Well, we're officially back in "watch if you feel like it" territory with General Hospital. I can say I wasn't actively annoyed for most of last week, but that's about the nicest thing I can offer. There were a couple of really entertaining bits — primarily Tracy gleefully ruining Drew's stupid press conference — but they were undermined by inexcusably poor editing, with twists and revelations left twisting in the wind while other stories stepped to the fore. And overall, it feels like we're watching writers assert their dominance over actors by forcing their characters to do and say inexplicable things. (I hate your character, Eva LaRue, but I sure do feel bad for you.)
All of this is to say that I'm back in a place where I have no idea how I'm going to fill out an entire column, because a lot of what's happening onscreen feels like it isn't really worth discussing. But given how recently we've seen how good the show can be, maybe there's still cause for optimism if we can just hang on through the doldrums long enough for storylines to start clicking again. In the meantime, here's what went down in Port Charles last week:
Little Daisy's Big Day
At the Quartermaine mansion, the entire week was spent talking about Daisy's christening. I could be wrong, but to me, this seems like one of those weird things soap writers decide they need to do because people over the age of 65 think it's still customary. I have two children, I know plenty of people who have their own kids, and I have never attended or even been told about a christening in my circle — but whatever, the real point is to find an excuse for more than two or three characters to be in the same place at the same time. Mission accomplished.
Before everyone got to the church, though, we had to sit through countless conversations about how Michael feels guilty for going through with all this pageantry when Willow's heartbroken over losing custody of her kids, but also how he'll do whatever he has to in order to keep those kids away from Drew, and ALSO how Willow is determined to marry Drew anyway because he's the only one who treats her like an equal. It was as tiresome to watch as it is to write, and if you're wondering whether you need to watch any of it, the answer is a resounding no. These battle lines were drawn months ago, and they remain starkly clear: Willow wants to marry Drew, no one other than Drew likes the idea, and half the town is cooking up a scheme to either keep them apart or send him out of town with his tail between his legs.
The one semi-interesting bit, at least as far as I'm concerned, arose when Willow's trip to Germany came up. She visited the Quartermaine mansion to tell Michael about her engagement, which triggered a huge argument between them; during that row, she tried throwing her Germany visit in his face, at which point he finally told her he never refused to see her. She insisted that he must have, because the woman at the desk told her he wanted her to leave. At this point, I think any actual human being would have at least gotten on the phone with the clinic to ask what the hell actually happened, but because soap characters have to spend at least six months out of the year acting like they have irreparable brain damage, that's where it ended.
Given that we saw Drew pay off the clinic to lie about Michael refusing to see Willow, and given that this incident has come up more than once in the last couple of weeks, I think this is the thread that'll begin to unravel Drew and Willow once it's finally pulled. But on the other hand, this is the show that made it so Elizabeth STILL doesn't know Faith Rosco pushed her down the stairs and made her miscarry more than 20 years ago, so I'm not betting anyone's life on this.
Wait, I was wrong: There was another semi-interesting bit, which occurred when Carly reminded Michael that he wasn't thrilled when he learned that she kept him from AJ, and his own children might be just as peeved when they learn he kept them from spending time with Willow. This was a rare bit of reflection on Carly's part, and it makes sense for our new Dark Michael to forge ahead down a path he knows might be fraught, so I actually got a kick out of watching those scenes.
The so-called suspense around Daisy's christening was mainly derived from the mystery of whoever is skulking around her nursery. We're obviously meant to think it's Willow, given that she has a major sad over losing custody of Wiley and Amelia, but we also know that Sidwell is enraged over Sonny rejecting his bid to buy the piers — AND that Sidwell is the one who paid off the judge in the custody hearing to rule in Michael's favor — so it's highly likely that he's paying one of his minions to mess with Sasha's head. There's another possibility here, however small: I couldn't help but notice that when Felicia asked Sasha about her current relationship with Holly, the next scene cut to that unseen person in the nursery. Could GH actually be keeping a secret from us? And could that secret actually be that Emma Samms and/or Tristan Rogers are returning? It'd certainly turn out to be a silly fake-out, but it'd also be a welcome development; Sasha has been through so many miserable life events that I feel like from now on, any potential dangers should quickly turn out to be no big deal.
On the other hand, this is another example of the type of dumb, plot-driven behavior I mentioned earlier. Sasha has already lost one baby, she's living in a mansion, and she has a ton of money socked away thanks to her deal with Sidwell. No one has thought to spring for a camera in Daisy's nursery? I understand that the last time someone installed a nursery camera, it caught people having sex on the floor, but still — Sasha walking around with an old-fashioned audio-only nursery monitor is the least believable thing GH writers have come up with since Casey's spaceship crash-landed in Port Charles.
Well, anyway. The week ended with everyone gathered at the church to celebrate Daisy's christening, but before the festivities could begin, in walked Natalia. She was supposed to be on a plane to Belize, but once she figured out Sonny wouldn't be joining her, she had herself a good cry, fixed her makeup, and headed down to Our Sister of Friday Cliffhangers, where she plopped down in the last pew and gave Sonny the stink eye.
