GH and PC in Review: August by Amy McWilliams

View a section by clicking on the links below, or read the entire review by scrolling down. The review takes up 7 separate pages, but the navigation at the top and bottom of each remains consistent.

General Hospital

The Spencers

Luke and Laura

Lucky and Elizabeth

Bobbie

Port Charles

Jason

• Brenda has told Luther that he can have a showcase at Luke's, leaving Robin to have Jason ask Luke permission. (8/18)
• Jason lends Mike the money to buy the garage in back of the Recovery Room and helps the mechanic fix a bike while Mike looks on smiling. (8/18)
• Mac and Robin remember Stone on his birthday, and Mac apologizes for his behavior at the dinner. (8/18)
• Jason gives Robin a ring in honor of the anniversary of their trip to Montauck. She replaces Stone's ring with it. (8/18)
• Taggert updates Mac on his progress with Monica; Mac tells him that he wants Jason taken down fast. (8/18)
• After her photo shoot, Nikolas drives Emily to Jason's. She wants her brother to see her all done up, while Nikolas wants to see Robin. Emily misunderstands the ring and thinks that Robin and Jason are engaged until Robin explains. Robin invites Emily and Nikolas to stay for dinner (she accepts) and to the showcase, and Nikolas says that he will come despite his past experience there. (8/20)
• Jason tells Justus to force Taggert to either arrest Alan or stop harassing the family. (8/20)
• In the back room at the L&B showcase, Luke tells Jason that he's leaving and asks him to look after the club. He also asks him to keep Lucky out of the organization. Jason resents that, he tells Mike, but Mike makes him see that Luke feels about Lucky the way Jason feels about Michael. (8/21)
• Upstairs, Mac tells Robin that he will try to accept her relationship with Jason because he sees how happy she is with him. But as Jason and Robin leave, Emily stops Jason to talk with him and Robin goes to the car alone. When Jason turns to smile at her, he realizes this is a replay of Lily's death and runs to get Robin. They both fall to the ground as the car explodes. (8/21)
• Robin and Jason survive, but Rinaldo is killed. There is a tense few moments as Robin lies unconscious in Jason's arms, but she awakes and is fine. Jason takes her to the hospital; she asks Mac to stay behind. (8/24)
• At home, Jason admits to Robin that he doesn't know what he would have done if she or Michael had been killed. She says that she understands if he has to retaliate. Jason has Benny check out the entire organization for ties to Moreno--even Justus. (8/24)
• Meanwhile, Mac tells Felicia the story and talks about his fears. She thinks that he blames her for encouraging him to accept Robin's relationship with Jason. He tells her that Robin has to leave Jason on her own. (8/24)
• Mac learns that the bomb was activated by remote control--that somebody was watching Robin walk to the car when they pushed the button. He calls Jason in for questioning and is met with silence. He tells Taggert to do anything it takes to put Jason behind bars. (8/25)
• After Justus is late in getting Jason out of police questioning, Jason questions him about the bomb and his drunkenness. He won't accept Justus's offered resignation, but tells him to get his act together. (8/25)
• Robin offers no information either, and refuses Moreno's cordiality at the station. Nikolas worries about her. Mac worries about Robin; Robin worries about Jason's revenge. (8/26)
• Robin tells Jason that she thinks Michael might be better off with the Quartermaines. He asks her to trust him to handle things. Emily arrives, telling them about Edward's new scheme to get custody; Monica arrives soon after to say that she will do nothing to take Michael from Jason. Justus enters and thanks her for her discretion. Later, she and Robin and Emily create a fake park date for Michael with common household objects. (8/27)
• Robin begs Jason not to take revenge, but he leaves anyway. Jason arrives at Moreno's office and points a gun at his head. (8/28)
• Jason tells Moreno that he wants a deal. Moreno can take over the territory if he promises to keep Jason's men in place and leave Jason and his loved ones alone. Jason's security? Sonny. Sonny will take out Moreno if he makes a move against Jason. (8/31)
• Back at the penthouse, Robin comes very close to telling AJ the truth about Michael. (8/31)
• Jason returns. Robin tells him what she almost did and he replies by telling her that he's getting out. (8/31)

