Hello again, fellow General Hospital viewers! We're here to discuss the week we all knew was coming, and one Sprina fans have been dreading — specifically, the week that ushered Nicholas Alexander Chavez's Spencer off the canvas. Of course, it's just a hiatus for now, but c'mon — as Queen Wubs pointed out, it's exceedingly likely that Chavez is just playing out the string on his contract at this point, and will presumably be gone for good once he returns and fulfills his obligations to the show. This should be good for him — he's a talented actor, and certainly far better than much of the material he's been handed over the last nine or ten months — but a loss for GH. Here's hoping Mark Teschner pulls off yet another magic act whenever the show decides to recast.
The Needle and the Damage Done
Of course we have to start here. For all I know, we'll end here, since such a high percentage of the action during last week's episodes revolved around what went down between Spencer, Trina, and Esme. (Surprise! I go into these columns without any kind of plan.) I'll start with the core action and work my way out into the ripple effects, if I can manage to do it cleanly.
Spencer and Trina started the week in Paris, where we saw them out to dinner, discussing how Spencer wanted to find his passion in the City of Light while Trina was pursuing hers. This was, of course, a cruel tease on the part of the writers — it's long been lamented that this version of Spencer, fun as he can be, is basically a wealthy layabout without any real life plan or goals, so to script this conversation juuuuuust before we lose him just feels like taunting. Anyway, the camera lingered on the restaurant door after Spencer and Trina left, and — just as we knew she would — Esme stepped out of the shadows and followed them.
While all that was going on, Laura was at Kevin's bedside at GH, pleading with him to wake up. Exhibiting some of the stubborn resilience that kept his psychotic twin brother alive for decades, he quickly regained consciousness, and pretty much immediately told everyone that Esme was the one who knocked him out. He recovered impressively quickly from there — after hearing that Dante and Chase had scampered off to Toronto in pursuit of Esme, Kevin insisted that something was off, although he couldn't quite remember what.
That all became clear after Dante and Chase hit a dead end in Toronto, where they questioned Maggie, found no trace of Esme having ever been at Maggie's apartment, and figured out they'd been sent on a snipe hunt. Under questioning by Detective Bennet, Kevin remembered that he'd seen an Invader corporate card near Esme, and that she was booking a flight to Paris; because of this, Alexis was called to GH to go over all the company's charges over the previous 72 hours. Meanwhile, Dante called Laura, who put him on speaker just as Alexis arrived at Kevin's room. Long story short: Everyone found out together that Esme had indeed paid for the ticket to Toronto with her own card as a fakeout, then gone to Paris instead.
Understandably frantic with concern, Laura secured the use of the ELQ corporate jet from Ned in order to get her ass to Paris, at which point Curtis and Portia insisted on coming along.
Meanwhile, Spencer and Trina, still blissfully unaware of Esme's presence thanks to shitty cell phone reception, were on the Haunted Star a ship Spencer booked for a private cruise of the Seine. Esme, her timing impeccable as ever, lurked her way onto the ship just in time to be caught by the captain… and then brain him with a fire extinguisher before he could tell anyone there was a stowaway on board. Moments later, Spencer left his and Trina's cabin to get them some food; upon noticing that the door to the outer deck was open, he stepped out and saw blood and a fire extinguisher on the floor. Naturally, he started hollering for Trina right away, but it was too late — Esme had already let herself into the cabin and come face to face with Trina, snarkily telling her that she'd come to pay them a visit because she'd been so lonely since Nikolas took off with Ace.
By the time Spencer made it back to the cabin, Trina was nowhere to be found; instead, he encountered Esme, who told him that if he didn't turn around and let her tie his hands, Trina would die. Spencer did as he was told, but not without scoffing at Esme's plan to use Spencer as leverage to force Laura to find Nikolas and Ace; unfazed, Esme told him she was going to inject him with just enough of a potentially lethal drug to make him "obedient."
Before she could do that, Trina busted in with a giant wrench — but instead of just hauling off and whacking Esme with it, she was somehow duped into dropping it when Esme chucked a backpack across the room. This led to a good old-fashioned catfight, with Trina and Esme tussling on the bed before moving to the floor, where Esme had dropped the syringe she'd been planning to use on Spencer. In the game of syringe vs. wrench, wrench wins, so when Trina got her hands back on the wrench and finally applied it with high velocity against Esme's noggin, the fight appeared to be over. Or it would have been, that is, if Spencer and Trina hadn't simply up and left Esme in the cabin with the syringe still on the floor.
