Last full week of the year, folks! With a holiday-shortened slate of episodes on deck for the week to come, General Hospital is just about done with 2024. It's been a pretty bumpy year for this show of ours, but there's still time for things to go out on a high note. While the fat lady warms up, let's break down the verse leading up to her (hopefully) big finish, shall we?
Nothing Says "Merry Christmas" Like a Divorce Lawyer on Retainer
The big storyline last week was the fallout from the big reveal regarding Drew and Willow's trip to Pound Town in the Quartermaine nursery, and it wasn't particularly close — by the time I'm done covering this corner of the canvas, I may not have much left to write about. This is partly due to all the screen time the story was given, but also because of the number of characters who've already been impacted; if you saw someone on the show last week, they were probably either talking to or about the adulterous twosome.
I'm not complaining about this, because even though the decision to cram Drew and Willow together was poorly conceived and clumsily executed, that doesn't really matter anymore — now that their dirty laundry has been aired, we're in the fun part of the program, when battle lines are drawn and new alliances, some of them unexpected, are inevitably formed.
The big loser so far has been Drew, by a wide margin. He started the week by having the gall to insist to Michael that he and Willow developed real feelings for each other; in response, Michael left the Quartermaine mansion in disgust, telling Ned and Tracy to do whatever they wanted with Drew. (They wanted to insult him at length, and they did. It was glorious.) We next saw him a couple of days later, when he appeared at Jordan's big holiday coat drive/vaccination clinic — he was ostensibly there to check in on his constituents, but it was immediately and repulsively clear that he was really only there so he could make eyes at Willow. Jordan quickly figured out what Drew was up to, and asked Felicia to run interference; Felicia was successful, but she wasn't fast enough to get between them before Willow invited Drew and Scout to spend Christmas Eve with her at Nina's apartment.
Willow's invitation came as a surprise to Nina, who was thrilled to have Willow and the kids come stay with her, but decidedly less excited about the prospect of having Drew over for the holiday. This whole situation is a sort of best-case/worst-case scenario for Nina — she's been handed a golden opportunity to get her daughter away from Michael, but she also doesn't want Willow to know about her own affair-like thing with Drew. This is, in other words, a perfect moment for Nina to do what Nina does best, which is to find herself tantalizingly close to having everything she's ever wanted, yet also find herself unable to enjoy any of it because she's panicked about some deep, dark secret coming out.
Personally, I don't really see the big deal here; Willow is sheltered and judgy, but there's no real reason for her to be upset about Nina boffing Drew. If anything, it seems like an opportunity for them to bond over how gross Drew is. But we can't have a soap without characters stupidly letting molehills become mountains, so whatever; I'll allow it. I do want to say, though, that if Willow was going to get mad about anything, it should have been Nina preemptively hiring Martin to serve Michael with separation papers. Nina was able to convince Willow that was the right thing to do with very little effort, and that was a decision that'll actually have an impact on Willow's marriage.
By focusing on Willow, Drew left himself wide open to a knife in the back from Curtis, who made his move with impressive speed. Colluding with Michael, he arranged for an incorrect earnings report to leak, thus tanking Aurora's stock price — at which point Michael stepped in and gobbled it up, making himself the company's biggest shareholder. Curtis also boxed Michael into signing a contract making Curtis Aurora's CEO for five years, no backsies — news he was only too happy to share when Drew stormed into his office and tried to fire him.
Soaps never know how to handle business stuff in a persuasive way, and this little kerfuffle was no different; it's especially funny in light of the fact that Michael essentially committed insider trading to pull this off, but no one really cares, as opposed to the time Carly did it and was hunted down by the SEC until the nobler-but-still-stupid version of Drew that existed until like a year ago volunteered to go to prison on her behalf. But again, that doesn't matter very much right now — the only thing that really matters is how entertaining the fallout is, and right now, I'm having a pretty good time.
