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Well, well, well. Was that a week, or what?
Thanks to ABC's eagerness to preempt General Hospital or send it to repeats at the slightest provocation, Labor Day meant we only got four episodes of the show last week. But across those four episodes, the show set off a fireworks display of fun that was so tightly plotted that I found myself wondering whether GH's regular writers had been replaced by aliens from the planet Lumina.
Because it was an abbreviated week that was mainly focused on a single story, because it was so much fun, and also because I've got Week 1 NFL action beckoning as I write this, it might be a very short column… but I've said that before and been wrong every time. Away we go!
Shot Through the Back, and You're to Blame
In the storyline development viewers have been licking their chops at for weeks, Drew finally pissed someone off so badly that they went to his house and shot him. In the back. Twice. The blessed event occurred in the closing moments of Tuesday's episode, which makes you wonder just how badly GH's episodes have been screwed up by various interruptions; by all rights, this really should have happened on a Friday. But that's their problem, not ours, and anyway, I suspect most viewers couldn't have cared less when Drew went down, they just wanted to see it happen.
I've talked before about how I think it'd be a dumb decision for the show to kill Drew, so I'm glad that — spoiler alert — he made it through surgery and it looks like he'll live to torment the town another day. Not only have we seen more than enough Quartermaines die, but I'm of the firm belief that you should only kill a character when they can give you more story dead than alive. That's absolutely not the case with Drew — although it was ironically absolutely the case before his abrupt, still-unexplained heel turn.
I digress. During the minutes leading up to Drew's shooting, we were treated to an hour of various characters talking about how much they hate him and why. Curtis and Alexis bonded over their belief that someone needed to do something about him. Nina and Portia got drinks at the Brown Dog and agreed that no one would be free as long as Drew kept breathing. Michael ominously told Carly that while Drew believed he had everyone under his thumb, he had no idea how quickly circumstances could change for him. Thud, thud, thud went the anvils.
While his various victims were wishing him dead, Drew was busy doing what he does best, which is being a super dick to anybody who rubs him the wrong way. After seeing that Elizabeth overheard Carly threatening to kill him, he quipped that she was only mad because he and Willow were back together, and sauntered out while Elizabeth made a face of utter revulsion. Then he went to GH, where he found Chase trying to convince Willow that she didn't need to get back with Drew in order to have a better shot at securing custody of her kids. Although she was touched that Chase spoke with Judge Heran on her behalf, she continued to babble about how Drew was her best bet — and then Drew butted in by not only telling Chase it was none of his business, but threatening to call Brook Lynn and see how she felt about him getting mixed up in his ex-wife's personal affairs.
Chase gave as good as he got in that conversation, calling Drew a sleaze and volunteering to dial the phone so Drew could make that call, but it was all moot in the end, because as we learned at the end of the previous week, Judge Heran is dead. Not long after jawing with Drew, Chase learned it too, and had to be the bearer of bad news for Willow, who was so upset that she walked out in the middle of a shift so she could, uh, clear her head.
In the midst of all this, Trina was finally — and, really, rather stupidly — telling a repentant Kai that if he really meant everything he was saying about Drew being a bad guy, then he could prove it by helping her mom… and then telling him exactly what Drew was holding over Portia. Agreeing that he was probably the only person who'd know where Drew was keeping the evidence of Portia's crime, he took Trina to Drew's place, where they broke in and tried cracking the safe.
Unfortunately, they weren't able to figure out the combination before Drew came home. But as it turned out, they didn't need to, because Drew poured himself a glass of bourbon and went straight to the safe, opened it, removed Lila's ring, and put it on the mantel while muttering that things were all going to work out and she'd see. When he was shot, Kai convinced Trina to wait a few beats before they came out of their hiding place, and then when they discovered his body and verified he had a pulse, they skedaddled instead of calling the cops — partly because they saw headlights in the driveway, partly because they both knew they'd have a hell of a time explaining what they were doing in the house to begin with.
(On the other hand, Kai works for Drew, and could have said he was stopping by for any reason, and Trina just happened to be with him. But whatever.)
Those headlights belonged to Tracy, who was there to try and talk some sense into Drew regarding the restraining orders he'd filed against the other side of Scout's family. She had the honor of finding him bleeding out, and — in a very Tracy move — immediately clicked into Quartermaine First Mode, covering him with a blanket to try and stanch the bleeding, calling an ambulance, and demanding that he live. Much as she might hate the guy, he's still Alan's son. Her concern was also somewhat selfish: As she later told Michael and Brook Lynn, she didn't want to have to tell Monica that Drew died.
After being questioned by the PCPD, Tracy returned to the mansion in a hoodie, which was all it took for Brook Lynn and Michael to know something was wrong. Explaining she got her outfit from the police because her own was bloody, she filled them in on Drew's shooting — and then, after Brook Lynn left the room, she immediately promised Michael that she wouldn't tell the cops she saw his car pulling away from Drew's place as she pulled up.
