What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

General Hospital – Thursday

I guess I didn’t miss anything yesterday, since everyone seems to be acting normally. Or at least as normal as they’re going to be in Port Charles.

Halloween is here! Emma has decided on the Evie costume (Paul told her it gave her “an edge”), Sam is the Evil Queen (been there, done that), and Patrick is a doctor (a real stretch) along with Danny as his mini-me. “Jake” and the rest of the boys are a football team

Spinelli has stayed behind to work on the “Jake” project. “All Hallows Eve,” he tells us, “is a night when secrets are revealed.” I live in hope, but not really. He’s also answering the door for trick-or-treaters, and Maxie shows up.

Dillon and Lulu are getting ready for The Haunted Star Halloween Extravaganza, but Lulu tells him she doesn’t see how they can be friends again. After a real just one kiss? She’s a little ridiculous. That almost rhymed. The PA, Andy, is editing his behind-the-scenes film and comes across the part where Valerie tells Dillon she slept with Dante and they didn’t know the camera was on. He says “whoa,” but I don’t because I already knew all that.

Ava, who always has the best outfits – today it’s a shocking blue number with black lace detail – is on the phone leaving a message for Kiki, asking her for help with the custody battle. Tracy shows up and says she wants “a piece of work,” but doesn’t mean Ava.

Paul tries to give Dillon some romance advice, and tells him to not give up. Rah-rah.

Andy is supposed to be setting up the music, and Lulu interrupts his film watching. He runs into Valerie in the hallway and tells her she looks smokin’ hot (she’s dressed as a 1950s schoolgirl and “cute” might be more appropriate). He asks if she has a better relationship going on and we both say, “Huh?” Valerie is looking for Lulu and goes in the editing room which is now a dressing room. Lulu is going with sexy cop. Zzzzzz….

Spinelli and Maxie SKYPE with their baby, Georgie, and then say how flawless she is. “A perfect collections of atoms,” Spinelli says.

Tracy is looking for a specific artist that only Ava’s gallery carries. She says that Ava shouldn’t expect Kiki’s help, and that Avery didn’t exactly hit the parent jackpot with a sociopath and a mob boss, but she picks Sonny to be the better parent regardless. I dunno. I like Ava. I like her more than I do Sonny anyway.

Dante tells Sonny the truth about Valerie. Sonny tells him it’s not going to do anyone any good for Dante to wallow in regret and suggests he go to confession.

Lulu tells Valerie that there’s weird tension between her and Dillon now, but Valerie tells her she shouldn’t give up the friendship. She says that Dillon has done a lot for her family and she should give him a break.

Commercial break. I am so tired of everything being “connected.” Sorry, but when I leave the house, I don’t want the phone, computer and television following me. I leave the house to get away from all that.

Ava tells Tracy to get lost, that she doesn’t need the sale that bad. Tracy runs into Paul at the door.

Andy tells Dillon he’d better take a look at the film. Yep.

Spinelli gives Maxie a book on goddesses, because she’s dressed like one and it’s not the first time. She says next time at leastshe’ll know which one she is. Spinelli says she’ll always be a goddess to him and they say they’ll always love each other. I wish they meant it that way. Nathan is hot, but I miss Spinelli, and I was never crazy about Ellie. Although it all seemed like just a vehicle to get Georgie off the canvas.

Elizabeth, now in her cheerleader outfit, is back home from trick-or-treating with the guys. Young Jake still keeps insisting that “Jake” is his father. Elizabeth asks “Jake” to consider adopting Jake and Cameron after they get married.

Nooooo! Maxie just spilled coffee all over Spinelli’s keyboard while the whole shebang was downloading. I actually said, “Noooo!” and gasped out loud and all the dogs looked at me like, what up? What up is that I’d better not have to wait until Christmas for this reveal. I’m more disappointed than Spinelli.

Sam tries to sop the mess up with a towel. Maxie is mortified and Spinelli tells her it’s fine. No. It’s not. She has to leave and suggests he put the laptop in some rice. (?) When she’s gone, Spinelli tells Sam it’s “an unmitigated disaster.” OMG, I can’t stand it.

Elizabeth talks to the boys alone about “Jake” adopting them. The boys are excited about it, and young Jake says he’s on board even though “Jake” doesn’t need to adopt him. This kid is like a dog with a bone.

Paul says he’s there to look at the same collection Tracy was interested in. He tells Tracy that Dillon turned down his funding offer because he wouldn’t feel right taking more money, and Tracy wonders whose child Dillon is. She says they can be supportive by going to The Haunted Star party, and he says he’ll meet her there.