Mac: "Mm-hmm. Look at you. Seems like yesterday you were just sneaking out of the house to date stone."
Robin: "Ya, because you were doing everything you could to keep me from seeing him. That summer was so exciting. Stone and I were falling in love and it seemed like the whole world belonged to us. And then, in what seemed like a heartbeat, he was battling aids and I found out that I was HIV positive."
Mac: "And I somehow forgave him and kept on loving him in spite of everything."
Robin: "I know how hard that was for you."
Mac: "I don't think you could. But I saw how much you loved him, Robin, and I did my best to support you."
Robin: "I know. I remember one night you brought us food at the hospital because I refused to leave stone for even a minute. What was that horrible soup that you brought us that night?"
Mac: "Horrible? Mulligatawny, I think. It's Indian for "tastes like socks."
Robin: "Exactly. You know, you said before that stone's death took a lot out of me. Do you want to know how much?"
Mac: "Absolutely."
Robin: "For a long time afterwards, I was numb. The pain was all while he was dying. But for a long time, it was like there was no feeling at all. I figured that I had 10, 15 years, I would do something worthwhile, and then aids would bring me to stone. But then one night, I was standing on this bridge by myself. And that's when I met Jason--a man with no past and no comprehension of a future. I mean, the man feared nothing, including the virus in my body. Whatever I needed whenever I needed it, he gave it to me. You know, Jason always says that I taught him how to love. But the truth is he taught me."

As much as I hate it that Mac always gets stuck in the supporting role as Robin's uncle, I love him in it. He struggles so to accept Robin's choices even as he worries. I wonder if he worries so much about Robin's attraction to this kind of man because he was once one of them. After all, he was once a troublemaker, and now here he is upholding the law and going after the "bad guys." He's been thrust into the position of guardian of this "little girl," though she's now full grown, and he takes that very seriously. I know Mac is a man of action, and that he might never take the time to contemplate this about himself, but perhaps Felicia might understand that about him. I think I might be right. I think his strong feelings on this subject may come, in part, out of a sense of needing to atone for his own past mistakes.

I enjoyed their memories of Stone, and I love Mac's sense of humor, even in serious times like this. I just can't, however, listen to Robin speak of love and take it at face value anymore. I believe that she and Jason love each other, but her proclamations of that fact are excluding so many things that she needs to face that they can't reassure me. She's not thinking of the potential danger to her family or the threats that Carly will pose when she returns. She's simply saying the same lines--giving the same description--that we've heard from here too many times to count.

While I continue to enjoy Jason with Mike (the garage scenes were very fun), Jason and Robin on the whole bore me silly. The ring he gave her, the "cuteness" when Emily and Nik came to visit--none of it makes me care one tiddly for what happens to them.

Robin: "Would you guys mind keeping my uncle company while Brenda and I go track down Luther?"
Jax: "Sure."
Mac: "The ingrate hasn't shown yet?"
Jerry: "C'est la vie."
Jax: "Well, you know, you still have us."
Mac: "Ya, well, you know something? You two almost look good compared to the creeps that Robin thinks she can rely on."

Can I help it? I want more of Mac and the Jax boys!

Emily: "So, tell me, are you sure that everybody knows that this is, like, technically a private party?"
Jason: "Why are you so worried about getting arrested when you come here? You are the least arrestable Quartermaine, ok?"

So while they were a bit humorous at the showcase, when the big event occurred--the car bombing--I couldn't care less. We all knew she would be alright. More importantly, we had all seen it more than once. While the first bombing and the death of Lily were beautifully done, the writers have revisited this scene one too many times, first with Sonny's dream that Brenda was in the car, and now this. The slo-mo was silly, the fact that Robin wouldn't run towards Jason was stupid, and Jason's realization that the car would blow was too much to believe. Over and over we have been subjected to revisiting the past of Sonny/Brenda/Jax, and now we've done it in this storyline as well. Enough is enough.

