V. Luke and Felicia (4/26)
Luke: "You're a very beautiful woman."
Tammy: "Hey, Luke, does whiskey spoil if you keep the cap off?"
Luke: "It's time to put it away, anyway."
Tammy: "Can I give you a lift home? No, I just meant, you know, just in case we got stopped or you got stopped. It might be better if I was driving."
Luke: "That's ok. This is my home for now. It's not bad, you know?"
Tammy: "Luke, it's a bar."
Luke: "Well, there's an upstairs."
Tammy: "Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. Well, you know what that means. That means that there's a kitchen full of food back there. And I bet you I could find some eggs and maybe whip you up an omelet or something. What do you think?"
Luke: "All right, it's very sweet of you to worry, but I'm ok."
Tammy: "Yeah, well, you know, I'm not the only one."
Luke: "I'm ok alone, Tammy."
Tammy: "Ok."
Tammy: "Sometimes life surprises you. You know that?"
Luke: "Yeah, I know. Sometimes the surprises are nice. Sometimes they're not."
Tammy: "Good night."
Luke: "Good night."
Felicia: "I'm sorry."
Luke: "Oh, what for?"
Felicia: "I thought the club was closed."
Luke: "It is."
Tammy: "I'll see you, Luke. Good night. Excuse me."
Luke: "You're back."
Felicia: "I don't know what to say. Mac flew down to Maria's to tell me. We just got back tonight."
Luke: "The funeral was today."
Felicia: "I know. I'm sorry I missed it."
Luke: "That's all right. You're in plenty of time for the rest of the life that my son won't have. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Felicia: "How's Laura? How's Bobbie?"
Luke: "Bobbie's cool. Bobbie comes through when nobody else can. You know that."
Felicia: "I don't know why I came over here. Yes, I do. I came by because I wanted to tell you how sorry I am and how shocked I was. I'm sure you've had a lot of well-wishers today, and I can call you tomorrow. I'll--I'll call you tomorrow or the next day."
Luke: "Felicia, don't go. Please."
Luke: "But I trusted Sonny. See, Sonny offered protection for Lucky, but I turned him down because I figured the only protection that Lucky would need was Sonny's word that he was taking care of business. So it's my fault, too. You think I'm wrong?"
Felicia: "I just think that you need for it to make sense right now, and it just doesn't yet."
Luke: "Ok. There's truth in that."
Felicia: "Give it a wait and see what the investigation shows up, because you know Mac's not going to drop it."
Luke: "The investigation doesn't matter, Felicia, because if it didn't happen that way, it could have happened that way. Laura knew that a long time ago, and she tried to tell me, but I wouldn't believe her. I'm the one who trusted Sonny and Jason. I'm the one who taught Lucky to trust them. See, it was that trust that cost him his life."
Luke: "My little girl thinks he's coming back."
Felicia: "Of course she won't understand. She's too little to understand. Thank god she doesn't."
Luke: "You think she'll remember him? I mean, when she gets to school and stuff? You think she'll need somebody there to remind her that once she had a brother? Another brother, I mean--my son."
Felicia: "I think that she's going to need a little bit of help. I think on some level children remember everything. You just--you should show her pictures of Lucky, and you should tell her stories about him."
Luke: "Stories about him, huh? Once upon a time there was a boy who fell to earth. Somehow he knew about love without being taught or told. He knew about honor, and he knew about truth. He tried to hate, but it was too painful, and it scared him, so he learned to forgive. And then when he had his life in order and he knew just what he wanted to do with it, it all went up in a puff of smoke."
After Luke's line about Lucky's trust in Sonny costing his life, we cut to Sonny. After this last line about the puff of smoke, we cut to Stefan taking Laura home--Luke's own life going up in a puff of smoke as he loses his family. Nice. And on the line about Lucky learning to forgive, Luke gave the most gorgeous smile.
Also, Terry has taught me to remember to pay attention to wardrobe: Luke was in black, Tammy was in grey, and Felicia was in a lovely blue. A progression to lightness, as it were.
But most of our chatting on Friday was light-hearted. Occasionally, Terry will send along quotes from her son, who watches GH with her. The one she sent from this episode cracked me up, somehow: "Oh, Luke. Wow. Does he know Laura is standing there? I didn't think so. I can't look. They are really getting into the kissing, aren't they? I think they'll have sex, don't you?" Out of the mouths of babes.