Because they were (written as) fools, our forever star-crossed lovebirds only made it as far as the deck before Esme emerged, syringe in hand, and plunged it into Spencer's back, immediately rendering him unconscious. She then turned her attention to Trina, but before she could hurt her, Spencer somehow summoned the strength to get up and grab her… sending himself and Esme overboard in the struggle.
So that's it — that's the exit. I know a lot of people are disappointed in this, and I suppose I tend to agree; the whole "missing, presumed dead" angle has been so overplayed on daytime that I feel like it should only be used in case of extreme emergencies at this point. Given that GH had eons to prep for Spencer's exit, this strikes me as awfully lazy. I can only assume that the goal is to come up with Emmy reel material for Genie Francis and Tabyana Ali, but that could have been accomplished in more creative ways. Even just having Spencer disappear without explanation would have worked, but whatever, this is the story we've got, and at least for now, it looks like Esme's also out indefinitely. Our last sign of Spencer: A shot of one of the porcelain turtle doves, washed up on the shore.
Naturally, all of this ended up making a bunch of Port Charles residents very sad — starting with Laura, Dante, Curtis, and Portia, who arrived on the boat just in time to hear Trina's side of the story. Dante acted as a liaison between that group and the Paris police, which basically meant he had the unpleasant job of informing them that at a certain point, the search for Spencer and Esme shifted from a rescue effort to a recovery mission. We've heard this before, of course — in fact, we heard it about Spencer during the Greenland escapade — but with the Seine's current likely dragging their bodies out to the English Channel, there was no reason for the authorities to do anything but declare both parties presumed dead.
Somewhat hilariously, this led to everyone quickly returning home. Despite initially refusing to believe Spencer was dead, Trina was back in Port Charles before the end of the week with plans to take a semester off. Upon finding Joss in their dorm room, she shared the news with her, at which point Joss called Cam to let him know.
Laura was greeted by Kevin at their apartment, where they had a few minutes of alone time before Sonny showed up to get confirmation. Laura provided it — and also lit into Sonny for beating Cyrus, saying she thought she knew him better and making the patently empty threat to end their friendship if he brought any further violence into her life. At this point, Cyrus showed up too, saying he was there to try and console his sister over Spencer's death. Needless to say, it did not go well, and Cyrus and Sonny both ended up leaving together; in the hallway outside, Cyrus warned Sonny that while he'd given him a pass on the assault charges, it was just a one-time thing because while he might be a believer, he isn't a saint. "That makes two of us," said Sonny.
After all this commotion, Laura could hardly be blamed for just wanting to sit alone on her couch, softly weeping while looking at pictures of Spencer, but she was interrupted by a knock at the door. She opened it to find — surprise! — Nikolas, tears in his eyes and Ace on his hip.
When one Cassadine exits, another one enters, I suppose. Does this mean Adam Huss is going to be full-time as Nikolas for a spell? I have no idea, but without Esme around to press charges, it seems somewhat likely that his legal troubles will disappear all quick and soap-like, allowing him to walk among the living once more. In the short term, this will doubtless lead to all sorts of Sturm und Drang among Nikolas' inner circle, which should give some characters stuff to yell at each other for a few weeks. Over the long term, it's hard to guess what the hell GH still has left to do with this character after yanking him across all corners of his moral compass during the last decade or so, but on soaps, I suppose redemption is always possible. Here's hoping they have a plan.
Moves Like Jagger
That was a lot, right? But wait, there's more — including the return of John "Jagger" Cates, last seen on the late, lamented Night Shift spinoff over a decade ago and now sporting a whole new face.
If you watched Night Shift, you knew Jagger had jumped from cop to FBI agent at some point after leaving GH, and also has an autistic son. Both of these plot points popped up several minutes after a man known only as "John" showed up at Bobbie's, bumped into Carly, and told her he used to work at the restaurant back when it was still Kelly's. After he went in, Carly bumped into Leo and Olivia; Leo went inside to order while Olivia stayed outside to get an earful from Carly about her silence regarding Nina's involvement in the SEC probe.
Seeing Leo pull out a fidget spinner, John figured he was getting agitated by the sight of Olivia and Carly arguing outside, so he pulled up a chair, told Leo he was a safe stranger because he's law enforcement, and started talking to him about bears. Olivia broke off her conversation with Carly once she noticed what was happening, but she quickly softened after he told her he had a grown son who's autistic and he recognized signs of trouble in Leo's behavior. Their conversation was cut short thanks to a phone call that ended with John telling the person on the other end "no one moves before I get there" and high-tailing it out of Bobbie's — but before we talk about where he ended up going, we have to back up a bit and talk about what Anna and Jordan were up to earlier in the week.
