Spoiler Reading

So, I'm scrolling through the spoilers and I have this really great realization: if they kill off Jason, I will be free to stop watching this drivel! I have no other hold. I will have to accept there will never be a Liason, that the Quartermaines will never reunite...that it's all over. And I'll be so free! Free, I tell you! Free!

I don't know anyone who is still watching. I plug along but everyone - even hard core soap fans and General Hospital viewers of 20 years - has fallen by the wayside. I cannot imagine why ABC is letting this happen. I wish I could read that contract (or have it for my job). No matter how awful, how many viewers are lost, how tragically low the ratings....no one steps in to save General Hospital.

I've enjoyed Patrick & Robin, though. The scene with the baby kicking was very cute. I am a perenially single career woman who doesn't have her own sitcom - but I know that one of the major challenges of our generation has been to convince men to be fathers. I am at the stage where most of my galpals and I are perusing lists of sperm donors on the web, talking about creating partnerships for childcare, and lamenting the loss of men who want to be dads. We know plenty of single men willing to have sex with just about anyone but very few who want to be dads. Even the guy I'm dating - who seemed like he wanted to settle down - recently admitted that he doesn't want to have children in his home. I sigh and start looking again while I peruse the web and save the cash for some frozen genetic material - but the whole experience has made me enjoy Patrick & Robin more. I undestand Robin's hesitance to trust Patrick. Most of the women in my circle have dated dozens of men and heard the same non-responsibility storyline (in short - Jason's line - my job, my life, my self is more important than any small being I may create). So, when a guy starts to adapt, I think we don't even dare believe that we could have a partner in anything. We are too accustomed to having to do everything on our own. The idea of partnership - it's too new, too scary, too risky. And the more I understand Robin, the more I recognize the amount of fear and loneliness offered to all the Patricks of the world. Society has really taught them nothing about the need to sacrifice to children. Then the women step in and do this really wonderful thing but shut them out. We curse and complain and really it's everyone's fault. Society has served no one by belittling and destroying the partnership that creates happy, healthy children. Men live up to 15 years longer and have more sex if they're married - regardless of how happy the marriage may be - but do they know that? Nope. They just wander around believing that they're better off with freedom from responsibility and porn for day when the women are less available. I wonder now when the Patrick phenomenon will hit any of these guys...or if that's just a media invention, too - like the fulfilled career woman who 'has it all' without feeling exhausted, lonely, and broke.

Of course, I love the Zacchara family. I'm just sick of the mob! Mob, mob, mob, mob, MOB! It's the reason everyone I know has stopped watching and I agree! NO MORE MOB! Okay - past that rant - Johnny and LuLu are adorable. I would love to watch them BRING DOWN THE MOB! Okay - it was one last little rant. I'm not sure where they're going, though. This is usually the stage that the Guza-powered bus stalls out and somebody gets kicked out to lighten the load. After all, we have to power the FRIKKIN' MOB! Okay, okay....I'll try and control myself. But I hope that we get to see a little love conquers all (but not without some serious drama).

I still don't get what's going on at GH, though...blackmail? Mob threats (ha ha, that would be ironic - maybe this whole horror is Guza's plea for aid as he tries to escape a past he can't erase...not likely but hecka funny)? An evil conspiracy to get the soap industry out of the healthcare business??!!

And that brings me back to OLTL. I am seriously addicted to GiGi Morasco. Seriously. She's the realest thing to hit a soap opera in ages. She's innocent yet resilient. I love watching her be manipulated by Dorian and Adrianna. As she stood up at the wedding to declare her feelings for Rex, I squirmed because I wanted to shelter her. And that made the entrance by Brody - disgusting and gross and unromantic as he really is - feel like a fairy tale. Because I want someone to help GiGi. I want her to find love. I liked her with Rex - but I also want her to help Brody and be saved from Adrianna. I even wanted her to date Jared!

It doesn't matter where you put her - I heart GiGi. She made me laugh when she said, "I know. It's so high school." You can believe in GiGi. Her mistakes are human even when somewhat unbelievable. Her attempts and failures in her never-ending attempt to make her childhood mistakes right endear her to me. I want her to tell the truth because GiGi wants so badly to tell the truth.

I get frustrated when I don't see GiGi for days and yet I want to savor the character. In time, GiGi will become like the rest of Llanview. She'll lose her freshness, her honesty, her romanticism. Like my beloved, Liz (who once reminded me of GiGi), over time she'll become hardened, confused, and sullied by the way American soap operas operate. So, for now, I want it to drag out at a snail's pace. I want to enjoy my GiGi well into the next sweeps. At the very least.

The Many Loves of Jason Quartermaine

Although I think I began to watch General Hopital long before Jason, Robin and Karen reached high school, the young love triangle is my first real memory of the show. I liked Karen - she was a somewhat-curvy redhead and I was going through early puberty as a chunky redhead. So, I found a little comfort in watching her as the love that good guy Jason sought. Robin was annoying to me (kudos to the actress for maintaining character traits for such a long period) but she played her part as the lovesick little girl very well. Then there was Jagger. Jagger with his black leather coat. Jagger with his motorcycle. Jagger with his charming smile. Jagger who helped women in crisis. Jagger.

To say that I had a MAJOR crush on Jagger would be akin to pretending I didn't wear a New Kids on the Block t-shirt. Some things are just bald-faced lies. As soon as Jagger entered the scene, I saw no other man for Karen (or myself). I was a Jagger-Karen fan and as Karen revealed her sexual abuse and went through soap self-destruct mode - it was Jagger that I wanted at her side.

