Okay, so while I still don't love a lot of what this writing team is doing — and I'm mildly alarmed by how much seems to be riding on the returns of multiple characters — I have to give them this much: The narrative is a lot more focused lately, and it's also moving at a pretty quick clip. If you're going to annoy and/or frustrate me, at least make it quick, right?
All in all, I have to say last week was probably one of the better batches of episodes that GH has given us in 2024. I have mounds of beef with certain decisions, and we'll get to that shortly, but I was pleasantly surprised by others, and we didn't have to spend every day with Sonny, Carly, and Jason, which is always a plus. Let's dive in, shall we?
Admit You Killed My Baby
As one might have expected, last week's emotional heart resided in the continued fallout from the death of — and the funeral service for — TJ, Kristina, and Molly's baby. I continue to hate the decision to unalive a child who would have been wired into virtually every corner of the canvas, and I'll talk more about that in a minute, but in the interest of dealing with things chronologically, we should back up a bit first — specifically to Jagger arresting Kristina on the floor of General Hospital, which led to a lot of back and forth between Jagger, Sonny, Alexis, and Molly.
The arrest of a woman in a wheelchair can't help but be soapy, even if anyone with half a brain knew it would amount to nothing in the end — which is part of the problem with the current GH, a show that constantly confuses splashy plot developments with actual narrative threads. For all the crying and yelling it caused, Kristina's brush with the law effectively ended on Tuesday, when the judge at the emergency hearing spanked Jagger in open court, telling him he had 48 hours to present viable evidence. The prosecuting attorney then threatened Jagger, saying if he didn't give him an actual case to argue, he'd go after Jagger's badge. This is all more of the ongoing, thuddingly obvious attempt to paint Jagger as the villain in this story, which is a stupid waste of a character who is being played by a talented actor and who could have served as an interesting long-term antagonist for Sonny. I'm provisionally willing to accept it because it seems like this is the only way we're going to get to keep Ava, but I still think it's shitty.
Okay, so Ava — after batting her eyes at Jagger and luring him into her custody battle against Sonny, she is now apparently the victim in his [loud cough] unjust crusade against the wee mobster, which we know because Jagger twisted her arm into giving a quite false statement accusing Kristina of trying to kill her before being accidentally launched through the window of Ava's Metro Court suite. (Why isn't anyone suing the hotel for installing whisper-thin glass? Anyone who's ever stayed in a hotel or motel is 100 percent well aware of the fact that Kristina's fall never would have happened.)
For weeks, it seemed like Ava was destined to leave us, but now, not even Sonny is after her. After scowling Clement into submission, Jason learned that Valentin was behind the dilution of Sonny's meds — information that Jason took straight to Anna, who asked him to hold off on telling Sonny so she could find Valentin first. Jason did not do this! Instead, he told Sonny almost immediately. Sonny had already decided that Jagger must have been behind the med-tampering scheme, but he quickly pivoted to a new plan involving making Valentin think Anna was in danger in order to lure him out of hiding. (When Jason objected to this, Sonny told him that Anna was the one who decided they were enemies. SHE'S THE POLICE COMMISSIONER AND YOU'RE A MOBSTER, YOU BADLY DYED JACKASS.)
Anyway. Because Sonny always has to be written as the smartest person in the universe, he quickly decided that Jagger only wanted Ava's statement so he could get it on the record before he killed her and framed Sonny for it, therefore accomplishing two goals at once — Ava's statement would be public record forever, and Sonny would have one more charge hanging over his head. Sonny tried to convince Ava of this, going to the gallery and attempting to talk her into leaving with him; unfortunately for him — and, I guess, possibly also unfortunately for Ava — Jagger showed up while she was yelling at him to leave her alone, and she left with the FBI agent he brought along.
Anna, naturally, was annoyed with Jason for spilling the beans to Sonny about Valentin, and she hauled him into the PCPD so she could interrogate him about it, using Scott's sudden disappearance — and Jagger's accusation that Jason is behind it — as a thin pretense for doing so. Jason was understandably peeved that he unwittingly aided the escape of the guy who started fiddling with Sonny's meds, while Anna was pissed that Jason so quickly went back on his word, therefore complicating her efforts to find Valentin. She made a vain attempt to appeal to the better angels of his nature, pointing out that he absolutely did not need to go back to working for Sonny, and could instead be a good, present father to his children; in response, like a jackass, he accused her of being just as compromised as he is. (Never. How dare you.)
