Jason Found a New Line to Cross
Was I the only one who wanted to see Jason punched, repeatedly, when he blocked Willow from following Michael out of the Nurses Ball with their son, Wiley? Dude stood there in the one outfit that he owns, scowling like he was auditioning for The Terminator and freakin’ threatened the boy’s mother not to give chase. And I know that Willow’s on everybody’s [bleep] list, and she was with skeevy boyfriend Drew — that’s strike one and two — but Jason couldn’t have been more in the wrong if he’d tried. Court order be damned, he made himself an accomplice to a kidnapping — and with an undeserved righteousness, too, considering that he’s well aware that Michael’s as big a cheat as Willow.
Welcome to the Family, Like It or Not
The fallout from the Gio reveal continued to fire on all cylinders. Brook Lynn’s faceoff with Lois was beyond soaptastic and, after all this buildup, well-earned. I didn’t like Tracy forcing Gio to stick around at the Quartermaines’ — c’mon, give the kid a minute — but it was a very Tracy thing to do. (If Giovanni Mazza doesn’t get an Emmy for his performances, I’ll track down Marshall just to eat his hat!) Of course, as Lois was being read for filth right and left, the takedowns I was really waiting for were Lulu and Cody’s — and there shouldn’t have been enough beer in the world to brace them for what they had coming to ’em!
Somehow, though, Lulu’s takedown was also a letdown. Not sure how Dante came to the conclusion that she had tracked down the son he didn’t know he had in order to get back together with him, but I did love her incredulous response: “How would that even work?” As eagerly as I’d anticipated these scenes, they mostly felt like a manufactured roadblock to a “Lante” reunion rather than a permanent deal-breaker. At the end of the day, she chased after the truth he’d been denied for 20-ish years. That’s at worst, ultimately, an “I’ll be mad at you for a few weeks” kinda thing.
Young Love
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I adore Tabyana Ali. Look up “radiant” in the dictionary, and there she is, as far as I’m concerned. And Jens Austin Astrup is a veritable charm factory. Yet I don’t find myself all that invested in Trina and Kai. Maybe it’s because General Hospital went the familiar dislike-to-like route with their relationship. Maybe it’s because her grief over Spencer was given short shrift. Maybe I just need to watch Trina and Kai overcome some obstacles together to go all in. At least their first love scene was given the full soapy treatment. Better background music wouldn’t have gone amiss, but the tryst itself was romantic and sudsy.
Michael and Sasha Reconnected
The way Michael and Sasha were written, it was obvious that the show intends to reheat the old flames. And that’s fine, I guess. Rory Gibson is already proving to be every bit as wonderful as Young & Restless dad Joshua Morrow said he is, and his scenes with Sofia Mattsson had a lovely spark to them. But nothing about their storyline tracks. Sasha doesn’t want her baby raised as a Corinthos and a Quartermaine, but she’ll pretend that it’s Corinthos-adjacent and a Quartermaine? How is that any better? And Michael is going to move heaven and earth to get custody of Wiley and Amelia but is, however reluctantly, willing to let go of his and Sasha’s child?
At least there are obstacles galore to Michael and Sasha’s reunion. If they got together, it would only make it that much more in your face that he’s her babydaddy, which in turn would muck up his plot to get custody of Wiley and Amelia. If you ask me — and no one ever does — the route the show should take is to have Michael and Sasha fall back in love, only to keep it a secret as he forces Willow to stay married to him if she wants to have anything to do with the kids. (Payback!) They could play out a War of the Roses type storyline, at the end of which their love/hate for one another veers back into love. At that point, a heartbroken Sasha could turn to Jason for real.
If, that is, we don’t want to see him punched anymore.
