Sometimes I worry that I’m running out of new and exciting ways to say OMG, HATE. Luckily, those resourceful Germans have come up with perhaps the perfect word to describe so many characters on this show: Backpfeifengesicht! (AKA “a face badly in need of a fist” — see? PERFECT.)
Take Spinelli — remember when I found myself softening toward him and it was all very weird and confusing with the non-hatred and toned down nicknames and acting like a real boy for once?
Yeah:
MAXIE: Why wouldn’t I want to? He’s everything a woman could want in a husband.
SPINELLI: [incredulous] A liar and a murderer?
OMG, I BACKPFEIFENGESICHT him so much.
(The best part of the courtroom scenes where Maxie revealed her ace legal strategery was the frequent cuts to Spinelli’s destroyed little sad puppy dog face. If it’s wrong to take pleasure in his suffering, then I don’t want to be right.)
Meanwhile, on a completely NON-IRONIC AND UNRELATED note, Spinelli’s beloved bosses spent some time yesterday casually weighing the pros and cons of murdering a cop. (The verdict? Sonny would really like to but Jason thinks it might be just too much trouble. Our heroes!)
Since this was a conversation so filled with unbelievable douchebaggery that I would be here all day transcribing every line where I shouted at the screen, I will spare you most of the details. But basically: all of their recent problems are McBain’s fault and not the result of their own actions.
SONNY: Did you talk to her?
JASON: Yeah, she defends him. She said McBain’s not the problem. I am, because I can’t promise to love this kid. [Ed. note: Ding, ding, ding! And we have a winner!]
SONNY: So you and Sam are going through hell, and McBain is exploiting it.
Yes, that is exactly the only possible conclusion to draw from the previous sentence, Sonny. (BACKPFEIFENGESICHT!) I just love both of their convictions that McBain is the real problem and not, you know, Jason behaving like an enormous bag of dicks for weeks now.
At the end of all this excruciating assholery, like light dawning on Marblehead, Jason did finally seem to catch a partial clue…
JASON: Getting rid of McBain doesn’t change the fact that the baby’s Franco’s.
… which Sonny cheerfully lobbed right back over his head:
SONNY: Well, at least she’s not going to be able to keep running to him.
Right. Because if removing McBain won’t change the actual problem of Jason not being able to support his pregnant wife through having her rapist’s baby, at least it will remove the one source of support she currently does have. Win/win!
BACKPFEIFENGESICHT!
But nevermind all that, because this is a thing that was also happening on my tv screen yesterday, and it makes me so very, very happy, y’all:
HEATHER/ANTHONY’S CORPSE = supercrazycouple perfection Y/Y?
(Her making him smile cracked me up so hard for some reason. Heather, I ♥ you forever, baby, you complete wackadoodle.)
TODD/TÉA SNARKING AND STILL CARING = all my fourteen year old dreams revisited.
(The desperation hug at the end made me squee like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t even really want them to get back together, you guys; I just need them to not be fighting any more!)
EARLY LABOR = hint that the “rape” never happened?
(Not that Jason really deserves that this kid be his, but Sam deserves all this bullshit less, so… yeah.)
Also, there was WET TODD, which is one of my personal favorite flavors of Todd:
(IT’S NOT A BAD LOOK ON HIM, IS ALL I’M SAYING.)
This should be a good Friday.
Despair in the Afternoon 
OMG, Spinellli was SO annoying! If it was anyone else who married to protect her boyfriend, I doubt he’d be nearly as outraged, it’s only because it’s Maxie, who he’s still so infatuated with, and is incapable of seeing any faults in her. I’m not crazy of the idea of Jason being a father, but Franco is even worse father material, and Sam definitely deserves this less, so I’ll take the baby being Jason’s over Franco’s. Maybe once it does turn out ot be Jason’s he’ll realize what an idiot he’s been. No comment about Sonny. Sonny is Sonny. Matt and Maxie marrying seemed pretty random, but still better than going on the run, which is what Guza would have done, and I’ll take it. Oh, and PS, SPinelli: JASON, you’re BFF, is a liar and a murderer, and kills FOR A LIVING! Matt killed a a madwoman out self-defence. So maybe you should spout your outrage and Jason instead of acting out of jealousy because she’s not marrying you.
I just really want the rape never to have actually happened. So my ideal scenario at this point would be: Sam leaves Jason for the sake of her child, enough time passes that he turns to Liz in comfort and she turns to someone else (I’m loving the McBain chemistry, but I hate him leaving Natalie, so who knows) and they’re both happy in their relationships when they find out the truth that the kid’s his. Then he decides to stay away for the baby’s safety aaaaand… we’re full circle.
Spinelli’s entitlement, hypocrisy, and bullshit know no bounds. God, I hate him.
