Hello again, fellow General Hospital viewers! I'm not sure if it's because we're reaching the end of the fi-core scripts or what, but the show has felt fairly lumpy of late, and last week's episodes were no exception — we had some major plot movement here and there, but there was also a fair bit of filler. You sort of get the feeling that whoever was writing GH during the strike during this late stretch may have been handed a small assortment of big bullet points they needed to address, told they could wing it with the rest of the show, and left alone to make it happen.
I'm not saying it was a bad week, but it was a weird one, with pacing that wavered between purposeful and aimless. Let's get into it together, shall we?
Thanksgiving II: The Thickening
As mentioned in my previous column, GH's Thanksgiving 2023 was cut in half by the weekend, which meant we had to wait until Monday to see the inevitable kitchen disaster and subsequent pizza delivery. This time around, it happened because Gloria left some onions or something on the stove, and the smoke triggered the mansion's sprinkler system, which soaked the turkey and forced Lois to call the Metro Court and beg Nina to send over a last-minute Thanksgiving dinner for 15 people. Nina obliged, only to be told by Trish that the restaurant was all out of turkey — fortunately for the Quartermaines' dinner guests (and tradition), the Metro Court kitchen now has a brand new wood-fired pizza oven, so we all know what happened next.
Nina, of course, was more than happy to schlep food over to the Qs, because it meant she'd get to see Willow and Wiley without having to go through Michael — or so any rational person would think, anyway. Prior to getting that call from Lois, Nina had already been by the gatehouse, where she'd left a gift basket outside the door and whispered "I love you" while weepy strings played in the background. When they got home and found it, Wiley was thrilled, Willow was touched, and Michael was a pouty little bitch — the same mood he was still in when Nina came by. Aside from the most rabid Carly partisans in the audience, I can't imagine that anyone is enjoying the extra unreasonable version of Michael we're getting right now; even Willow has started to pick up on it and ask him if he can maybe bring himself to dial it down a little.
You all know perfectly well how I feel about the noose the writers have tightening around Nina right now, but I did get a chuckle out of Ned answering the door when Nina arrived with the food, greeting her with a fake smile and a loud "Nina! Remember me? I remember you. Clearly." I also appreciated the few moments the show made for Anna to confront Nina over the way she acceded to Valentin's request that she delete the security footage proving Charlotte broke into Anna's Metro Court suite. It wasn't much — and it admittedly ended with Anna pulling the same "What's Sonny going to say when he finds out" card that everyone seems to be playing these days — but Anna has every right to be upset with a few people in town right now, and it was nice to see the writers remembering that.
You Have Problem with Russians? I Help
Remember what I said before about filler? Well, here we go. Turns out Gloria forgot about those onions because she was distracted by a fight she'd gotten into with a Russian mobster's wife during a game of bingo, after which the mobster in question, "Uncle Pete" Petrov, started threatening Gloria's dog (named Ziti, because Italians). Lois was in the middle of telling Gloria what a big deal it is to piss off members of the Russian mafia when Yuri walked in and offered to help. They tried to refuse, but Yuri wasn't having it; as he told them, "I know I look like nice boy, but I am not always nice. I can handle these people."
As it turns out, Yuri has a connection with Uncle Pete — he gave the guy's nephew trombone lessons, which is so incredibly silly, but I have to admit I laughed out loud — so he was able to arrange for a sitdown between Gloria and Pete. You can probably write the rest of this yourself even if you haven't seen the episode: Gloria mouthed off to Uncle Pete, Uncle Pete threatened to walk out, and the day was eventually saved courtesy of Brook Lynn, who promised to secure some touring work for Pete's brass-playing nephew.
What the point of any of this was, I have no idea. If you read this column regularly, you know I'm not the type to complain about supporting characters getting screentime, but I do tend to think their actions should mean something, and if they have storylines — even mini two-day ones like this one — they should lead somewhere, even if it doesn't happen right away. I'd love for GH to prove me wrong, but this felt for all the world like it was just some random nonsense for Ellen Travolta to play during her quick visit to the set — which is fine for what it is, I suppose, but by the same token, I feel like it'd make a lot more sense for them to actually do something with this rather rich offscreen life they've slowly built for Yuri in particular.
