Daily Updates

Subject:
Sent:        10/26/96 8:16 PM
From:        Jan Yarnot, jyarnot@netcom.com

CORNERED CHARACTERS THURSDAY, OCT 17.

The underlying theme of the day was how a character reacts to being
cornered.  Excellent writing, which of course made Your Fearless
Updater's job harder.  (The weeks when everyone is boring are easy to
update.  "A. boring.  B. boring.  I have no idea why C. did this stupid
thing.  End of update."  As it is I have 5 closely-written pages of notes
with arrows and pointers: this may take some time.)

1. TOM, CORNERED.
Stefan is in the Shrine to Saint Steve, reading a file on Kevin.  Tom
comes in, and is appalled: "This is my father's office.  I'm going to
have to ask you to leave."  Alan comes in. Tom is feeling threatened.
Alexis comes in, as Stefan's lawyer.  She comes up with the Stupid Soap
Law Fact of the Day, that as she's no longer representing Kevin, there's
no conflict of interest.  Stefan mentions that Tom knew about Kevin's
instability but didn't report it.  Tom (twice): "I'm getting this
distinct grilling feeling."  He mentions Hardys vs. Cassadines, and
Stefan says: "Actually our families have more in common than you might
think.  There's a certain mythology that develops around power: they're
seen as either devils or saints.  Neither of course is accurate, and the
truth, when it surfaces, can be disconcerting."  "What are you getting at?"
blusters Tom.  Stefan points out that Tom was leaving General Hospital
when he discovered the damage Steve had done to it.  Alan jumps in, but
Tom explodes.  "Maybe my father and I had problems, but I never stopped
being proud of him!"  Tom plans to stay and watch that Stefan doesn't
destroy Steve's dream.  Audrey overhears this and comes in, and Alan and
Alexis and Stefan leave to meet later in the conference room (which would
have been a good idea to start with).  Tom vows to be the last one out
and to lock the door to the Shrine behind him, but actually, after he and
Audrey hug and she tells him how proud she is of him, and the sun shines
on the newly-grown Port Charles Mountains in the background, he leaves.
He is wearing African jewelry that I don't remember seeing on him before,
but he's always been wearing it.

2. LUCY CORNERS KEVIN
Lucy is sitting at the prison waiting for them to bring Kevin in.  He
comes into the room, and look!  The guard is Luke!  There's a tap on the
glass, and the Real Guard is bringing Kevin in on the other side of the
glass, it had only been a fantasy.  They pick up their phones.  "Lucy."
"Doc?"  Lucy starts with chitchat:  "Do they let you get out?"  "No,
Lucy, that's the object of this place."  She keeps trying, but he is
disheartened.  She tells him she's fired Alexis, but they will get a
better lawyer.  She worries that "not only have you lost weight, you've
lost heart."  She starts talking about how great it will be when he's
cured and out and they'll get married and have children [Lucy, don't go
there!  Oops, too late!]  When she gets to the "children" bit, alt.Kevin
takes over.  "No children."  He starts to yell.  Lucy starts to try to
reach real.Kevin, but he's withdrawn, and just then the guard comes to
take him back, with Lucy saying "but he'll get lost" and the guard (Nice
Guard, as opposed to Donut-Guard) says "we'll get him back."

Felicia and Mac and the girls bubble into the Brownstone.  "I feel
strange", Felicia says.  She hadn't realized that Maxie and Georgie were
keeping her safe.  She still has to convince herself that Kevin is in
another city in a high-security prison, with no chance of bail.  They
proceed to have a stupid watergun fight.  Ditzy Felicia is back.  Lucy
comes in, in a panic, telling Mac he has to do something.

