Oh, Johnny, Johnny… Wherefore art thou, Johnny that I loved? And who is this smug, strip-club owning jackhole standing in his place?
Whoever he is, he’s one of three men currently circling Lisa’s crazy drain. For the record, this is clearly two men too many to sustain on a character as thinly drawn and little liked as Lisa. But if the writing team cared about that kind of thing, we probably wouldn’t also be experiencing the joy of every other man in town currently worshiping on the Brenda express. So, whatever.
Lisa’s third man, Doctor Lawsuit Waiting to Happen, has now been downgraded to Doctor Too Stupid To Live after apparently agreeing to quit his job his job and move across the country on a moment’s notice in order to seduce a perfect stranger in exchange for a relationship with a woman who has asked him to do all this because… she’s obsessed with another man. With decision making skills like that, would you want this guy in charge of your medical care?
Fortunately for my sanity, Lisa’s number one doctor has finally proven he actually has a brain in that pretty, pretty noggin of his, and correctly leapt to the conclusion that man number two has been blackmailing her with the syringe she tried to use on Robin a few weeks back. Oh, Patrick. It’s about time, sweetheart.
This, of course, brings us back to Johnny, and the fact that if he refuses to ‘fess up today even after hearing Patrick’s impassioned plea about how Lisa has tried to kidnap his daughter and kill his wife on multiple occasions now… he really will be dead to me. And that will make me sad, people. Because even after all this douchery with Lisa, and even after letting Olivia slip through his fingers and only half-heartedly visiting her while she was on the brink of death this week, he’s still one of the few characters on this show who can make me laugh on purpose.
Case in point:
JOHNNY: So let me get this straight. You care for Maya, deeply. So you’re going to give her money to break up with you.
ME: Yup, that sounds like an Ethan plan.
Lest you think me too hard on poor Ethan, by the way, I should confess here that I found his mournful expression as he listened to Maya confess her feelings for him — along with her certainty he would leave her in the end — to be genuinely moving. I was charmed, despite myself.
(I know! They’re so boring and this fake marriage story is so stupid! But those eyes…)
Dear, Ethan: Michael called and he wants his sad puppy eyes back.This show has only room for one sweet woobie, and it’s not going to be a guy with hair that fug.
(Our stats page informs me that someone searched “gh will ethan cut hair” to get to this blog today, which I find hysterical. It’s good to know this burning question has been keeping other people people up at night too.)
Thank goodness we still have Michael, original master and reigning champion of the puppy dog eyes of angst and woe.
Fortunately, along with that angst, he’s still got a little rage left in him from the Drew Garrett days. And if this Abby story accomplishes nothing else, it will at least have allowed Michael to let loose on his mother as she has truly, truly deserved for years:
MICHAEL: Mom, you don’t even know what’s going on in my life. You have no idea the struggles that I’m going through. I’m not even going to discuss it with you. I’m gonna be friends with Abby whether you like it or not. And if you do anything else to Abby–Mom, if you do anything else to Abby, I’ll shut you out. You won’t be a part of my life anymore.
CARLY: You don’t mean that.
MICHAEL: Yes, I do, mom. Don’t tell me what I mean.
CARLY: You’ve been through hell. So many horrible things have happened to you. Things that I couldn’t protect you from. If I can stop you from making this mistake, you bet I will!
MICHAEL: Like Abby? I don’t want you to save me from Abby, mom. And I won’t let you. Look, you made a lot of bad choices when I was little, and I never throw any of that back in your face. I know you love me, mom. But you can’t run my life.
Both actors were terrific in this scene, by the way. I may hate Carly with a fiery passion, but kudos to Laura Wright for capturing Carly’s genuine fear, panic, and uncertainty over how to keep Michael from getting hurt again.
Chad Duell, on the other hand, is really selling the intensity of Michael’s feelings for Abby, despite the fact that they don’t really know each other that well. And yes, I might have swooned just the tiniest bit during his impassioned speech about respecting and needing her:
MICHAEL: I should have went to the club. I told you that I wouldn’t.
ABBY: No, you shouldn’t have, Michael. But it’s okay.
