If you've been keeping up with General Hospital, you know last week was largely devoted to the fallout from Monica's death, which means that while it was certainly worth tuning in — especially for longtime viewers — it wasn't really a week with much of an agenda in terms of advancing storylines. This is not only fine, it's what's appropriate; when a character of Monica's importance is written off the canvas for the final time, things really should come to a halt for a few days, so viewers are allowed to feel the full impact.
There will always be things to quibble with when it comes to any GH scene or storyline, and last week was no different. While any discussion of these episodes should begin by paying respect to the acting — particularly the marvelous performances delivered by Jane Elliot and Steve Burton — it's easy to find nits if you're in the mood for picking them. No Yuri? No Terry? Not even a mention of Dillon during his mother's darkest hour? Again, if you set out to find flaws, they were, as ever, there for the finding.
I think, though, that anyone old enough to remember when Monica was a front-burner character would be hard pressed to come up with many real reasons to criticize the way GH paid her tribute. First and most importantly, if you've been watching the show since the '70s, you're very familiar with the many ways in which severely diminished budgetary capabilities prevent the showrunners from doing it up like they used to. I mean, the town church is now a medium-sized room with what, eight pews? The entire town should have been there for her memorial, but things just don't work that way anymore. Much as I'm regularly annoyed by this show's writing, I don't think failures of imagination let us down last week; instead, I'd be more inclined to believe that anything that went missing from those episodes was simply a casualty of limited resources.
But what also must be said, and what's nearly as important, is that these really were some well-crafted episodes. As I've often said in this space, I think the only good reason to kill off a character is if you'll get more story out of them dead than alive. Personally, I would have been fine with Monica living on indefinitely offscreen, with periodic mentions assuring us that the show hadn't forgotten her or Leslie Charleson. To quote the mighty Michael Malone's interview in my One Life to Live book, part of the magic of soaps is that they often suggest a world in which death has no dominion, and that really could have been the case with Monica — a character who, even if we didn't see her anymore, didn't die, simply because no one wanted her to.
But when they made up their minds to acknowledge Charleson's real-life passing by also saying goodbye to Monica, the writers took their time, and used that time to imagine not only how impactful her death would be for those who loved her, but also how it could serve as a gateway to more story. Now, I don't know what's coming next, and whatever they have dreamed up for Erika Slezak as Veronica Bard could definitely be dumb as hell. But for now, I'm happy to believe that Veronica's sudden arrival will not only lead to a month or so of solid viewing, but will also pave the way for further developments — that Monica's death, in other words, will truly have a lasting impact on the canvas beyond her continued absence.
Having said all this, I have to pause for a minute and admit that the Quartermaines were, for me, a phenomenon I didn't really appreciate until their standing on the show had been grossly diminished by a series of shortsighted regimes. In my defense, I wasn't even ten years old when I started really getting into GH, and while Quartermaine-focused scenes were often a great source of funny dialogue, their storylines were never as exciting as whatever was going on with the WSB. Their storylines could also be pretty dumb, too — by the mid-'80s, the show seemed to be struggling to find new things for them to do, which led to silly stuff like Sean wiping them out and forcing them to live above Kelly's until they were saved by Pickle-Lila, or Alan faking his death to frame Sean for murder, pretending to be an amnesiac named Simon, and taking ten minutes to fall in love with Charity Gatlin, kindly shopkeeper of Pautauk.
What I didn't appreciate at the time was that the Quartermaines were played by some of the most phenomenal actors on the show, if not daytime in general. No matter how lame the material might have been, and now matter how wooden their scene partners might have been, that crew brought their A game every single time, and Leslie Charleson stood toe to toe with the rest of them. It had to have been disorienting, if not insulting, to sign on for a hospital drama and end up playing second fiddle to all sorts of outlandish nonsense, but Monica and the rest of the Quartermaines were never anything less than believable. Just as crucial, they added all sorts of color to the canvas — color that was lost during the dismal early aughts, and has never truly been replaced.
That's the kind of thing you see and feel as a viewer even when you're too young to realize it. Even when you're actively trying not to. The Quartermaines, in their full glory, were funny, dynamic, and always just a hair away from drama — and Monica was their perfect foil. Brilliant as she was big-hearted, acerbic as she was kind, she was treated like a family outsider (at least by Tracy, anyway), but she saw and understood the family better than anybody. She was a titan, and the fact that she'd been rarely seen or featured even before Charleson became too ill to work does nothing to lessen the impact of her departure.