Dante tells Sonny that Dillon knows about his indiscretion because Valerie told him. Sonny says she might be cool, but she obviously has no impulse control, and that he has to tell Lulu before someone else does. For once, I agree with him. Mostly because I want to see the fireworks.

Spinelli uses the hairdryer on the keyboard, when “Jake” shows up. He acts really cute with Danny and he seems like a natural as a dad. I feel Spinelli’s pain with that keyboard. I did the same thing twice in a row and finally got a keyboard you can put in the dishwasher.

Elizabeth tells Patrick that she’s glad “Jake” has stopped with chasing his real identity. And Patrick goes, D’oh! Because he know better.

Ava gets a text from her lawyer saying that under no circumstances will Kiki help her out. She starts to cry and Paul tells her to trust him, that it’s going to be okay. Then he kisses her big time. I’d just been thinking they might be good together.

Tracy tells Maxie she’ll be glad to contribute funding to the film, but she’d like a producer credit and a “teeny, tiny” say in the final cut. Maxie wonders why she bothered to ask.

Lulu and Dillon make up and while they’re hugging it out, Lulu sees a freeze frame of Dillon talking to Valerie on the laptop screen.

Patrick goes humana-humana, and says Elizabeth should try and see it from “Jake’s” side, that he wants to make sure he’s the man she needs him to be. She says blah-blah-blah, because I stopped listening to her a long time ago.

Spinelli says it’s do or die time. It’s back! The laptop is working! Hallelujah!

Jake gets a text from “Unknown” that says, “We’re coming for you.” Great. I hope they don’t come before we find out who he really is.

Lulu asks what’s on the screen and Dillon tells her it’s probably behind-the-scenes stuff. She says she guesses Valerie made the cut and wonders if she did. And then…SHE PRESSES THE BUTTON TO START THE FILM. Please, oh please, oh please.

Sonny tells Dante that being a man means making mistakes and figuring out how to fix them. (I think there might be a little more to it than that, but okay.) Dante says he’ll come clean with Lulu. I am so hoping it’s after she sees that film clip. I’m making popcorn.

Side comment: Since GH ends slightly before the hour, because we all know ABC can’t wait to give you the bad news, I flipped to CBS and saw the preview for tomorrow’s Dr. Phil. Jared Fogle is one huge deviant. I think Subway stock just plummeted to nothing from even that small clip.

General Hospital – Friday

Halloween continues. The Haunted Star is rocking and rolling. Morgan is dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. How 2003 of him.

Dammit! Lulu hits play, but Dillon slams the laptop shut.

Franco and Nina are getting ready for the party or maybe they’re going to have their own party. Franco doesn’t want to give Kiki a ride (I have no clue what her costume is supposed to be – punk hipster?), and tells her to call a car. She’s been banned from the taxi company though, since she threw up in a cab. I guess they don’t have Uber. Ava shows up with baby Avery, who is dressed as a baby unicorn.

Andy shows up and Lulu goes back to tend to her guests. Dillon wants to know what’s up with the behind-the-scenes footage.

Paul shows up while Anna is at the docks. She tells him she thinks he’s part of a cover-up involving the deceased Carrrlos. Paul asks her what she sees when she looks in the mirror, and that he sees a decent person who’s crumbling from the inside out. He says she’s been a wreck since she came back to Port Charles. Then he says it. “You murdered Carrrlos Rivera.”

Sabrrrina (a princess) tells Felix (a vampire) that the baby might not be Michael’s. She tells him about her tryst with Carrrlos.

“Jake” is at (where else?) The Floating Rib with Carly, Michael and Sam. It’s a pseudo bachelor party. Yay! Karaoke time! “Jake” and Sam get up to sing. Their book of songs looks a lot more organized than the one where I do karaoke. I’m disappointed that we don’t get to hear anyone sing.

Spinelli tells Sam that the reconstruction should be completed shortly, but then what? I’ll tell him what. He’s going to see Jason’s face and I can stop putting quotes around Jake’s name.

Elizabeth gets a gift of a family heirloom and note from Audrey, apologizing for not being able to make the ceremony, but sending much love. Since we see her writing it, I assume Rachel Ames either wasn’t able to participate more than that or they didn’t want to pay her for more than that.

Dante tells Nathan (a gladiator) that he’s going to come clean with Lulu. Dante is dressed as a cheating husband.

Dillon tells Andy to delete the footage. Andy says it’s 50% of his grade, but he won’t include that part. I’m a little confused why he just can’t edit it out immediately.

Maxie is hitting up Morgan for some funding. He wants a scene with Darby, who he’s at the party with. I thought he made up with Kiki. WTH? Ohh, I’ll bet I did miss something yesterday.

