Hey, folks! Welcome to the final edition of Critical Diagnosis for 2023. I'm writing this on January 1, which makes us time travelers or something, I guess?
Like the last column, this one tells the story of union writers returning and settling back in with a quickness, although I can already see Van Etten and O'Connor narrowing their focus quite a bit. My notes for the last column were voluminous, while they were quite a bit shorter for this one; I assume this was driven by their perceived need to reset and reframe the canvas before they really started drilling into the stories they want to tell.
Like a number of you, I feel like the last couple of weeks have been a marked improvement over the General Hospital we watched for fairly major chunks of 2023 (or 2022, or 2021, or 2020…), which isn't so much an indictment of Van Etten and O'Connor as it is a commentary on the absolutely brutal nature of head writing for soaps in general. This is an exhausting gig, and I don't think it's built for long-term tenures — in a perfect world, I think these shows should either cycle out head writers after a few years OR hire teams of 4-5 head writers who can more easily manage the burden of churning out story five days a week into perpetuity. In other words, I suspect we're currently getting the best of whatever these two have to offer; six months from now, I also suspect their collective creative tank will be hovering far closer to empty.
But hey. Why borrow trouble today, right? Let's just enjoy — and discuss! — the stuff they're giving us right now.
A Confession Thwarted, Part One
One big thing I'm noticing is that — in stark contrast to the 2023 Fi-Core Era — the current GH is much more focused on a much smaller group of storylines. This is not necessarily a bad thing! It is, however, somewhat comical that last week, a couple of them hinged on characters trying and failing to confess a deep, dark secret. We'll discuss Nina's first, mainly because it feels like this is the story the show's most invested in right now.
Soaps would be nothing without loud, continued echoes of the past, and GH gave us another one last week when Nina, after leaving the confession booth where she unwittingly told Cyrus she'd done some bad stuff that she felt bad about, approached Carly with every intention of unburdening herself about her role in the SEC probe and Drew going to prison. Carly, as anyone could have guessed, quickly assumed she knew where the conversation was going and cut Nina off, accusing her of feeling entitled to forgiveness and telling her she'd have to seek redemption from someone else; Nina, as anyone also could have guessed, got pissed and clammed up, deciding not to come clean with Carly after all.
This is, of course, a resounding echo of the Nina/Carly conversation that happened early on in Sonny's stint as Mike in Nixon Falls, when Nina called Carly from the Tan-O and tried to tell her that her husband was alive. In general, I tend to be annoyed with all of it — as others have pointed out, Carly and Nina are in no way comparable to any of the great female soap rivalries of the past, and more damningly, Carly has rarely if ever been forced to confront her own tendency to be an asshole. The end result, then, is just another meaningless conversation that serves only to drag out a story by having one character be shitty to another character in a way that will never be addressed. Just once, I'd love it if Carly was given cause to reflect after steamrolling someone, and maybe even end up realizing that if she'd shut her endlessly judgmental face once in a while, life would be better for her and everyone around her. Instead, I have every confidence that this conversation will be all but forgotten, and that it was only written in a feeble attempt to trick slow-witted viewers into thinking that Nina would actually end up telling Carly the truth about the SEC probe while the two of them were standing in a hospital hallway.
While all this was going on, Cyrus was talking to the priest he impersonated at the church, asking him how he helps people who come to confession. The priest's rather unhelpful answer essentially boiled down to "confession is good for the soul," a message Cyrus took to heart by privately vowing that if Nina didn't do what was good for her, he'd have to do it for her.
The show let all this lay dormant for most of the rest of the week before bringing it front and center again for Friday's episode, which took place on New Year's Eve. Like half of the rest of Port Charles, Sonny and Nina made plans to celebrate at the Savoy, but she had to work late — which left her alone in her office after Sonny left and Cyrus strolled in. Nina tried fobbing him off on her assistant until he told her to remember that she doesn't walk alone, which was all she needed to put two and two together and figure out that he was the guy across from her in the confession booth when she unburdened her soul.
Most of the time, GH writes Nina like she's consumed with more guilt than any legitimate murderer in the history of the show, but it's also been relatively consistent in at least giving her one or two solid shots against anyone who tries to take advantage of that guilt. That held true here, as Nina lit into Cyrus by telling him he's "more a man of the orange jumpsuit than a man of the cloth" and demanding to know what the hell he wanted now that he had dirt on her. Cyrus, true to (current) form, said he had no intention of sharing Nina's secret with Sonny or anyone else, insisting he only wanted her to experience the spiritual relief that goes along with coming clean.