This is partly because Drew is disgusting, and I enjoy watching people line up to read him for filth. (Ric, eyeing Drew at Nina's holiday party: "And people say I'm sleazy.") But I'm also offering a thumbs up because of the implications for various other characters — a list led by Curtis, who for some time now had very little to do besides stand around, offer other people advice, and look like he's experiencing mild abdominal pain. He's sort of still doing this — he'd been named permanent CEO of Aurora for less than a day before we saw him moping to Portia about being forced to play just as dirty as Drew, and losing their friendship in the process — but he's finally back in a position where he can be interesting and dynamic, and I'm choosing to believe the writers won't completely screw it up.
The other battle that's brewing, of course, is the one between Michael and Willow. Michael, for his part, doesn't want a divorce — and at first, neither did Willow, despite allowing herself to be talked into having Michael served with legal separation papers. But now that Willow knows Michael sniped Aurora out from under Drew, she's questioning whether she ever knew him at all — feelings that are bound to send her rushing back to Drew's disconcertingly chiseled torso before Michael even knows what hit him. And speaking of things Michael doesn't know, there's also Sasha's pregnancy on the horizon. It all adds up to maximum mess, which is what soaps thrive on and soap fans crave.
There's always room for complaint, and that's extremely true with this storyline, which started with an absurd insta-attraction between two characters before spiraling into a series of idiotic and inscrutable decisions. I'm tempted to say Drew has suffered the most, because he's never been written as a scuzzy asshole, and that's all he is now; watching the character in his current incarnation makes me feel nothing more than a deep sadness for the loss of Billy Miller. If there's a counterargument to be made, I suppose it's that Cameron Mathison has never been able to play nice-guy Drew as interesting; it's a tough trick to pull off, and Miller was really great at it, but until now, Mathison's version has somehow managed to be chaotic AND dull. Now that he's just a creep, Drew has finally been clearly defined for the first time. Mathison has made every effort to sell the Drew/Willow affair as some kind of great love story in the making, which is purely delusional, and if the writers have decided they share his perspective, then this will all turn to shit in a hurry — but if they let Drew go full villain, and embrace the dirtbag splendor of having him bust up his nephew's marriage and declare war on his former best friend, it could be a lot of fun.
Anyway, that's all conjecture for now. Getting back to what we know: Carly is livid, of course, and seems poised to reignite the tiresome Granny Wars with Nina due to Nina's avid support of Willow. For the moment, though, her fury is aimed mainly at Drew, who she has vowed to make pay if she ever gets the chance; similar words have been spoken by Sonny, who spent Christmas Eve sharing man pain with Michael while the two of them complimented each other for being awesome dads. It's pretty obvious that something horrible is about to happen, and with Chad Duell's exit looming on the horizon, we're clearly supposed to think that Michael will be the one to suffer due to whatever revenge scheme gets cooked up by whichever character.
Zero Days Since a Dead Boyfriend Incident
Drew probably had the worst week of anyone in Port Charles, but he had stiff competition from Joss, who started out blubbering over Dex's deathbed and only had to deal with additional indignities from that point on. Upon returning to her apartment, she found a gift she'd wrapped for Dex, and had a sad; when Trina came home, the two of them had a roomie-to-roomie talk about all of their dead boyfriends.
And speaking of boyfriends, a couple of days later, Joss bumped into Cam at Rice Plaza — at which point she was not only forced to tell him that Dex had died, but to endure the awkwardness of being introduced to his new girlfriend Gretchen, a cellist whose silky blonde exterior hides a heart of darkness. (I'm really just kidding, but as was pointed out by some sharp-eyed soul whose name I can unfortunately no longer recall, the sweater Gretchen was wearing when she met Joss was one that Joss herself wore not all that long ago. Got your ex-boyfriend AND your wardrobe, biatch!) After Cam and Gretchen headed off for their Christmas in Key West, a timer went off letting Joss know it had officially been one day since Dex died — at which point she hallucinated him standing there in the plaza in his uniform, grinning like a doofus.
Finally, just when it seemed like her week couldn't get any worse, Joss found herself alone at Carly's house with Sonny — and she must have realized that she had exceeded the length of time anyone in Port Charles is allowed to be angry with him, because she gave him a little speech about how she intends to honor Dex's memory by accepting Sonny for who he is. They declared peace with each other and hugged. Barf, barf, barf.
