Daily Updates

From: rika1@mindspring.com (Rika)
Subject: PC: The DL56 Zone (Update, Thursday, 7/16/98)
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 21:34:13 GMT
X-Server-Date: 21 Jul 1998 21:30:01 GMT

                           PORT CHARLES UPDATE
                         Thursday, July 16, 1998

First, a big thank-you to the substitute updaters who covered
Thursdays for me over the past month so I could study for my written
exams for my Ph.D.  And now, without further ado:

ROD SERLING:  "Submitted for your approval:  Rika, RATSA's Thursday
updater for PC, returning to her task after a month spent on her
studies.  She turns on the television, oblivious to the perils lying
ahead of her.  She settles into her chair, grateful that Frank and
Julie's sex-in-the-shower scene happened on Wednesday so she didn't
have to write about it or watch it at normal speed.  Remote control in
hand, she awaits the start of the episode, hoping for a Chris/Eve
scene, or perhaps a little something with Victor and Kevin.  To her
surprise, the episode's entire prologue concerns Frank's drug
addiction problem.  She is neither a chemist nor an M.D., yet she is
awash in an unrelenting storyline about a particularly insidious
experimental drug.  Little does this innocent updater realize that she
has just become chief pharmacist in - The DL56 Zone."
(DA-DA-DA-DUM!!!!!)

***********************************************

Yes, folks, if it's DL56 you want to hear about, you've come to the
right place - the "DL56 Zone" update.

Frank is lying in bed in his hospital room, looking miserable.  (Yeah,
Frank, imagine how much worse you'd feel if you had WATCHED your
shower love scene yesterday instead of participating).  Karen comes in
to check his vitals; she shares the cheery news that she's preparing
to cut his DL56 dosage again.  Frank insists that he needs the drug to
stay alive.  Karen agrees that he started taking it for that reason,
but that now he's physically dependent on it.  Frank whines that it's
not his fault - Devlin got him hooked on it.  But he's peddling this
excuse to the wrong person.   Karen relates it to her own junkie past
and remarks that, even though Sonny gave her drugs at first, it became
her responsibility to decide to stop taking them.

Karen then cleverly hands Frank, desperate junkie that he is, some
ammunition to use against her.  She points out that she and Joe are
risking their careers even giving Frank *low* doses of DL56 for detox
purposes.  Frank insists that they're risking his life by cutting the
dosage.  Karen assures him that he seems to be healthy and that his
symptoms are due to drug withdrawal.  Frank demands to talk to Joe;
Karen says Joe is in surgery, and continues to examine Frank.  She
remembers how hard detox can be - but he needs to take it one day at a
time.  She leaves; Frank sits in bed, sulking aggressively.

At the nurses' station (tangent: I miss Grace Sullivan), Karen
discusses Frank's progress with Julie.  Julie hates to see Frank
hurting; she wonders how long it'll be before Frank is back to normal.
Karen suggests that Frank's personality change could be permanent,
based on their experiences with the lab rats who took DL56.  "After
all," Karen remarks, "Frank is a rat himself, so the effect on him
will probably be similar."  (Okay, so I made that up.)

Lark arrives at the nurses' station next, doing that volunteer thing;
Karen asks to talk to her about Frank.  Lark wants to see Frank; Karen
thinks it might be a good idea, but there's one condition.  Lark has
to promise not to give Frank any DL56.  Lark assures Karen that she's
not Frank's supplier.  Besides, Lark knows what Frank is like when he
takes the drug.  Karen explains that Frank *taking* the drug, and
Frank going through withdrawal, are two different things.  At first
his body needed the drug to survive, but now the demands are coming
from addiction.  Lark assures Karen that she wouldn't do anything to
hurt Frank; Karen points out that Frank may claim Lark is hurting him
by refusing to get him the drug.  Lark promises to hang tough;
besides, with Frank's chemist friend in jail, she couldn't get him any
even if she wanted to.

Karen wonders if Frank might have a stash of the drug somewhere; Lark
thinks he was too busy taking it to hide any away.  Lark goes on to
insist that she tried to get Frank to stop taking the drug; she's
certainly not going to help him to get it now.

Evidently Karen is finally convinced that Lark can be trusted, because
when next we see Frank in his room, fidgeting and twitching, Lark
arrives bearing magazines to cheer him up.  Frank slops a little sugar
on Lark and then wastes no time in asking her to score some DL56.  He
has the formula; he needs Lark to find someone to make it.  He rants
about Joe and Karen's lack of experience using the drug on humans.
Lark says she'll find someone to make it; she asks where he has the
formula hidden.  Frank concludes that Lark wants the formula so she
can confiscate it, not to get more DL56 made.  He starts to yell at
Lark, who insists that she and Karen and Joe are trying to help him to
get better.  Frank tells Lark she's stabbing him in the back.  Lark
reminds him of the pending adoption, and asks what good it is to have
a father who's dead.  Frank hugs her; while embracing her, he suggests
that if she wants him to live long enough to be her father, she'll get
him the drug.  She refuses; he pushes her away and yells for her to
get out of his room.  She does.