3. UNCLE LUKE CORNERS CARLY

At the cabin, Carly has opened the door to discover Luke.  "I suppose
Bobbie sent you."  She tries to shut the door, and he busts in: "HOLD it,
little girl!  Up against the wall, this is a bust! ... You've been a bad
girl, playing with things that don't belong to you."  "We don't own each
other!" Carly protests.  "They gotta deserve each other!"  "Listen, baby,"
purrs Luke, "I want you to get what you deserve, believe me, as long as
it doesn't involve your stepdaddy."  Carly feigns ignorance.  "Tony and I
are in LOVE, OK?, and that's something wonderful, and I'll be damned if
I'm going to let you make that ugly."  [Fearless Updater believes Carly
is in love with Tony a lot more than I believed Brenda in the obsession
days!]  Luke smirks, "I don't have to, baby, I think you already did
that, didn't ya?  Tell me, did sleeping with my sister's husband make you
hate her any less?"  Carly denies that she hates Bobbie. Luke responds:
"You're sleeping with her old man, baby, you call that friendship?"
"It's not like that!" ... We didn't ask for this to happen!  We tried not
to!"  "Oh, SWEET Caroline, don't sing me that tune! It is so old and
tired, and so am I.  How was the revenge, babe?  Was it as good as you
hoped?"  "I don't know what you're talking about, OK?  My name is Carly.
Carly Roberts."  "Carly Roberts is dead.  She's been dead for nearly 6
years.  It was real neighborly of her to leave that name laying around
for you ... what does a corpse need a name for anyway, right?  And you
needed an identity.  So you could track down your birth mother and what,
what?  Torture her?"  Carly, cornered: "You are crazy.  No, I came here
to study nursing."  Luke: "You came here to Port Charles to study Nurse
Jones.  How was the course, was it fun?  Was it fun replacing her in that
song & dance and in her kitchen, in her bed?"  "NO!  Look, you stop
that!  You hate me and you always have and you'd just say anything!"

Luke grabs her wrist: "I don't hate you, baby.  I don't.  This is blood
talking to blood.  I know you too well to hate you.  You know, I went to
Florida a couple of times recently and I visited this real sad lonely
woman named Virginia Benson.  OH, she is miserable because the daughter
she raised and loved disappeared and doesn't want to have anything to do
with her."  Carly gives up: "That's not true, I called."  Luke continues:
"You knew you were Bobbie's daughter before you ever walked into General
Hospital.  You knew it before you seduced Tony--" "NO!" "--you knew it
tonight when you laid in that bed and looked in her face.  You knew
Bobbie was your mother.  Now what, WHAT, sweetheart, did you hope to
gain?  You want to make her hurt?  You want to make her pay?--" "Yes!"
"--Make her hurt like you hurt?  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  But whatever it
is, whatever it is, it dudn't matter.  Caroline, it's over.  Because you
just died."  (Fearful)"What do you mean?"  "I mean that my sister will
never know that the woman wrapped around her husband tonight was her
daughter.  I didn't tell her, and neither will you!"  "What DID you tell
her, Luke?"  "That her little girl is dead.  And believe me, I would make
that true, if you didn't have your mother's eyes."

They discuss Carly's "pathetic" life.  She refers to "Bobbie's M.O. -- if
you can't use it, throw it out, the same way she threw me out."  He
denies this, and tells about their early life on the street.  Carly is
heavily into self-pity.  He points out: "Hell, kid, you had your own
room, and a back yard, and a YEARBOOK!"  Carly defends her Grand Passion
with Tony.  She really knows Tony.  She brought him happiness.  Luke
laughs: "Oh, baby, it's a long way to shore from here.  My arms are
getting tired for you."  He tells her it's just sex.  She picks up a
vase: "You and that stupid macho Lord of the Family crap....Your type of
love is pushing your weight around.  That is it.  You don't know nothing
about me."  He tells her he does know she's leaving town.  She protests:
"Luke, that marriage would be a joke if it weren't so sad."  [Let's see,
the double negative of "you don't know nothing about me" with the
conditional "weren't" in that sentence... spotty writing! Does she speak
standard English or not?] Luke tells her she is NEVER to tell Bobbie or
he'll track her down.  He gives her money.  She throws it at him.  They
glare at each other.

In the final scene, Tony is at the cabin.  No Carly.  Has she left, or is
she a body buried in the leaves in back?