Robin: "What happened?"
Jason: "You didn't die."

The even greater injustice was that the payoff was worthless in terms of Robin's character. She was barely hurt, it seems, and immediately after she woke up she started preaching the same old crap to Mac. I wanted some kind of reaction from her!! For Pete's sake, Rinaldo died, and it barely affected her (I, on the other hand, went into mourning)! If this isn't some kind of delusion, then this is the poorest writing for a character I've seen since Sarah Webber.

It made perfect sense to me, then, that Mac would take the measures he took against Jason. Robin wasn't doing anything for herself, after all. And I enjoyed seeing Mac fired up about something and having to deal with his choices about the law and his job afterwards.

Jason: "Rinaldo gave him that."
Robin: "I never thought of him as a stuffed animal kind of guy."
Jason: "Yeah, he really liked Michael."

Jason: "Rinaldo's not going to watch you anymore. He's gone because, you know, People wanted to get rid of me. That's a part of my business. It's the ugly part that I never want to touch you. I promised I would take care of you, Michael, and I always will. I just have to find the best way to do it. And now you are going to go to sleep because I've got a lot of thinking to do."

And speaking of Rinaldo, I was angry that the writers would kill him off. Why not Johnny, who doesn't have half the charisma my Rinaldo had? That, I realized, was the beauty of the writing. They found an actor with some sparkle, gave him a few lines and some interaction with people. Now, when they need to kill somebody off, they kill off Rinaldo, so that people will actually feel something (I, of course, was upset by Joseph's death too, and he had little charisma--but maybe the point still stands). And with Jason leaving the business, Rinaldo would have been gone from the scene anyway.

Mac: "You know, you'd have been proud of me tonight. I was the dutiful commissioner and I was a good uncle. I--I didn't let Taggert arrest or interrogate Jason. I didn't insist on taking Robin to the hospital. In fact, Robin--Robin said she couldn't handle Jason and I fighting, so I didn't fight. I just watched my niece leave the place where she almost died with the guy who almost killed her. But isn't that what you wanted, Felicia--for me to leave Robin alone, for her to live her own life?"
Felicia: "No. That's not what I wanted. I hate what Jason does. I don't think it's an acceptable life for anybody. But I really don't see what good it does for us to alienate ourselves from Robin's life because we don't approve of Jason. She's not going to leave him for it. You and Jason had a big fight here at the dinner party. What use was it, Mac?"
Mac: "You want to know about useless? Felicia, useless is standing in a parking lot while you watch the niece that you love more than your own life, the one who you promised your dead brother you would protect, walk to her death. Useless is being unable to stop that. Useless is this long, desperate run that finds her facedown on the pavement, thinking that she's dead. And you know what? And you know you didn't do anything to prevent it because..."
Felicia: "Because your wife asked you not to do it."

I adored this sequence between Mac and Felicia. I really feel for Mac in all of this because he really is helpless, as far as Robin's love for Jason is concerned. He's trying to do the right thing, but what he sees as right he's told isn't what's right for Robin. And now this. It was painful to watch Felicia as well, especially when she declared what he was thinking but probably wouldn't have said--that he had backed off, in part, because she asked him to do so. All in all, these were wonderful scenes, from him telling her the news to their understanding at the end. I want more Mac and Felicia, and I don't just want them as supporting characters listening to other people's stories. They deserve better.

Jason: "After Lily died, Sonny used to stand at this window for hours. And I always wondered what he was looking at. Now I know. He was seeing the car blow up, over and over. All night long, that's what I saw. You almost died because of me. If you want to leave, I'll understand."

Jason's response to this whole thing was more to my liking than Robin's. He assumed that something big would happen; he made something big happen. The effect on him was more noticeable. Robin would have a bigger response to Brenda's death than to this, and I found that delusion unappealing, as I've said before. But I liked seeing the wheels turn in Jason's head.

