For many of us, the holiday season is a time to reflect on our lives, place a renewed focus on friends and family, and spend a bunch of money in an attempt to spread some cheer as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder. There's a little of that on General Hospital, but it doesn't make for scintillating drama, so for the most part, life in Port Charles has to stay busy. In some cases, busier than usual: Unless I'm missing something, all of last week's episodes took place on Thanksgiving, and a lot of stuff went down. Never mind football and a nap; these people were getting married, getting drunk, getting hauled down to the police station, and getting blackmailed.
Plenty for the folks at home to be thankful for, in other words, at least in terms of GH holding our interest. Let's look back together:
The Quartermaine Thanksgiving Tradition Continues
To be perfectly honest, I'm not a huge fan of the Quartermaines' annual struggle to eat an actual Thanksgiving dinner. It was funny when it happened in 1994, but for me, it's long since lost its comedic value. That being said, it's a Quartermaine tradition, and lord knows we can't afford to lose any more of those, so I'm not going to complain; instead, I'm just going to tell you that Chase really did make a Thanksgiving feast, and after a brief fakeout that was meant to make us think Outback ate the whole thing, the incredulous Qs gathered 'round the kitchen table to behold his work.
So who kept them from chowing down this year? Brook Lynn, whose fixation on the "Quartermaine curse" led her to propose that they donate the food to people who really needed it. When the rest of the family agreed, she led a group of them to GH, where they gave it to the staff, including Portia and Isaiah, who were super hungry after having sex in her office. When Brook Lynn and the others returned to the mansion, they were greeted by Ned and Gio, who'd accepted a surprise delivery of a stack of pizzas — a delivery planned ahead of time by Tracy before she left on her extended spa vacation.
The whole thing was sweet, albeit corny, which is to say it was exactly what everyone should expect from the Qs during a GH Thanksgiving episode. We got to see Leo for a minute, Ned surprised Olivia by returning home looking more like he'd been at the beach instead of in the hospital recovering from a heart attack, and Gio continued his slow crawl toward rebuilding his relationship with the family. I wasn't exactly riveted, since we all knew exactly where it would end up, but like I said: I'm not going to complain.
Am I Under Arrest?
Thanksgiving at the Ashfords' was far less heartwarming. Marshall returned home for the holiday and wanted to know where Portia was, only to find out she had to work; instead, the family had to make do with the true turkey of the season, Kai, who wandered around like a lummox while all manner of chaos erupted.
First, Jordan stopped by. She'd been invited by Stella, but we didn't know that — and neither did Trina, whose icy glare quickly convinced Jordan to invent an excuse to leave. Curtis followed her out, where they smooched while Trina was busy overhearing Marshall and Stella talk about Portia's pregnancy. Because Trina is now being written as if she were six years old, this news prompted a great deal of wailing, which in turn sparked a whole dumb fight between Marshall and Stella over his failure to A) tell her about Curtis and Jordan's recent canoodling, and B) his refusal to try and force Curtis to stay with Portia for the sake of the baby.
Presumably determined to give Curtis a piece of her mind, Trina headed back outside, where she was positively scandalized to see him locking lips with Jordan — and then everyone had their minds blown when Nathan showed up with a couple of cops in tow and told Curtis he had some questions about the night of Drew's shooting.
Curtis, naturally, got pretty testy about this, and Nathan also had to endure some pointed questions from Jordan (and heaps of sass from Trina). Eventually, though, Curtis agreed to meet Nathan at the station, where Nathan patiently tried to get Curtis to amend his previous statement by repeatedly making it abundantly obvious that fresh evidence was about to punch some pretty big holes in his alibi. Although Curtis stubbornly refused to take the bait, he was freaking out a little inside — which we know because we watched the recon-flashbacks showing him meeting with Selina at the Savoy and offering her a million bucks to have Drew killed.
