Happy New Year, General Hospital fans! I hope your holidays were swell — or that you managed to celebrate something at some point, anyway, which at the very least would put you one up on everyone in a surprisingly festivity-free Port Charles. Rather than showing the city's residents opening gifts, lighting menorahs, or watching balls drop, the show opted instead for two short weeks of… well, not a lot, really.
The Slog in Prague
Alexa Havins seems perfectly capable of playing a spunky, Bermanesque Lulu if she's handed the right material. Unfortunately, the writers seem more invested in turning the character's latest incarnation into a shrieking buffoon who's well on her way to becoming a carbon copy of Carly — an unfortunate transformation that was on full, garish display over the last couple of weeks. It all started when Charlotte texted Rocco to wish him a merry Christmas; in response, he texted her a photo of Lulu, which prompted a phone call that led to mother and daughter speaking for the first time since Lulu fell into her coma.
After Lulu promised she wouldn't tell anyone else where Charlotte and Valentin were, Charlotte told her they were in Prague — so off to Prague Lulu went, completely oblivious to the fact that she was being openly tailed by Brennan's second in command, Colette. She also couldn't be bothered to notice that her absence upset Rocco, who kept Lulu's secret for about half an hour before caving and telling Dante and Laura that his mom had taken off for parts unknown in pursuit of her daughter.
The rest of this went about the way you might assume. Lulu and Charlotte met at a cafe in Prague, where they caught up for a bit before being interrupted by Valentin, at which point Charlotte went and sat at a different table so her parents could argue about what's best for her. While they locked horns, Dante walked in, strolled up to Charlotte's table, and asked her if she wanted to go back to the United States — at which point Valentin accused Lulu of setting him up, sparking a four-way fight, albeit one fought in hushed tones so as to avoid drawing too much attention.
That was all for naught, of course, because Colette had followed Lulu to the cafe and set up a sniper rifle outside. Seeing her opportunity in all the hubbub, she took a shot at Valentin and… totally whiffed, suggesting that perhaps sniper standards have fallen fairly far at the WSB since the '80s. Valentin and Charlotte disappeared in the confusion, leaving Dante and Lulu to head to their hotel, where they yelled at each other about what a dumbass Lulu's being. Lulu kept insisting that she had the right to make her own decisions, while Dante kept reminding her that not only did she have a child back home who'd just spent years desperately hoping she'd wake up, but that she was only in recovery because Sam agreed to be her liver donor, and then died. Everyone watching knew he was 100 percent right — and even though she refused to admit it, Lulu knew too, which she proved by throwing a vase at the door and screaming after he left.
Charlotte, meanwhile, said "Papa" 40 times and rejected Valentin's offer to let her return to Port Charles with Lulu, saying that while Lulu has Rocco and the rest of her family, she and Valentin only have each other. That was good enough for Valentin, who sped off into the night with Charlotte by his side while Colette called Brennan to let him know there'd been "complications," which I guess is WSB for "I suck at shooting." Brennan took the news in stride, but didn't have much time to think about next steps, because he was busy being tased by Anna, who'd barged into his hotel room to yell at him for having a brief conversation with Emma, and then handcuffed him to a chair that absolutely weighed no more than ten pounds.
Anyway, Emma! Robin and Patrick's firstborn is back in town, although she looks different now — and she's acting different too. We caught our first glimpse of her when she rushed up to Gio at Rice Plaza, called him "Doug," handed him a wallet, and ran off — making herself scarce because, as Gio quickly realized, she'd stolen it. When she returned and tried to take it back, he refused to give it to her, but only briefly; after she explained that she'd only stolen it because the owner ripped off a vendor somewhere else in the plaza, he decided to trust her, then watched her pocket the cash and return it to a nearby policeman. This was obviously supposed to be some sort of meet-cute for Emma and Gio, but Gio really had more chemistry with the wallet — and Emma had more chemistry with Joss, who she briefly and casually got catty with after seeing her working at Bobbie's.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating: I don't have any real issue with Giovanni Mazza as an actor, although I think he could use a lot more seasoning. The problem here is the way Gio is being written — he's far and away the blandest, most guileless character I can remember seeing on this show in eons. Even at her youngest and most adorable, Robin bullied an old man into letting her hide out with him just because she was pissed at Robert and Anna for not telling her they were her parents; just a couple of months ago, the terminally adorable Violet hauled off and socked a kid for talking smack about her dad. All Gio does is wander around playing violin with a sweet, slightly dazed grin on his face. In order for any soap character to be worth a damn over the long haul, they need to be capable of doing bad stuff, but this kid has got absolutely nothing going on — and hinting at a relationship with the new bad girl of Port Charles' younger set is absolutely not the way to change that.
