyond me. Maybe it's fear - the war is controversial - but they could tell the story a way that would highlight every viewpoint and give it a face. Instead, they opted to have a 12 year old boy shot in the head during a botched mob hit.
What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Ghost Emily throw blocks back at Nadine? Will Ghost Alan throw pillows at Tracy? Will Monica sneak out of rehab and have drinks at Jake's with Coleman and then sneak back in? Will Kate pick find another young girl going through a family crisis and emotionally pummel her with overall witchiness? Will Dylan Cash dig being paid just to lie in a hospital bed very still for weeks? Will anyone actually come and gamble at the Haunted Star, or just fight about who's financing it? Will Sonny come home and realize Max's non-magical sperm is on his sofa?