Michael didn't bother telling Tracy he wasn't the one who shot Drew, but as we later learned via flashback, he has an alibi: He was at the Port Charles Grill, where he spent some time chatting up a blonde woman he'd never met, but who the audience immediately recognized as Jacinda. She told him she was returning from a "dream vacation" that didn't end the way she wanted it to, and she'd been forced to return home because she ran out of money.
This is the one weird little hole in the middle of everything. We know Drew got to Jacinda in Australia, but when that happened, you'd think one of a couple things would happen — either he'd pay her off to go deeper underground or he'd have her kidnapped (or worse) to keep her quiet. She obviously fled instead, so… why in the world would she go back to Port Charles? And if she was out of money, why would she order expensive cocktails at the Grill? The only good answer to that last question is "so she could pick up a guy who'd be well-off enough to hire her as an escort," but then why, after meeting Michael and letting him pick up her tab, did she not even bother to get his name?
The writers' answer, which isn't a good one, is "so the audience can spend a few minutes wondering whether Michael shot Drew." It's my one quibble with the story so far, and it isn't a major one.
Against all odds, what happened after Drew was shot was almost as entertaining as watching him get shot. As we've already established, there's absolutely no shortage of characters who'd have a terrific motive for trying to murder the guy, and for the rest of the week, the writers had a blast playing it coy about the identity of the perp. (This could very well be because they themselves don't know, but let's keep things positive.) We saw Willow return from her walk soaking wet. We saw Nina and Portia spend pretty much an entire episode talking in code about how great it is that they were together the night of the shooting, and also how wonderful it is that Nina happened to come across Willow on her walk. (She totally did not, and Anna and Chase both totally know it, and Willow expressed a total lack of gratitude for the improvised assist, accusing Nina of trying to give herself an alibi rather than trying to help her own daughter.)
We saw Alexis entering her living room through the kitchen while Kristina was in the middle of telling Dante she wasn't home, and then saw a delighted Ava dismissing Alexis' explanation that she'd been taking out the trash, insisting (after Dante left, of course) that Drew got what he deserved and Alexis deserved all the credit. After assuring them she wasn't the shooter, Alexis then announced that she, Kristina, and Ava would all be each other's alibis.
We saw Stella worriedly telling Trina that she thinks Curtis might be the shooter.
The PCPD has their work cut out for them here. Fortunately, they aren't investigating a murder, at least not yet; although we were made to seriously question whether she'd honor her oath, Portia not only didn't intentionally tank Drew's surgery, she ended up getting the credit for saving his life by stopping the bleeding after Lucas nicked an artery while removing the second bullet. He's now in stable condition, but that bullet was also pretty close to his spinal cord, so does this mean he'll be plotting against his enemies from a wheelchair now? If so, I hope he spends a lot of time steepling his fingers like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.
Long story short: If you're one of those lapsed viewers that the show claims to be so interested in luring back, last week is the most persuasive argument in their favor that I can remember watching for a very long time. The aftershock from Gio finding out that Dante and Brook Lynn are his parents included some outstanding acting, but from a narrative standpoint, it was a million times dumber and more convoluted than this; what we're looking at here is a good old-fashioned whodunnit (or who tried to dunnit), and last week, it had no fat on its bones. If you haven't jumped in for awhile, the water is currently quite warm.
Rather than sully all these good vibes by ending the main column with a few paragraphs of pooping on the utter nonsense that is the WSB storyline, I'll skip to the bullets now. See you next week!
- Sonny the supergenius immediately suspected Sidwell of murdering Judge Heran
- Britt gave Joss a pair of manicure scissors to help her and Vaughn escape, then went back to her room so she could call Jason and tell him to get back to the Five Poppies
- Pascal caught Britt while she was trying to yell through a bad connection
- True to form, Joss and Vaughn screwed up their escape attempt, but dodged a staged drowning when Pascal's still-mysterious boss told him they were still useful
- Brennan made sure Anna overheard him telling Colette she was being transferred to Algiers for insubordination, and Anna immediately understood she was being used
- Brennan later got the drop on Colette while she was trying and failing to break into his safe, and told her she could either tell him who she's really working for or be extradited to a black site
- Carly's alibi for Drew's shooting is a boring conversation with Brennan
- Willow was given emergency custodianship of Scout, who was at a Lila's Kids sleepover when Drew got popped
- Kai and Trina burned the evidence that Portia tampered with Heather's test results, but realized they couldn't tell her they even found it or that she's now in the clear
- Martin told Lulu that Drew is behind the investigation into Stella, and tried getting her to pursue the story
- Curtis told Jordan that his marriage is over
- Kai pretending to be surprised when Anna told him Drew got shot was the funniest thing we saw all week
- Elizabeth volunteered to house Willow and Scout while Drew's laid up
- Michael turned to Lulu in his quest to find Jacinda
- Jacinda, meanwhile, was just a few feet away in Portia's office, where she was happily blackmailing Portia and Nina for extra cash
- An assassin with the world's worst aim fired at Jason from within his own room at the Five Poppies and missed; after Jason killed him, he took his gun and headed to Britt's room, where he discovered that she'd conveniently left him a handwritten note containing directions to where she was being held
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