This is a classic example of a soap twist that falls apart like a wet napkin the minute you think about it, but is decently effective at providing shock value in the short term. And honestly, I think it'd be pretty great if Curtis was responsible for shooting Drew — I'd much prefer it if we found out he just walked right into Drew's house and did it himself, but I'll never complain about Selina's involvement in a storyline, so as silly as this curveball felt, I was willing to go along with it, even if it meant being faced with the question of how a mob assassin could screw up a point-blank hit. And as it turned out, there wasn't much to go along with, because after leaving the station, Curtis quickly confessed everything to Jordan: After Selina agreed to arrange for Drew's death, he got cold feet and never transferred the money. The unaccounted-for time in his alibi, he explained, happened when he went back to Aurora to cancel the transaction because "it had to be on the same network."
This is where it gets super dumb, because at literally any point, Curtis could have told the cops he was at Aurora. He had to swipe a badge to get in; there must be security footage. He wouldn't even have to say what he was doing there, because he's the freaking CEO. Boom! Rock solid alibi. Instead, he mulishly shook his head while Nathan explained that the Savoy's security company had a record of Curtis leaving the Savoy an hour before he met Jordan at the Brown Dog — the same hour when Drew caught a couple of bullets.
Because badass cops (or badass ex-cops) are only smart and skillful when this show needs them to be, Jordan didn't think about any of this when Curtis told her about Selina; she just hugged him and said she knew he couldn't have done it because he's a good man. He hugged her back, but he had an awfully odd look on his face when he did it. It might mean that Curtis is lying to Jordan, or it might mean that Donnell Turner has no idea how the hell he's supposed to be playing this. I guess we'll all find out together.
I Do, Even Though Everyone Wishes I Wouldn't
Quite a bit of what I've written about so far happened on Monday. Monday! And the episode still somehow found room to include the unholy union of Drew and Willow, who were married in his living room in front of three guests and his daughter while his increasingly reluctant lawyer officiated. It was gross and sad, as all things involving Drew and Willow inevitably are; in terms of advancing the narrative, the one truly high-value moment occurred when Willow flat-out admitted to Nina that she doesn't have to love Drew in order to marry him.
Well, wait, that isn't entirely true. We also had a fun little jump scare when Michael peeped in from outside the house as the ceremony was getting started. Was he there because he "just had to see it" for himself, as he later told Jacinda? Or was he contemplating something more nefarious? As ever, Rory Gibson's Michael could go either way, which is just part of what makes him fun to watch.
Anyway, I'm bored with the newlyweds, and have been for some time. As I complained weeks ago, we don't know enough about Willow's true feelings to be able to trust — or be interested in — her actions. It made a ton of sense for her to be a blank slate immediately after the shooting, but this has been allowed to go on for far too long, and I'm tired of being toyed with. I hope their honeymoon lasts for a month.
Oh, and we also got some fun dialogue between Martin and Alexis. I wouldn't be opposed to the two of them hooking up.
Gone To the Dogs
In a way, I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense that Dante has spent the last year being written as the type of father who yells first and asks questions later. It aligns with stereotypical notions of "the old neighborhood" where he was raised, and it'd also be somewhat justified in light of everything he's been through since leaving the WSB and losing Sam. On the other hand, it does get awfully tiresome to see him playing the role of Caveman Dad whenever one of his kids gets in trouble.
On the other other hand, I have to admit that as much as I sighed when Dante started off the week by telling Rocco he wasn't allowed to see Gio anymore, it did lead to a pretty interesting (and honestly overdue) conversation. Rocco, presumably toughened up by his 15 minutes in juvie, told Dante he was full of shit — families are supposed to stick together, not that he'd know anything about that, given the way he walked out on his family when he joined the WSB, and again when he went off to be treated for his post-WSB PTSD.
Like I said, this whole "Dante is a dick to his kids" dynamic has gotten tiresome, but I was absolutely down for Rocco confronting his father this way. And to no one's surprise, Dominic Zamprogna made a meal out of the scenes that followed, when he unburdened his lingering guilt to Lulu (and, later, Sonny). In a world where super-spies are allowed to build families and expected to save the world, it only makes sense that hearts will be broken, but the messy parts of healing them are often forgotten in the rush for soapy adventure, so it was a nice surprise to watch these messy dynamics being reckoned with, if even for a moment, and even if it mainly succeeded in exposing the glaring missed opportunities surrounding Dante and Lulu as they currently stand.