Ideally, she wasn’t raped. But I do want her to leave Jason and stand on her own. A scene with Elizabeth comforting Sam abuot being raped would be powerfully tear jerking. I like McBain and Sam’s chemistry, but he’s married. Jason can lie in the bed he made, for once instead of having Sam deciding to forgive him for the millionth time. Maybe this time she can tell him “You’ve crossed the line, I needed yuo and you weren’t there…AGAIN”. I am liking Liz and Jason’s friendship, so I hope it stays that way, I am loving this new and improved on her own two feet Liz. Refreshing. I hope that with these new writers, the women are in healthy relationships and are happy, and don’t feel dependent on a guy.
I know, just as I was starting to warm up to him again, he blows it. I miss the early days when he was adorkable.
It’s actually unclear whether Nat and John are married now — they weren’t when OLTL ended and he’s referred to her as both his wife and girlfriend, I think. I’d really like confirmation one way or another!
I think he sees her faults – he likes to say “I am the only one who can see the real you”, imo, in order to make her feel like he’s the only one who’ll ever accept her and he’s so great for doing it even though she’s so awful. Yeah, I don’t like Spinelli much.
in my scenario we find out that sam is really the con she has been since she came on the show and is conning jason and alexis and was working w/franco, since she hasn’t had any problems about the “rape” since she got the first paternity test. and yes sam does deserve jason turning away from her, she watched Jake get kidnapped and let it happen then went to liz’s house and taunted her about Jake being dead like the baby she threatened to abort many times, then went hired thugs to terrorize liz and cake and then went after liz’s husband.
and still jason not being sure he can raise his tormentor’s son and his wife’s rapist is so far fetched, and she left him. he wasn’t mad about the kid, he was mad about her blabbing about their business to a COP, she expected him to be fine w/everything a day after she dropped everything on him and when he wasn’t she walked out.
and yes spinelli is a hypocrite, esp. since he idolizes a murderer and a child endangering con.
and i want Liz to actually have a romance w/a guy who deserves her and who romances her.and if they do liason jason needs to chase her and she needs to not believe in his feelings, i think at this point she doesn’t believe he loved her. and liz definately does not need to go back to her physical,verbal and emotional abuser lucky.
I disagree that Sam hasn’t had any problems with the rape since the first test. She was visibly devastated at the results of the second test precisely because it confirmed beyond a doubt that the rape had actually happened, something that up until then she’d been able to avoid dealing with on the hope that it hadn’t.
And she walked out on Jason not because she was angry but because she wanted to give him time to sort through his feelings — time which he has now had and yet STILL can’t get past fixating on McBain instead of the real issue of how they’re going to deal with this baby as a couple.
if they do liason jason needs to chase her and she needs to not believe in his feelings, i think at this point she doesn’t believe he loved her.
Agreed! This is the only way it will work for me.
Sam has had many problems with the rape. The first paternity test said “Jason” so she put aside her fear and concentrated on a family with the man she loves. Now, she finds out that Franco is Jason’s twin-the baby is (at this moment) Franco’s and the rape/child has put a wedge between her and Jason. But working with Franco? No, no, and by the way, NO!
Edited to add, great column. And I applaud your appreciation of Wet Todd.
I knew you would.
I knew you knew I would.
“(The verdict? Sonny would really like to but Jason thinks it might be just too much trouble. Our heroes!)”
I just really hope McBain doesn’t turn out to be Sonny or Jason’s son, otherwise Sonny will be REALLY embarassed. Especially after he said he totally learned his lesson about making sure to find out if he was related to a cop first before he decided to kill them.
Oops, I didn’t even think the early labor might have been a clue. I guess I needed today’s giant anvil after all (there’s a giant anvil on today’s show).
Wet Todd *is* pretty nice, and RH usually doesn’t do much for me looks-wise.
Wet Todd grows on you. Like a fungus.
(Sonny? Learn from his mistakes? BWAH!)
I have to disagree with you on Spinelli. If anyone’s face was badly in need of a fist it has to be Maxie. I don’t get where her smug holier than thou attitude with the prosecutor is coming from when a second ago she was admitting to being responsible for the death of a women. It’s her fault these charges are being brought up again in the first place!!! I like Bradford Anderson in his quieter moments. I felt for him and his desperation in getting someone on his side about Maxie.
I enjoyed the soapiness (and legal ridiculousness) and the secret marriage reveal, but I hate the way they’re apparently just dropping the whole issue of he first mate’s death. And yes, it would be nice if someone would point out that Matt would never have been in danger if Maxie hadn’t stupidly reopened the case with her false confession.
But Spinelli is seriously still the worst.
(I do like BA in general — he’s certainly capable of making the character likeable but the writing has been so tone deaf for so long… I have a lot of Spinelli hypocrisy and entitlement rage to work through and him acting shocked and appalled over an accidental murder when he WORKS FOR A HIT MAN is just… flames! Flames on the side of my face!)