Joss wasn't alone in mourning Dex. She had competition from Anna, who blames herself for his death because she convinced him to be a cop, and also because she has become pathologically unable to go more than a day without feeling guilty for something that really isn't her fault. (She also needs to see an eye doctor about her tear ducts, because she absolutely cannot stop crying.) Consumed with a burning passion for finding Dex's killer and bringing them to justice, she reached out to Jason, telling him she needs him to take the lead in the search for Valentin and Charlotte — because of course Jason has to be the hero in every story, as long as he's alive and/or in town.
Where's this headed? We have no idea yet, but we do know that Spinelli has lost the trail where Valentin is concerned. Remember when he grabbed that data from Martin's phone and realized that Valentin had withdrawn money from one of his accounts while visiting a bank in Zurich? Well, apparently no one actually went to Zurich to follow up, and now Valentin has gone even further underground, with the prevailing theory being that he heard about Lulu's recovery and decided he needed to hide from her, because a recently comatose Lulu is even more fearsome than the combined might of the federal government's various intelligence agencies. Of course, now that Jason is on the case, Valentin and Charlotte are bound to be found in short order — and now Jason has vowed that when he finds Valentin, he'll make it so he's never a problem for Lulu or anyone else, ever again.
Why? What's the point? No one is saying. I can only assume that this is what the writing staff thinks we need in order to make the story more exciting, and if you ask me, they're wrong. If Jason has a legitimate beef with Valentin, it's so far in the past that I've forgotten it. I mean, I suppose he could be upset about Valentin messing with Sonny's meds, but if that turns out to be the case, then it'll mean dredging up a chunk of the most wildly misbegotten GH storyline since Fluke. Rather than trying to pretend he'll actually murder her father, why not just spend a couple of days sending Jason off to whatever pretend location seems most appropriate and letting him come to the rescue yet again?
Okay, I think that's it for the big stuff. Now I bring you your bullet points!
- Portia put Elizabeth on administrative leave, and Lucky has put the full might of his investigative powers behind figuring out who's really to blame for the deaths of Sam and Dex
- Lulu reunited with Tracy, who she still loves, and Brook Lynn, who she still doesn't
- Dante made Lulu see that if she keeps running around making powerful enemies and breaking into buildings while searching for Charlotte, she could end up costing Rocco his mom again
- Ned told Michael that Drew is their shared enemy, and pledged his full support
- Sidwell is lurking in Port Charles, and he knows Sasha is pregnant
- Lulu and Cody met again, and Dante seemed unamused by their breezy chemistry
- Sasha and Tracy fought over eggs
- After three weeks of trying to make a baby, Brook Lynn is worried she'll never get pregnant
- Martin was pissed about being kidnapped by Anna and Jason; Laura told him not to worry about it
- Seeing Ric made Lucky realize he needs to shower
- Aiden got his AARP card
- Cam came home early for Christmas, only to announce he'd be spending the holiday with his girlfriend and her family in Key West; as punishment for him and the rest of us, Elizabeth made him sing
- Jordan and Isaiah got locked in the women's steam room, but they did not make out, because they hate us
- Gio knows how to wrap presents
- Sasha reminded Jason of his reindeer sweater
- Moments later, Tracy told Jason he's a real Quartermaine, and he agreed, thus raising the question of whether a merged Jason Morgan/Quartermaine is on tap for 2025
- Michael E. Knight and Jane Elliot need to share more scenes
- Chase told Michael it's no big deal that Michael destroyed his sham marriage to Willow
- Sasha tricked and guilt-tripped Cody into coming to the Scorpios' for Christmas
- Laura told Anna that Lulu isn't yet aware of the fact that Anna shot Charlotte
- Alexis ruined Ric's attempt to mack on Ava by asking him to come over and making him think something was wrong with Molly
- Marshall came home for the holidays
- Carly invited Brennan to her own home for Christmas Eve; when Brennan tried to shake Sonny's hand, Sonny left him hanging
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