Kiki tells Ava not to push her or she’ll tell the DA everything she’s ever done. Franco asks her to leave. She begs Kiki to let her fix things, but it’s a no. Ava asks Franco to help with the Kiki situation. She says that none of this would have happened if Franco hadn’t left her to die on the bridge. He says he’ll take it under advisement. She says that when he’s sitting around getting fat off of Nina’s money, to remember that he could have saved Avery from Sonny.

OMG, I think I know what’s going to happen. Dillon is supposed to show “the sizzle reel,” whatever that means, to help them promote the film. Maybe it will be a sizzle in a different way.

Good Lord, I can’t stand it. Something is up with Ellie, and Spinelli says he’s going home at once. No, no, no, no, no. Not before that reconstruction finishes. He leaves a phone message for Sam, saying he has to go, but he’s leaving the laptop with her. Are they on dial-up or something? What takes days to download anymore?

Paul tells Anna that he has enough evidence to convict her, but doesn’t want to send her to prison. Paul planted Carrrlos’s wallet on another body that was too decomposed for them to tell, and had it cremated before anyone could ask too many questions. Or check dental records.

Lulu tells Tracy that she and Dante want to try for another child. Tracy tells her she’s not going to give out any unicorns and rainbows, and that Lulu has enough on her plate.

Valerie tells Dante she made it into the police academy. Valerie and Dante hug it out and Dillon is lurking. Dante wants to tell her about how he’s going to confess to Lulu, but she says it’s not a good time and disappears.

Paul tells Anna that she deserves a break, that she only made one bad decision. He says that maybe she’ll be in a position to return the favor one day.

Sabrrrina says she’s barely holding it together, and Felix tells her she needs to take a paternity test.

Patrick says something to Elizabeth about having cold feet, because she’s getting married “tomorrow.”  Um, even in Soapland, the day after Halloween isn’t November 6.

Kiki makes it to the party. She’s looking for Morgan, who is getting busy with Darby somewhere. I can’t tell if he’s still at the party or they’re at a hotel.

Anna sees Carrrlos! I would so love it if he wasn’t really dead. No body, no dead, I say. Even sometimes when there’s a body, they’re not dead.

Here comes the sizzle reel…. YES! And the remote won’t work. Thank you! Thank you! This just made my Halloween.

Spinelli gives Carly the laptop and asks her tells her to pass it along to Sam. The facial recognition is now 99% complete. These people are going to kill me yet.

The last thing we see is “Jake’s” face turn into Jason’s on the laptop screen. Finally. I hope.

Z Nation

Operation Bite Mark is assessing their supplies, which pretty much consist of a handful of bullets, some batteries, and a few pieces of chewing gum “for repair purposes only.”

Doc wakes Murphy, who’s been dreaming of brains. And I don’t mean smarts, I mean a snack. While helping Doc forage for lunch, Murphy sees a brain hanging from a rope. When he investigates, he falls into a hole. Like one of those cartoon traps. A zombie is there already, eating some brains. When the zombie holds them out to Murphy, he dips his finger in them and puts it across his gums, as though it was cocaine. And it gives him a jolt like the same.

A dude in a steampunk outfit enters the hole, knocks Murphy out and tangles with the zombie, killing him. Murphy wakes up in a lab. Steampunk dude is doing some kind of experiments, and is startled that Murphy seems to have a certain amount of comprehension. Because Murphy has been choked out, he can’t quite speak. Oh, I get it. Steampunk Dude (who actually looks like a middle-aged hippie) set the trap for experiment subjects.

Murphy asks for water. He gets his voice back, and Steampunk Dude brings out a recording of Citizen Z describing Murphy. At least he got a clue pretty quickly. What he decides to do about Murphy is yet to be seen.

Murphy ends up in a shock collar. He says his friends will be looking for him. Steampunk Dude gets a little nuts, talking about the CDC (the organization that Murphy is headed to). Apparently, he’s been hassling them for years, and has a stack of returned mail, with the addresses written in crayon, to prove it. No doubt he has some cease and desist letters too. He also constantly makes notes on cards he keeps on a makeshift Rolodex around his neck.

Steampunk Dude has been banned from Comicon because he was actually serious about being a zombie hunter. He’s created a zombie museum. A lot of nerdy repartee happens while he shows Murphy his collection. He also has an interesting Groot. He says that George Romero working social commentary into horror films has resonance. Murphy sees a poster for Dawn of the Dead and says scary and funny is the way he likes his zombies. There is a whole lot of discussion about Dawn of the Dead. Steampunk Dude says Romero never explained why the dead rise and that’s more horrifying than anything else. Good point. Steampunk Dude says Murphy is to be revered. Geez, you’d think he’d take off the shock collar then. Steampunk Dude has hot running water, and Murphy gets a shower. Probably the first one in who knows how long.

