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Liz and Lucky

I should explain my General Hospital fixation.

When I was in 7th Grade, I would get home around two o'clock, and the first thing I did was turn on the television. Two summers before 7th Grade my grandmother got me addicted (and believe me, I wish there was a stronger word) to Days of Our Lives.

She thought I would like the Marlena possession storyline, which I did. (I was eleven.) The following summer I became a huge Carrie/Mike fan (damn you, Carrie/Austin people), and when I had to go back to school, I was infuriated because it meant I was going to have to miss the fall-out from the Austin/Sammy wedding being thwarted by Carrie...and Mike.

(I won't even bother explaining that except to say that the wedding took five days, and it involved Roman, Sammy's father, pretending to pass out in order to stall the wedding. The late 90's were some good times on Days.)

Getting home at 2pm meant I missed Days, and not wanting to ask my mother to tape it for me for obvious reasons, that meant I had to figure out another way to get my soap fix.

Luckily, there was GH.

(Us diehards call it GH.)

General Hospital, I found out, was the steak tartar to Days' beef nuggets. Much better writing, much better acting, and no demonic possessions. (I was 12 now, and demonic possessions were sooo over.)

Not to mention, GH had Liz and Lucky.

How do I explain the magic of Liz and Lucky?

When I first started watching GH, Lucky was still hung up on Liz's sister. Then Liz got raped in the park, and Lucky came to her rescue. This opened up the whole Luke/Laura rape plotline, and made for amazing television.

Over the next two years, Liz and Lucky replaced Zach and Kelly as my favorite TV Couple.

Then it happened...

Jonathan Jackson figured out that he was too good to be acting on soap operas, and he decided to leave.

So they killed Lucky off...sort of.

Horrible Confession That Shows When I Was Fourteen I Had No Perspective: Lucky's supposedly died in a fire that was staged by the evil Helena Cassadine. This happened the week of Columbine. If you had asked me at the time which event saddened me more...Columbine would have come in second...a distant second.

(Forgive the pop culture-fixated teenager I was.)

The only thing worse they could have done than kill Lucky was exactly what they did--recast him.

They gave the role to Jacob Young, who subsequently won an Emmy. Jonathan won one, too, but his was deserved. Jacob ended up leaving anywaym and they replaced him with this jock who could barely string words together.

I wanted to strangle whatever casting people did that switch. Lucky was not a jock. They also made him a policeman, and the idea of Luke Spencer's son becoming a policeman, though it was good for conflict, was so ridiculous, they might as well have taken a cue from Days and had Lucky become possessed by the Devil.

Then, two months ago, long after I'd given up on GH--(New Carly? No, thank you. Old Carly recast as a mob mistress? Not interested)--they decided to bring back Jonathan Jackson.

I couldn't watch. It was too much. It was like a lover who spurned you begging to come home. I couldn't make myself vulnerable like that again.

After Liz with Jason, Liz with Rick, Liz with New Lucky, New Lucky Developing a Substance Abuse Problem, New Lucky Sleeping with Underage Maxie, Liz with Jason again...

I couldn't. I just couldn't.

Then today, inadvertently, I turned on the television--and there they were. Soapnet was airing Friday's General Hospital. Liz was talking about her rape, and how Lucky saved her. I managed to hold back tears until they showed the clip of Lucky and Liz breaking into the church in the snowstorm and pledging themselves to each other.

That was all it took. I lost it.

That was how I found out that Liz and Lucky (the ONLY Lucky) are getting married.

And the little 7th Grader inside me got the best Christmas present ever.

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