Sonny and His Women:

Carly: "What the hell kind of name is Angel, anyway?"
June Reviewer: A sledgehammer obvious one, that's what kind.

In June, Sonny met a new woman, a mysterious figure who always dresses in white (well, except the night she found a wounded Sonny), is supposedly named Angel, and made her first appearance, at Lily's grave, soon after Carly presented Sonny with a guardian angel figurine blessed by the priest who married them. This story was not one of my June favorites. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't good, either. NuCarly is less grating than she used to be but still doesn't do much for me. Angel is a fairly blank slate at the moment, and I am not particularly inspired to care who she will turn out to be or to believe that Sonny would develop an emotional bond with such a bland creature. Sonny is gorgeous as always, but I find myself noticing Maurice's acting more than I should--a throat-clearing-kinda-cough to show that he is struggling to control his emotions, a sideways glance to denote irritation, that sexy Sonny laugh that rings false in one scene for me but shows that Sonny is intrigued by his hostess. It's as if the script is marked with these moves: "Insert throat clearing here."

In late May, Sonny had several visions of Carly, which continued into the first week of June. Then Carly shows up at the penthouse door for real, and we learn that after spending time on Martinique, the site of the Corinthos wedding, she dropped Michael and Leticia off at an undisclosed location outside the United States and has returned to work things out with Sonny. He does not welcome her with open arms. He tells her he cannot forget what she did to him, nor can he forgive. She does not know him if she thought he would ever cooperate with the feds. (I tend to agree. I'm still irked that they are writing Carly as doing something I consider very uncharacteristic, but then I ranted about that in the last issue of GHR, so I won't rehash that argument here.) How does Carly respond? She purrs that they should make a baby and invites him upstairs to work on the project. Sonny rolls his eyes, and so do I. They fight. He yells, "There's nothing between us," and Carly cries, "Yes, there is, Sonny, even now. You can't tell me you've forgotten what we're like together." She cries, not the fat Sarah Brown tears of yore, but thin Tamara Braun tears, and begs him to go to bed with her. How degrading.

Sonny rejects her advances, even when she kisses him. Sonny does his throat-clearing-cough, and admits that he suspected she might have gone to Martinque, and that he even imagined her standing at the altar where they took their vows. She tries to remind him of those vows, saying, "we both made promises," that God was listening, that they now have an unbreakable bond. Sonny complains that it took less than three weeks for her to break those vows by betraying him. I was rather surprised by the deliberate establishment of time elapsed. It sure seems like it had been more than a month between wedding and his arrest, but of course time is elastic on soaps. Still, by making a point of implying not much time had passed, perhaps they are leaving room open for Carly to be pregnant? Or, more likely, I'm reading too much into the lines, but it seemed clear at the time that they including references to how little time had passed for a reason.

Since Carly won't leave, Sonny decides to leave instead. She is distraught, and before he goes, presses a gift on him, a little angel figurine she bought on Martinique and had blessed by the priest who married them. She asks Sonny to carry it with him as a guardian angel, because she thinks he needs someone to watch over him.

Sonny goes to Lily's grave to discuss his predicament with his dead first wife. He asks Lily to teach him how to forgive, an act of which she was capable but he is not. "Can you teach me how to forgive? Can I afford to learn? You're the only woman who's ever been loyal to me. You gave up your life for me." This romanticism of Lily can get annoying. Yes, Lily was a good woman, but while she died in a bomb intended for Sonny, she did not do so deliberately. It isn't as if she leaped on a grenade to save Sonny, as he often makes it sound. He goes on to muse that perhaps he is destined to be alone, as "the price I pay for how I live, for how I betrayed you."

We see that Sonny is holding the angel Carly gave him. Then the camera pulls back and we see someone lurking behind him. Next thing we know, Sonny is attacked and he crumples to the ground, stabbed, literally, in the back. Later, in scenes that I must confess I missed, he is found by a mysterious woman who drags him away from the cemetery and rows him to safety in her rowboat. I think I'm glad I missed all that.

The next time I saw Sonny, he was waking up in a huge, comfy-looking bed, being attended to by the same mysterious woman. She's very quiet and calm in manner, with a soothing voice, and those qualities, combined with her dark hair and complexion, are very Lily-esque. She is wearing white when we see her perched on the side of the bed, and for the rest of the month, whether it is a robe or a pantsuit or a bathing suit, every outfit she wears is completely white. The heavy-handed symbolism grates on me after a while; we get it--Angel, white, good. Sonny, for what it's worth, is usually dressed in a black shirt, and Carly often appears in red or a wild print or both.