On Tuesday, our dynamic duo went to Pentonville, where they paid a visit to Brennan. Smug as ever, he told them that he wanted to trade his freedom for information regarding the identity of the person behind the Metro Court shooting; shutting him down immediately, Anna responded that if he didn't tell them what they wanted to know, she'd tell Sonny he had something to do with the shooting. At this point, Brennan rightly pointed out that Anna had fallen fairly far if her last refuge was "tattling to a scoundrel"; when that failed to upset her, he added that "Cesar Faison would be so disappointed in his protege." That got a rise out of Anna, but not enough of one to get Brennan the deal he'd been looking for, so he ended up telling them that a cache of guns had been stolen en route from Berlin, where the WSB confiscated them, to Bureau headquarters in London; if they could figure out the identity of the local gun-runner who'd been dealing pieces from that collection, they'd be one step closer to figuring out who was responsible for the shooting.
Brennan's tip led Anna and Jordan to a motel where Jordan set up a meeting with an arms dealer named O'Neil. Anna hid while Jordan tried to exchange money for a weapon, but the deal threatened to go sour when O'Neil insisted on taking her to a second location in order to meet up with his "accountant." Jordan balked, O'Neil grabbed her, Anna popped up with her gun drawn — and then "John" burst into the room with a pair of FBI agents, bringing everything to a halt. After lowering her weapon, Anna said he must be the lead agent on the case, at which point he scoffed and asked if she didn't remember him. Looking closer in disbelief, she said "Jagger?"
So it's pretty clear that Jagger was the dude outside the door who scared off the FBI agents during Jordan's interrogation. It's less clear how he ties in with the sloppy-ass shooting at the Metro Court, or why the FBI would have a vested interest in thwarting an investigation into it, but for now, I'm provisionally okay with all of this, if only because Antonio Sabàto Jr. is so very, very upset about his character being recast, which is very, very funny to me. Beyond that, I dunno — there are times when characters return in ways that seem organically tied into a storyline, and there are times when characters return for little apparent reason beyond someone behind the scenes deciding it's time for a character to return. At the moment, this seems like the latter, but I'm not going to get upset about it until this phase of the storyline starts treading water. On the other hand, I'm also preemptively filled with dread by the thought of Jagger organizing the shooting as part of some severely belated, super-doofy attempt to retaliate against Sonny for the way they tussled over Karen a million years ago — not only would it be very silly, but it would also be proof that Jagger quite sucks at his job. On the other other hand, the damn shooting happened last July, and it still feels like we're eons away from having any idea what the hell is going on. Like many soap fans, I'm perpetually a sucker for man-behind-the-curtain moments, but this storyline has dawdled for so long that I mostly just want it to be over with.
All that being said? This new Jagger is pretty all right so far. While I haven't seen Adam J. Harrington in anything else, he hit the ground running in stride, with none of the first-day awkwardness seen in so many new characters/recasts. Thus far, that makes him a marked improvement over the deeply dopey Sabàto.
To the Island and Back Again
In an attempt to keep Ava safe from her stalker — and perhaps put some distance between himself and Nina — Sonny took her and Avery to "the island" last week for an interlude that ended so abruptly that I can only assume we'll be heading back there sometime soon in order to justify the expense of hauling those sets out of storage.
Basically, as soon as they arrived, Dex found one of the guards incapacitated outside the gate of Sonny's estate. Moments later, gunfire erupted; this was no doubt meant to be exciting, but it was so choppily edited and wholly stakes-free that it barely registered at all. In the end, Ava got a cut on her hand from some broken glass, the shooter(s) got away, and everyone jetted back to Port Charles almost immediately. Given how easily their assailant got in and out, Sonny has determined that they're someone who "knows our systems"; this is clearly meant as a hint for viewers who know Jason is coming back, but I'm not sure I want to put any stock in that as anything more than a red herring.
I'm not saying GH wouldn't do it. I'm saying I will be deeply annoyed if they do — partly because it'll be a glaring reflection of just how used up Jason is as a character, and partly because every goddamn story involving Jason or Sonny inevitably ends with both of them going back to exactly the way they were before. So yeah, maybe "Jason turns against Sonny" is the last idea anyone on the writing staff has for this washed up character, but even if they play it out, it isn't going to go anywhere. He'll be brainwashed, or the feds will be leaning on him, or some damn thing. In the end, he'll be Sonny's loyal lieutenant again, leather jacket and all.