This is where I repeat for the thousandth time that Jeff Kober is a brilliant actor. On paper, Cyrus has become a frustrating cipher — his actions are perpetually suspicious because he's an island on the canvas and no one is privy to his real intentions — but in practice, he's never less than fascinating because Kober does such a phenomenal job of selling every word that comes out of his mouth. Whether he's threatening someone or praying for their eternal salvation, it always seems like Cyrus actually means it. I tend to doubt that his actual motivations will be anywhere near as nuanced as Kober's efforts to bring them to life, but for the moment, I perk up whenever he's onscreen. You don't know what you're going to get out of him during any given scene, but you can rest assured that it'll be well worth watching.
Anyway, while Cyrus was urging Nina to confess, Sonny was at the Savoy, along with Carly and Michael (having a Very Motherboy New Year) as well as Ned, Olivia, and Lois. Carly, always loath to pass up any opportunity to inflame a conflict, confronted Ned with her mistaken belief that he's the one responsible for siccing the SEC on her and Drew; Ned, in return, once again proved that he's a terrible scheme partner, nearly telling Carly the truth in sheer frustration before Michael got in the middle. Then Sonny barged in, sparking the billionth go-nowhere confrontation between him and Ned. While all of this was going on, Lois was busy reestablishing her credentials as the smartest person in Port Charles by figuring out that Nina must have been responsible for the SEC investigation, with nothing to go on but her wits and Olivia's continued pleas that Lois just shut up and let it go.
Even if you didn't watch a minute of last week's episodes, you know where this is going. In Nina's office, we saw her telling Cyrus that if Sonny was going to hear the truth from anyone, it needed to be her; at the Savoy, we saw Lois pulling Sonny aside to tell him that he had a right to know his entire family was lying to him. Cue the GH theme and Friday's closing credits!
As ever, I'm working spoiler-free here, so I have no idea where that cliffhanger will lead us. Soaps love their red herrings, and I can easily see Lois and Sonny's conversation leading nowhere, but the writers are obviously committed to moving stuff along right now, so I can just as easily see Sonny and Nina ringing in the New Year with an old-fashioned row. I tend to favor the latter, if only because it'll help speed us toward the conclusion of an extremely stupid storyline. I'm resigned to watching everyone in town rake Nina over the coals for reporting a crime; I just want it to be over with as quickly as possible.
A Confession Thwarted, Part Two
Not to be outdone on the not-quite-confessing front, Esme dialed up Spencer last week, meaning to tell him she'd regained her memories — but she canceled that plan when she heard Trina in the background, asking Spencer what Esme wanted. Instead, she made her way to Pentonville, where Heather needed all of five minutes to figure out that her daughter was no longer a goody-two-shoes amnesiac, and all of seven minutes to convince her that she should keep her secrets to herself.
I've been watching this show on and off since the early '80s, so I'm never going to complain about a Heather sighting, and although I think making her Esme's mom is just as silly as any other retconned parentage, I also think these two could be great fun together. Teetering between who she is now and who she was before she lost her memory, Esme's beautifully vulnerable to a classic devil-on-the-shoulder like Heather; although they ended their visit with Heather telling Esme to keep her distance so as not to arouse suspicion, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a series of follow-up conversations.
However that works out, for now we've got Esme seething over Spencer and Trina's love, disdainful of her job working for Alexis, and suddenly adamant that every shitty thing she ever did was absolutely justified. In other words, the useless and dull Esme we've been saddled with since she dragged her ass out of the water is no more; in her place, we seem to have an Esme who's ready to wreak havoc when she isn't busy changing Ace's diapers. If GH knows what's good for it (sigh), the show will keep Esme's dirty deeds simmering on the down low for a long time; I'd love to hang onto a version of the character who makes life miserable for her enemies in sneakily subtle ways for years to come. Give her access to her trust fund and make her Port Charles' twentysomething answer to Dorian Lord!
Spoiler alert: Ain't gonna happen, because Esme stupidly dropped a glove at Wyndemere when she was fleeing the grounds, and Dante — responding to the security breach after Esme busted a window while breaking in — found it and showed it to Laura. One way or another, these secrets are coming out. Goddammit.
Lucy vs. Tracy
Some time ago, I said I didn't care how silly the Deception story got as long as it came down to Lucy and Tracy locking horns. I'm resigned to this show rarely giving me what I really want, but cue the hallelujahs and amens, friends, because at least for the moment, it really looks like GH is interested in dredging up one of its most entertaining rivalries one more time.