4. BOBBIE, CORNERED
Tony says to Bobbie: "You know, maybe if you'd been honest with me, we
wouldn't be in this awful place...What did you think you were doing?"
"I was loving you, and I was BEGGING you to love me."  [Your Fearless
Updater's opinions of Spencer-speak are well documented, I think I'll
ignore this example this time.] Tony points out: "You never gave me a
chance to hurt with you and I think that's what gets to me -- a child,
your only natural born child, is NOT a secret you hide from your husband,
I mean LUKE knew -- who else did?  Laura, Ruby, everybody but me?  What
about Kevin?"  Bobbie fights back: "You can relax, you've got the perfect
excuse to go back to bed with Carly!"  Tony: "I'm not looking for excuses
[unlike his wife!]  Carly and I never expected this to happen."  "Oh,
please, speak for yourself!  Tony, *I*m not looking for excuses either.
[a first!]  OK, yes, I should have told you -- but when I think back to
that child now, not the child I had, the child I was -- it seems like
another life, like another person.  I was 16 and I was pregnant by a
stranger.  I had my baby and I tried to do the best I could by her.  At
least, I thought I did.  I put her out of my head and I tried to put her
out of my heart.  And when you and I fell in love, I wanted to tell you,
but you already knew I couldn't have children so how could I tell you
that I'd already had one and I'd let her go? I was afraid that you
wouldn't understand."  [Nope, she's not looking for excuses, not our Bobbie!]
"You know what? I would have understood anytime.  I would have understood
anytime in the last 8 years.  It would have cleared up a lot of mysteries
for me, it maybe would have gotten me over that wall that you built
around you.  Bobbie, it was so thick and hard that I guess you couldn't
even hear my beating on it."  "What can I say?  I had a past full of pain
and loss and I wanted to leave it there."  "But you didn't!  I just heard
you talking with Luke -- you wanted him to find your daughter!"  Bobbie:
"There were reasons!"  "Yeah, reasons to tell everybody except me."
"Tony, I wanted to, GOD how I wanted to!  I was just afraid that you
wouldn't understand."  "That's great.  So you were afraid of me.  That's
wonderful."  "I was afraid of hurting you -- and yes, I was afraid of
your judgements.  'Cause out of the last few months I don't dare mention
children.  I talk about adoption and you stop speaking to me.  I bring up
the child that we lost and you walk away from me.  You wouldn't even
share B.J.'s birthday with me.  But I tried to understand that.  I tried
to respect your pain and give you space even though I waited up and I
worried all night.  How was I supposed to know you were traipsing around
the forest with Carly strewing flowers and rolling in the hay?"  "You
keep Carly out of this."

Lucas, getting younger and younger with his Reverse SORAS, comes in.
Were they fighting?  No, they lie that it was a "discussion" about
pancakes vs. blueberries.  "It's OK to be mad," the Little Philosopher
pronounces, "As long as you don't hit."

Once he's off to daycare, Tony remembers when he asked Bobbie to marry
him and she was astounded and said "But Tony, you're my best friend."  He
had told her "Friends can become lovers."  Bobbie wants to know "Is that
how it happened with you and Carly?"  Tony:  "This is not about Carly.
This is about a marriage I just discovered was phony from the very
beginning" because if they had really been friends she wouldn't have kept
these secrets.  "What could I have done to earn your trust?"  Bobbie
protests: "You HAD my trust!  I trusted you more than anyone else in the
world!" [not counting Luke and Ruby and Damian and ...] He knows that
Carly tells him everything.  Bobbie doubts that.  Does Tony tell HER
everything?  "I wouldn't know how to lie to her."

Tony has to go fetch Carly.  Bobbie asks: "Do you love her?"  "All I know
is that I'm happy when I'm with her, and that's the only time I am.  I'm
not going to do or undo anything when I'm this angry.  Bobbie, we're in
deep trouble.  I just don't know what the next step is."  She weepily
points out that the next step is to fetch Carly, and he leaves.

Stefan comes to the door as Bobbie is looking at the photo album.  She
makes some excuse about allergies, and he comes in "to tell her that the
hospital is open again."  Bobbie starts to cry openly and Stefan takes
her into his arms just as Luke arrives to see this.  We fade on Paranoid
Uncle Luke, whose worst fears have just been confirmed.