And speaking of babes:
Terry: "Boy, Luke is DEFINITELY a babe magnet today. They're standing in line."
Amy: "There was a doubt?! And where does that line form?"
Arda: "Right behind me."
But, joking aside, this combination of scenes--three blonde women coming to Luke at the club, each similar to and yet very different from the others, sparked a lot of discussion with us--or at least me and Terry.
Terry: "Guza is quoted as talking about Luke spending more and more time with an adventurous blonde--Felicia--while he mourns the loss of his adventurous blonde Laura)."
Amy: "Somebody on ratsa theorized that Luke was substituting Tammy and Felicia for Laura, but that he had to split her qualities up into two women once he had lost her. I noted that Luke never substitutes--but that should have been past tense. It's been very interesting to me to see how now, after all this other substitution that's gone on around him, he's substituting too."
"And though a comparison with Luke's last (on-screen) sex act at a bar was made on ratsa, the person named the rape as the point of comparison. Actually, the last time Luke had sex in a bar, it was on the bar at Luke's with Laura, and they definitely weren't in despair (though we didn't get to see much of it). Talk about your substitutions."
Terry: "She shoots, she scores. I bow to your superior Luknowledge."
Amy: "Well, actually Luke was the one that scored... [groans from all other editors]"
Terry: "And, well, people may call me crazy, but I didn't see what Tammy did as prostitute, but as an expression of love. Don't laugh too hard, but I was reminded of the scene at the end of Grapes of Wrath, when the woman offered her breast to the starving man, offering nourishment the only way she could. I found it quite moving, but not really sad."
Amy: "Very nice! And I agree. She knew it's what he needed--not talk, which she offers so freely to him and others. And her attitude, her demeanor, as she left (and she did volunteer to stay, though she also realized that he needed her to go--embarrassment at his vulnerability, perhaps, and maybe thoughts of Laura) was not that of a working girl. I look forward to the conversation they may have about that night. Moreover, saw in their actions and responses to each other afterwards this lovely awkwardness, as though she wanted to do more for him and couldn't and he wanted to reach out to her in some other way and couldn't."
"I always think of these two in terms of Pygmalion--or of My Fair Lady, more like. I've used this before. She will always be a lady to Luke because he treats her like one. And I don't think that changed in that night."
"But what I don't get is that there are people on ratsa who actually deny that Tammy and Luke had sex. Then there are others who think it was disgusting. Then there are others who don't understand it at all. Sigh."
Terry: "Sighing right along with you. I could not resist going to Port Charles Online after the Monday episode, and was amazed to find people there denying the sex. There was a complete breakdown of the evidence--we didn't see it, there was that talk of his drinking, etc. etc. Luke could not perform, they claimed. Oh, and the one that really lost me was the mention of the way he patted Tammy's arms in the aftermath of the sex that wasn't. I was totally lost."
"And now I see it on ratsa too. The writers have built a perfectly plausible, totally lovely reaction to grief for Luke that does fabulous things to move his story with Laura along, that adds a nice note to his relationship with Tammy, that highlights differences between his interactions with Tammy and Felicia, and some folks steadfastly contend it didn't happen because they did not see Luke naked and rolling on the floor. As Joan would say, feh."
Amy: "I have to share my theory that soap sex doesn't get shown as completely when it's not between two loving, long-term partners. So we get Kevin and Lucy in some extended-play sex scenes during their relationship, or Tom and Felicia, or Brenda and Sonny (or even Hannah and Sonny, and they're not so long-term yet). But sex between couples who aren't really couples doesn't really get shown as completely, because it's not romantic. For example, we cut away from Frank and Courtney over on PC because they were 'just' making a baby, but we lingered on Joe and Karen's reunion sex. Likewise, we didn't see Carly and AJ in a big ol' sex scene after the Nurses' Ball; we saw just enough to tell us that Jason knew they were having sex. We don't linger, in other words, when the couple isn't established in some way (and back to Sonny and Hannah, the writers want us to think they're established, so my theory fits). So the fact that we cut away from Luke and Tammy having sex makes perfect sense. It wasn't a 'way out' they were saving for later."