The dynamic at Deception these days pretty much comes down to this: Lucy still sees it as her company, but she hates working with Tracy, and she might hate working with Brook Lynn even more. That fed into everything that went down in the Deception offices last week, starting with a furiously entertaining confrontation between Lucy and Tracy that saw both of them reading each other for filth while Maxie looked on in disappointment. If you skipped the show last week, just cue up Wednesday's episode and fast-forward to the Deception scenes — you'll get to see Lucy taunting Tracy by telling her that Laura was the love of Luke's life, Holly came second, and Tracy was a distant third. Tracy gave as good as she got, but she also got an assist from Brook Lynn, who happened to enter the office just as Lucy was telling Tracy she'd die as she lived, unloved and unlovable. BLQ laid into Lucy, asking her who the hell she thought she was to speak to Tracy that way, and — well, look, I don't want to ruin it if you haven't seen it. Point is, it was great, and it inspired Lucy to try and come up with a plan to take care of Tracy once and for all.
I'm not going to lie: That plan is extremely dumb. But it's also EXTREMELY General Hospital in the best way, at least on the surface, and it involves a trio of highly entertaining characters. Here's the deal: After leaving the Deception offices with her tail between her legs, Lucy sought out Scott, telling him she had a way for both of them to end up on top. (Scott, hilariously: "That seems anatomically impossible.") Her big plan? Have Scott marry Tracy and take her for everything she's worth.
Again, I know this is a very stupid plan. But it could be a LOT of fun to watch it unfold, right? This could go all sorts of different ways, and aside from the show suddenly losing interest in the storyline, I can't see a single outcome that won't be entertaining. Whether this ends with Lucy getting her one percent share of ELQ back or with Scott and Tracy genuinely falling for each other, I'm all in.
Here's where we are so far: The Deception crew ended up back at Home & Heart again last week, and Lucy picked that set as the place for her and Scott to stage a fight where she'd insult him so deeply and personally that he'd quit as the company's lawyer on the spot. After the fake argument, Scott sought out Tracy, apologizing to her for his conduct at the Port Charles Grill the week before and lightly buttering her up before scampering off. "I love it when you get into scheming mode," he told Lucy before they staged their fight. I couldn't agree more.
Felicia Gets a Clue
Out of all the front-burner storylines on GH last week, this one got the least screentime by far, but it's there and it represents the show finally doing something with a thread that seemed like it was destined to lie dormant, so I'm taking it.
With Mac off in Argentina on a secret "fact-finding" mission — whatever the hell that means — it's fallen to Felicia to figure out Cody's deal. Fortunately, she was a PI for years, which has left her with the skills it takes to be in tune with the type of well-founded (albeit seriously delayed) suspicion one needs in order to investigate a guy who may or may not be the secret long-lost son of one's spouse.
How does one investigate? Well, if one is Felicia Cummings Jones Scorpio, one shows up at the Home & Heart set, ostensibly to support Maxie but also to surreptitiously sneak off and steal hair from a hairbrush left behind by a stylist who's finished prettifying Cody for his latest appearance on the show. This was a bold move on Felicia's part, and one she undertook only after a conversation with Robert, who urged her to let the whole thing go — immediately before she spoke with Scott, who let it slip that Cody cost him a big payday by dropping his lawsuit against the WSB.
While Felicia busied herself trying to find the truth about Cody, Sasha warned Cody that he should be worried about Felicia's efforts to uncover the truth. Sasha being Sasha, she urged him to come clean, but he pointed out that he couldn't do that without exposing himself to all kinds of legal repercussions, given that he'd lied about being Leopold Taub's son when he was deposed for his scuttled lawsuit against the WSB. As Cody sees it, Mac will be forced to arrest him for perjury if and when he ever admits he lied about his parentage.
Felicia, blissfully ignorant to all of this, took her evidence to a lab, where she asked to have the results expedited. Did a suspicious Sasha watch it all happen? Of course she did. What will she do to help her not-quite-boyfriend? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
That's… kind of it for the week! Here's a handful of bullet points to tide us all over 'til the next column:
Laura, Carly, and Sonny talked about how Bobbie couldn't make it to the GH holiday party, laying the groundwork for the upcoming episodes about the character's death
There were another one million conversations about Kristina serving as surrogate for Molly and TJ's baby, including one with Alexis that pointed out New York law makes it legally risky for genetic surrogacies
Chase and Brook Lynn decided to move their wedding up to the spring in order to make things easier for Gregory
Gregory and Alexis went skydiving together, and kissed after they landed
Liz figured out that the patient whose family is suing Finn for malpractice saw a doctor out of network in Beechers Corners
Spencer found out that Trina had been invited to study at the Sorbonne for a semester, and insisted that she go; she said it'd only work if he went with her, and he quickly agreed
Carly and Drew had sex during a fireworks display
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