Jason: "Why? You get nervous waiting around for me to die? Did you sell me out, Justus? Did you tell someone how to kill me? Or did you try to do it yourself? Do you have a love/hate relationship with dairy food?"

I found it interesting that Jason would suspect Justus, but if you'll read the quote carefully, you'll see that the only reason I included it was for the last line. Ha! The transcripts include commercials, and sometimes as I'm cruising through them the juxtapositions are too funny. This one was perfect, and I had to share.

Taggert: "So you headed to the limo by yourself. No alarm bells went off in your head? You're alone on the street, no cover. You don't feel like somebody's setting you up?"
Robin: "Why would I feel like that?"
Taggert: "Your boyfriend never taught you the basics?"

This amused me, somehow. Robin really wouldn't survive very long with Jason in the business, as much as she insists that she knows danger. She didn't even understand the question. I wanted Taggert to ask her why she didn't run when she saw Jason coming towards her.

Jason: "Did Michael try to crawl again?"
Monica: "Crawl? He's crawling? You didn't tell me?"
Jason: "Well, not really. He gets on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth and tries to get himself in gear."
Monica: "Yeah, but instead he just rolls over on his back and starts playing with his toes."
Jason: "Ya, how'd you know?"
Monica: "Well, that's exactly what A.J. did."

A little heavy-handed on the dramatic irony, but I enjoyed Monica's visit with her grandson and the girls.

Jason: "Hey, you see those boats? Those are like the ones we saw from the pier the other day. Yeah, I know you miss going outside. I miss taking you. This will all be over soon, Michael. You remember that day back in winter when I told you I might die? I might die again--today. You know, probably not, but if I don't come back, that's the reason. Ya. You know, when you're older and you start making mistakes, I'm going to try to warn you. Now, if you listen, that's up to you. But if you don't, I understand, because I didn't listen because I didn't care. And now I do. I mean, I think about not being here to take you to those boats. I think about not being here to see you walk for the first time. I think about you crying and maybe thinking I left you because you don't understand what it is to die. And, you know, I could never see the future until you. I could never see the point of worrying about what might happen, but, Michael, listen--your whole life is about things that might happen, and you have to be safe to choose what you want, and that's what I'm going to do today. Today I'm going to make you safe. Ok? Look, I learned a lot of things that I'm never going to teach you. I made choices I hope you don't. And I chose to be your father. And that's why I have to do this, because what you need is more important than anything I want or any risk I have to take."

Robin: "I bet you miss your daddy already, don't you? I know it's hard, isn't it, not knowing if he's going to come back. But he will, Michael. I promise you. Jason is too good at his job. Too good. You know, when I first knew your daddy, he was completely free. He didn't care about anything, least of all himself. He used to fight so hard against people that would try to help him. I never did. At least I didn't try to set out to. I never told him anything unless he asked. And little by little, he learned how to trust me. I taught him how to order Chinese food and say 'you're welcome' when someone thanked him. I taught him the words that went with feelings that he had--anger, loss, pain, friendship, love. He's loved me so well, just as much as he's loved you. But, you know, the one thing that I could not teach him--or the one thing that he couldn't learn--was that some things are just wrong, even if you do them out of loyalty or self-defense, even if you do them to protect the people that you love. You know, one night on a bridge, Jason told me that he got a job working for sonny. I should have stopped him then. I'm sorry, though. I--I couldn't make him understand. Just like I couldn't make him understand tonight."

These two monologues to Michael were quite telling. In the first, Jason thought only of Michael, telling him that he might die and explaining things to him the best he could. In the second, we saw Robin's own understanding of their relationship, and it seemed to me to be all about her. It was what she could and couldn't teach Jason.

Jason: "Now, you can't be surprised to see me, Moreno. Did you think I couldn't get to you, too, if I wanted?"
Moreno: "No. I just didn't think that you'd come yourself. The compliment is not lost on me."

Jason: "I'm not sending you to god. I have a job for you. Mine."

