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

Taggert/Dara/Justus

• Upset at losing yet another case when Stefan's verdict is announced, Dara brushes off Justus's attempts at smoothing over their troubles and goes to Taggert's apartment. They make love. (8/19)
• Dara asks him, the morning after, if this was his way of getting back at Justus. He assures her that Justus was the last thing on his mind. Monica shows up; Taggert hides Dara. He then worries that she heard Monica's talk about the blackmail, but Dara doesn't appear to have heard anything. As Dara leaves, Justus sees them together and figures it out. (8/20)
• Jason, arriving at Luke's for the L&B showcase, finds Justus drunk and sends him home. Monica finds him there and, with the tape recorder running, he confesses to the murder of Damien Smith. (8/21)
• Dara chastises Taggert for his flirting at the office, but softens a bit when she sees him with Elizabeth and Lucky. She tells him of a bad relationship in the past. (8/27)
• Dara realizes that Justus knows about her and Taggert. (8/28)
• Taggert listens to the tape and is stunned at Justus's confession. (8/28)

The triangle between Taggert, Dara, and Justus annoys me. It's been getting too much screen time and I find only Taggert the least bit interesting. Dara was made to be a supporting player, and she does nothing to make this storyline any better. We've been forced to catch up, as it were, on some of her background so that we can understand why she's behaving the way she is; that's a sign to me that we didn't know enough about her to care in the first place. Taggert is only slightly better, but with Sonny gone his primary motivation seems hollow. Real Andrews is a ball of fire, and I am glad we've gotten him back and kept him around, but he can't sell this storyline to me on his own.

And, of course, there's Justus. I would still resent the fact that time was being taken away from Mac and Felicia and the Quartermaines if Joseph C. Phillips were playing this storyline, but I would at least believe it. This new Justus I care nothing about. It's not the Justus I knew and liked; everything from the style of performance to my understanding of the character has changed. Because of this, what was to be a climax in the storyline--Justus's confession to Monica--didn't work. I spent the whole scene imagining Phillips in the role and how he would have made me cry for the pain Justus was going through (not to mention that cheesy, manipulated moment of tension when the tape player clicked off in the middle of his story). I'm not against recasts, and Justus was never one of my favorite characters even with Phillips. But this Justus is a waste of my time. Leslie Charleson, however, did a nice job with those scenes. I admire an actor who can listen or observe a scene and let me know exactly what's going through their character's mind without obviously acting, and her almost blank face, her subtle pulling away from Justus, were nice.

Joan Roseman writes on this new conception of Justus--and remembers the old--elsewhere in this issue.

Justus: "What do you want me to do?"
Jason: "You tell me. You're a lawyer. What's a nice, legal way to get rid of Detective Taggert?"

With all of that said, the best sequence in this storyline came after Laura's testimony. The sex scene was beautifully done, and I actually felt something for Dara. I was actually, for just a little while, interested. Perhaps that was because the scenes were dovetailed into that astounding Cassadine/Spencer day, but it was good. And the next day, when Monica came by and Dara had to hide, was ok too with a nice counterpoint from Jason and Justus discussing how to take care of Taggert...legally. But a handful of scenes cannot buoy up this floundering storyline. I just don't care.