At first, I was annoyed that Jason turned out to be the character who found Monica's body; I thought it should have been Tracy. But at this point, I think Tracy should be the one to do most things on this show, and in the end, it was definitely for the best that Jason had to be the one to break the news to her, because in this context, Jason's stoicism made sense — as much as she might annoy him, he loves Tracy, and he wanted to break the news to her gently. To be strong for her. I agree with the chorus of voices that say last week brought out the best in Burton, and prove he's been woefully misused for decades; the moment that really killed me in particular happened when Jason had to call in the death, and found himself unable to speak. Tracy reached out to comfort him, he nodded wordlessly and gathered himself, and he did what had to be done. I don't know if that was written, directed, or improvised, but it was absolutely perfect.
Some of what followed was less than perfect. I tend to be annoyed by soap funerals because they're often used as an excuse for weepy platitudes, and there was certainly some of that here. It's hard to get upset about that, though; this is a melodrama, after all, and if there's ever a time for weepy platitudes, it's a time like this. Tracy running away to Atlantic City so she could avoid dealing with Monica's death, only to be found in a "private room" in a casino whose emptiness only highlighted the fact that the skyline behind Tracy and Lois was the same one we see at the Metro Court pool, was an unnecessary attempt to gin up some extra drama, but on the other hand, it gave Lois and Brook Lynn a chance to reconnect.
And anyway, the good far outweighed the bad. Drew wheeling himself into the service, only to be wheeled right back out by Tracy? Delightful. Lucy, giving a rambling, inappropriate, and ultimately perfect impromptu speech? Wonderful. Tracy, reckoning with the temporal and emotional implications of surviving so much loss? Jason, feeling the loss of his mother and the guilt of his lengthy self-imposed exile from the family? Poignant as hell. And that closing fireworks display of flashbacks, including glimpses of Monica and Alan's marriage? A wonderful surprise. Yes, more characters should have been there. Yes, it would have been great to see more of those old clips. But in this show's diminished state, I think what we got was the best GH could have offered.
And then, in the closing moments of Friday's show, we saw Tracy sneak out of the reception and into the Quartermaine family crypt, where she found a woman she'd never seen before. "Who the hell are you and why are you trespassing?" Tracy snapped.
"You must be Tracy Quartermaine," responded the interloper.
"And who are you?" Tracy demanded.
"Someone who's been waiting quite a while to meet you," she replied.
Thus begins what appears to be a six-week stint for Erika Slezak at GH, during which time the OLTL legend will apparently play Monica's… long-lost sister? I guess? I don't know what the details are, but I'm eager to see this play out — partly because of that whole "more story" thing I mentioned earlier, and partly because it'll give us a chance to watch Jane Elliot and Erika Slezak share scenes. Is giving Monica a heretofore unknown family member a ridiculous retcon? Probably. Do I think the ends justify the means in this case? Also probably. I've said this so recently that I'm honestly astonished that I'm saying it again so soon, but if you've ever loved this show, you owe it to yourself to watch last week's episodes.
And that, my friends, is all that truly mattered last week. Bullets!
- Molly told Alexis she has feelings for Cody
- Lulu and Britt had a preposterous argument that included Britt ridiculously claiming she was more of a mother to Rocco than Lulu would ever be
- The car accident victim was confirmed to be Nathan, and when he woke up, he said his last memory was being shot by Faison
- Britt received a box of medication with a note reminding her "Don't forget to take your medication - C"
- Cody told Gio he found Outback, and Gio told Emma, and when everyone saw how sad Cody was to say goodbye to Outback, Brook Lynn proposed that she live in the stables with him
- Gio and Emma smooched
- Marshall returned to town so he could recap Curtis and Portia's marriage woes
- Portia was infuriated to hear that Curtis met Jordan for drinks the night Drew was shot, and she quickly channeled that fury into a successful attempt to rekindle things with Isaiah
- A stunned Felicia told Cody about Nathan's apparent return, and they discussed their shared determination to try and prevent James from being hurt
- Cynthia Watros remains underutilized and amazing, as evidenced by Nina's reaction to seeing Nathan inexplicably back from the dead
- Trina went to see Jordan, who urged her to stay all the way the hell out of the investigation into Drew's shooting
- Elizabeth came to Monica's service early in order to be there for Jason, thus setting countless Liason diehards' hearts aflutter
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