Now, I knew from spoilers that Jason was going to get out of the business (I think I would have suspected it anyway, the way the scenes were handled after the bomb), but that just made me all the more irritated with Robin. She doesn't think Jason can learn, but he has learned, and she doesn't even see it.

It only got worse. With the very contrived set up that Jason didn't tell her beforehand what he was intending to do at Moreno's (and he never explained that logic, which made it worse), we had desperate Robin with (a very contrived visit) from AJ and the false tension of whether she would tell him the truth or not. I would have preferred that she did tell him, because then we would have had Jason out but the truth on the table. Of course the wouldn't do that because Carly wasn't out yet, so the tension was, as I said, ineffective.

Robin: "It's not as if they know what they want from him, beyond stealing him. It's not as even if they like Michael."
A.J.: "How can we? Really, I mean, Robin, we're not even allowed to know him. We can't hold him. Do you know that we have a grand total of one picture? We don't know what he eats, what he sounds like when he cries. We don't even know if he sleeps through the night. You know, Robin, you were so compassionate about Tony Jones. You made all sorts of excuses for what he did. What makes us so much worse? Michael is the first male Quartermaine of his generation. You can deny it all you want, but it's a genetic fact, Robin."
Robin: "You have to understand that the first experience that formed the Jason we know was him lying in bed in a hospital room, listening to all of you fight about how you were going to fix him and what to do with him. To Jason, that's what you've been doing to Michael all along since the moment that he was born. And you would probably still be doing it if Jason wasn't so adamant about protecting him."
A.J.: "Protecting him? Robin, let's get real here. I mean, the most serious threat that Michael faces isn't from the Quartermaines. And it isn't something that Jason can protect him from. Robin, the biggest threat to Michael is being Jason's son, and you know it."

Robin: "I almost told him, Jason. But I stopped. I realized--I realized what I was doing was wrong. I mean, A.J. is just like the rest of them. He's always done what they wanted him to do. Even when he got sober, it was like he was just doing that to please them. And then I started blaming everybody else for what happened, you know--the explosion and everything, the way that Carly just gave Michael to you and pushed you to be his mother and father both at the same time, the way that sonny just gave you his business and his penthouse and his enemies and--I realized that if you weren't the most loving and loyal person that I've ever met, sonny might be dead somewhere, Carly might have been in jail or living on the streets, Michael might have been abandoned or kidnapped by the Quartermaines. And me, I--I don't even know where I'd be, taking my 20-somhing pills a day, watching my viral load and the clock, trying to give myself a reason to live every day. Jason, I am so sorry. I'm so sorry."
Jason: "It's ok. You didn't do anything wrong. You were afraid. Robin, I don't want you to be afraid with me. I don't want Michael not to be safe with me. That's why I told Moreno to take everything. I quit."

And then Robin just pissed me off. We have been told over and over that she is the voice of truth for Jason, and here she is spouting stuff about the Qs. I was glad AJ called her on it, but Jason certainly wasn't going to. I don't think she even realizes that she's doing it, but it annoys me. She's got these justifications going on so that she can keep what she wants, and part of that is Michael. Oh, I can't wait for Carly to come home.

Robin: "I just want you to be sure."
Jason: "Why would I do it if I wasn't sure?"
Robin: "Because I know that I'm confusing you. It's not that I'm not happy, ok? I think I'm just afraid to be. I'm afraid that it's not real or that it's not going to work out. But most of all, I'm afraid that you did it for me. You know, a year ago, I thought that I wanted to bully you into living the way that I thought you should. But I was wrong. You don't just have this business because Sonny gave it to you and asked you to take care of it."
Jason: "You're right, I don't. I know how it works, I know how to make it work better, and it made me somebody important. But you and Michael are my family. And now it seems I have to choose. And I didn't think it would be so easy.

Jason's side of this is interesting to me, especially since I see the look on his face now that tells me he's not sure this is what he wants and he's not sure if it'll work out. But Robin now thinks that Jason did it for her, and she would continue to do that. This is all about Michael, and she'd better learn that.