Sonny learns that his rescuer knows who he is--supposedly because she reads the papers--and has only allowed a trusted physician to see him. This doctor, she says, is the same one who delivered her, which would, if true, seem to indicate that she is a local girl. Sonny wants to know where they are, and she answers, "On an island that is my home. It's very private. I live alone." This is significant because later the house is no longer on an island--Angel drives to town, and Mike drives Carly to the house. I know it's a minor continuity thing, but why not think things through from the beginning?

Sonny tries to sit up. He's shirtless and looks mighty fine. Angel takes care of him, bringing him minestrone. "Haven't you ever had a woman take care of you before?" she asks. "I'm sorry you were hurt." Most of Angel's lines early on have this "double meaning" quality--"hurt" can mean physically or emotionally, etc.

Meanwhile, Carly spends the first half of the month's episodes trying to persuade people to help her find Sonny and wailing about how much he means to her. Alexis doesn't know where he is, but agrees to help her with any custody problems over Michael when AJ shows up at the penthouse demanding access to his son. Roy doesn't know where he is, and insists that he will stay gone until he wants to reappear and she should just accept that. "He saves your life, and he saved Bobbie's, and so you have to save him," she cries. "No, I don't," Roy replies. Carly even goes to Lily for help, in a manner of speaking. She goes to Lily's grave and asks her to let Sonny know that Carly loves him. "You wouldn't want him to be alone, would you? Help me find him, please," she asks the headstone. Then Carly notices Sonny's empty briefcase nearby (wait, haven't days passed since he was hurt? And yet the briefcase is still there? ) and blood on a stone bench, and freaks out.

Next we see Angel handing the angel figure to Sonny, telling him he had it with him when he was stabbed. "Someone special must have given it to you--a woman." She surmises. "Do you want me to call her?" Sonny doesn't. He tries to find out about Angel, but she ducks his questions. As she rambles on, we learn that she loves to cook, failed at making jewelry as a business, got bored in college, and is happiest in the kitchen. Sonny becomes delirious, and thinks it is Carly who is caring for him. Angel notices that he has become very cold, and, good nursemaid that she is, she helpfully covers his exposed chest with a nearby throw, rather than sensibly pull the massive coverlet and sheets of the bed up over him. Then, becoming ever more helpful by the minute, she climbs in bed with him and begins massaging his arms as she wraps herself around him, cooing that her body heat will keep him warm. Viewers were left to anticipate some further delirious Carly/Angel confusion from Sonny at episode's end, but nothing came of the whole matter.

Mike gets involved in the "where's Sonny" business when he shows up at the penthouse and learns Carly is home and Sonny isn't. He learns Sonny is alive later when he is present in Benny's office when Sonny calls, talking cryptic as usual about Benny "taking care of things." Seems Sonny quickly recovers from his setback, and soon is sharing a sumptuous meal, complete with strawberries, with the enigmatic (or so they tell me) Angel. She prattles on about using good china and crystal for everyday rather than saving them for special occasions. Later, she goes to town to do errands, including getting Sonny's medication refilled, and that's when we move into act two of this particular June storyline, because Angel and Carly meet.

Seems Carly is having a terrible day. She shows up, at long last, for work at Deception, only to have Laura and Scotty coolly reveal that Sonny sold "her" half of Deception to Laura for a dollar, leaving her without a career. She is shaken but disbelieving. Stomping out, she is further upset when the chauffeur announces he has new orders not to drive her any more. Angrily, she takes the car keys from him and tells him she will drive herself. Of course, she doesn't know how to drive, and she pulls out of her space in the parking garage directly into the fender of another car--driven by none other than Mystery Angel. Yeah, right, there just happens to be a great pharmacy in the same building as Deception? No explanation for why Angel is in this particular place at this particular time is offered.

Carly is angry, and frightened when the other driver asks for identification. She throws around her position as wife of Port Charles's powerful mobster Sonny Corinthos. She learns the name and address of Angel. Later, when she is summoned to court over the matter, she insists that Mike drive her to Angel's home so she can have it out with the woman.

