What's more dramatic than a soap wedding? Why, a soap wedding that falls apart at the altar, of course! Say what you will about last week's General Hospital — and there were definitely nits to pick, as I'm sure I'll demonstrate shortly — but it was well worth watching through the lows in order to indulge in the sudsy highs of a bride standing in front of a church (kinda) full of people and asking her groom if he had sex with her mother.
Let's dive in!
Mommy Just Had a Really Bad Day
At the end of the previous week, GH left us all wondering whether Willow would go through with the wedding after finding out Drew and Nina got to know each other in the Biblical sense. The answer to that question came fast and furious, with Willow waiting until it was her turn to say her vows before straight up demanding to know if Drew slept with Nina. Forever smarmy, Drew tried to wiggle out of it before admitting to an "encounter," then admitting it happened more than once, but insisting he only had feelings for Willow. It was as awkward as it sounds, and kudos to the writers for really leaning into the humor of it all — specifically by periodically cutting away to Ric and Ava, whose faces (and futile attempts to keep from laughing) made the whole thing even more entertaining.
If Drew had yet to check off any boxes on his Town Pariah bingo card, I think he filled them in during the aborted ceremony. He admitted to making sure Wiley overheard him lying about Michael not wanting the kids anymore, grotesquely justifying it by saying it was "strategy," and then after Willow stormed out, he got into an embarrassing shouting match with Nina. And then he gave everyone even more proof that he's a total ass, because instead of finding Scout — who Alexis wisely scooted out of the chapel once the sex talk started — he dragooned Martin into scaling the wall of the Quartermaine compound so they could barge in and demand to see Willow.
(I guess we were supposed to forget, albeit very temporarily, that Martin hurt his back recently and probably isn't in any condition to go jumping over high walls? I digress.)
Drew and Martin were stopped by Tracy and Cody, both of whom found it delightfully hilarious that Willow left Drew at the altar. Yuri came rushing in moments later, apologizing for letting the interlopers slip through; ultimately, Tracy told Cody to let Drew go ahead and rush upstairs in search of Willow, explaining that it didn't matter because she wasn't in the mansion anyway.
Willow, meanwhile, hustled over to Carly's house, still wearing her wedding dress, with makeup streaming down her face. Her frantic demands to see the children were met with Carly's version of kindness, which means Carly grabbed Willow, pushed her in front of a mirror, and pointed out that she'd scare the hell out of her kids if they saw her in that state. Michael arrived moments later, pulling Willow outside and telling her that no matter what happened with the wedding, she wasn't going to see Wiley and Amelia — and if she wouldn't listen, he'd have her escorted off the premises. This led to an extremely over-the-top shot of Willow sobbing outside Carly's door while Michael and Carly hugged Wiley in full view of his emotional wreck of a mother — good television, but also very silly, given that Carly and Michael made a big deal out of not wanting Wiley to see her that way.
The obvious implication of these scenes was that Willow would fall prey to the soap trope of a woman driven to a breakdown, and honestly, I was of two minds about it. On one hand, I loathe those stories; on the other, Willow has been one of the dullest characters on the canvas for as long as she's been around, so having her spiral would at least make her more interesting. But so far, the writers don't seem to be playing that card — Ric and Elizabeth came and got Willow from Carly's front walkway, and after spending the night at Elizabeth's, Willow seemed to have a much calmer, clearer perspective. It didn't last long — she had a very emotional confrontation with Michael later in the week, and sort of threatened him in the bargain — but it doesn't really look like they're gearing up to shove her off the deep end.
I have no idea what they are planning to do with Willow, but at least she still has Ric as her lawyer. After the non-wedding, Nina quickly arranged a meeting with him, asking him to keep representing her and saying she'd secretly cover the bill. Ric pointed out that secretly doing things is what led to Nina and Willow being on the outs, and she agreed to try the above-board approach before resorting to paying Ric's retainer on the down low. This went about the way you'd expect — Nina came by Elizabeth's place to bring Willow some clothes, Willow said Nina's just as much to blame as Drew for her losing access to her kids, and Nina left with her tail between her legs. On her way out, she paused to text Ric, who quickly stopped by Elizabeth's to tell Willow he'd be working her case pro bono (prompting a classic Elizabeth face from Rebecca Herbst, queen of saying everything without saying a word).
