General Hospital
Thanks, I HATE IT! Amber Sinclair’s Weekly Soap Review: June 29–July 3: A Poisoner on Retainer, a Bathrobe With a Blade, and a WSB Chief Named John Oliver
EJ poisoned a teen then became her lawyer, Brooke raged for five days, Patty pulled a knife, and John Oliver ran the WSB. Amber Sinclair watched.
AMBER SINCLAIR WATCHED FOUR SOAPS AND DAYTIME NEEDS AN ALIBI
TL;DR: EJ DiMera poisoned a teenager and then signed on as her lawyer, Brooke Logan spent five straight days screaming the same three sentences, a grown man infiltrated a fashion show in a fake mustache, Patty Williams slow-danced with a bathrobe before stabbing her “husband,” and the head of the WSB turned out to be John Oliver, all across The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, General Hospital, and Days of Our Lives this week. Amber Sinclair watched all of it so you did not have to. You are welcome.
The Audacity Award: EJ DiMera
EJ DiMera spent the week poisoning a teenager and treating it like a scheduling item. The arsenic that has Holly Jonasfading in a Salem hospital bed came from his own buried Coriseal, dissolved into the Horton cabin well, and by Thursday he had calmly confessed the whole thing to his fixer without a flinch.
Then he waltzed into Titan, revealed he had been the mystery lender ARO the entire time (it is “ORA” backwards, for “One Rainy Afternoon,” because subtlety is dead in Salem), and gloated that “the DiMeras have finally won.” The cherry on top? Holly, not knowing the man who poisoned her is the man who poisoned her, asked EJ to be her lawyer. He said yes.
Judge Amber Sinclair has reviewed the evidence, and the defendant is billing the victim by the hour. EJ takes the trophy and a signed retainer.
Have a daytime double standard that made you gasp out loud? Send your best “the AUDACITY” nominations to amber@soapoperamagazine.com and we might feature them!
Okay But WHY Though: A Super Soaker Almost Got a Kid Kidnapped
Somewhere in Port Charles, little James spent the week armed with a Super Soaker, and at some point he blasted Cody Bell‘s phone into an early grave. That waterlogged phone happened to be the ONE device carrying Felicia Scorpio‘s frantic warning that “Nathan” is not really Nathan, but his long-lost twin Cassius Faison (allegedly — more on that circus below).
Because the message could not get through, Cassius nearly strolled out of town with the boy before that phone sputtered back to life at the last possible second. So to recap: an entire abduction hinged on a five-dollar pool toy. There were eleven drier ways to foil this.
Amber Sinclair has questions. Port Charles, please do not run your child-safety plan on a device a kindergartner can neutralize with tap water.
Snooze Button: Brooke Logan
Brooke Logan found out her daughter Hope Logan had defected to Logan, and five days later she is STILL yelling about it. Monday she yelled. Tuesday she whipped a velvet box past Katie Logan‘s head. Wednesday she talked to her grown, married daughter, in the recap’s words, “like she’s five.”
Thursday she diagnosed Hope’s new “black leather jacket” as proof of moral decay. Friday she was still at it, until the recap itself finally cracked, “Melodramatic much?!” When the people writing the recap start openly begging, we feel seen.
The Bold and the Beautiful, we have a showroom, we have a runway, and we have one woman saying “you stole my daughter” in forty different fonts. Amber Sinclair needs a nap and an ice pack.
The Ick Factor: Abe Carver
Abe Carver is married to Paulina Price. And yet, the moment his resurrected first wife Lexie Carver — who is quietly dying all over again — invited him into the bedroom, Abe paused, looked down at his wedding ring, slid it off, and set it aside.
The recap asked the only reasonable question: “Um, is this infidelity?” Reader, it is at minimum the paperwork for it. Days of Our Lives, the ick is coming from inside the Carver marriage, and it is wearing a removable ring.
The Dragging: Billy Abbott
We drag Billy Abbott with love, but the man spent all five days spiraling because Cane Ashby got Chancellor. He whined that Cane is the favorite, demanded to know why his mother does not believe in him, announced an engagement and a baby mid-tantrum as if it were a rebuttal, and then, handed a real job as Head of Research and Development, could only muster “We’ll be in touch.”
The recap stopped dignifying it and simply titled the section “Willy-Nilly Billy.” Genoa City, the boy has one setting and it is aggrieved.
The Master of Disguise Award: Remy Pryce
On the biggest fashion-show day of the year, with press and buyers swarming, Remy Pryce needed to sneak backstage to see his ex, Deke Sharpe. His master plan? A hat, some glasses, and a fake mustache. That is it. That is the whole disguise.
He got in, peeled off the ‘stache, planted a kiss, got gently dumped, and vowed he would “never give up.” The Bold and the Beautiful spent zero dollars on that costume budget, and honestly, we respect the hustle.
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Britt Westbourne
Save your hearts. This week we learned that Britt Westbourne‘s terminal Huntington’s diagnosis was fabricated from the very start — a lie Ross Cullum engineered to chain her to Faison’s final project — but here is the gut punch: Britt still has no idea. She’s spent all this time grieving an illness she never had, and she doesn’t know it.
So she thinks she’s dying. She thinks the “medication” her brother Cassius risked everything to deliver is keeping her alive, when it’s actually poison. And for her trouble, she ends the week in a Port Charles jail cell while her mother storms off to go love the twin instead. Give this woman a real ending — and the truth — or give her back. We were finally rooting for her.
The Fatal Attraction Award: Patty Williams
Patty Williams has been holding Diane Jenkins hostage to blackmail Jack Abbott into loving her, which is already a lot. But Friday she truly committed to the bit: she doused herself in perfume, cued up some jazz, slow-danced with Jack’s bathrobe, dropped her own robe, and demanded he “make love, not have sex.”
When he declined, she kissed him and slid a blade into his stomach with a serene promise that they would be “together forever in the afterlife.” Meanwhile, across town, Diane calmly drugged her own captor’s canapés and walked out, because the women of Genoa City do not miss.
Counsel for the defense requests a psychiatric hold and a very long hallway.
Unexpectedly Obsessed: John Oliver
We did not have “the head of the World Security Bureau is John Oliver” on our July card, and yet. As the mysterious “Z,” Oliver descended on the Port Charles docks in a helicopter, casually shot a rogue agent without breaking stride, checked a pulse, and knelt beside a bleeding Josslyn Jacks to deadpan that he was here to help.
Then he sat across from Joss in her hospital bed and let a teenager out-negotiate him into freeing two wanted men, playing the whole thing with the dry, unbothered calm of a man reading a cereal box. It should not have worked. It absolutely did.
Daytime handed a comedian a helicopter and a monotone, and we have never been more delighted. More Z, please.
Sound off in the comments: which daytime defendant deserves the harshest sentence this week?
We missed BTG this week and can’t wait for the upcoming drama?
@soapoperamag 🔥 Beyond the Gates Is Back Monday and Fairmont Crest Is Sitting on a Pile of Secrets 🔥 🎬 PRESS PLAY ON THE FULL REEL 🎬 The wait is almost over, Gatekeepers. 🙌 When the show returns, the drama picks up right where it left off. #Hayley is circling the truth about #BillHamilton and #DaniDupree. #Deanna is spiraling, taking marching orders from her late father. #KatRichardson and #EvaThomas cannot stop competing. And #LeslieThomas is threatening to move in and make Eva's life a nightmare. So which bomb goes off first? We cannot wait to find out. #BTG #BTGSpoilers #BeyondtheGates #BeyondtheGatesSpoilers #Gatekeepers ♬ original sound – Soap Opera Magazine
