Apologies for missing the last column, folks — I had high hopes, but a series of inconveniently timed obligations sent the weekend spinning so far out of my grasp that I never had the two or three hours it takes to finish one of these things. Fortunately, this weekend has been kinder to my free time… which means I'm back to bring you recaps and commentary from what turned out to be a fairly wild week in Port Charles. Let's break it down!
How Heather Got Her Bunk Back
I feel like most of us are in agreement that the writers have fumbled the Jagger murder story pretty much across the board, but the good news is that it appears to be over — at least for now, and at least where Alexis is concerned. As expected, Ms. Davis, Esq. ended her most recent stint as a Pentonville inmate last week, albeit only after a series of twists and turns that only ended up amounting to another smoldering heap of folderol.
It definitely bears pointing out that narrative feints are a big part of what makes soaps tick, but the problem here is that the entire story has been built on a fatally flawed foundation. We watched Sonny murder a federal agent in cold blood, orphaning an autistic man in the process, which is a villainous act no matter how hard you try to justify it — and the writers have certainly tried very hard, to the extent that it's been embarrassing and exhausting to watch. Some stories start from a rickety place but eventually produce something worthwhile — I'm pretty sure Casey the Alien ended up giving us Faison, for example — but this particular well was irredeemably poisoned from the beginning, and everything they've piled on top of Jagger's murder to try and conjure up worthwhile drama has only made the situation worse.
The show has wanted us to feel torn about all this. We're supposed to be upset about Alexis going to prison while awaiting trial for a crime we know Sonny committed, but we're also supposed to believe that Sonny was justified in killing Jagger because Jagger was harassing Kristina. When he finally started making noises about confessing in order to spring Alexis, we were supposed to be conflicted about it, because it would take him away from his kids — even though Sonny committed murder of his own free will, permanently separating a father and son while doing so. We were also supposed to be caught up in the alleged drama surrounding Carly's impulsive decision to serve as Sonny's alibi, even though he's a selfish scumbag for involving her in the first place and she's an idiot for going along with it. We were also supposed to care about the way their dumb ruse was keeping them from getting busy with their current quasi-pairings, but neither of those relationships are more than mildly interesting.
A story like this is supposed to feel like an impossible knot that you can't untie without wreaking havoc, in other words, but instead, it's just felt like a massive and annoying waste of time — which is why I doubt anyone was complaining when the gun Alexis tossed in the river suddenly showed up at the PCPD in a package that was designed to appear like a bomb. It caused more meaningless jabbering and running around, and it was transparently the work of Brennan, who is rapidly becoming another Spinelli-style magic button the writers can press whenever they need a deus ex machina to bail them out of a jam, but it's hard to get upset about it when the end result is so desperately overdue.
So yes, Alexis is a free woman again. But before she could get her day in court, we did have to watch one more round of IS THIS THE MOMENT SONNY FINALLY GOES DOWN??!!??, thanks largely to dopey Dex, who bumbled all over Port Charles telling people that the police were in possession of the gun despite the fact that Anna wanted to keep that information under wraps in order to coerce Sonny into turning himself in. One of the people he told was Dante, who suffered his latest crisis of conscience over whether he's a cop or Corinthos first, and then went rushing to the station to try and stop Sonny from confessing.
This is another moment that was supposed to feel like high drama, with the audience feeling Dante's conflict between his father and his sworn duty to uphold the law, but… c'mon. Much as I dislike Sonny as a character, there are definitely ways to pull this off in a genuinely meaningful way, but this was absolutely not one of them. Again, Sonny murdered an FBI agent in cold blood, and even though he's supposed to be some kind of ruthlessly calculating professional, he did this without any kind of plan, or even enough smarts to do it in a secluded area. Of all the times for Dante to feel torn, this wasn't one of them.