Detective Drew
Elizabeth was silent when Ric lied about representing Willow for free, but she wasn't quite as judicious when Drew stopped by looking for his would-be bride. Patiently explaining that Willow wasn't there, and also that she wasn't in a place where she could possibly be expected to deal with his bullshit, Elizabeth slipped up when — assuming that Drew was already aware of who told Willow about his affair with Nina — she said she assumed "he" was just looking out for Willow. Drew stopped cold, added two and two, and slowly agreed that yes, Curtis must have had Willow's best interests at heart. When Elizabeth made it clear that she had indeed been referring to Drew, the next battle in the War of the Former Besties commenced.
I'm not mad about this. Curtis was a hypocrite when he threw Nina under the bus by tattling on her and Drew to Willow, but he was also an idiot. He did it because he thought that if he successfully split up Drew and Willow, Drew would have no need to continue blackmailing Portia, but he never stopped to think about how Drew would absolutely want to get revenge. Curtis told Portia that as long as Drew never found out he was the one who told Willow, they'd be fine — but he never acknowledged that all he really did was make them more vulnerable than ever, so he totally deserved to have Drew discover what he'd done.
All that probably makes it sound like I'm rooting for Drew here, which is totally not what I'm doing. I am, however, rooting for open conflict between these characters — partly because Drew should be hated by everyone, and partly because I'd much rather watch Curtis maneuvering against an enemy than watch him give Trina advice or scold Portia. I don't know how many maneuvers he really has at the moment — aside from the evidence Drew has on Portia, he now also knows that Stella helped Martin with a "sticky insurance situation" during his hospital stay — but he should have at least a few days to come up with one, given that Drew is currently pretending to be at peace after calling a false truce. Drew told Martin he's "playing the long game" by doing this; I'm not sure what that means, but it can't be anything good for the Ashfords.
Five Poppies
Speaking of nothing good, I guess it's time to talk about Joss and her new career in espionage. Now, before I really get going, I have to concede that this story is finally building some momentum, which makes it easier to forget Joss' six minutes of "training" in "Easter Island" and just roll with it. On the other hand, the new directions we're heading in provoke deliberate comparisons to Robert and Anna's origin story, which is really a horrible mistake on the show's part — Eden McCoy and Bryce Durfee are pretty, but nothing they do here will help them escape the shadows cast by those classic characters.
Here's the deal. As outlined in last week's column, Joss and Vaughn slipped a tracker into the bag that passed between Dalton and the courier at the Metro Court pool. From there, they watched as the courier jetted off to Dubrovnik, which is also — surprise! — where Britt was headed when Jason just happened to spot her in Paris. (Coincidences fuel plenty of soap storylines, but boy howdy are the writers leaning hard on them here.) In Dubrovnik, the tracker flickered out for a few hours, and when it came back online, Brennan told Vaughn that he and Joss were being pulled from the Dalton case… because Dalton is no longer the primary target.
Now, the WSB wants to go after whoever the courier met with at the resort, and because Joss and Vaughn have already been briefed or whatever, Brennan has decided that they'll spend the next two weeks posing as newlyweds at the Five Poppies Hotel. And guess who's staying there? Why, Britt, of course!
At the same time all this was going on, Jason puttered around Port Charles, looking for people to talk to about spotting Britt in the wild. Naturally, his first stop was the Metro Court pool, where he asked Carly what happened to Britt's body after she died. Very sensibly, Carly told him that he'd have to ask someone in Britt's family, so from there, Jason headed to the hotel where Drew and Willow were supposed to be getting married, found Obrecht at the bar enjoying a celebratory triple Schnapps, and came away completely convinced that she has no idea Britt might be anything other than dead. He also flashed back to watching Britt board the plane, finally noticing the Five Poppies logo on her bag — sloppy job there, Britt — and doing a web search to figure out what it might be for.
Later in the week, Jason visited Elizabeth, who he sweet-talked into letting him see the hospital morgue records during the period Britt died, and then he went to the funeral home that handled her remains, where he learned that there's no record of her body actually being cremated. After that bombshell, he chatted up Anna, who raised an interesting point: If Britt has spent the last couple of years letting people believe she's dead, then trying to track her down now might be… disrespectful in a way? It's a bit of an odd spin on the situation, but given how many times Jason has beat the drum of Everyone Gets to Make Their Own Choices, it's an appropriate one. It's always difficult to tell what Jason's thinking because he always has the same look on his face, but it seemed at least somewhat likely that Anna might have convinced him to drop his search.
