Okay. Uncle, uncle! I give, I give. Leo’s a jerk. Last night’s NIGHT SHIFT opened with him being so crass to Saira about their locker room hookup that I can’t keep defending the guy, no matter how much chemistry they have. Waving her bra at her? What are we, in high school? As someone said to me the other day, “I don’t like nuLeo; he’s angry and he’s short.” “Maybe he’s angry BECAUSE he’s short?” I cracked. I mean, Napoleon complex much? All kidding aside, it goes back to my thing about the show trying to emulate the early Patrick/Robin dynamic. There are two problems with that: we already have a Patrick and Robin, and Patrick wasn’t written so clunky. I can’t speak for anyone else, but even when he was an arrogant cad I liked the guy. 

Moving on, this week on “All My Baby Bumps,” Robin once again looked like she had one too many Twinkies … while on GH, she was getting her ultrasound and looked about ready to give birth to Brangelina-style twins. (As an aside: Massive kudos to NS for spoiling that she’s having a girl a whole week early.) 

You know what NS is beginning to feel like? A very young writer who doesn’t quite have the grammar or the spelling down but has that gorgeous nugget of storytelling potential that tells you in 5-10 years they’ll be an amazing novelist. The Robert and Patrick scenes, for instance, were gold. “I didn’t do it on purpose!” defended Patrick of knocking Robin up. LOL! Then, the silly argument about the French-speaking patient where Robin dubbed her guy a “domestic manwhore!” and put-upon Patrick yelped that he didn’t have syphilis? It’s moments like that where NS excels. 

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised: working with characters that already exist is easy. You stick to canon and you can’t go wrong! Writing ones of your own (and I do think NS is treating Leo like a brand-new character) is much harder. Raise your hand if you have the Great American Novel gathering dust on your hard drive. It’s difficult to get that sucker finished, isn’t it? 

But to end on a more positive note, I think Not Izzie is growing on me, and I still heart Kyle. Props to Adam Grimes for playing the ridiculous senior citizens-with-syph story — and taking on the homophobic soda machine — with aplomb!

originally posted on soapoperaweekly.com