After his shower, Murphy is getting dressed when Steampunk Dude struggles with a zombie. Murphy gets the best of him while he’s distracted, says he must be on his way, and then gets shot in the back with some kind of dart. Shit. Steampunk Dude says that Murphy is only the CDC’s pawn, and if anyone wants to see him, they’ll have to go through Steampunk Dude first. His plans are to have an interactive display in his museum with Murphy.

He puts Murphy in the guest chair and does some kind of public access show called Dead Live, that I imagine is for posterity since there’s no electricity for people to watch TV.  I do learn his name is Dean though. He takes a bone marrow sample from Murphy with a six or eight inch needle (he isn’t sure which) because science is all about trying, and he wants to see if it tells him anything.

In an interview segment, Murphy says he was in prison and being used as a guinea pig for experimental drugs by the CDC. When the prison was overrun with zombies, he was bitten, but survived. He said he made a promise to eat the doctor’s brains that was in charge of the experiments.

We periodically see OBM searching through every house for Murphy in the meantime.

Dean continues to interview Murphy about everything from what happens when he bites someone (he says nothing special, even though we know otherwise, and they flash back to Cassandra) and whether he can control zombies with his thoughts (“that’s how rumors get started”). He tells Dean that he doesn’t know what brains taste like because he’s never eaten them, and Dean responds by saying, “For the first time on television…” When Dean leaves to put the bone marrow sample in the fridge, Murphy taps into the brain of a lab zombie and tells him to cut Murphy’s bonds with a medical tool. Before that can be accomplished though, Dean returns.

Dean has a display of live zombies, chained behind an electric fence. In the “Celebrity Zombie Room,” it’s George RR Martin signing books. Murphy doesn’t know who he is because they didn’t have HBO in prison. Dean says they were both at the last Comicon when the apocalypse happened.  Because the autograph reflexes run so deep, George can still autograph books and Dean says he’ll make a mint when eBay comes back and he has thousands of them. He asks Murphy if his telepathic powers can get George to finish his last book. I’m with him one that. Murphy picks up a manuscript that begins, “Summer is here,” (ha-ha!) and wonders why 800 pages isn’t enough (snort). Murphy asks if he can keep one of the books and slams Dean in the head with it. Running past the exhibit, he sees a chair meant for him. Dean chases him through what looks like an old hotel all the while giving him various monetary incentives to stick around. When Murphy reaches the front door, Dean says 50/50 is the best he can do. Dean pushes a buzzer and tells Murphy to go, but the door is electrified. Dean says Murphy is dangerous and he’s  going to drain Murphy’s blood and freeze it. He keeps using the shock collar on Murphy and its pissing me off.

10K is at the door! Murphy can’t see him, and Dean keeps shocking him, so he can’t do anything. This is a freakin’ stressful moment. Dean goes to the door and 10K says he’s looking for a friend. Dean says he hasn’t seen anyone. 10K isn’t satisfied though and keeps asking questions. He finally leaves, but gets in to the building through the kitchen. He walks past the live display and finds Murphy, with an IV draining his blood.

Here comes the ohshitohshitohshit moment.

Dean comes up behind 10K and shocks him. I guess this is the only way to incapacitate both zombies and people. He wants Murphy to turn 10K. In a zombie way.10K begs him not to turn him into “one of those things.” Murphy says he doesn’t know what 10K is talking about, and Dean shocks him. Murphy tells 10K not to be afraid. 10K says he doesn’t fear Murphy, he hates him and wishes he would die for real. They both get another shock when Murphy says they finally agree on something. Dean fires a warning shot and says if Murphy doesn’t bite 10K, he’ll shoot them both. OBM has heard the shot. Murphy is about to bite 10K when he asks Dean if he’s sure that’s what he wants. Dean says to show him what it’s like to be a zombie. This was probably the wrong thing to say, as Murphy sics the now loose display zombies on him. So much blood has been drained from Murphy, he passes out, and the zombies look at 10K

This is not good. And it doesn’t matter that 10K says, “I’m with him,” pointing to the unconscious Murphy. OBM arrives and has just enough bullets to get rid of the zombies. They wheel Murphy out as he regains consciousness.

Vasquez gets the collar off of Murphy. Doc sets up the IV to put the blood back into Murphy. Murphy asks Roberta to promise not to leave him alone when they get to California and she does. Murphy seems alone and afraid, and it’s a little sad.

IMO, this was one of the best episodes ever. Not only did we get a lot of Murphy’s backstory, it appealed to the nerd in me. The original Dawn of the Dead is one of my favorite horror films, and the banter about it was excellent. The George RR Martin cameo was a real delight as well.