While Jagger, Sonny, and Ava dealt with the repercussions of Kristina's plunge, each trying to use it to their advantage, the Corinthos-Davis-Ashford clan prepared for the baby's funeral — and right off the top, I have to say it was a sudsy doozy, complete with one poor actor being asked to collapse to the ground in hysterical (and unintentionally hilarious) tears. Here's how it went down.
Molly went to Alexis' house to tell her and Kristina that she and TJ finally settled on a name for the baby, which upset Kristina, who expected to be involved in the decision. Before those two could get too deep into their argument, Jagger showed up to take Kristina down to the station for questioning — and while Alexis was fighting him off, Molly discovered the affidavit that Kristina had planned on filing for custody of the baby. Naturally, she assumed that Alexis had been planning to help Kristina; also naturally — this is a soap, after all — she held onto this information until after the service, waiting until everyone was standing at the grave before she decided to unload.
(Backing up just a bit: TJ and Molly decided to name the baby Irene, in honor of Curtis' mom, while Kristina called her Adele, in honor of Sonny's mother.)
Prior to finding that affidavit, Molly spent a few days slowly coming to terms with the idea that Kristina wasn't blameless in the events leading up to the baby's death, discussing this first with Jordan, then with TJ. By the time everyone was together for the funeral, her doubts had blossomed into full-blown anger — and it erupted in classically soapy fashion, with Molly openly accusing Kristina of prioritizing Sonny's freedom over the health and safety of the baby, ultimately demanding that Kristina admit she's the reason her child is dead. These scenes really highlighted the stark difference between Kristen Vaganos, who has been knocking it out of the park as Molly, and Kate Mansi, who has been digging herself a hole to China with her social media posts and not doing much better with Kristina's scenes. (To be fair, the writers haven't given her a lot to work with, but still.)
I haven't even mentioned that Ric showed up for the funeral! So much going on. Which leads me back to the point I alluded to in the beginning, which is that this baby absolutely should have lived. Just look at the roll call for the service: Molly, TJ, Kristina, Alexis, Ric, Jordan, Curtis, Portia, Trina, Marshall, Stella, Dante, Sam, Joss, Michael, and Willow. In 2024, that's the equivalent of like 100 people, and it underscores the vast utility Irene/Adela would have had; even as an infant, she was connected to a long, long list of characters. (Carly should also have been there, but wasn't for unspecified reasons; for the first time in his life, Sonny decided to stay away so he wouldn't be a "distraction.")
Anyway, here's where we are now: Molly and Kristina have both vowed never to forgive each other, and Molly believes Alexis was in league with Kristina to steal her baby — a belief TJ shared with Jordan, who in turn shared it with Curtis. This is obviously unfair to Alexis, who bent over backwards to stay out of the conflict she always saw brewing between her daughters, but on the other hand, she is letting Kristina stay at her house now. She did her best to talk some sense into Kristina, reminding her that she's named after Alexis' dead sister, and how desperately Alexis wishes she could see that Kristina again, but those efforts landed on deaf ears.
(I also haven't mentioned that Sam was inexplicably played by perma-temp recast Lindsay Hartley, and that the writers chose to have Sam sneer at Ric while he was openly in agony over Kristina and Molly's conflict. Again: So much going on!)
It's patently obvious that there's a ton of soapy conflict ready to be stirred up here; however, there could have been just as much if the writers had elected to keep the baby — and the show would have had the added benefit of a next-generation character with ties to a ton of characters. Alas; this is what we have instead. It'll still give us plenty of opportunities for people to cry and yell, but to what end? What will we have when it's all over? These are the questions that I wish the writers would ask themselves more often. This show is very heavily tilted toward the elder end of the spectrum, and it isn't doing anywhere near enough to set up the next generation of characters, let alone the generations after that. Killing off Irene Ashford-Davis will produce plenty of Emmy-worthy action in the short term, but in the long term, I continue to loudly maintain that it's a senseless loss.
What the Hell Are You Doing Here?