"You don't show the sex with Tammy and Luke because it isn't about the sex. It's about the comfort."
"My other thought was that I understand more clearly now how people can watch the rape from 1979 and say it isn't rape. Apparently, people see what they want to see in Luke's bar sex. *g*"
"Somebody on ratsa asked why the writers chose Felicia for these scenes and for this recent connection with Luke. It didn't dawn on me to ask that, because the epiphany that they are so well-suited for friendship has been so enjoyable."
"The practical answer, of course, is that we're going to have an adventure with Faison, and these are the two, historically, that should be involved together. So we've paved the way for that. What's so beautiful about it is, again, that we've had such a perfect match between them just as friends--and they did know each other before this, though that might surprise some people."
"I don't believe that, at this point, Luke's got romantic feelings for Felicia, or that she does for him [remember, I was writing this in April, and at that point, I think Luke was hurting enough that he only had a vague sense that he wanted to be around her--that she made sense to him, etc. Over the course of their upcoming storyline is when I think his emotions about her came more and more into focus for him. Right now, before Lucky's death, she was a kind, listening ear attached to an attractive figure. But I don't think he was thinking of a relationship of anything more than friendship, not before these scenes, and definitely not during these scenes]. A definite crush, but in that school-boy, only vaguely sexual kind of way. (Though I have to say I wouldn't mind a romance between them.)"
"And he has different feelings for Tammy (I couldn't wait to see those scenes!). What I like about them is that they do help us understand the way he thinks about and relates to Laura. I also think they've darn near hit us in the face with it a couple of times (though it is more subtle than Hannah). But it works. Tammy brings along echoes of the past in Florida and of Ruby. She's strong, with a smart mouth and a gentle heart. She's also the whore (quite literally) to Laura's Madonna (and Felicia's motherhood); no matter what kind of sex was going on in the Spencer bedroom, Laura was Luke's 'Angel.' It's a trite dichotomy, but there it is."
"Felicia, on the other hand, is most definitely a version of Laura--Mac, for that matter, is a version of Luke, I'd go so far to say. Mac chose a life of crime--but also of adventure--and now makes up for it by playing the hero. Conversely, Luke wanted not to be the hero, but to be socially (and monetarily) acceptable--to be good enough for Laura. And circumstances have disillusioned him. But he's still making up for what he did in the past. Felicia is closer to Laura than Luke is to Mac, because, as they've spelled it out for us, she is the adoring wife and mother who also longs for adventure. Laura seems to have shut that side of herself off completely--or at least off from Luke. After all, she trusted Sonny too, and taught Lucky to trust him. And she chose to become involved with the mob (from way back in the old days, and with Sonny) just as Luke did. Thing is, she wants to drop that now, where Luke realizes he can't."
"The thing that runs in my head in all of the stuff with these characters is this--parallels and substitutions. I'll leave the parallels alone for now and talk only about substitutions, which I've mentioned before, but should explain more clearly. Stefan (and Nik) substitute Kat for Laura (and Nik subbed Sarah as well); Laura subs Stefan for Luke (on the island, in the wake of their busted-up family)--and in grieving for Lucky, both Laura and Liz may substitute Nikolas. Luke alone has never needed to substitute somebody for Laura--and now he does. And I come back to the thought that it's two blondes, that he's subbing, not one."
"For Felicia and Tammy have been set up as a dichotomy too, after all--Felicia writes about what Tammy has lived; Felicia sees what life could have been, however, and thanks her lucky stars--and Mac--for her life. And yet they're similar, as well. There's a little of each in the other, I think."
"Finally, I think Luke stands in awe of many women. Not Lucy, whom he adores, perhaps, and not Helena or Carly. And I don't think he was in awe of Tiffany, in general. But Laura, while the best and greatest example, isn't the only one. His awe for Ruby is incredible, as well as Bobbie, even though, with both of them, he rarely showed his awe underneath their bickering, teasing, celebrating, complaining, etc. It shines through, however, in moments. And Felicia, I think, took him by surprise--Felicia's wisdom, choices, compassion, vivacity, etc. have taken him a bit off guard. He never expected Bubba's wife to be so wise, so adventurous (still), and so comforting and vulnerable and supportive all at the same time--and so fun! He didn't expect to find in her a source of comfort and information, but here they are, each one just what the other needs, to a certain extent. What I see is compassion from Felicia, as well as surprise about the good friend and vulnerability she sees in Luke. All in all, it's been a beautiful, unexpected thing, and I want more!"