And that made me sad for Jason. Jason was always so good and dependable. He was the responsible peace-maker in his wacky home. He was pitted against his brother (through no fault nor desire of his own) and felt guilty about AJ's self-destruct. Jason was honorable. He let go of Karen when he saw where her heart found home and he never held her responsible. I loved Jason - the good, decent, kind, loyal person as he was written.

I cried the day of the accident. In those days, soap reports were vague and there were no Internet spoilers. I was sure that Jason would be a tragic figure in GH. I couldn't imagine that Jason would be taken from us by AJ - AJ who was the victim of his parent's limitations. I wanted redemption for AJ (and did until the day of his death), not another reason for him to be belittled in a verbally abusive home. But there was Jason lying with "permanent brain damage" and I knew enough of soaps to be sure the outcome would be unusual at least.

Jason woke up, eventually, but with a radically changed personality. Jason woke up and wanted black leather coats, dangerous women, motorcycles, and to rescue women in distress. Jason wanted to be Jagger. When his mind got fritzed and he could choose who he would be - he chose Jagger. And there was only one reason I could see: Jagger had won a women whom Jason had loved completely. I realized at that moment that if Jason were a real person, I would have had to acknowledge the toll that Karen's preference for Jagger had exacted of Jason.

I can make no claims that the writers thought this through but it's been a defining lens through which I view Jason. My original compassion for him has only grown through the years. Jason seems never content with the options he has. Just like Jagger, Jason doesn't want the hot and available women who toss themselves at dangerous men though he falls in love with them whenever they need his rescue (see Carly & Sam). Like Jagger, he has no use for the overtly moral and grounded Robin. But despite the fact that Jason has truly embodied Jagger (and I refuse to accept Jagger as reinvented on Port Charles - publicity stunts are not characters) and yet failed to get his version of Karen.

I suppose I should mention who Karen was (this is some of the worst writing I've ever done but I have 10 minutes and I'm not going to postpone again). Karen was smart but weak. She was a little bit spineless yet lovely. She self-destructed after she revealed sexual assault. She lived at Kelley's for a time and she loved a good motorcycle ride. She was beloved by the Quartermaines, especially Lilah, and she was soft-spoken and struggled to reveal her emotions. Not the classic heroine and not a beloved set of qualities, though a character we saw resurrect - in Elizabeth.

Yes, we've arrived. On the eve of what will likely be (I am choosing to be unspoiled because it will ruin Friday's loveliness for me) the end of Liason (again) due to ongoing violence and Sonny's current "I get to leave the mob but nobody else can" storyline, I am going to write the reason I will always believe that Elizabeth is Jason's true love. Even if I never see them on-screen again in a romantic sense (and the past 2 years were quite lovely - thank you, TPB, though I wish I had seen them truly live this whole story), I will always believe that Elizabeth is the woman Jason wanted as Jason Quartermaine and as Jagger 1 (aka Jason Morgan). It's all about Karen.

In order for Jason to have a "true love" that woman would have to be equally appealing to the internal person that was Jason Quartermaine and the external skin personality of Jason Morgan. Because no amount of brain damage can truly change every aspect of personality. Jason Quartermaine influences Jason Morgan. And when Jason got to choose who to be - well, he chose to be Karen's true love reincarnated. So, only a reincarnation of Karen would meet the need.

Elizabeth was so like Karen. She kinda bumbled through her life. She was best friends with Emily Quartermained (aha, the Quartermaine connection) but never could define herself. She has strength - but mostly she is weak. She lived at Kelley's and she loved motorcycles. She had an innocence that never seemed to fit her lifestyle. She felt out of place, unloved, and victimized - something that also defined Karen as she struggled to choose between Jagger & Jason.

When Elizabeth was raped just as Jason went through the loss of Michael, I wondered if the writers were purposefully revisiting Karen & Jagger. It was a good storyline - and that's likely the only reason they chose the replay. But I found the similarities between Jagger & Karen to be so obvious. The chemistry was good between the characters - they relax with each other and I often find them at their most interesting when paired - it's as though new life shows up for each one. They were happy together, but neither could really give up the outer piece of themselves - Liz is plagued by a need to be properly accepted by society and Jason is thwarted by his need to be properly rejected by society. It's a good old-fashioned love story - and it would fade if I hadn't noticed the Jagger & Jason connection. It just seems to me that Elizabeth is the only woman Jason has ever met who would have been loved by Jason Quartermaine (remember that JQ found Robin a wee bit annoying) and Jason Morgan.

I see the possibility of both people teaching the other one so much about life. To me, that is rich storytelling. I long for them to plant their feet on the ground and refuse to give up. I want to see Monica's line to Elizabeth (You remind me so much of Emily.) to be portentous. Elizabeth, as the chain between Jason Quartermaine and Jason Morgan, could also be the Lilah/Emily figure now missing from the Quartermaine melee...and she could help Jason to be a full person while breathing new life into the family. It would be a redemption for both Jason and Liz, though, because Liz needs to finally take a stand in her life. The Karen in her needs to choose Jagger. I saw her do that on Friday - but can it last? I don't know. I've been watching for 15 years to see what I saw on Friday....and I have no idea if it will continue. I wish it would. Stories of redemption wtih this much context are such a rarity in TV these days. And the ability to unite and ignite history - infusing a sense of tradition and longevity into the show - could change soaps from a dying brand to the place to go for grand, far-reaching romances...at a time when many people feel that love is a lost concept.

So, that's my take on Jason. I hate where he may be on Monday (at the head of the mob, I assume) - I want Friday and all its promise of a new forward-moving storyline that incorporates growth, renewal, and reconnection with the Quartermaines.