Fortunately for Detective Falconeri, none of it ended up mattering, because Martin swooped in at the last second, all lawyerly and belligerent, demanding to know what the PCPD was sitting on, and forcing Anna to admit in front of Sonny that they had the gun, they knew it was Sonny's, and they also knew it wasn't the murder weapon. At this point it was all over but the crying — specifically the crying that the U.S. attorney must have felt like doing after the judge tossed out the charges against Alexis due to insufficient evidence. Theoretically, I suppose the government is still committed to finding justice for Jagger, but given that Jason dissolved the murder weapon in his magical vat o' goo, I'm crossing my fingers and assuming that this case has gone colder than the investigation into the murder of Austin Gatlin-Holt.
The big loser here, at least among onscreen characters, is Heather, who can no longer complain about Alexis stealing the bottom bunk but has also lost a cellmate. That situation may not last long, however; as Ric told Ava later in the week, he's expecting a ruling on Heather's case imminently, and things could go in one of several different directions. He explained these options to Curtis, who summoned him to Aurora under the guise of needing to discuss an "urgent family matter," and they are as follows: One, Heather could get a new trial, which no one wants; two, she could be given a reduced sentence; or three, her crime could be switched to manslaughter, which would likely lead to her release with time served.
As far as Ric knew, Curtis was treating this like urgent family business because he remains a little ticked off about Ric representing Heather in the first place — but the audience knew he was really eager for information because Portia had just told him that she tampered with Heather's blood test. (Kudos to Donnell Turner for managing to keep a straight face when he had to respond with "Babe, what were you thinking?") And you know who else now knows that Portia committed a criminal breach of ethics? Brad Cooper, that's who!
This is a plot twist that makes absolutely no sense, because Brad is a lowly trial hire and Portia is the co-chief of staff, and Portia was well aware that Heather's test results were being investigated. She could have put her thumb on the scale in any number of ways — including trying to find some way of erasing the record of her logging into the lab computer on the day Heather's cobalt levels were changed — but instead, she just stood around chewing her bottom lip while Liz handed the investigation to Brad. It's all very silly, and yet it also rules, because it led to a deliciously soapy exchange between Portia and Brad. After putting up with yet another baseless scolding from her, he figured out she was responsible for the faulty test, printed out the records, and sauntered into her office, where he pushed past her lame attempts to end the conversation, told her he just wanted her to see how hard he's been working, and handed her the proof of her malfeasance before asking whether she'd prefer that he act with "diligence… or discretion?"
Portia might be a big judgmental dummy, but even she can see the writing on the wall when it's this clear. She caved without admitting guilt, telling Brad he didn't need to complicate the case by offering up his theories, and offered to recommend that he be hired full-time at the end of his trial period, "if not sooner." After he went skipping out of the room, she tore up the papers he'd printed out — satisfying in the moment but still meaningless, because he'd already told her he had digital backups too.
This was all very fun to watch, although I can't imagine it's anywhere near the end for Portia's efforts to thwart Heather's release while also making life miserable for Brad. She does have Ava in her corner, after all. I don't hate Portia as much as other viewers seem to, so I'm not necessarily rooting for her to be swept off-canvas as a result of her shenanigans here; more than anything, I'd just like to see her written as a three-dimensional character rather than the shrill jerk she's become. And if that comes with storyline developments that give Brad some real agency rather than getting him mixed up in crimes or being dumped on by everyone in town, so much the better.
Kissing Cousins
The debate between Robert/Holly vs. Robert/Anna will rage on as long as there are people who care about the glory days of both pairings, but one thing I think everyone can agree on is this: the early '90s were objectively not the best of times for either couple. After over a decade of riding high on hot espionage action, General Hospital was about to embark on the Great Eckert Experiment as an anchor for the adult end of the canvas, which meant Robert and Anna were rudely shoved into (temporary) early graves right around the time Holly was resurrected out of hers. There are things about this period that a lot of viewers have a lot of love for, and rightfully so — it's awfully hard to argue with the froth that came churning out of the younger set, and I personally will always give a pass to any storyline that gave Marco Dane something to do on any given show.