"Tammy, too, was a bit of a surprise, and his past dictates, I think, some kind of awe for a woman who can do that kind of work and still be as incredible as Tammy. She speaks the truth to him, and has from the very beginning. Yet she doesn't judge. Neither of them do. And, finally, that's the difference between then and between Laura right now. Laura never used to judge--only forgive. But when her capacity for forgiveness and love became a curse--when it extended to Stefan and he found it always had extended to Stefan--and when she started judging him to defend herself, he turned to those who did not. It's what he's feared most--her judging him, after all."
"One of the other comments on ratsa was about the order of the visits. Somebody noted that, if Felicia had been an hour earlier, it would have been her on the bar with Luke. I disagree. It could not have been Felicia. It might have been Laura, though I don't think he'd let himself in for the potential rejection there."
"What I noticed was Bobbie, in the first of the episode, letting Luke go on and on about his lack of belief, etc. When Luke cracked one cynical line with Felicia, she stopped him with only a look. He wouldn't have turned to her for sexual comfort at that point, because it would have disrupted her life, and because of the way he has responded to her in all of their scenes so far--she is untouchable, both literally and metaphorically. He silences himself in many ways around her, even while he speaks of things that he doesn't speak of with other people."
"Felicia's married, and I don't think that--especially if he associates her with Laura somehow, he would ask her to commit adultery. Tammy's unattached. And she was willing--I'd go one step further and say she offered, though I know others won't agree with me. It's interesting to notice how she, when she is paid, finds a way to comfort men with words (Alan, Tony, Lucky). When she's not, she comforts with sex. And that's perhaps because there were no words to say."
"Luke's always turned to Laura--and to women--for comfort in his grief. Needing that kind of connection, physical though it may be, makes sense. He has felt divided from the world--from everybody he's loved--for a while now. That Tammy cares, that she's willing, that she's unattached, that she's there, that he's always been attracted to her and she to him? All of it makes sense to me."
"He has believed for some time that Laura has left him and is sleeping with Stefan. And yet I don't think this was a 'she can so I will too' kind of moment. I don't know that he was thinking of her at all, though when he twirled his finger in Tammy's blonde hair, I was willing to see Laura in his eyes. And when he hugged her, well, we've seen that reaction too."
"Are we replaying L&L with these two women? No. We're seeing what happens to Luke without Laura. Are we looking into his psyche in a way we haven't been allowed to do as long as he was with Laura? Absolutely positively--and I love it."
"Why did he turn to Tammy and Felicia? Because they remind him of the women in his life--Ruby and Laura--both of whom he's lost recently. And because he respects them on their own merits. The timing was just perfect, I think, for him to open up to them just as things were closing down between him and the people he typically opened up to. But Luke's relationship to women has always been an interesting one, and I think the isolation/compartmentalization that we've had in recent months--as well as the departure of Lucy--have made people forget that. The one I want back in the mix (and I may yet get my wish) is Carly. She's Bobbie all over again, and I want to see him work out his relationship to that!"
"But I think he had sex with Tammy precisely because of the ways in which she's completely different than Laura. In fact, as I indicated above, Tammy isn't Laura at all, but Ruby. Now, the Freudians may be having a field day with this, and those that cringed at Kathy and Nik may be puking in their shoes. But this is the second family loss Luke has suffered, and Tammy is very much like Ruby. Not only was she a working girl, but she's one tough cookie with a soft marshmallow heart. And the comfort he needed wasn't the kind Laura (as it stands now) or Felicia could have given. In Tammy he finds the kind of woman that Ruby was to him, and at the same time he finds the physical solace that he does not and has not gotten from his wife in a long time. What he got from Felicia he couldn't have gotten from Laura either--not at this point--wisdom, calm advice about children's memories, etc."
"The scene we'll never see--Luke and Laura--would have been something completely different. He offered to take her home and stay with her and grieve with her once; she turned him away. So he went elsewhere. On the flip side, Laura chose to go to Luke, not Stefan, and I really resented that he just showed up and told her he'd fix things. Wait--that's another post."