The aftershock from Irene's death was really the A, B, and C story for the week, but if there was a D story, it had to be Lulu's sudden turn for the worse. As you no doubt recall, Laura got a call at the end of the previous week telling her something shocking about her daughter; last week, we learned that Lulu is in danger of liver failure. We also learned that her uncle Cyrus has been visiting her a few times a week and reading the Bible at her bedside, which definitely creeped Laura out (and seemed to serve no immediate purpose other than letting us know the writers haven't forgotten about Reverend Renault).
After notifying Jordan that she'd be less available than usual for the next little while, and notifying Dante about the change in Lulu's condition, Laura set about having Lulu transferred to GH, where she'd have access to a more complete array of around-the-clock options for care. Rocco re-emerged from offscreen hibernation long enough for Dante to have a talk with him about Lulu's turn for the worse, after which Dante headed to the Home & Heart studio so he could give Maxie a heads up.
While Maxie visited Lulu at GH, Dante tried to distract himself at work, only to end up accepting Chase's offer to talk about the situation — which is how we ended up watching Dante try to untangle his complicated feelings about Lulu's condition while also watching Maxie talk about the hours after the explosion that ended up putting Lulu in a coma. You know where this is going, but I'll spell it out anyway: Dante will always love Lulu, but their marriage was over before the bombing, and he knows she isn't dreaming about him in her hospital bed; meanwhile, Maxie remembers that Lulu wanted to tell Dante she still had feelings for him.
I am of the opinion that this type of triangle is awfully lazy, but there's no way the show wasn't going to at least hint at it happening, even if we've seen it so many times that this will be the second time Sam goes through it. It's undeniably soapy. Still, I hope the writers are thinking long-term for Lulu — this is a character who struggled to find a purpose for years before she was written off. Sam and Dante work really well together; if the show is planning to break them up, it should be for a better reason than reuniting a couple that hasn't really been together for years, and wasn't really interesting for years prior to that.
(I'm talking about Dante and Lulu there, but the same goes for Sam and Jason. Please, lord, no more.)
If and when Lulu wakes up, she'll be coming back to a world that's very different from the one she left. Her father is (allegedly) dead, the cursed boat she owned has been blown up, her best friend is renting her house from her ex-husband, and the newspaper she was writing for is now owned by the Cassadine sperm donor who fertilized her egg after it was stolen by Helena and implanted in Bree Williamson. There are a lot of narrative possibilities for Lulu that don't involve rehashing the past is what I'm saying, and this would be a perfect opportunity to explore them. If the only big idea here is a Lante redux, then I don't see a bright future for NuNuLulu.
For now, however, it appears we're on the verge of a full-blown Spencer renaissance, because not only is Lulu on everyone's mind, but her big brother Lucky is back. Friday's show found him being deposited in some sort of cell with a sack on his head, where he was very softly pushed into a wall before a goon pulled the sack off and let us see Jonathan Jackson in all his Emmy-winning glory. Where's all this going? I have no idea, but like the rest of you, I do know that this show has a pretty bumpy track record when it comes to dredging up long-absent characters, especially when they try doing it with several of them at the same time. It's easy to get viewers' attention with splashy stuff like this; hanging onto that attention over the long haul is another matter entirely. It's always going to come down to the stories, and on a show like GH, those stories should use history to inform the characters' decisions while also managing to send them in new directions, surprising us along the way. The potential for greatness is always there. I only hope this regime knows what it's doing right now.
Time for your bullets!
- Cody and Sasha tried having a little afternoon delight, but they were interrupted by Tracy and Violet
- Brad, who is apparently no longer working for Selina, invoked Britt's name to successfully guilt Terry into helping him get an entry-level job as a lab tech
- Anna called an unknown person — possibly Martin? — to try and find Valentin, saying "I need help locating one of your clients"
- Ava told Nina everything about the events leading up to Kristina going through the window, after which they traded apologies and Nina called an unknown person to say "You owe me a favor, and I'm ready to collect"
- Joss gave Trina a hard time about being friends with Ava, and Trina pointed out that Joss is a raging hypocrite for passing judgment while including multiple criminals in her circle of friends and loved ones
- Ava told Trina that Jagger's forcing her to lie about what really happened in her hotel room
- Cody and James talked about how it's bad to lie
- Everyone hates Lois' accent, but she sold a bunch of Deception product on Home & Heart anyway
- Willow told Michael that Jonah liked listening to Mozart
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