| Scorpio Related Articles and Reviews |
| June 27, 2001 *From Soap Opera Digest-July 3, 2001 Editor's Choice Digest Salutes The Best In Daytime! And the winner is... A Tall Order, All My Children All My Children scribes faced a formidable job when the decision was made to reunite General Hospital transplant Anna with daughter Robin. After all, the storyline has drawn fire: There are GH fans who are irate that Anna was resurrected on another show, and some AMC viewers don't like having a lot of airtime go to a stranger from Port Charles. The writers' first priority was to make the reunion good viewing for their own audience, yet they had to keep GH watchers in mind too. Under intense pressure, they rose to the task. Regardless of where you think the event should have taken place, can we all agree that it was poignant, riviting, boffo? AMC set the stage perfectly with a mistly-eyed Anna stroking a childhood photo of Robin when the Wildwind bell rang. Anna heard a woman inquiring about Edmund and bolted upright. AMC got us ready to start crying with a vintage GH clip of a very little Robin running slow-motion into her overjoyed mom's arms. You didn't have to have seen the original episode or even know the context to get goose bumps. Eyes glistening, Anna stood with a look of puzzled wonder. We knew the amnesiac had total recall. The scene picked up the next day with Anna rushing to the door just after Robin turned to leave. Anna called out Robin's name and the young woman froze, bemused. Of course, she knew the voice, but didn't Anna and Robin's dad, Robert, perish in a 1992 boat explosion? When Anna called her name again, Robin warily turned to face her mum. "Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you," was all Anna could think to say. "Stop it! You're not real...You're not," Robin uttered before she collapsed into Anna's arms. In a nice use of synergy, this, too, was done in slow motion and accompanied by the haunting tune played during the flashback. Because some dunderhead in the news department interrupted the broadcast with a nonurgent update on the fate of bomber Timothy McVeigh, viewers in the East missed the scene in which Anna explained about her memory loss, Anna and Robin discussed the possibility that Robert is alive and Robin met her mom's twin sister Alex. The four days were a melange of acting, writing and technical skills. Finola Hughes (Anna) and Kimberly McCullough (Robin), who are real-life pals, worked their chemistry and played many beats; joy, pain, anger ("Why did you even have me if your whole life is going to be about leaving me?" asked Robin) and guilt ("Not a little girl anymore. You're a grown woman. I missed it, I wasn't there. I'm sorry," lamented Anna in the wake of discovering that her daughter is HIV-positive). There were wise stylistic choices as well. After promising to join Robin in Paris once it's safe, the lens showed a close-up of Anna's stricken face and pulled back as she paced, then sank into a chair. There was another tight shot as Anna flung her arms over her face and sobbed. Then the scene dissolved into an overhead view, as Anna wept alone in the corner. Funny, considering the raging debate, you'd think a second GHer might not help things, but somehow it did. Until now, Anna has seemed out of place, but this link from her past makes Wildwind seem a bit more like home. |