What I'm trying to say here is that although I can certainly understand the impulse to go rifling through the show's back pages to try and find some new intrigue in Robert and Holly's shared past, I sort of doubt anyone was hoping the writers would settle on the brief period when Robert was shocked to discover that Holly actually hadn't died in a plane crash. Nevertheless, that's what we're getting — as we discovered when Sasha opened the door to the Quartermaine estate, found Holly standing outside, and hissed "What are you doing here, Mother?"
Before I get critical, I have to pause and acknowledge that this was a wonderfully soapy moment, and also exactly the type of balls-out move that only daytime can offer. We don't see this type of thing often enough anymore. However, while I understand the motivation and applaud the writers being willing to get wild, I'm still not so sure that this will lead anywhere worth going.
To get into all that, let's back up a bit. Before Holly paid her estranged daughter a visit, Sasha found herself in the middle of another chunk of drama dredged up from the early '90s — specifically, Cody telling her that the Serenity estate is on the market with an asking price of $6 million. We don't know much about this guy, but we do know enough to have become wearyingly intimate with his long-held dream of buying Serenity, and because Sasha has the hots for him, she took it upon herself to ask Michael to pony up the down payment. He respectfully declined, but Tracy overheard the conversation and blasted Sasha for forgetting her place as a member of the hired help. Tracy then confronted Cody, who had no idea Sasha was trying to drum up cash on his behalf, and what could have been a testy conversation ultimately turned into another excuse for Tracy to reminisce about what a lovable scoundrel Luke was. She even gave him an opening to ask her for the money himself, but he passed, saying that if he ended up buying Serenity, it'd be because he made it happen himself. (A noble statement, even if he'll have to work multiple lifetimes as a stable hand in order to buy a $6 million estate and turn it into an animal sanctuary.)
While all that was going on, Holly was at the PC Grill, where she was looking at a Deception ad in an issue of Crimson when Felicia walked in to meet her for their lunch date. This led to a conversation about Cody's relationship with Mac — and his relationship with Sasha, whose name caused Holly to look like she'd just swallowed a bug. (To be fair, Emma Samms wears this facial expression quite often since she was diagnosed with long COVID, but still.)
The reason for Holly's alarm became quickly apparent when Sasha opened that door, but her consternation wasn't solely due to the two of them sharing a ZIP code — turns out Holly really made a beeline for the Qs so she could warn Sasha to break things off with Cody before they got more serious. And why would that matter to Holly? Well, it turns out that Sasha is the product of a tumble in the sheets between Robert and Holly that took place during that teeny-tiny window when they were both back in Port Charles in 1992, which makes her Cody's cousin.
Let me pause again to point out something I appreciated here, which is that the writers opted to get all this stuff out in the open with uncharacteristic speed. "What are you doing here, Mother" was uttered in the closing moments of Wednesday's show; by the end of Friday's episode, Holly had already told Felicia and Maxie, while Sasha went straight to Robert's office and asked him to take a DNA test, which he hurriedly arranged through the WSB lab courtesy of Brennan. (There he is again, making stuff happen.) If I had to guess, I'd say this stuff is happening quickly because we're about to lose Cody and/or Sasha, which would be a development I could understand if not whole-heartedly support; if Mac and Robert are getting new-to-them offspring, I'd rather have them stick around for a long while so those new family dynamics could be explored.
Of course, none of that addresses the deeply strange decision to even suggest that Cody and Sasha are cousins. These two have done an exceedingly slow dance of love for months and months, and while I doubt they're anyone's pick for GH's most exciting couple, they've still added some much-appreciated dashes of sweetness and light, and their relationship has been a welcome change of pace for Sasha after her years of torture. I'm all for having more Scorpios, and I appreciate this regime suddenly remembering that the family has dramatic potential, but making these two characters members of the same family is a pretty lame payoff, not to mention rather distasteful.
Well, however this turns out, we now know that Holly is definitely Sasha's mom, and we also know they've had a rocky relationship from the beginning, starting with Holly depositing Sasha at her mother's house after she was born. They struck up a partnership of sorts around the time Sasha entered her teen years, with the two of them jetting around in pursuit of fresh marks, but that apparently came to an end when Holly abandoned Sasha in Llanview during a con that targeted David Vickers. As for how in the hell Holly managed to conceal her pregnancy during the year and a half she lingered in Port Charles following Robert's "death," I guess we're supposed to ignore that part. (Maybe Brennan can fix that too.)
