Thumbs up!
YOUNG AND RESTLESS - Homecoming King
Y&R’s decision to bring Michael Graziadei’s Daniel Romalotti back to Genoa City continues to pay dividends. As well-liked by the people in his fictional community as he is by fans, Daniel came home in the midst of a crisis after crashing and burning on the domestic front, his long-term relationship with Heather in tatters and not faring much better with his teenage daughter, Lucy. Returning to his roots proved healing for Daniel, who is on better terms with his ex and Lucy, has job stability as a game designer for Chancellor-Winters and has even found love again, falling into a sweet romance with ex-wife Lily. Fortunately for viewers, what hasn’t become more harmonious for Daniel is his rocky relationship with his maddening mom, Phyllis. Daniel’s no-nonsense attitude toward her — his willingness to call her out on her self-serving and reckless ways, especially during the Jeremy Stark murder fiasco, and his refusal to immediately cave to her tearful pleas for forgiveness — is at once entertaining and satisfying and feels rooted both in their history and, ultimately, in their deep love for one another. Graziadei’s mother/son chemistry op-posite Michelle Stafford (Phyllis) remains unmatched, and we hope they’ll be crossing on-screen swords for many years to come.
Thumbs down!
GENERAL HOSPITAL - Girl, Interrupted
In the eight-plus months since Esme was rendered amnesiac, it has become glaringly obvious that the show has a big problem where the character is concerned. The vile acts Esme committed effectively wrote her into a corner, and relying on memory loss to maneuver her out of it is not working for a sophisticated viewing audience who knows a lazy trope when they see it. Esme has done nothing to earn the grace she’s been shown by characters like Laura (who housed her) and Alexis (who employed her), and the outrage Trina fans feel that she has yet to receive the justice she deserves isn’t going away any time soon — indeed, it’s only deepening now that Esme is spending more time with Trina’s boyfriend than Trina is. We understand why GH is loath to lose Esme’s talented portrayer, Avery Pohl, but for the character to have genuine viability, the show needs to reckon with delivering actual consequences to a (memory-restored!) Esme.
Thumbs up!
BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL - In Like Finn
We’ve lamented the fact that precious little has been done with Finn since his 2020 debut other than him being a dutiful husband to Steffy, but the show is now capitalizing on the potential for dramatic fireworks inherent in the 2021 reveal that Sheila is his birth mother — and portrayer Tanner Novlan is making the most of it. It’s been a delicate balance for Finn to work out his complicated feelings for his bio mom, who couldn’t be more loving to him, but whose villainous past earns her every bit of her persona non grata status with the rest of the canvas. Not even the fact that Sheila tried to kill Steffy, then Finn, in the alley has completely shut off his pull toward her, and Novlan has nimbly demonstrated his alter ego’s confusion about how to navigate his desire to bond with Sheila and the loyalty he feels to Li (the mother who raised him) and Steffy (the woman who wants nothing to do with Sheila). Novlan is selling Finn’s struggle, and the writers have introduced more levels to his character that help us connect to it more fully. The show was wise to mine the fact that Finn is, for all intents and purposes, a blank slate, which provides myriad opportunities to create fresh story avenues for him.
Applause, Applause
Cute inside joke to have GH’s Janice, played by Lauren Swickard, wife of Josh Swickard (Chase), gush about what a fan she is of Chase’s music. Similarly, DAYS delivered a fun wink when Ava recognized Harris as someone from her mob past, a nod to portrayers’ Tamara Braun and Steve Burton’s past as Carly and Jason on GH.... Loved the moment on Y&R when Nikki coolly warned Nate that if he ever hurt Victoria, “You’re looking at your worst nightmare.”
Picky, Picky
Why aren’t DAYS’s Rafe and Jada spending the night at his house, where he lives alone, instead of her room at the pub, which she shares with Talia? ... It was a peculiar choice to have GH’s Liz talk about Tracy as though she only knows her as Finn’s friend, given that Liz has her own, decades-long history with the woman (who, among other connections, is the great-aunt of her son Jake and was her late best friend, Emily’s, aunt).... Who is Y&R’s Victor to lecture Phyllis about her “unforgivable” behavior, given that he once hired a man to take over her husband’s life and allowed her to unwittingly sleep with a complete stranger?! And how is there suddenly a major theme park right outside of Genoa City?