I bet that the gun shop owners in Port Chuck are smiling big and living large, because sales appear to be soaring. At the close of Friday's show, everyone was locked and loaded!
First up was Jason's new rival for superhero status, Lieutenant John McBain. Unlike Jason the Jerk, John the Just is able to see that Sam's baby is the true victim in Franco's twisted plot to mess with Jason's head. Note to Jason: Sam appears to have moved on from the rape, at least where the baby is concerned, so why not do the same? Honestly, Jason is such a drama queen these days.
Like every good superhero, John has a sidekick, Dante the Dumb. I'm not sure what to make of Dante. He has moments of brilliance, and then suddenly a switch is flipped, and he turns into the biggest moron on the planet. Example: Dante's confrontation with Ronnie.
Now, I get that Dante was worried about Lulu, but screaming accusations in a squadroom full of cops about one of their own attacking dancers and kidnapping Lulu was just a crazy-pants move. I kind of applauded Ronnie for having had the foresight to frame Dante, after realizing that Lulu was onto Ronnie. Frankly, Dante needed time in the clinker to cool off and organize his thoughts.
I loved Delores' reaction when Dante vehemently assured her that he would never strike a woman. "That's exactly what I said about Eddie, but you didn't believe me," Delores replied in a "Ha, eat crow" tone. She totally deserved that apology from Dante.
Meanwhile, at the newest hotspot in town, a shady motel filled with vending machines that offer an endless supply of cheese curls, Ronnie quickly discovered that he might as well have checked into Metro Court with his hostage.
I'm curious why Sam ended up going to PC's low-rent motel, though. Isn't she like married to a gazillionare? I don't recall any mention of her letting go of her swanky apartment, complete with hot tub, or seeing any of her personal belongings appear at Jason's penthouse, so where in blazes is all of her freaking stuff?
I sure as heck would require more than one sad little suitcase to move out of my home for an indefinite length of time. You should see what I tote to the pool for a day of swimming. Was that poor little picture on the fireplace mantel, and that dragon figurine that she took with her, Sam's only contribution to their home? No wonder she left!
Then again, maybe it wasn't so strange for Sam to turn up at the motel, since fate seems to be conspiring to throw her and John together. Naturally, not only did Sam manage to inadvertently check into the same motel where John is staying, but she rented the very last room in the busy-bee motel, which just so happened to be right next door to John.
Anvils falling on glass tables are less subtle than this! However, I do look forward to seeing Jason's reaction when he finds out. And we all know that he will. Therefore, I applaud Sam for walking out on her idiot husband and going to the very last place that he would want her to be. Well played, Sam, well played.
Unfortunately for Sam, her late-night munching binge screeched to a sudden halt when Ronnie, who has now fully stepped over to the dark side, decided to take her hostage. Sam foolishly made the mistake of offering to investigate the noise that Lulu had made while tied to a bed that a two-year-old could have escaped from. Ronnie quickly whipped out his trusty gun, and took action.
Unbeknownst to Ronnie, though, Sam and Lulu left a trail of clues that a blind person could have found, so, it appears that the true superheroes in this little drama were the ladies.
What a refreshing change. The ladies managed to keep Ronnie off balance by alternately pissing him off to the nth degree and then calming him down whenever he threatened to shoot one of them. Meanwhile, John and Dante worked on a rescue plan in the next room.
Riddle me this: why didn't John and Dante devise a plan of action during the car ride over to the Haunted Star? Were they perchance too busy arguing over which station to listen to, or was Dante back to ranting about how Ronnie had framed him and kidnapped Lulu?
Of course, had John and Dante discussed it, then we wouldn't have had a cliffhanger at the end of the show that left us eager to know how Andy and Barney manage to rescue Thelma and Louise from the evil mustache-twirling bad guy on Monday.
Elsewhere, brandishing a firearm, we had Starr dragging out her decision to shoot Sonny on the side of the road where Hope and Cole had perished. I get that she's in pain and reeling from grief, but give it a rest already, Starr! It's hard to have compassion for her when I know that she's blaming the wrong person for the death of her family, and that she's putting more stock in what a bitter mobster has to say about the man that he vowed to destroy versus a man who was acquitted by a jury, and had someone, whom she appeared to trust, vouch for him.
It just doesn't make a lick of sense. Starr doesn't know Johnny and Sonny from Adam, so why would Johnny's word be more trustworthy than Sonny's?
Sonny was right when he told Starr that Johnny was a convincing liar. Johnny has a gift for spin. He cleverly leaves out critical details to make an event seem completely different than it was, like when he neglected to tell Starr that Sonny had caught Johnny in bed with Sonny's girlfriend, a woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder -- a disorder that Starr is painfully familiar with.
