Spencer: For hire

Spencer Cassadine was born in February 2006. That would make him 2 years old, had his growth progressed in the normal fashion.

Spencer Cassadine was born in February 2006. That would make him 2 years old, had his growth progressed in the normal fashion. But alas, this is the soap world. A few weeks ago Spencer went from being an infant to a 4 year old overnight. He had another growth spurt on Friday's episode, and morphed into a 6 year old Hispanic child. Nikolas must think he's still suffering from brain tumor related delusions. "Hey. This isn't the kid I remember BEFORE my surgery. Did Nanny McFreak come back and swap kids?"

But why should I be surprised? This is not new for ABC soaps - they often times recast characters without regard to the continuity of physical appearance, age, race, etc. Here are two of my favorite examples...

1) The original Blair on One Life to Live, was played by an Asian actress named Mia Korf. She was replaced with the blonde from Kentucky, Kassie DePaiva. So, one day, Blair was Japanese, and the next day, a southern blonde Caucasian.

2) AJ Quartermaine was played by 5'11" blonde Sean Kanaan, who actually resembled his brother Jason, and then was suddenly replaced with 5'7" brunette Billy Warlock who didn't resemble anyone in his whole family.

These sudden changes are jarring to say the least. I have more examples, like Jed Allen being hired to play Edward Quartermaine after the ill conceived firing of John Ingle, only Jed Allen was the same age as Stuart Damon who was supposed to be his son. I've still never gotten over that one as it cheated John Ingle (and all of us) out of seeing John Ingle at Lila's (Anna Lee's) funeral. But, I digress...

The rumor is the next such occurrence will be when Michael Corinthos wakes up from his coma as a 24 year old. Prepare yourself - I fully intend to write a snarky column the week that occurs. If Friday's episode was out last glimpse of Dylan Cash, I think we should have at least gotten a nice little montage of some of his best scenes. The kid has been on GH for years and grown up in front of our eyes. He deserved a highlight reel, IMHO. I realize this might be complicated since we are on our 4th Carly, but they could have treated us to a few scenes of him as a small boy with Sonny and Jason.

Back to where we started - Spencer is suddenly 6, and Nikolas is still in turmoil. He's home, his brain tumor is gone, but he's incredibly restless. Lulu stopped by for a selfish "I know you just had brain surgery, but remember it's all about ME" Session where she seeks justification for her attraction to bad boy Johnny. After talking to his annoying little sister, Nikolas felt the need to run out into the middle of a rain storm where he found a bedraggled and wounded Claudia pulling herself up onto shore.

Can anyone explain to me why Jerry stabbed Claudia in the gut and tossed her in the water? Oh yeah, it's GH and we have to have a shooting or stabbing every week as the writers are apparently mobster wannabes who lives out their blood thirsty criminal fantasies in the GH scripts...Can anyone explain to me why Alexis didn't acknowledge that a SANDWICH and a BODY wouldn't make the same level of splash when being dumped into the water?

Jerry's latest action reminded me of what a reckless creep Mr. Craig was, and now that Nikolas has helped Claudia out of the river, there will be hell to pay. Claudia didn't take well to being scorned, so I suspect she will like being stabbed even less.

Their partner in crime Ian Devlin may be dead and gone, but his mayhem lives on at GH. When Nikolas had a seizure after supposedly taking an anti-seizure medication, it was another clue in the mystery of the non working drugs. First, Sam's pain medication had no effect; second, Liz was chewed out by Dr. Ford for supposedly forgetting to give a patient his meds as there was no trace of them in his system, though Liz believed she administered the drugs. Was Dr. Devlin's drug peddling related to this developing story? Only time will tell the story. Hopefully no one will die from taking fake meds in the interim.

Several of you wrote me to say you were weary of the bedside goodbyes to Michael. I understand- it's downright painful to watch. But if it was someone you loved who was shot and in a permanent coma, would you still be grieving and struggling to accept it 2 weeks later? I know I would. In spite of the violence that lead up to this storyline, one must acknowledge the powerhouse performances turned in by Laura Wright. Maurice Benard, and Steve Burton- they all deserve awards for their work. Maybe some ABC actors will make the cut in next year's Emmy's?