Robert, for his part, didn't seem too surprised by Sasha's revelation, and he also didn't appear upset to learn he may have another daughter who was kept hidden from him for years. (This sort of undercuts Holly's excuse for lying, which is that she couldn't bear to do to him what Anna did with Robin.) The person who seems most annoyed thus far is Maxie, mainly because Sasha didn't share a savory piece of gossip with her. Robert remained super chill when Holly walked into his office, welcoming her with a chuckle and letting her stammer for a bit before suggesting she start by saying "Robert, you have a daughter."
Again, I'm mildly nervous about where all this is going, not least because the show has an abominable track record when it comes to giving '80s faves grown-up insta-children. (Scott needs a whole wing of the Port Charles cemetery just to house all the dead kids he never knew he had until it was almost too late.) But for the moment, I'm enjoying extra helpings of Robert, Mac, Felicia, and Holly.
It's Me. I'm the Match. I Can Save Lulu
Well, I held off as long as I could, but we've reached the point where I can't avoid talking about the storyline that's fated to include Sam McCall's final moments. I know this is a sore spot for a lot of people, and although I've never been a huge Sam fan, I can empathize with anyone who's up in arms about this. Soaps have shown us time and again that being blessed with a long tenure and/or big fanbase is no guarantee that you'll be given a thoughtful exit story, but still — Sam has been a big part of the show for a really long time, and one would hope that if she had to die, it'd happen in a less abrupt and more sensible fashion.
Instead, she'll end up serving as the vestigial tail pinned on this absolute donkey of a storyline, which has led the audience through numerous pointless detours on the way to finally doing what I guess is GH's favorite thing to do when the ratings get bad: dreaming up all manner of silly upheaval as a means of resetting everything and returning to a version of the show that the network thinks we liked better. I don't know about you, but I wasn't exactly pining for Lulu or Lucky during the years they were away, nor was I hoping to see Dante and Lulu reunite. (Or Lucky and Elizabeth, for that matter.) Maybe I'm in the extreme minority! For the show's sake, I hope so. These ratings can't keep tanking forever.
Anyway, the storyline picked up again on Tuesday with Laura at Lulu's bedside, where she was found by Martin, who talked her into taking a walk around the hospital. While they were strolling, she pointed out his new look; she also became, after a period of weeks, the first person in town to note that he'd lost his accent. Sheepishly admitting that he was tired of people asking him about fried chicken, he told her he'd taken diction lessons from Robin Finch, the coach Tracy hired for Lois. By the time they got back to Lulu's room, they found Cyrus there, at which point Martin pulled him into the hallway so they could jaw at each other about who's a bigger jerk. In a parting shot, Cyrus told Martin that he was giving Laura a greater gift than she could ever know, which I suspect may be more than the offhand comment it might have seemed to be in the moment.
While all that was going on, Sam was visiting with Terry, who called her to the hospital so she could tell her that she was a possible match for Lulu — something that became even more urgent when Lulu's ventilator abruptly shut down, causing a crash of her vitals that Isaiah fortunately caught in the nick of time. (He would later be scolded for doing this by Portia, who is evidently unaware of New York's Good Samaritan law, but he got to have dinner with Jordan, so all's well that ends well.) As people at the hospital kept pointing out later, ventilators don't just stop working out of the blue; Lucas in particular seems determined to get to the bottom of what the hell happened. I could be extremely wrong about this, but I wonder if perhaps Cyrus might have had something to do with it — if maybe he monkeyed with the machine in a misguided attempt to give Laura peace by finally ending Lulu's suffering or something along those lines.
Whatever happened ended up being mostly moot, because Lulu was stabilized and Sam was fully cleared to serve as her liver donor, leading to a sweet little scene with Sam, Dante, and their combined brood. Rocco and Danny were thrilled by the news; Scout was worried, and asked Sam if she'd be okay. Sam and Dante assured her everything would be fine and they'd have a big party once she'd recovered from the surgery. [Cue sad trombone.]