Austin: Still Dead
Speaking of characters who haven't been allowed to do much, it brings me no joy to inform you that last week marks the spot where the small handful of people in Port Charles who were even aware that Austin existed at all started to find out he'd been murdered. Tuesday's episode kicked off with Elizabeth and Portia wondering why he hadn't shown up to work, a mystery that Elizabeth tried to solve by driving out to his apartment. After getting the super to let her in, she quickly deduced that no one had been there in days, then hightailed it back to the hospital to confer with Portia and decide whether they should call the cops.
Dante, meanwhile, was at Sonny's penthouse, where Sonny was trying to leverage his son for information on the Mason case — and telling Dante not to bother investigating the identity of Mason and Austin's mystery boss, because he'd already determined it to be Cyrus. Understandably annoyed by this, Dante tried calling Austin, only to be surprised by the voice of a Pautauk cop named Briscoe, who helpfully informed him that Austin had been shot to death.
As is so often Dante's role at moments like this one, he was forced to at least lightly suggest that perhaps Sonny might have been behind the shooting, an idea Sonny scornfully shrugged off by promising that if he wanted to kill someone, their body wouldn't be found. They parted ways at this point, with Dante on his way to the PCPD and Sonny on his way to meet a mystery individual at the Metro Court.
While Dante and Chase met with Briscoe at the police station, going over the case and discussing interdepartmental cooperation between some gentle ball-busting, Sonny met Ava at the Metro Court, where he not-so-gently suggested she might be the person responsible for Austin's death — and even if she didn't do it, she needed to know she'd make a pretty appealing Suspect No. 1 for the police, if only by virtue of the fact that she was one of maybe four people who was ever even seen speaking to him.
After leaving the police station, Dante went to Mason's hospital room, leading to a fairly pointless but admittedly somewhat amusing conversation between the two. Remembering that Dante's the one who shot him during Ava's foiled kidnapping, Mason yelled that he didn't want to be left alone with him, prompting Dante to invite a nurse and security cop into the room so he could tell Mason his cousin had been murdered. Mason greeted this news with a smirk and asked if Dante had any suspects; Dante asked him if he wanted to cut down on the bunch of prison time he's facing by coughing up the killer's identity in the name of cutting a deal. Mason, unsurprisingly, suggested it had to have been Ava.
Dante didn't seem terribly impressed by Mason's choice of top suspects, but he still went out to Wyndemere to question Ava, at which point she said that the last time she'd seen Austin, it had been at her gallery and it had ended with him leaving alone, many hours before she did — but because she went out the back entrance, where the security cameras (groan) haven't been working, her alibi is very weak. Making matters worse, she went through her mail after Dante left and found a note saying "you're welcome," accompanied by a snapshot of Austin's corpse.
Instead of throwing the note and photo in the fucking fire, Ava called Nina, who hustled out to Spoon Island so she could hear all about, well, everything — the night Ava thought she killed Nikolas, Austin and Mason's connection to Cyrus, the last time she saw Austin, and the way all of this ultimately led back to Sonny through Cyrus' attempts to poach his territory. Again, the sane thing for Ava to do would have been to burn that letter and photo to ash, but she had to tell Nina, if only so Nina could immediately go back to Sonny and give him a hard time for not telling her first. GH just can't resist any opportunity to create conflict between those two!
Pikeman Has a Sad
Hey, remember the Pikeman Group? It's been a minute since we needed to think about those guys, but they're being nudged back toward the front burner. Hume met Sonny at his "restaurant" on Friday, arriving with a briefcase full of cash — double what they paid Sonny last time — and an urgent request that he facilitate another shipment. Telling Hume that the answer was going to be no at any price and Pikeman needed to find a different port, Sonny ended the meeting, and then asked Dex for his thoughts — thoughts which went from "I think you made a mistake, boss" to "I think you're making the right move, boss" in the time it took to come back from a commercial break.
While all this was going on, Carly had spent the last little while conversing with a burger-seeking stranger at the Kelly's counter — an encounter that, for the bulk of the episode, reeked of the type of absurd propping the show's been using for months in order to scream at us that Carly is the cornerstone of the canvas and we must love her. Her restaurant makes the best burger in town! She gives free food to unhoused people who loiter outside, after insisting that they come in! She has a heart of gold and she's a woman of the people! Still, all that aside, the way the camera lingered on the guy at the counter made it pretty clear that he was there for reasons beyond simply admiring Ms. Spencer, and those reasons became clear at the end of Friday's episode. Our mystery man — identified by Carly after he paid his tab as a Mr. Brennan — got up to leave Kelly's, but before he could make his way out the door, he was greeted by Hume, who told him they had a problem with Sonny.