Before that happens, however, we get endless scenes of Sonny enjoying the quiet at Angel's haven. One evening, Angel and Sonny talk on the back patio after she goes for a swim in the lake in the dark. She tells Sonny she hears the call of the loon--and your kind reviewer will resist the temptation to make sarcastic comments--and later they talk about her familiarity with all the wild creatures of the area and their sounds. So, Sonny notes, if something were around that didn't belong, Angel would notice immediately. Angel winds up sleeping the night away on Sonny's shoulder in the open air, while he sits and broods or whatever and doesn't sleep. When she awakes the next morning, they talk about his lack of sleep, and she says he is unaccustomed to the peacefulness. He agrees that he lives his life at war. He ends up in a rant about Sorel, which shakes her up a bit. He picks up that she's upset, and assumes that it's because "the ugliness of my life has no place here." He doesn't pick up on the fact that it was the mention of Sorel specifically that seemed to unnerve her. Reviewer's best guess as to Angel's identity--she's someone connected to Sorel, either through marriage or blood. He could be the husband who hurt her, as she revealed in an unguarded moment to Sonny, or he could be a brother (that's my guess).

The June 22 episode opens with a great atmosphere scene--Carly is sitting hunched outside the hospital, crying. We hear an moody musical number with a throaty female voice singing lines like "The ice is thin, come on, dive in" under Carly's flashback memories of Sonny in his hospital room telling her he loves her, then saying his wedding vows, then "You were my heart, now you're dead to me." This is the night of the Nurses' Ball, and Melissa, getting a breathe of fresh air after working in the emergency room during the bus/train crash, comes across the weeping Carly. Carly blurts out, "I feel like I'm dying," and Melissa asks if she can help. "Nobody can help me," cries Carly, "My husband left me and he's not coming back. Not to me, anyway. And it's all my fault. I blame Zander and Alexis and even Roy. He tried to warn me but I wouldn't listen." Carly is clear-eyed in putting the blame squarely on her own shoulders. She concludes, "I'm like a poison. Everything I touch I destroy. In this case, Sonny. I drove him away." Melissa, who has been listening intently, sits down beside Carly, who continues, "He used to love me. He used to look at me and smile and hold me.... It's like a part of my heart has been ripped from my body." Melissa is very understanding, quietly saying, "I have been where you are. I know the pain." "How did you get through it? How can I? I can't live with the pain and I can't make it stop." Melissa tells her that gradually the pain will subside, and that "It's going to get better, I promise you that." Carly: "You're still in love with Roy, aren't you?" "I probably always will be," Melissa answers simply. For a long while she couldn't forgive him, but then she realized, she says, "my love for him was greater than my hurt." Carly says some people can't forgive, like Bobbie and Sonny. Melissa urges Carly to give Sonny time because while he's trying to shut her out, his heart probably won't let him do that. Carly is touched by Melissa's concern, and says that their chance meeting seems like a sign that she should not give up hope.

I liked this scene a lot. The two women revealed what is going on in their heads. We saw that for all her lashing out at other people, Carly is painfully aware that she caused Sonny to flee. We also saw Melissa reach out to a woman in pain even though that woman was Bobbie's daughter and a person who had caused a lot of trouble for Roy. Melissa was not coy about her feelings for Roy, but she didn't try to turn the conversation into a discussion of her own situation. Carly's mom could learn a lot about how to talk to Carly from Melissa, seems to me. Of course, not everyone shared my opinion of the scene--see Arda's column elsewhere in this month's GHR.

AJ is causing problems for Carly again, showing up at the penthouse with papers demanding she let him know where Michael is and make him available to AJ for visitation. Alexis agrees to handle any custody problems, not for Carly's sake, she says, but for Sonny and Michael. She also agrees to help Carly with her other legal problem--a summons to court about the fender bender. But as I said above, Carly decides to take that matter into her own hands and insists Mike drive her to a confrontation with Angel at Angel's secluded home. This lead to several scenes of Carly telling a total stranger how much she loves and needs her husband, while said husband lurks behind a door listening. At least Carly did apologize for blowing up at Angel and taking out her frustrations on the woman. And Carly had a feeling when she first turned up at Angel's door that something was going on: "I feel like you have something that belongs to me and I'm here to get it back. But that isn't possible, is it?" By the way, Angel is wearing white, as always, and Carly, lord love a duck, is wearing trendy camouflage.

This conversation was as unsatisfying for me as the earlier conversation between Carly and Melissa was satisfying. Why? Because of the language Carly used to describe her relationship with Sonny. She spoke of messing things up but Sonny always being able to put things right and understanding her motivations and being the one who "got" her. Well, no, that was always the way Carly described her connection to Jason, and in that case it was an accurate description. Using that familiar Jason-language to talk about Sonny just didn't sound right to me.

Meanwhile, in the last major development in this story for the month, Mike is on the patio while Carly is in chatting with Angel, and he finds Sonny's wedding ring, which Sonny had slipped off in an earlier scene. Now Mike knows where Sonny is, and while we think at episode's end he is going to let Carly in on the news, he doesn't.

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