This is all so incredibly dumb. Again, it isn't really LaRue's fault; at this late date, it's extremely clear that no one ever had a plan for Natalia. But that doesn't make it any easier to watch the character go from rarely seen part-time bigot to woman scorned, especially since it's been so long since the show even hinted at an attraction between her and Sonny that it makes no sense for her to act like a broken-hearted teenager over the "revelation" that he won't be joining her in Belize. In fact, given what we've seen onscreen, it doesn't even make sense for her to believe he'd be staying with her for any real length of time. And the more you look at this stupid story, the less any of it makes sense — starting with the idea that Sonny's supposedly stable and powerful organization would make the colossal mistake of using dirty money to invest in Deception, and continuing with the idea that Natalia would hang onto the evidence for any reason other than blackmailing him. That would have been a hell of a lot more interesting than having her become a sudden drunk who ends up in Turner's crosshairs and clumsily plays both sides. I don't really care how this ends. I just want it to be over.
Cowboy Cody to the Rescue
The highlight of the week was Drew's big press conference, which was designed to humiliate Tracy by forcing her to read a statement admitting she drugged him. The writers did everything they could to make us think she'd actually go through with it, but not even the threat of prison was enough to make her cop to a crime she didn't commit — instead, she went wildly off script, insisting the entire thing was really Drew's doing, calling him a disgrace, and saying he should be thrown out of Congress the same way his stepmother threw him out of the family home.
This naturally threw the room into a tizzy — or at least as much of a tizzy as one can have with a half-dozen non-speaking extras trying to simulate a big national press conference — which went even further off the rails when Cody showed up and made it seem like he was there to prove her wrong. Martin eagerly welcomed him up to the mic to share his story, at which point he told everyone that he bought the ketamine for Hades the horse, borrowed Tracy's car to pick it up, and forgot it there. He even had a prescription to prove it, which Martin tried to grab, but ended up falling off the stage and injuring himself.
It was all a little silly, the same way anything on this show is silly when the plot calls for anything that really should take place in a genuinely large room with a genuinely large crowd, but this show offers few pleasures that are as reliable as Tracy hurling insults, and these scenes were full of funny jabs. I assume Jane Elliot wrote most of them herself.
Anyway, Cody was full of shit at the press conference; the whole thing was a scheme cooked up by Michael. And since Drew planted the ketamine in Tracy's car, he knows Cody was lying — but the end result is still another black eye for his public persona, which undermines his argument for a quick marriage to Willow. After all, how will it help her to have a husband in the eyes of the court if that husband is believed to be a drug-addled pariah? He handled the news poorly, lashing out at Martin before ending their attorney-client relationship, but his day took a turn for the better when dull, wooden Kai finally did something interesting and told Drew that Curtis was searching for Jacinda so he could pay her to lie about their ketamine-fueled escapades.
And what happened then? Well, we don't know. Kai dropped this bombshell on Tuesday, and we haven't seen either character since. Even if this story needed to take a beat so the storyline of the year could take center stage, it should only have been for one episode, max — this is the type of momentum-destroying nonsense that GH falls prey to way too often. I don't know how many people are actually invested in anything involving Drew, but whoever's mapping out story really needs a remedial course in maintaining viewer interest.
Back of the Bus
Speaking of Kai, his conversation with Drew was one of two exchanges between Black and white characters that occurred last week. The show has been ghettoizing the Ashfords and their extended family for some time now, and it's just about complete; at this point, they only interact with Drew because they're at war with him (or, in Kai's case, they're stupid enough to believe in him), and Jordan only has scenes with Anna because she needs a talk-to and GH can't afford to bring Vernee Watson-Johnson around more than a few times a year.
If you've been watching ABC daytime for any significant stretch, you've seen this kind of thing happen before. Black families are introduced, woven into the fabric of a show, and then steadily starved of widely impactful stories until they disappear — and the first step is always segregating them into their own corner of the canvas.
The biggest sign that this isn't turning around anytime soon is the looming quadrangle between Curtis, Portia, Jordan, and Isaiah. It's an entanglement that I can't imagine anyone wants, largely because it's a combination of "been there, done that" and simply dumb: Isaiah has never shown the slightest bit of romantic interest in Portia, and the whole "lingering feelings" angle between Curtis and Jordan was played out when the writers half-heartedly explored it during Curtis' paralysis. This is the kind of thing writers do when they can't think of anything else — they just start jamming characters together because they "belong" in the same stories.
It's horrible, because all of these actors are capable of doing a lot more. Not that you'd know it from watching GH — Jordan hasn't had a real story in years, Curtis is never asked to be much more than a self-righteous tightass, Portia just goes around feeling threatened by everything, and Trina has gone from a future lead to someone whose largest character trait is her overwhelming desire to talk about Kai with everyone she sees. And then there's Kai, who betrayed the woman he supposedly loves by ratting out her father to his transparently slimy white benefactor.