So. The guy who runs Pikeman is in Port Charles, he's staying at the Metro Court, and he likes a good burger. We'll see where this goes, I guess.
Molly's Got Baby Fever
I've been trying like hell to ignore this story, but Molly's sudden and overwhelming case of Gottahaveababyitis took up too much show for me to leave it out of this column, so I will do what I must.
Here's the gist of it: Molly and TJ responded differently to the news of Andrea's miscarriage. They're both broken up about it, obviously, but TJ seems damn near devastated — which strikes me as a bit odd, given that he's a doctor and should be more aware than most when it comes to pregnancy risks, but it's necessary in order to gin up a little conflict for these two. Where Molly was immediately raring to meet with more surrogacy candidates, to the point that she actually scheduled a meeting with their matching professional without checking with him first, he isn't sure if or when he'll be ready to expose himself to that type of potential for heartbreak.
This is pretty classically soapy stuff, and I think I'd be more invested if different characters were involved. I tend to like Molly and TJ, but historically they aren't on much, and giving Molly baby fever runs solidly counter to everything we've been taught about her for… ever, really. I'm not sure there's a GH fan who didn't roll their eyes when a teary-eyed Molly told Kristina that if she couldn't have a baby, she felt like she couldn't be her, or words to that effect. It's all very nakedly plot-driven, which makes it very difficult to invest.
Invested or not, however, we're going to see a lot more of this stuff, because — wait for it — Kristina has re-extended her offer to serve as Molly and TJ's surrogate. Molly has already acknowledged that she'll need to talk it over with TJ, but we all know where this is going. They didn't finally give Kristina her own apartment set for nothing.
As for TJ? While Molly was crying on Alexis and Sam and Willow and Kristina's shoulders, he was unburdening himself to Portia in the always-empty GH break room. Careful not to take sides, Portia basically just reminded TJ that there will never be a "perfect" time to have a child, and anything he's worried about now will just be replaced by other worries later on. Given that the last time Kristina offered to surrogate for Molly and TJ, they both treated her like the most insensitive person in the world, I can only imagine that TJ is going to wonder what the hell is happening when Molly tells him about her change of heart. Then again, speaking as someone who's intimately familiar with the havoc wreaked by… mercurial sisters-in-law, maybe he'll have the experience (and good sense) to shrug and roll with it.
Chase on One Knee
There isn't enough to fill a paragraph with here, but this last development deserves more than a bullet point: Chase closed out Friday's episode by getting down on one knee in the Quartermaine kitchen and proposing to Brook Lynn. This couple has been woefully mishandled for extended periods of time, so their engagement isn't going to be the big deal it might have been under different circumstances, but this was still sweet in all the expected ways: Gloria asked about wedding plans on her way out the door, Lois told Chase she approves of him, and BLQ was utterly mortified and apologetic about all of it; Chase, on the other hand, was just as charming and puppy-eyed as ever.
Domestic bliss is supposed to be the kiss of death for soap characters, but I don't know — Chase and Brook Lynn can both be highly dynamic irrespective of their relationship status when they're written the right way. Similar to Dante and Sam, I think there's a world in which they can be happily-ever-aftered without being closed off from interesting stories. Is that the world we're living in with the current writing staff? I mean, probably not. I just hope they don't make him sing anymore.
On to the bullet points!
Robert invited Diane to Thanksgiving dinner with Anna and Emma
Portia was disappointed to come home for Thanksgiving and discover that Trina and Spencer had made up
Cyrus overheard Laura and Alexis talking about Anna shooting Charlotte
Drew wants Scout to transfer to a private school; Scout and Sam aren't so sure
Finn spent the week sulking about his malpractice lawsuit
Maxie told Felicia that Deception's legal woes have put a dent in her income, which has put her in an untenable position in terms of credit card debt
James wishes Cody was his brother
Felicia insisted that she and Mac can help Maxie out of her hole… and then she seemed to be getting suspicious about Cody's connection to Mac
Sam thinks there's something different about Drew since his return from Pentonville
Sonny wants Michael, Willow, and the kids to come to his penthouse for Christmas Eve
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