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 Inspiration eluded me this week. Being subjected daily to what I call the hayride flashback, Rafe’s clueless flogging of himself, Caleb and Livvie playing their tortured little version of she loves me, she loves me not I was fresh out of musings. Couldn’t find anything to commit to this week. Last week Coggie asked me if I was as blown away as she was by Ian’s remarkable transformation…Thorsten Kaye’s dazzling, nuanced, controlled slow burn. The one episode in a very long time that proved undeniably once again that the caliber of the cast of PORT CHARLES is second to none. And did I see this tour de force performance that had every message board buzzing and tripping over themselves in praise? Of course not. This was the day my VCR decided to misbehave and all I got was squiggly lines on a black background. Provocative drama to be sure. After loyally sitting through so much on again, off again crap to have missed that rare occasion when you sit in front of your screen shaking your head in amazement, mouth hanging open at just how damn good an actor can be, and to have not seen any of it…well not surprising that I can’t shake my crankiness. But still, not willing to let this moment pass unnoticed, nor should it be, Coggie graciously offered to save my butt and offer you a musing of her own in her brilliant, inimitable style and I can’t thank her enough. Enjoy it, she’s wonderful and her sentiments speak to all PC fans out there struggling to hang on, wanting to turn away but always seeing that something extra that makes this show so unique. Those moments may be few and far between these days, but they’re still there. This must have been one hell of a moment because believe me, this high of praise coming from Coggie is special indeed. So read on.
Max
Shape shift, in Iambic Pentameter
In June, PC got canceled. I haven’t missed an episode since.
I wish Like Max wrote in previous columns, the supernatural story arcs begin and end with a bang, but in between, especially in “The Gift’s” repetitive case, the whimper level is almost on par with watching GH (the things I do for a byline).
It’s hard to believe these are the same core characters I used to eagerly look forward to watching in their early years.
Rafe used to be so fresh, so inventive, so naive and yet so worldly-wise as a fallen angel and former vampire slayer, but one taste of earth, and he’s become anger boy, screaming, yelling, hyperventilating, no wonder his portrayer Brian Gaskill has always wanted Rafe to head back to heaven on a “Miracles Happen” note.
Alison always made me smile, laugh, beam with delight at her energetic, bubbly, effervescent antics, baking muffins when the town neared collapse, babbling a mile a minute to convince the nearest smitten boy next door of second chances, surprising me with her sacrificial heroism at crunch time. Now she just whines, and whines, and whines.
Lucy never looked so aged, so haggard. (But that could be the make-up dept.’s sick fascination with heavy eyeliner and not necessarily the actress Lynn Herring’s tendency to fake every melodrama until her persona actually feels it.) If she isn’t wincing, she’s taking a page out of Alison’s playing victim book. Vampire slayer, my ass, she hasn’t slayed a flea.
The others have also been stripped of their interesting, humane personalities and been taken over by plot devices, also frequently bemoaned in previous Max columns.
Sometimes, a plot device takes over completely, on a daily basis, as in the case of the flashback that will not die: Alison and Caleb’s perverted romp in the hay. I’m not kidding, it’s on EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Enough already. The first time felt sick and depraved enough; I needed a shower after viewing the deflowering of a little girl by a fanged horndog. (I kept worrying about the actual comfort level of the married actress and whether she actually slipped her unmarried-and-not-her-husband co-star the tongue inadvertently.)
Then rarely, most rarely, an actor will take over and simply stun me into submission, which is what Thorsten Kaye did as Ian Thornhart the week of September 8th, a Thursday I think.
The classically trained British actor literally transformed his physical features before my very eyes when he attempted to sink his fatal fangs into Kevin after witnessing a tender moment between his foe and his lady love, Lucy, just a moment ago.
He didn’t just go after Kevin, fangs and claws bared. He paced himself, verbally raising the stakes, rhyming poetic threats for God’s sakes, veering from his innate good to his tempting evil at split-second, lightning speed, every converging, divergent thought crashing all over his handsome face. (Maurice Benard/Sonny of GH could take lessons in underplaying from Mr. Kaye.)
Don’t thank the writers. I doubt they penned one word of that obviously improvised scene. Kaye, also a published poet, took over, allowing his character’s shapeshifting feelings—under chemical duress—to direct, produce, write and emote accordingly.
At once coherent and psychotic, direct and drifting, Ian announced his intentions, revealed his innermost demons, confessed his envy, demanded his due, and asked for empathic help—one madman to another—while basically showing just how delicious giving up and giving in to his vampire impulses really is. After that, I needed a shower to cool myself down. Hell, I nearly had an orgasm.
Caleb may be the town’s worst nightmare, the personification of evil, every kid’s monster in the closet. There may be vampires and werewolves, and Lord knows what else out there waiting to scare the living daylights of the unsuspecting passer-by.
But after that one Thursday of Ian becoming the vampire he fought so long to withstand, Caleb and his band of monsters might as well be the Teletubbies.
And amazingly, Thorsten Kaye did it all without benefit of hair, make-up, special effects or sexualized love-making.
He did it, by just acting.
Had there been more of that, I daresay PC would remain on the air long after Oct. 3, with several Daytime Emmys on its proverbial mantel.
Email me musings@soaptownusa.com 
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I knew Thorsten Kaye (Ian) came from solid acting stock, but to literally transform his entire being into a fluid, monstrous, poetic entity before Jon Robert Lindstrom’s (Kevin) very haunted, hunted eyes? Whodathunk?!
To Lindstrom’s credit, the actor did what I would’ve, what any intelligent viewer would, he sat there, forced calm and reason, and prayed for help. Maybe wished just a little that he could be violated by Ian and taste of the dreadful sin that so overwhelms and conquers, a better glimpse into the allure of the vampire than the humping and moaning between Caleb and Livvie.
Port Charles Fans