I don't think the writers could just gloss over it and move on - it would be totally unrealistic to have Michael's family just go back to work and pretend this didn't happen. Particularly after such a brutal incident where all the adults involved realize their selfish choices resulted in this child being in harm's way. They are going to continue to wrestle with guilt and regret. They SHOULD wrestle with guilt and regret.

They say the definition of insanity is to make the same choices over and over and expect the outcome to change. This week we saw Carly make positive steps to stop that pattern, and we were treated to more truly amazing scenes from Laura Wright. Carly is evolving because of this nightmare. She is making new choices, different choices- her eyes have been opened and she doesn't want the same fate to befall Morgan, so she's going to alter her patterns to try to achieve a different outcome. Good for her! Huzzah! But now that she and Sonny are having hot grief sex in the limo, will she follow through with getting him to sign away parental rights to his sons?

While Carly and Sonny are comforting one another in their own special way, Kate and Jax are having a lovely time dancing in their finest evening attire in New York. Is it just me, or is that pretty cold? I have two stepdaughters whom I adore, and I can assure you if one of them was being carted off to a permanent care facility in a coma, I would NOT feel like dancing or partying of any sort. Although I might drink to numb the pain, it certainly wouldn't be champagne and I wouldn't be in a glamorous party dress.

Even worse, Kate told Jax that she paid Ian Devlin a million bucks of Jax's money, knowing he shot Michael, and he didn't even blink. This is the very same Jax who kicked Carly to the curb when they were business partners' years before in a very similar betrayal. In fact, if memory serves, I think Carly only embezzled 100K of Jax's money in that incident. But Kate seems to get away with everything. I can't believe Spinelli hasn't Jackaled Kate's true identify as Connie Falconeri yet.

I really hope Crimson tanks so Kate can go back to Manhattan and take over Couture from her snooty successor. Lulu and Maxie should be in college learning something rather than fetching Kate lattes and sniping at one another. I can't imagine Crimson being much of a success with only Kate and the two inexperienced coffee-getters as the only staff. Mind you, I am not demeaning Administrative Assistants as I am one, but those two couldn't handle their respective jobs at Kelly's and GH much less catering to the needs of a demanding CEO.

Elizabeth should take the bus from now on. Last time we saw her on the highway, she checked herself out of the hospital so hopped up on pain meds that she hit something with her car and couldn't remember if it was a Squirrel, or Sam. This time, she slid of the road into some mud wearing a darling yellow rain slicker and locked her keys inside her car when she hopped out to...do what? Why didn't she just sit in her damn car and call AAA? Now, I don't know about you, but my car has to be locked from the outside, as in, I get out of the car and hit the beeper which locks the car. What sort of 1970's jalopy does Liz have anyway? Girl, your baby's daddy Jason has a lot of loot; make him buy you On Star.

In comic relief this week, Spinelli went to Jake's bar wearing Jason's way too big for him leather jacket to get advice from Coleman and Patrick on how to "man up" and bag a babe. Maxie's stint in New York staying with another guy sent him into a tailspin. The Jackal thought he was getting somewhere with a certain babe in Jake's only to discover she was a hooker who was willing to give him a cut rate on her services. How humiliating. Poor Spinelli... I admit I'm kind of a nerd lover, so if I knew Spinelli, I'd be all in; just the fact that he has an actual vocabulary would be a major aphrodisiac.

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And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the maniacal comedy stylings of Bruce Weitz as Anthony Zacharra. He may be evil, but he's hysterical in his own demented way. My dream is for Helena Cassadine to come to town and fall for him. Can you imagine the romantic pairing of two witty but demented psychopaths? Delish.

What will happen tomorrow dear readers? Will Spencer turn Asian and graduate from Jr. High? Will Kate settle on a haircut? Will Ghost Alan tell Tracy to run off with Luke for the summer and see the world? Will Ric shag bloody knife wound Claudia at Anthony's bidding? Will Alexis see a sandwich float ashore and assume Jerry's telling the truth? Will Jason stop crying long enough to unlock Elizabeth's car? Will Carly be peeved when she sees Jax on the society page waltzing with Kate? Will Jax see dash-cam footage of Carly with her tongue down Sonny's throat?

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