Out in the lobby, Chris is in the midst of an angry discussion with a
guy from Lance Pharmaceuticals.  Chris accuses him of backing out of
the agreement; the guy says there never *was* an agreement.  After
reviewing the DL56 data, Lance isn't interested anymore.  He is
unimpressed with Chris's talk of a major breakthrough on the horizon -
until Chris mentions that he has positive test results on a human
subject.  The Lance Pharmaceuticals guy listens with interest as Chris
outlines Frank's injuries and recovery.

COMMERCIAL BREAK:  During the commercial, let's consider some possible
brand names for DL56 once Lance Pharmaceuticals is ready to put it on
the market.  How about:
        * Aggressa
        * Maniacor
        * Jerkan
        * Nervosar

Oops - back to the episode!  A Julie/Frank scene - my cup runneth
over.  At least they are fully clothed.  Frank comes out to the
nurses' station, asking Julie why his room feels like a sauna.  She
wants to check his temperature; he snaps at her to stop hovering.
Frank remarks that "Our Lady St. Karen" (good line) doesn't know what
she's doing.  Julie tries to defend Karen and Joe.  Frank can't see
why DL56 can't be like long-term medication for diabetes, high blood
pressure, and so on.  Julie points out that it's experimental, and
that the long-term side effects aren't known.  Frank keeps on
insisting that his body is falling apart without the drug.  He decides
he might as well be talking to a box of rocks; he stomps off,
presumably to locate one and have a long, heartfelt conversation.

Chris strolls up to Julie and asks about Frank's condition.  Then he
asks if Frank wants to get off the drug; Julie explains that Frank
wants what all junkies want - a fix - and he'll do anything to get it.
This is of course music to Chris's greedy little ears.

Back in Frank's room, Karen is filling a syringe with an anti-seizure
medication when Frank arrives back in his room.  He tells her how
terrible he feels; she injects him and tells him his lab tests looked
good.  In another 12 hours they are going to cut his DL56 in half
again.  She assures him that his damaged cardiac-whatever nerve
"appears" to have fully regenerated.  He asks how they can be sure it
won't degenerate again; Karen says they are watching him for any signs
of that.  Frank isn't reassured; he accuses her of waiting for his
heart to fail.  Karen reminds him she took an oath as a doctor, and
she won't take any unnecessary chances with his life.

Frank next tries blackmail, hinting that he'll tell the hospital board
that Karen is giving him an untested drug if she doesn't keep
supplying him DL56.  She reminds him that Joe would suffer too if he
did that.  Then Karen hauls out the heavy artillery - Frank can blow
the whistle on her if he wants, but there is no way the hospital would
approve giving him *any* DL56, especially after she told them about
the side effects.  "Better some than none, huh, Frank?" she taunts,
and leaves.  Frank has a brief violent outburst.

ANOTHER COMMERCIAL BREAK:  Let's think of other products that could be
named "DL56":
* Motor Oil (the car would behave like Christine, in the Stephen
    King novel)
* Carpet stain remover (removes the stain by melting your carpet)
* Personal Computer (you don't need to get a virus to lose your
    files; the processor trashes them every time you power it up)
* Insecticide (it makes the mosquitoes explode, like in the Tabasco
    sauce ad)

And back to the episode.  Garcia arrives for a visit, trying to get
Frank to confess to Devlin's murder.  Garcia suggests that Frank's
obviously uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms establish a pretty good
motive for murder.  And Frank's chemist friend could have provided the
cyanide that killed Dr. May.  Frank denies committing the murders and
tells Garcia to leave; he does, after promising to find out what's
going on.

At the nurses' station, Julie tells Karen that she saw "the man that
passes for Frank these days."  Julie asks Karen if Garcia could be
right in suspecting that DL56 turned Frank into the General Homicide
killer.  Karen admits that she's considered that possibility:  the lab
rats were extremely violent.  That's why it's so important to get him
off the drug ASAP.

Back in his room, Frank is crumpling pages from a magazine when Chris
visits him.  Chris tells him that he can't expect help from his family
or friends - but Chris will help him.  Frank can't see how - Chris
wasn't involved with DL56.  Chris explains that he "paid attention"
when he was at Jake and Karen's lab (well, that's one way to put it).
Chris claims to "feel for" Frank's suffering in detox; he'll give
Frank all the DL56 he wants.  Frank:  "In exchange for?"  Chris:
"Your soul."  (The gleam in Chris's eye at that moment was priceless.)
Chris says he's joking (but I think it was a pretty accurate
assessment), and then explains a bit about the Lance Pharmaceuticals
deal.  Frank demands a cut if he serves as a volunteer subject.  Chris
agrees and they shake hands.  Frank:  "I always wondered what it would
be like to make a pact with the devil."  Chris:  "Now you know."
(This was the best scene of the entire episode, which is damning it
with unfortunately faint praise.)

That ends our journey into the DL56 Zone - and just in time.  Any more
DL56 talk and your updater would need to go into detox!

And the grand total of DL56 mentions in this episode:  20
---------------------------
Rika
Thursday PC updater