Far less sweet was the scene we were treated to when Sam shared her news with Alexis, Kristina, and Molly. After spending a few seconds being excited/worried for her, Kristina and Molly started in on each other, and although Molly had a point — she was pissed that Kristina interrupted Ric and Ava's meal at the PC Grill by screaming at them and slapping Ric's drink out of his hand in front of a room full of witnesses — it really wasn't the time or place. Sam agreed, storming out and leaving Alexis to reprimand two of her three adult daughters.
The circumstances are admittedly more heightened now, but that scene was just another version of the same tired "Molly and Kristina can't stop bickering" trope that several GH writing regimes have been hooked on for as long as I can remember. While their fights are usually a lot more meaningless than this one was, they're always just as tiresome. Between Molly/Kristina and the Quartermaines, there is little evidence to suggest that anyone who writes dialogue for this show understands how to craft a compelling argument between television characters; I suggest they marinate in old episodes of Moonlighting for a couple of months before they try again. Or they could just knock it off entirely, really.
Back on the sweet side of things, we also got a little interlude between Tracy and Laura, which started when Laura found Tracy giving Lulu a bedside pep talk and concluded with the loves of Luke's life bonding over the years Tracy spent mothering teenage Lulu. If Sasha calling Holly "Mother" is an example of the type of bonkers twist that only daytime can give you, then Tracy and Laura's talk is an example of the type of history-rich grace note that you need to be a long-running soap in order to provide. They're different sides of a coin, but they both represent why we still keep tuning in even when our favorite shows aren't at their best — and let's face it, they're rarely at their best, and that's been the case far longer than our rose-colored nostalgia would like us to admit.
The week ended with Terry telling Laura about some complication the hospital had discovered while prepping for Lulu's transplant surgery, and a panicked Laura asking her if they were still going through with it — just in time for Elizabeth and Lucky to overhear — but I'm sure it won't amount to anything that prevents Sam from going under the knife and suffering one final tragedy. Like a lot of you, I'm not really looking forward to seeing it as it unfolds.
Okay, enough with that unpleasantness. On with the bullet points!
- Ned told Drew that Valentin's stock is being returned to ELQ, and he proposed that it be divided among the next generation of Quartermaines, with Ned serving as their voting proxy until they were old enough to vote on their own; unsurprisingly, Drew hated this idea, and later went behind Ned's back to try and groom Michael to usurp Ned as ELQ CEO
- Ned, meanwhile, hired Elaine to tail Drew and Willow and bring him proof of their affair
- Finn was released from rehab and took all of three minutes to buy a house in Seattle
- Brennan summoned Jason to Anna's office, where he told them Sidwell is alive and presumably headed for Port Charles; when going over the events leading up to their escape, they discussed how Holly's whereabouts were unknown for a period of time, and now they all assume she stole something valuable from him
- Aurora hasn't replaced the nameplate on Curtis' desk with one that does not have Drew's name on it
- Ric totally goaded Kristina into attacking him in the restaurant, and he told Ava he's planning on doing it again when she's on the stand during Ava's criminal trial
- Kristina still keeps referring to Irene as "Adela" and saying she was her daughter, which should really be worrying more people than it seems to be
- Molly and TJ pulled a weird 180, suddenly agreeing that while they'll never forgive Kristina for acting irresponsibly, their daughter wouldn't have died without the "Ava component," and Ava needs to pay
- Lucky is still searching for a bottle of shampoo
- Gio helped Violet pack for Seattle, telling her that although goodbyes are hard, she'll be back with her dad now, which is the most important thing… all while Lois looked on from the doorway, wringing her hands in a way that suggests Gio is about to finally have something resembling a narrative reason to exist
- Réal Andrews told fans that Taggart isn't coming back, meaning the character will be left to indefinitely wander the streets in an alcohol-induced haze of sadness and regret
- Marshall, meanwhile, appears to be getting a farewell party
- Lois is now using her real accent at home and her fake one on TV appearances
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