I'm certain that Johnny is fully aware of Starr's connection to Viki and Jessica, because he admitted that he's reading the unauthorized biography of Viki and Jessica's lives. Todd is a colorful character in his own right, so I'm certain that he's prominently featured in the salacious tell-all book about his sister and niece, as is the event that led to one of Jessica's alters switching Jessica's dead baby with Starr's newborn daughter, Hope.
I'm not a Carly fan, but I was happy that she didn't buy Johnny's line about Connie catching him at a weak moment, and Kate merely being a means to an end. Ultimately, he slept with another woman. There's no excuse for that, especially when you claim to have genuine feelings for someone else.
I don't think that Johnny raped Kate, but I certainly believe that he took advantage of her. I suspect that, based on what Olivia said, Connie might be the original personality.
(Olivia and Elizabeth compare notes about Kate's recent odd behavior)
Liz: "Uh, Ewen and I went out to lunch, and she [Kate] basically crashed it, and she said all sorts of really inappropriate things, and called me 'Lizzie.'"
Olivia: "Okay. It's like she's reverting back to her high school self or something. Connie always loved to, you know, put on a show to provoke a reaction."
Side note: I giggled when Liz complained about being called Lizzie, as if that had been Kate's worst offense.
Olivia's remarks make me think that Connie is the "host" personality, and that Kate is the alter. Regardless of whether Connie or Kate is the host, each has the right to make decisions while they are in control. What if Connie had decided to seek treatment for the DID, but Kate had fought it? Would that mean that Connie shouldn't be allowed to voluntarily check into Shadybrook? Kate consented to have sex with Sonny, so does that mean that Connie doesn't have the right to feel violated by Sonny?
From what I've read, treatment for this disease can vary, but the goals appear to be the same for all doctors: find the root trigger of the disorder, and then help the patient manage the personalities in a healthy and productive way.
For Kate/Connie, that's not going to happen in Rio, because at the end of Friday's episode, Jason suddenly appeared at the airport to block Connie's escape. I'm not sure how Jason plans to stop Connie from leaving on a jet plane, since he doesn't know about her Whack-A-Mole game with Ewen's head, but it should be interesting to watch.
On the other side of town, Luke and Anna are working together to find Lulu. I like these two as friends, but I really am not interested in seeing Luke and Anna embark on a romance. Luke and Anna have good friendship chemistry, so I'd rather the writers turn their attention to repairing the damage that was done to Luke and Tracy's relationship. I'm really rooting for them. It appears that Tracy is, too, because she's scheming to put an end to Anthony's miserable life.
Tracy should have consulted Heather, because Heather did a bang-up job poisoning Maggie. Earlier this week, Heather went all Law and Order on us by using a ripped-from-the-headlines idea, after reading about Maxie's trial, to save Steven Lars from the murder charges. Heather gave Maggie a deadly beverage, and then took steps to arrange for a suicide note to be found, confessing to killing the patient in Memphis.
It might sound heartless, but Maggie sort of had it coming. Not only did Maggie get an up-close-and-personal view of Heather's lunatic fringe, but Steve clued Maggie in on Heather's background. Maggie had been duly warned, so she should have known better than to accept iced tea from Heather. That's rather like signing for a package sent from the Unabomber.
I'm not really sad to see Maggie go, because her character never really gelled with me. She reminded me a lot of Lisa, to the point where I had questioned if perhaps they had been sisters. I recalled, back when Maggie was running around in freaky clown costumes and lurking with syringes, that she seemed particularly interested in the Lisa Niles murder mystery. However, they never really followed up on that, so my interest in Maggie began to wane, especially after she started to stalk Steve in an effort to rekindle things.
It's Maxie's fate that I'm more interested in now. There was a time when I would have gladly seen Maxie go, because she had frustrated me to no end. However, I started to have a change of heart when I realized that, beyond punishing herself for breaking the valve that had led to the deadly explosion, she was trying to save Matt. I'm not really sure if I believe that Maxie actually saw Matt kill Lisa. I suspect that she simply jumped to that conclusion when she spotted him holding the bloody wrench after he found Lisa's body.
I admit that I'm still firmly in the Anthony-killed-Lisa camp. Anthony was running around that boat, too, on that fateful night, and he had the most incentive to kill Lisa.
Could Anthony's days be numbered in Port Charles with Tracy determined to expedite his demise, and Spinelli on the hunt for the truth about who really killed Lisa? And let's not forget that the promos show Heather sporting a gun next week when she pops by to visit Luke at the hotel suite. Heather has a score to settle with Johnny, because it was Johnny who orchestrated Steven Lars's arrest. Who knows what Heather might do; I certainly wouldn't put it past her to kill Anthony and then try to frame Johnny.
