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Savannah
I've probably heard it a million times: It takes a tragedy to set people's priorities back on track. Death changes everything. Makes you realize what's important.
Until it's all one long, drawn-out cliche, like beauty is only skin deep.
I begin to believe, from this dance on high, until I clamor for my next breath. Then, I begin to realize I'm not even close to understanding.
GENERAL HOSPITAL's treatment of a child's accidental shooting today (April 9) was a slight improvement over yesterday for its clarification of those cliches into moments of frightening, suffocating truth.
The writers -- to their everlasting credit -- weren't afraid to show what not to do in the event of a tragedy in the form of young, selfish, spoiled brat Lulu, who should know better (where she came from), but doesn't, but can't. They managed to redeem Kate, the fashion editor who has mobster Sonny's heart, while encapsulating what's essentially wrong with Lulu, daughter of Luke and Laura, too much like Luke for her own good... in this one scene.
Kate appears the one with an utter lack of compassion, back at work, preparing for the launch of her new fashion magazine, peeved at her 2nd assistant for not showing up with the specially prepared latte. Lulu appears to be the one with the compassion, late several hours to her new job because of a family tragedy, Michael's shooting.
Yet it is Kate who is the compassionate one, born of maturity which is born of many many more years of firsthand knowledge of what pain feels like. It is she who sounds off at Lulu, putting the young beautiful "spunky" but self-centered girl in her place, asking sarcastically if going around and spreading her pearls of wisdom (namely, ensuring her boyfriend, mob wannabe Johnny, isn't blamed for the hit), especially to a grieving mother, achieved their ends. In doing so, she made Lulu look utterly inhuman and by default herself. For Kate wasn't just attacking Lulu.
I couldn't believe Lulu would go up to Carly, not three feet from a comatose Michael, and ask her repeatedly, insistently, to make sure Sonny was told that Johnny had an alibi. Not even Claudia is that crass, and Claudia's supposed to be the villain. Her only excuse, I must say, is her youth. At that young of an age, Lulu has no idea what she did was so wrong and heartless, and perhaps, in time, inexcusable.
Even when put down soundly and rightly by Kate, I saw nothing in Lulu's face but hurt feelings and hurt ego, then anger at Kate as she slammed stuff around on her desk in front of her boss.
If the entire episode had been about the unrepentant ugliness of Lulu, then I wouldn't even be here type-typing away -- despite my having suffered allergy-related sleep-deprivation for going on almost three months now -- about it.
Before the Paris Hilton vibe sank in my skin like rotting feces, the scene shot to Jason, prodded by Carly, to talk to Michael. Both the character and the actor clearly did not want to, afraid of the emotions that threatened to overcome them both.
Oh how I recognize that impulse to run, to hide, to stifle with small talk, staring at a running TV screen instead of the love of my life, the brief spark of pure unmitigated, unconditional reciprocated joy. The guilt will eat away at me for the rest of my life, haunts me during the sleepless nights as I lay in a post-Prednisone/antibiotic fog.
GH's PTB did what I did not have the strength or courage to do, what soap operas can do better well and above all other TV primetime dramas... they can explore and examine and drag out the cliches of us human beings, until we're staring into the face of God, emotion drowning us until we're gone. They asked Steve Burton as Jason to go into the heart of darkness, as a man, an actor, a father (of two children himself), and play out a scene of grieving as if it were real.
They asked him to go in without the small talk, the stupid distractions, the vanity plays. He had to talk TO Michael, whether Michael responded or not, as if his life depended on it, no covers, no masks, no fronting. Gently, as if a child himself, Jason spoke of when he'd visited Africa just to see if the travel books he'd read to Michael did this continent justice. Then, he compared what he saw in person with what Michael drew as a child, telling the comatose boy he would've loved seeing Africa too, how colorful the vistas and the animals were, how alive.
When he described the young boy's drawings, the thin green line for land, and so much blue above and beyond for sky, that's when I felt just a smidgeon of grief I should've shown my friend, who only passed away in October.
I saw Terri, my son, my in-laws, my father, my future and my past, the many sleepless nights I wondered if I would survive, if I would ever feel normal again. Better yet, or more impossible than it seems, I felt them passing, slipping through my fingers.
Bravo to Steve Burton for bringing his defenses down, and losing himself in the fine, forgotten art of acting. This is what GH should be about, these small poignant moments.
Like Sam said to Jason earlier, it takes a tragedy...
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Apr 10, 2008 1:29 AM
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