Anyway. Sonny returned from the island to deal with Spencer's "death" and returned to the penthouse when Nina happened to be there. She tried to console him, but he said he couldn't deal with her, so she scurried out.
Nina Meets the Press
It was another bad week for Nina — one in which she had to take shit from Lois Cerullo, of all people — but a silver lining came in the form of a fashion reporter named Gemma, who strolled into the Metro Court hoping to get Nina's side of the story after the news of her being fired from Crimson got out. On the record, Nina would only say it was her decision and she was sure Carly would lead the magazine in exciting new directions or whatever; off the record, she made sure Gemma knew the decision was made by Drew, who decided to toss a very successful EIC and replace her with his girlfriend.
From things, here got very choppy and a little weird. After leaving Nina, Gemma went to Carly's office to ask her for comment, at which point the scene cut and we didn't see anything about it again until Olivia bumped into Carly outside Bobbie's and said she'd read the article. From what the two of them said, it's pretty clear that Gemma's article is strongly anti-Carly and anti-Drew, but it's hard to see what the point of all this is when a bunch of it is happening offscreen.
What we did see, lord have mercy, was Carly outmaneuvering Tracy in a negotiation between Crimson and Deception. I've been watching this show for a long time, but I'm pretty sure these scenes are the most offensive thing I've ever seen on GH, and that includes Casey the Alien and Sonny bedding Emily Quartermaine. As fans, we are required to suspend our disbelief in a number of directions, but Carly getting the upper hand over Tracy in a business deal? Never. Never in a million years. I don't care what anyone says, those scenes are non-canon and they never happened.
They did, however, at least give us the pleasure of hearing Tracy refer to Carly as an "innkeeper," so they weren't all bad. Only 99.9 percent.
Tracy Defeats the Widow Muldoon
Also not worth Tracy's time last week was the Finn malpractice suit, which (fingers crossed) appears to have at last reached its final destination. As you'll recall if you read the previous Critical Diagnosis, Martin hired Sam to dig into the Muldoons' past and she quickly discovered that they were in dire financial straits before Mr. Muldoon's death — because they'd been heavily invested in Aurora before the botched merger, of course. The clear implication was that Mr. Muldoon framed Finn for malpractice in a last-ditch attempt to provide for his family, which looked like the case-winner Martin had been hoping for.
Not so fast! Noble Finn, a single father himself, was drearily conflicted over whether it would be against his moral code to expose Muldoon's grieving widow to fraud charges, and at the last minute, he told Martin he just couldn't do it. Martin seemed resigned to losing; fortunately, Tracy — unbeknownst to everyone — was busy fixing the whole thing by spilling the beans to the widow Muldoon out in the hall, and also offering to fix the family's financial situation if she'd be so good as to drop the charges. The deal was struck, the charges were dropped, and that was that, minus a brief post-hearing exchange in which Mrs. Muldoon apologized to Finn and he ever so graciously forgave her.
What did all this mean? Nothing. Where will it lead? Nowhere. This entire storyline has had all the flavor of a boiled shoe, and now we're back where we started. I can only assume that Michael Easton's current contract includes some ironclad episode guarantees that will hopefully be stricken from the next extension.
Okay, that's the biggest stuff from last week. I leave you with your customary handful of bullet points, and a warning that I may be AWOL for next week's column due to travel. I'll do my best, fingers crossed, etc. Until then:
Curtis has some feeling in his legs, but isn't strong enough to stand yet, which prompted a brief temper tantrum before Stella came through with a pep talk
Adam checked out of GH and told his dad to pound sand
Trying to honor Gregory's plea that she stop fighting with Lois, Tracy briefly agreed to Lois' garish plans for Brook Lynn and Chase's wedding, but after Brook Lynn confided she didn't want to get married in Bensonhurst, Tracy took over — but tossed Lois a bone by saying they could all go to Coney Island the night before the ceremony
Michael gave Drew his resignation as CEO of Aurora, but Drew tore it up — after confiding that he intends to keep going after Nina until she's completely ruined, broke, and alone
Taggert is still missing, unaccounted for, and seemingly forgotten in the aftermath of Trina's near-death and Spencer's apparent demise
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