IN OUR OPINION

January 17, 2008

— ABC

From Joe Diliberto
Hey, Joe, where you goin' with that bomb in your hand? With apologies to Jimi Hendrix for the paraphrase, we're glad GENERAL HOSPITAL's volatile Joe didn't kill his old lady — and take a bunch of familiar characters along with her. Joe was distraught over losing his garage ("Joe's Garage"? — is there a Frank Zappa fan on the writing staff?) and Dr. Ford's policy of turning away the uninsured, including pregnant women. As if that was an excuse to threaten to blow everyone up? No, it was an excuse for more of GH's trademark violence and mayhem. Giving Joe a bomb was, admittedly, a change from a gun, but I think terrorism is still too much of a hot-button issue to use as "entertainment." And GH is still too close to the Metro Court hostage crisis (not to mention the Black & White Ball hostage crisis) to get away with a General Hospital hostage crisis. By now, Port Charles should have the fastest-acting SWAT team in the Northeast instead of the slowest! (Why was Lucky — who cannot even hold a sniper rifle properly — entrusted to shoot an armed maniac?) But who needs SWAT when you have Jason? Even he must be getting tired of saving the day at these captive shindigs. Jason deduced that Joe's explosives were fake (How did Joe manage to whip up convincing dummy dynamite so quickly?) because the hit man now knows a father's heart. He gambled everyone's lives on the assumption that Joe didn't have the heart to endanger his own family. Speaking of a father's heart — wouldn't it have been more fitting for Carly and Jax to have that important parenting heart-to-heart with Ingo Rademacher rather than emergency recast Gideon Emery? I understand conditions cannot always be ideal and Emery is doing fine work under difficult circumstances, but Rademacher had earned the payoff of that conversation. Well, at least Jason got to punch out Rageaholic Nikolas. That was a welcome payoff.

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IN OUR OPINION

January 17, 2008

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IN OUR OPINION

January 17, 2008

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