Meanwhile, in Dubrovnik, Britt spent the week going stir crazy in her room. After taking Dalton's bag from the courier and working through his data, she decided to treat herself to a night on the town — only to be told by Pascal, the hotel manager, that her boss had decided she wasn't to leave the hotel grounds. Initially, the excuse was that she ran over a donkey a couple of years ago, but eventually, it became clear that "he" just didn't want Britt going anywhere.
This could actually have something to do with Britt's physical health, since we also watched her injecting herself with something at one point. As you probably recall, Britt was diagnosed with Huntington's disease before Heather hooked her, so we're at least being made to think whatever she's taking is helping her manage her illness. I really hope that doesn't turn out to be the case, because Huntington's is real, and it'd be awfully insensitive for the writers to invent a miracle cure just to raise a fictional character from the dead. I'm really hoping we find out she never had Huntington's at all, and is instead living with some made-up disease with similar symptoms.
Either way, the major questions right now revolve around who Britt's working for and why she's spent the last couple of years letting her friends and loved ones think she's dead. Of course, the parallels to Jason's latest return from the grave are obvious; I know it'll never happen, but I think it'd be downright hilarious if it turned out that Jagger didn't die on the Quartermaine docks, and instead has been forcing Britt to work for him off the books.
Again, I digress. Here's where we are: Dalton is being funded by Sidwell, but the two of them have a "mutual friend" who's the true driving force behind his research. Britt is also in the employ of this mysterious individual, and although we initially saw her working in a teeny tiny Cassadine-style lab, she is now apparently being expected to do all her work from a luxury hotel. If this strikes you as odd, well, Britt agrees with you: At the end of Friday's episode, as Pascal was returning Jason's inquiry about booking a room at the Five Poppies, she barged into his office and started yelling about handing over her car keys. Jason, who'd seemed like he might be about to tell Pascal he wasn't interested in staying there anymore, froze with what passes for a stricken look from him.
And then there's Anna, who knows there's something fishy going on with Dalton, and thanks to Dante's surveillance, also has a pretty good idea about Joss and Vaughn working for the WSB. Her primary concern, however, is Emma, because her granddaughter doesn't have any insta-Bureau training, and could very well piss off the wrong people in her crusade to expose the professor. What Anna doesn't know is that Emma pocketed Vaughn's master key, which Gio has volunteered to use on Emma's behalf while she pretends to be interested in one of Dalton's big lectures. (Vaughn also seems totally unaware that he's lost his key, which makes one wonder about his spying instincts.)
Clearly, there's a lot going on with this story, and it's touching a bunch of characters, and those are generally good things, as is the fact that it's all finally at enough of a low boil that it's trending toward "engaging" and away from "sporadic, baffling distraction." But there's still an awful lot that can go wrong, and based on what we've seen so far, I'm not convinced that the writers really understand what they're doing. As always, I will be delighted if they prove me wrong.
That's it for the big stuff. Here come your bullets!
- Martin and Lucy shared a funny little moment after Drew and Willow's wedding fell apart, suggesting that perhaps there's some hope for them yet
- Molly took Kristina's warnings about Cody to heart, accusing him of being a lech when he asked for more sunscreen on his back; as they fought, he discovered a romance novel hidden in her copy of War & Peace and she told him about her past on the bestsellers list
- Kristina told Michael she hired Cody to seduce Ava, and also that she tried to murder Ava
- Martin asked Yuri if Monica gets a lot of visitors, and seemed surprised when Yuri told him they've bonded over their "meager beginnings"
- Rocco asked Laura for help with talking sense into Lulu and Dante regarding his newfound relationship with Liesl
- Rory Gibson is one of daytime's great criers
- Lulu and Brook Lynn had the same old goddamn argument again, only this time, Lulu got indignant because Brook Lynn hasn't even said "thank you" for bringing her Gio
- Curtis made the appalling decision to try and convince Trina to give Kai another chance
- Kai, thankfully, fucked that up immediately
- Isaiah was on for 30 seconds doing basically nothing, per usual
- Anna is letting Outback live in her apartment even though her building doesn't allow pets, which seems like a really bad look for a police commissioner
- Stella is WAY too invested in Trina and Kai's relationship
- Dante and Danny had a nice little conversation about Sam
- Lucas turned to Felicia for advice about co-existing with Sonny after the writers remembered that she's known him literally all of his life; unfortunately, Felicia offered a bunch of the standard "Sonny is so deep and complicated" nonsense in response
- Sonny gnawed on carrot cake, flirted with Alexis' receptionist, and offered a lot of repulsive self-justification when Alexis confronted him about kidnapping Marco
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