Which probably means it's absolutely what they're going to try doing anyway, and they'll keep on trying it for months, if not years, no matter how silly and/or painfully dull things get.
Back to Emma. As many of us guessed, she was supposed to be Anna's big holiday surprise, only Anna didn't know Emma had gotten herself kicked out of college back home and was planning to transfer to PCU. Emma tried hiding all this from Anna, which lasted less than 24 hours; she might have enough screws loose that she's resorted to going around kidnapping lawyers and tasing WSB station chiefs, but Anna's still enough of a detective to figure out how to dial up a dean's office and ask the right questions. For now, Emma's living with Anna, which really isn't a bad idea; it's about time Emma made her way back to Port Charles, even if she's no longer being played by Brooklyn Rae Silzer, and Anna needs someone else in her apartment, even if it's only so she isn't as quick to summon Jason and cry about things.
Mrs. Corinthos Goes to Washington
Speaking of characters doing bad stuff, we now turn our attention to Willow and Drew, who have officially gone from "this can never happen again, and no one can ever find out" to "we're totally in love and we don't care who knows." This isn't sitting well with a long list of people — including Lucas, who showed up to Nina's holiday party in order to metaphorically piss in the punchbowl by calling out the adulterous lovebirds. As he reminded them, he made the noble decision to hand over Wiley without a fight after finding out he was really Michael and Nelle's baby, and as a result, he's arguably more appalled than most to see Willow waltzing away from her marriage to Michael and seemingly trying to take the kids with her.
Lucas was absolutely right about everything he said, but neither Drew nor Willow were in a place to hear it; in fact, just a couple of days later, Drew expended a minimal amount of effort to convince Willow it'd be totally cool if she took Wiley to DC so they could watch his inauguration. This is, of course, a very stupid thing for someone in the middle of a custody battle to do, but Willow is often very stupid, so she not only went, but went without saying a word to Michael.
On a sane show, a dumb stunt like this would be the sole focal point of the storyline, but GH is not sane — in fact, it remains insane in some very specific ways, one of which is an overriding insistence on making Nina the villain in every story she touches. Michael has already decided that Nina is the true instigator in his custody fight with Willow — and yes, to be fair, she did go out and hire Martin to serve Michael with separation papers, but she also isn't the one who cheated on him. Nina is also drowning in angst because she hasn't told Willow about her own sexual relationship with Drew, which strikes me as supremely silly; although Drew did help Nina mend fences with Willow, nothing he did was overt enough to really count as manipulation in Port Charles, and for half the time she was humping Drew, Nina was doing it mainly to try and save Michael and Willow's marriage.
So instead of Michael being even momentarily upset with Willow, we see him blaming Nina for his problems — and when Nina went to Curtis to vent about Drew taking her daughter and grandson to DC for his inauguration, the conversation became all about how Nina needs to come clean with Willow before it blows up in her face. I mean, on the bright side, we did get to hear Curtis say Drew and Nina were "doing the wild thing," but we've been down this road with Ms. Reeves countless times before, and it's awfully tired at this point. It'd be one thing if Nina were anywhere near as awful as the people who pass judgment on her, but she isn't, and as a result, it just feels like yet another example of the arbitrary way the writers decide who gets to be treated like a protagonist on this show.
All of that being as it may, when we closed out the week, Drew and Willow were in Washington with Scout and Wiley, and Michael was on the phone with Diane, telling her how Willow ran off and asking whether they could use that in their case. (Duh, you dummy.) Because GH is forever allergic to surprising us, we know Chad Duell is vacating the role of Michael very soon — and because someone at GH HQ screwed up their social posting calendar, we also know Michael will somehow end up being caught in a catastrophic fire at Sonny's penthouse on Tuesday. How we'll get from where we are now to Michael being in a burn ward over the space of two episodes I have no idea.
There's also the matter of Sasha and Michael's baby. Last week, she told him she's pregnant and he's the father, and she didn't stop there: Sasha also told Michael she doesn't want him involved in the child's upbringing in any way, chiefly because it would mean subjecting the baby to the combined lunacy of the Quartermaine and Corinthos clans. There's no good counter-argument to that, and to his credit, Michael didn't even try — he simply agreed to stay out of the kid's life and accepted her refusal of his repeated offers to provide financial assistance, asking only that she abandon her plans to leave town, and she agreed. So reasonable! So mature! It's too bad a fire is going to screw it all up next week.
Ava vs. the Cassadines, Part XVLIII
This one's gonna be quick, mostly because it didn't get that much screentime over the last couple of weeks: Ava is being written as strapped for cash now, because in the cuckoo world of General Hospital, it's apparently legal for a divorce settlement to be clawed back from the recipient without so much as a conversation, let alone an opportunity for legal appeals. Never mind that Ava was loaded long before she hooked up with Nikolas, and never mind that the entire basis of this storyline is absolutely insane — it is what it is, and what it is is an opportunity for Ava to go around groveling in front of people who think she sort of sucks (Laura) and people she outright hates (Alexis) in futile attempts to regain her lost fortune.