Since waking up from her coma, Lulu has largely been written as a shrill, judgmental bore, and since just before he found out he was Gio's father, Dante's frequently been written as a bellicose, reactionary jerk. I humbly submit that neither of these characters need to be unlikable in order to be interesting. Watching Dante and Lulu come to terms with their broken marriage, figure out how to co-parent, and build a friendship out of that wreckage would be a LOT more emotionally impactful than the stuff we've been handed. Same goes for Dante's relationship with Gio, which has been twisted in severely plot-driven directions that it never needed to explore. The simple facts of their history are outlandish enough to drive story without grasping for reasons for them to misunderstand or dislike each other; what's happening now is so desperately cliched that it almost physically hurts. These writers, and soaps in general, can do better.
But never mind all that, because dogs! Emma came home and found the address of Dalton's secret lab slipped under Anna's apartment door, and — not worried at all that it might be a setup, or even questioning for a minute where it might have come from — she enlisted Gio to help her break in and bust the animals out. They did, and brought them all to Sonny's, where they interrupted a rather sweet conversation he was having with Ric over a bottle of the good stuff. Rocco, who stormed out of Lulu's after sassing Dante, also happened to be there, which of course upset Dante when he inevitably arrived, which… oh, whatever. The important thing is that Dalton's dogs aren't starving in his secret lab while whatever's left of his DNA bobs in the foam on top of the magical drum of body-dissolving goop that Jason keeps in the Corinthos Coffee warehouse.
A Matter of Some Urgency
Laura's Thanksgiving evening looked like it was going to end on a high note when Kevin returned from Dublin, just in time to have a very intense conversation with his wife about how her trunk recently contained the corpse of a man she'd publicly threatened, but she was pretty sure no one would ever be able to find that corpse because her mobster pal took care of the situation. Naturally, it took all of ten minutes before Kevin had to leave in order to see to a patient, and that's when Laura's night took a serious turn for the worse.
When Sidwell deposited Dalton's body in Laura's trunk, we knew it was only a matter of time before he exploited that situation to his own ends. He doesn't appear to be a stupid man, but he might be an impatient one, because that bill came due Thanksgiving night, when he stopped by Laura's apartment with a couple of photos — one of Laura discovering the body, and one of Sonny standing next to her in front of the trunk — along with the news that from now on, she was going to do his bidding if she wanted to stay out of prison. To add insult to injury, Sidwell invited Boyle to join them, explaining that he'd be the intermediary delivering Laura's marching orders. Although she initially gave as good as she got — I liked the moment when she reminded Sidwell that she'd faced off against bad guys before, and all of them were gone — she eventually realized she had no cards to play, and could only watch as Sidwell and Boyle strutted out of her apartment.
At that point, she naturally dozed off on the couch, because that's what anyone would do after being blackmailed into using the mayor's office as a conduit for the guy who tried to murder their son — and while she slept, she dreamed that she was visited by the extremely pissed-off ghosts of Cyrus and Esme, both of whom were only too happy to remind her that despite the high horse she occasionally trampled them with, she was currently in the act of covering up a murder in order to save her own hide.
While Laura faced ghosts, Sonny — still covered in dog hair — was visited by Sidwell, who casually shared the same photos he'd shown Laura, told Sonny he expected him to willingly sell his piers, and added that if anything at all should happen to him or Marco, the evidence connecting Sonny and Laura to Dalton's murder would immediately come to light. This is usually the part where Brick would come strolling out of the shadows and announce he'd blown up Wyndemere, or Spinelli would text Sonny to say he'd programmed Sidwell to get testicular cancer, but that didn't happen here; instead, Sonny just low-key seethed while Sidwell told him how thoroughly he'd been screwed. It wasn't not fun to watch.