MICHAEL: No, it’s not okay, Abby. I went back on a promise and I don’t want to be the kind of guy who does that. Like what you want isn’t important. Everything about you is important to me. I’ve never felt anything like I feel when I’m with you. You are amazing.
ABBY: You’re amazing, Michael. I would have been so sad if you walked out and I never saw you again.
MICHAEL: I’m not going top walk out. I need you, Abby. You’re the only one.
So look, show. This is the bargain I’m going to make with you:
I will overlook the overall grodiness of this story, the lack of imagination in the ‘sex worker who needs to be saved’ plot, and the implausibility of a woman nearly in her thirties wanting to spend time with a high school student. I will do this in exchange for Michael and Abby continuing to be entertainingly sweet, sincere and yes, slightly swoony. Do not mess this up, show! Don’t have her killed, don’t make her inexplicably betray him, don’t turn this into any more of a misogyny fest that you already have with the whole ‘sex worker needing to be saved’ thing. That’s all I ask of you. Deal?
In other news, apparently we are expected to believe that Nikolas and Brook Lynn stayed out all night clubbing.
Which, frankly… is dubious, at best. Especially since I’m fairly sure this was the last time Nikolas danced something other than a waltz:
(Oh, man. That clip will never not be cringe-inducingly hilarious, will it?)
I’m still confused about why Nik and Brook are on my screen together at all. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, as it allows me to handily fast forward through both of them at once. But… why? Why these two character who have no chemistry, nothing in common, and no reason that makes any sense to be spending time together? I really do think someone in the writers room was just flinging darts at pictures of the cast on the wall and these two ended up the lucky winners.
That would explain so much about Johnny and Lisa as well, actually. Huh.
Despair in the Afternoon 
“This, of course, brings us back to Johnny, and the fact that if he refuses to ‘fess up today even after hearing Patrick’s impassioned plea about how Lisa has tried to kidnap his daughter and kill his wife on multiple occasions now… he really will be dead to me. ”
THIS. This is exactly what I was thinking. Why are they intent on ruining him? And now he owns a strip club?!? *headdesk*
**dont have her inexplicably betray him…**
Just BECAUSE you asked, Abby is NOW DESTINED to sleep with Sonny.
Also, Ima kinda angry too, over Johnny now suddenly being the strip club owner and in a general, a butthole!
Oh, god, You’re right. WHAT HAVE I DONE?
Nik club dancing will always be funny! And the fact that Nik at one point DID HAVE A NECK will never stop being A-MAZ-ING.
Even more hilarious is apparenlty (according to my NYC friends) the only club that is near that particular subway line nik and brooke named check? An Irish pub. ALL NIGHT RIVERDANCING!!!!!!!!
Hey as a chemistry-free vortex as they are…admit it…you would watch that for the lulz.
Oh GH…continuing to miss the point that unlike Sonny..the rest of your audience does in fact know how to use these new fangled computin’ machines.
Now I have this vision of Brook Lynn as a closet riverdancer who tricks Nik into thinking that’s the way all the cool kids are dancing these days. I would watch that story in a heartbeat.
Where do I begin. Johnny Jackhole, I like that! At one time, he had some “sense” of honor.
Where did it go. It escapes how he is willingly dealing with that nut job of a doctor Lisa.
The circumstances under which the new kiddie doc was brought on is just NASTY. But he doesn’t seem too stoopid in telling the stethoscope skank about getting him to sleep w/Robin but not telling him about her HIV status. Brik (brook & nik) makes my milk curdle. The piece-de-resistance., was Michael & Carly’s scene. It really was moving, but made me say “Yeah, Mike, go for the jugular”. Especially when he said: “you made bad choices for me & I never threw it back in your face, People told me Dad & Jason were bad for me and you told me not to listen”. I have reservations about Abby, too much unknown, but she has been good for Michael’s soul.
Johnny used to have a moral code, even if it was a predictably twisted one for this show. That seems to have been thrown out the window now. It’s very disappointing to see him and Dante — the two guys who used to be the only decent ones on the show — both falling down so hard at the same time. *sigh*
Guza writes this crap for us to watch way.