Why is any of this happening? I couldn't tell you. It's partly so Ace is officially made the new Cassadine heir, which is fine, but also a big whatever, given that he isn't even two years old. I assume it's mainly happening in order to set up some big new intrigue with the Cassadines, but the whole thing has been handled so haphazardly that it doesn't really feel like it has any stakes. I mean, Ava sold Wyndemere ages ago, and no one ever seemed to care much that it was purchased by a holding company acting as a front for some unidentified buyer or buyers; the mystery person who was briefly stalking and threatening her has also long been forgotten. Either of those developments would have been a solid onramp for whatever the hell is happening now, but they were ignored, and that's just one more reason this story feels like it's coming out of the blue — which, in turn, serves to further underscore the absolute insanity of the idea that some judge in Greece just summarily decided to take all the money Nikolas gave Ava in their divorce settlement.
For the moment, Ava's main concern — aside from somehow not having enough money to give Trina a cash bonus, and instead being forced to give her a painting — is that she won't have enough money to fight Sonny for custody of Avery. These are reasonable stakes, I guess, but they feel sort of flimsy right now, because Sonny is going to be a little distracted for a while.
Sonny's Wake-Up Call
Just as a rash of seemingly inexplicable deaths has started to break out at General Hospital, who should develop a sudden medical condition but our old friend Sonny? After spending Christmas Eve telling Kristina she's right about everything and he'll always support her no matter what, Sonny suffered a twinge of chest pain; a few days later, while he was working out alone in the boxing ring at his "gym," he collapsed on the mat, flailing around like a bug on its back until Isaiah happened to mosey on in, casually take his vitals, and call some EMTs. Isaiah was suitably alarmed to discover that Sonny was shot in the chest 20 years ago, and strongly advised him to see a specialist; Sonny agreed to do so, albeit in his own way and on his own timetable.
It seems like the popular assumption here is that Sonny will be admitted to GH just in time for Cyrus to try and inject him with a fatal dose of digitalis, and that seems like a safe assumption to me, if only because Sonny and/or Carly have to cram themselves into every single storyline. But in the meantime, Sonny's also thinking about his own mortality — specifically in terms of how much longer he can continue at the helm of his business. Toward the end of the week, he asked Jason if he'd take over; for once in his life, Jason told Sonny no, explaining that he needs to be a father to Danny. (He also said he was willing to continue as Sonny's partner, and continue murdering people on his behalf, which doesn't make a damn bit of sense, but we take what we get.)
Given that Sonny is canonically in his mid-50s, this makes a lot of sense, and it's a story I'd be extremely interested in watching unfold, if only I had even the tiniest shred of faith that the show had any willingness to follow it anywhere that didn't lead us right back where we've been with Sonny for the last 20-odd years. Throughout that timespan, the writers have regularly threatened Sonny with people and/or circumstances who are supposed to CHANGE EVERYTHING, but nothing changes at all, and until they show me otherwise, I refuse to believe this time is any different.
You know what would be nice, though? If Sonny came out of this with gray hair. Enough with the shoe polish. Even Leo has more gray than Sonny at this point.
That's it for the big stuff. Now for your bullet points!
- We saw TJ for five minutes
- Ned said Brook Lynn and Chase's baby would be his first grandchild, prompting Lois to make an extremely unsubtle "uh oh" facial expression
- Joss bonded with Brennan over a Christmas Eve game of war, and later pressured him to cough up WSB drone footage of Rice Plaza during the night of Dex's killing; he told her it had already been deleted, but later called an underling to demand they dig it up, raising the question of why in the world he needed Joss to remind him it existed in the first place
- Alexis and Ric (barely) put aside their differences to decorate Alexis' place for Christmas before Molly came home
- Brook Lynn and Chase are going to be tested for fertility issues
- Trina rescued Kai from some overzealous boosters and took him to see her favorite painting at the Chuck, but he only had eyes for her
- After "reinventing" Charlie's by hanging some guitars on the wall, Kristina acted super fishy when Lucas told her about Ava's money problems
- Lucky may have found his new purpose, which is tending bar at Charlie's
- Elizabeth was ambushed by Portia and Terry, who invited a hospital lawyer into what was supposed to be an informal meeting; they told her a third patient died under her care and demanded that she answer questions, but Ric swooped in and ended the meeting, despite Portia's warning that they'd suspend Elizabeth
- Valentin told Lulu that Anna shot Charlotte
- After making an appointment with Dr. Navarro, Sasha was assigned Felicia as a patient advocate, and told her she's pregnant; Felicia volunteered to be her emergency contact
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