At this point in a sane story, Sidwell would be allowed to make Sonny and Laura do things they don't want to do. Sonny would indeed sell his precious piers; Laura would look the other way while one or several heinous acts were permitted to take place. Both of them would have to deal with the long-lasting effects of those decisions, and it would make Sidwell's eventual defeat that much more satisfying, because his evil would actually have meant something, and it would have damaged characters we know in ways that were genuinely unpleasant. Needless to say, I have no faith that this will actually happen here — at least not to Sonny, who's long been shrouded with the heaviest, clumsiest plot armor the world has ever seen.
So what happens next? Oh, I don't know. I'm willing to predict, though, that it'll pretend to be a big deal, and that this prediction will be an enormous lie.
Vaughn Has Ghosted Me
We'll close out this column with a very brief series of sentences expressing my molten rage regarding the idea that Josslyn Jacks, a well-documented moron, is in any way, shape, or form qualified to work in any capacity for the World Security Bureau.
Remember how Brennan disappeared Vaughn for the high crime of having sexual relations with Joss? Well, our fair maiden — who was, as you may recall, an irresistible recruit for the mighty Brennan — reacted to his sudden absence by lamenting to Trina that he "ghosted" her. (This conversation took place late at night, when Trina heard Joss rustling around in their apartment, left her bed, and offered to make her a cup of tea so she could share her woes at a moment when Trina was dealing with the divorce of her parents, her mother's pregnancy, and her fears that either of her parents might be guilty of attempted murder. But sure, Joss, let's talk about your boyfriend.) This utterly moronic lapse, in and of itself, should disqualify from Joss ever doing spy work, but it got worse: Brennan summoned her to his office so he could yell at her for sneaking the location of Dalton's secret lab to Emma, and then she was open-mouth shocked when he told her that the WSB didn't want to destroy the technology Faison had been developing, but instead keep it for themselves.
He also told her he was the one who had made Vaughn disappear; to her limited credit, she wasn't quite as surprised about that, even though she definitely should have suspected that Vaughn was in some sort of danger long before she considered the idea that he "ghosted" her. But still. This young woman is demonstrably an enormous idiot, and we're supposed to believe her as a spy? A spy in training, even?
It really, really doesn't help that Chris L. McKenna continues to exhibit "sleeps with socks on" energy during all of his scenes. It's one thing when he's sharing scenes with Laura Wright, and she's working overtime to sell their BS; it's quite another when it's him and Eden McCoy. Both of them are being asked to play woefully beyond their natural ranges here, and the results are unintentionally humorous on a regular basis. Their scene ended with Brennan getting a phone call that left him gasping "Oh my god," which made my wife — who does not watch GH, but is adjacently familiar enough to have a rough idea of what's happening at any given moment — guffaw from across the room.
That's it for the big stuff. Time for your bullets!
- Scout was shocked to catch the bouquet at Drew and Willow's wedding, despite the fact that she was absolutely the only person anywhere near where it was thrown
- Michael and Jacinda did it
- After Ava ambushed them into meeting at the Brown Dog, Portia and Nina had a sadly offscreen catfight
- Molly and Cody's contrived dance of celibacy continued when Molly walked into the Brown Dog and misunderstood what was happening when she saw a margarita-polluted Britt kissing Cody
- Trina and Kai resolved to find out who shot Drew
- Britt, mistaking herself for a character in a love story with a teen or twentysomething character, dared Jason to kiss her
- Jason dosed a drunk Britt with her offensive magical anti-Huntington's medication, leading me to suddenly regain hope that at some point, he might remember the time he spent planning to be a doctor
- Carly and Lucas argued some more about her rude and offensive take on his relationship with Marco
- Carly also interrupted a perfectly nice conversation between Lucas and Felicia
- Kevin pulled the most exhausted card in the GH deck when he told Laura that if she turned herself in, it'd just hurt Ace
- Valentin broke out of prison, apparently had his ass kicked in the process, and showed up at Carly's
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