As I've said in this space before, I try not to ascribe malicious intent to actions that can just as believably be chalked up to rank incompetence, so I'm generally reluctant to accuse GH of racism whenever clumsy storytelling could also be to blame. But at the very least, it's clear that the writers suffer from an absolute lack of imagination when it comes to the show's Black characters, and last week's episodes served up example after example of this sad state of affairs.
Sawandi Wilson has effortless chemistry with everyone he's ever shared scenes with, so why has Isaiah been shunted off to the sidelines? I think it was a huge mistake to pull the plug on his relationship with Jordan before it even got started, but fine; there was at least some semblance of a genuine reason for that, even if it would have been far sexier for the two of them to keep carrying on in secret. But why not give him a story of his own? He has a past that's been hinted at, but barely touched. He's also a doctor, which used to be enough to generate plots on its own. Instead, he's "looking out for" Elizabeth and Lulu while Lucky's off globetrotting, and when he isn't doing that, he's sniffing around another man's wife.
When Portia was introduced, she was a strong single mom, fiercely protective of her brilliant daughter. Now, she's a hand-wringing, vindictive mess who's either crying in a panic because she's afraid she's about to go to jail or she's picking fights that should be embarrassing for anyone past their 16th birthday. Last week, all it took to set her off was the sight of Curtis and Jordan sitting next to the Metro Court pool and reminiscing about old cases; after he left, she and Jordan had a very stupid, very petty conversation that ended with Portia throwing a drink at her. Later in the week, Curtis and Portia were about to end a heated argument with desk sex (another dumb soap trope that can die in a fire) when Jordan walked in. None of this can be very interesting to the actors; it certainly isn't interesting to watch.
And then there are Curtis and Jordan. Both of these characters have been around for about a decade, they've done plenty of interesting things over the years, and their pre-GH backstories are rich with possibilities as well. In fact, on paper, they're both currently very well-positioned for front-burner stories: she's working undercover to bring down Sidwell, and he's the CEO of an allegedly major media corporation. All of this should be enough to make them consistent leads, but he mostly just clenches his jaw and mopes, and she disappears for weeks at a time. Maybe this isn't racism, but it's definitely an example of colossal character mismanagement, and if history is our guide, it's only going to end one way: with the writers throwing up their hands, deciding they can't write for the Ashfords anymore, and shoving them off-canvas one by one.
(Speaking of off-canvas, we did get TJ and Taggert mentions last week. The writers are still capable of remembering these characters from time to time, even if they aren't willing to do anything about it.)
That's probably about it for major developments. Let's let the bullets fly!
- Bearing a massive basket of oranges, Lucy tried and failed to convince Sonny to change his mind about selling the piers to Sidwell
- Trina told Curtis that Kai heard him talking about finding and bribing Jacinda, and demanded to know why Drew was a threat to Portia
- Curtis told Portia that Felicia turned up a lead on Jacinda in Sydney
- Danny and Rocco started working at the Metro Court pool, which gave Lulu an opportunity to helicopter mom and bond with Gio while a crying Brook Lynn looked on from around a corner
- Marco dug up Rocco's original birth certificate, which Brook Lynn stupidly left in a folder that Danny found partway through the week; neither of them were seen again
- Alexis and Kristina argued over Kristina's scheme to split up Ava and Ric
- Thanks to dragonberry juice, Ava knows Ric went to visit Elizabeth when he was supposed to be working in Beechers Corners
- Martin went to the hospital to be treated for his injuries after his one-foot fall, and found out that his insurance has lapsed
- Cody refused Tracy's offer of payment for his help at the press conference
- Sonny warned Laura that (whispers) violence is coming to Port Charles
- Marco told Lucas that he came across Britt's name in a case file
- Dante apologized to Jason for calling him a shitty father
- Gio refused Dante's invitation to go out for a night of live classical music
- A comically drunk day player hit on Lulu and was banned from the Metro Court
- Sidwell spent a lot of time leafing through pictures of Sonny's family
- Boyle visited Wyndemere and tried opting out of any violence between Sidwell and Sonny, but Sidwell reminded him that his election has been paid for, and he needs to shut up and do as he's told
- Robert and Holly sent Sasha a big stuffed elephant for Daisy's christening… or did they?
- Sasha told Cody that something strange is afoot at the Quartermaine mansion, and it has to do with Daisy
- Natalia told Brook Lynn that Sonny's second investment in Deception was tainted, and recommend that the company encourage him to divest
- Sonny and Turner had an incredibly dull argument over whether he sent her a softball glove
- Brook Lynn told Chase that Sonny invested dirty money in Deception, at which point he quickly reminded her he's a cop and they shouldn't be having that conversation
- Anna and Turner locked horns, with Anna daring Turner to take her to Internal Affairs, and Turner saying she might just do that
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