To Tracy Angelica Quartermaine, with love.

I put off watching this episode for a few days because I knew it would destroy me. And hey, I was right!

Tracy’s got her entire family (sans Jason because… Billy Miller had already hit his guarantees for the month?) and everyone else she cares about gathered in the Quartermaine living room for an announcement:

TRACY: I love you all. The people in the room are the ones I hold in my heart. The time has come for me to step out of my father’s shadow. I need to make a life of my own. I can’t do it here. Which brings me to my announcement: I’m leaving.

Everyone is shocked and appalled. I feel you, Port Charles.

Sometimes dreams really DO come true!

So, I rage quit this show three weeks ago after Liz told the rapist she’s dating about her rape trauma and he somehow immediately managed to make it all about his pain over the fact that this might prevent her from dating him. HAHAHA, IF ONLY THAT WERE TRUE.

(And then she actually ended up apologizing to him about it? And the show presented this as somehow the most romantic thing ever?  And I think my brain actually exploded?)

Anyway, I just haven’t had it in me to turn it back on since. But a couple days ago I jokingly said that if they killed off Sabrina, I would start watching again… and I now realize I should have aimed a little higher. (Dear show, I will come back if you get rid of Sabrina AND Morgan. Oh, wait.)

YOU’RE WELCOME, EVERYONE.

Everything’s coming up ladies!

Has everyone read the recent interview Frank Valentini gave AfterEllen about the Kristina/Parker story? Because it’s kind of amazing. And not in a good way:

We were talking about [Kristina] and the writers said, “Well, why is that?” And one of them said, “I think she’s making bad choices, not because she’s dumb or naive or because she’s a woman.” That’s what we wanted to get away from—we didn’t want it to be she was making bad choices because she was a woman.

I wasn’t aware of anyone being under the impression Kristina’s bad relationships were the fault of her being a woman, but okay. Good to know that imaginary sexist opinion has been debunked… clearing the way for some even more sexist opinions!

Scenes from an alternate universe.

So Jax most likely purchased a black market kidney from a non-consenting child and then let Elizabeth, Jason, and Lucky believe it was Jake’s for years. That’s fine. I’m fine. EVERYTHING’S FINE.

To avoid having a rage aneurysm about that — or about the fact that Alexis is a pod person who seems more upset about her career problems than her beloved nephew’s death — let’s just all take some deep breaths and enjoy the brief reunion of one of my favorite soap friendships of all time:

JAX: I hope you know that you have a ton of people out there who love and support you, who you can lean on. So you shouldn’t be afraid to just do that.
ALEXIS: Okay.
JAX: Okay? I know it’s hard for you to see right now with all this craziness going on, but you’re more than a lawyer. You’re a mother, warrior, friend… so no matter what happens at that hearing next week, you’re still going to be all of those things. And so much more.

Sure, she nearly went to prison, her husband tried to murder her, and she’s lost all professional respect. But Alexis got a pep talk while drinking wine and gazing into Jax’s impossibly blue eyes. So really, is her life really all that bad?

(Yes, yes it is. Her life is a flaming turd bag and there is not enough wine in the world to fix it.)

The power of Morgan compels you!

He may not remember his life, but Our Lord and Savior Jason Morgan has truly returned! You can tell because otherwise competent women are suddenly utterly unable to function without him. And listen, I know we joke about Saint Jasus a lot, but when characters are literally telling each other to just have faith and he’ll appear, it starts to get a little on the nose, even for me:

ALEXIS: You probably don’t remember this, but I haven’t always been supportive of your relationship with my daughter. I don’t feel that way anymore. She’s always had faith in you, and you’ve just proven once again that her faith is justified. Thank you.
JASON: Thank you.
ALEXIS: [to Sam] Do you want to strangle me?
SAM: No, I loved everything that you said and it happens to be true. Mom, I was lying in that basement and somehow I knew the whole time that Jason would find me.

We all know I have a partisan horse to back in this race, even if that horse has recently been hobbled and is now basically dragging its rider in circles through the mud in front of a symbolically exploded house.

Ten seconds of actual soap. It’s a miracle!

Of the many, many, many reasons the Big Liz Lie was a terrible idea, the resulting destruction of her hard won frenemyships with both Carly and Sam is pretty high up there on my personal list. So even though having Jake hit by a car again is a terrible and unimaginative cop out of a redemption arc, I still really loved this moment:

CARLY: Look, I don’t want to intrude. Sonny’s in the chapel, he’s saying a prayer. And we wanted to be here for Jason… we wanted to be here for you, too.

The novelty of Carly acting like a human being is always a rare pleasure. And the many years of complicated history and enmity between her and Liz makes any truce between them extra meaningful. Unexpected moments of compassion between enemies instead of just shitty people being shitty to each other! What a novel idea for a soap opera!

You had me at lesbians.

I have been so bored with this show lately, guys. SO BORED. Valerie nearly burned to death and all we got was the world’s lamest slap fight? Sabrina and Carrrrrlos are on the run to facilitate Theresa Castillo’s maternity leave, and yet for some reason we still have to endure endless scenes of her emoting? Kiki and Morgan are a thing that is apparently happening for the EIGHT MILLIONTH TIME and oh my god, who cares? No one. No one cares.

And Kristina’s big secret — that she got suspended from school for propositioning a teacher for a better grade — promised to be both anticlimactic and offensive at the same time.

Except Professor Parker is a woman, and in Krissy’s new version of events, she wasn’t so much trading sex for a better grade as making a pass at someone she genuinely thought was seducing her. Things are still ambiguous enough for them to go either way, but guys? We might be getting a gay Kristina, and that is a thing I never knew I wanted, but which I now want MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF. Go figure.

Farewell, sweet Neurosurgeon!

“Self,” I said to myself last night, “you haven’t posted an episode reaction in a while. Let’s do one tonight.” And then yesterday’s episode featured heavy amounts of Kiki existing, Morgan’s emotional problems, and gross Ava/Paul flirtation.

So, let’s talk about Robin and Patrick’s third (fourth? Does that vow renewal after she came back from the dead count?) wedding!

You know, as sad as I am to lose Jason Thompson — and as especially sad as I am to lose him to Y&R instead of a better opportunity somewhere in primetime — it’s just such a relief that Robin is finally done being kidnapped after almost three straight years of captivity. And even if the stylists have been doing their best to soften the blow by making Patrick’s hair as awful as humanly possible lately, and even though their reunion was totally rushed, I’m also glad to see Scrubs fans getting the happily ever after they’ve been waiting for.

When a mob boss loves a hitman…

This is it! The reunion we’ve all been waiting for, the return of this show’s greatest supercouple: Sonny and his favorite killer for hire are together again! Tears were shed, hands were clutched. Maurice Bernard honestly showed more reaction than Jason’s own wife did. Which is only appropriate, considering he was Jason’s life partner first.

And on the flip side, Billy Miller played Jason like a man who’d rather claw his own skin off than sit through more tales of Jason Morgan. Which was, frankly, AMAZING to watch:

And they say romance is dead!

Ah, the couple montage, that beloved soap staple. A chance to revisit the greatest hits of a relationship and make the case for why these two people are meant to be!

And then there’s… whatever this was:

CARLY: Sonny, we’re not some starry-eyed couple that’s going to walk away holding hands and a happily ever after. We destroy each other! We don’t work in a marriage. We have tried so many times and it doesn’t work.

I’m assuming the point of that was to make us feel sad for Carly? And it did, but only in the sense that I’m sad she’s still trapped in the same unhealthy, unhappy, borderline abusive relationship from those clips.