Thanksgiving is barely over in Port Charles, but as a viewer, I'm already thinking about what I want for Christmas. There's just one item on my list, and I feel like it isn't a lot to ask for: Dear General Hospital writers, could you please stop screwing around and finally decide who you want to be responsible for shooting Drew? The long list of suspects was fun at first, but that carousel's been spinning for months now, and at this point, I'm pretty sure you're just trolling us.
In the spirit of fairness, I must admit that it feels like they're at least narrowing their focus a little; on the other hand, last week was pretty ridiculous in terms of who-shot-Drew whiplash, starting with Curtis in lockup and ending with the PCPD furrowing its brow back in Willow's direction. These are supposed to feel like exciting twists, but they're getting tiresome, and there's only so long you can tease out a whodunnit before the last answer left is "who cares?"
Fortunately, it wasn't all about Drew last week. We also have the Sidwell affair, which is another storyline that's been allowed to dawdle on for far too long — and another one that feels like it may or may not be shifting into a higher gear, especially now that Valentin's back in town with a pocket full of Faison-related secrets and a burning hatred for Brennan.
Oh, and eyelash mites. Is anyone interested in exploring a class action lawsuit against ABC on behalf of Rebecca Herbst? Hit me up in the comments and let's try to find a lawyer together.
Valentin Cassadine Has Escaped
As I've said here before, I get a reliable kick out of watching James Patrick Stuart when Valentin is in rakish DGAF mode, and he's certainly in it now — as I think most people would be if they managed to commandeer a prison transport jet, pilot it well enough to get themselves low enough to parachute safely, and then jump out of the damn thing within walking distance from their co-conspirator's house.
Freed from the WSB's clutches, Valentin made his way to Carly's place, where she was appalled to find him lurking in her living room after Thanksgiving dinner. They bickered over whether it was okay for him to hide out there, but they couldn't bicker for long, because Josslyn — who was with Brennan when he got the call informing him that Valentin escaped — abruptly showed up under the guise of "spending the night" so she could secretly try and protect Carly. He slipped out just in time and spent the night shivering under tarps in the shed; the following day, he insisted on more dignified digs, so she agreed to put him in the attic. (Insert Arrested Development jokes here.)
Valentin's argument is that Carly's house is the last place anyone would look for him — and he'd better hope he's right, because it took all of about five minutes for half the town to go into manhunt mode. After getting the news, Dante naturally turned to Nathan, who is now far too busy with police work to answer any pesky questions about the seven years he was dead; while Nathan dashed off to Lulu's house to stand guard and continue their chem test, Chase searched Wyndemere and found nothing. And then there's Brennan, whose big idea was to try and threaten Charlotte into being used as bait.
Joss, meanwhile, seems to have forgotten all about the fact that her boss had her coworker/boyfriend shipped off to an indeterminate location for having sex with her.
As for Charlotte? She ended the week with that devious half-Cassadine smirk on her face, because she found a key with a blue ribbon tied to it on her porch — her secret signal from Valentin that all's well and she should stay put until further notice. (The key ended up there thanks to Carly, who honored Valentin's request that she make the drop. In Port Charles, this counts as outstanding spy work; perhaps Brennan should recruit her into the WSB next.)
A Plate of Macarons for La Prisonnière
In the last column, we talked about how Sidwell spent Thanksgiving gleefully informing Sonny and Laura that he has them under his thumb. The following day, he held a meeting at Wyndemere, informing Lucy, Brook Lynn, and Felicia — who was there as Maxie's proxy — that he had a plan to pull Deception out of the doldrums it had fallen into following Maxie's collapse into a face cream-induced coma. Like most things involving corporate intrigue on this show, his plan is simultaneously too complicated and too dumb to spend much time getting into, but the gist is that he wants to sell the company his precious zincite at cost, which he can now afford to do because he's close to signing off on the purchase of Sonny's piers, and will henceforth be able to move whatever he wants in and out of there without paying additional fees.
While Brook Lynn and Felicia were processing their extreme skepticism over the idea that Sonny would up and sell his precious piers, Sidwell acknowledged that the deal comes with a catch, which is this: He requires full control over all goods imported for Deception products. Visibly less than thrilled with all this, Felicia and Brook Lynn departed Wyndemere, leaving Sidwell free to woo Lucy with compliments and a madman's kiss. If we saw Lynn Herring on any kind of regular basis, I'd be intrigued by this; as it is, I strongly suspect it'll end up being an extremely minor subplot. (I would absolutely love to be wrong about this — as longtime viewers know, Lucy has a rich history of getting involved with homicidal lunatics, and I'd be delighted if Sidwell's undoing involved her, and included echoes of Victor Jerome's demise.)
While we're on the topic of Wyndemere, let's double back to Chase's search of the grounds. He can be forgiven for not finding Valentin, who was nowhere near the place; he should, however, be mocked for failing to turn up another tenant. As we learned later in the week, the old Cassadine estate's mazelike and seemingly endless confines currently house Anna, who's being held in a cell that's actually pretty nice. Far from the hardships she endured while being fenced up in Grant Putnam's basement years ago, she's got herself a little kitchen, a cozy couch, a yoga mat, and even a handy pencil-and-notebook set she can use to organize her thoughts while she tries to figure out where she is and who's keeping her there.
I am sad to report that despite Anna's decades of superspy work for the WSB, she's gotten just about nowhere in her investigation. In fact, it was only last week that she seemed to remember being taken across water during her journey to her cell. To her credit, though, she's at least starting to get suspicious about Britt and Nathan coming back from the dead at the same time, which automatically makes her smarter than everyone else in Port Charles. Not smart enough, alas, to figure out where she's being held — but we know, thanks to Pascal, who came in over the PA system and ordered her to face the wall and put her hands behind her head before sauntering into her cell with a plate of macarons as a reward for being a model prisoner.
What's comical about this is that when Chase showed up with a warrant to search the grounds, Marco sneaked a look at Pascal, who gave him a subtle nod letting him know that Sidwell had already arranged for all evidence of their nefarious deeds to be moved offsite. Except he totally didn't, because Anna's there, which means we're supposed to believe that there are super-secret warrens within the compound that not even trained investigators can find, and also that they had to move stuff off the island so the cops wouldn't discover it. If they were going to move anything, you'd think they'd move the police commissioner they kidnapped, but whatever; I guess that's why I'm not a criminal mastermind.
And speaking of criminal masterminds, the reveal that Anna's being held by Sidwell confirms my assumption that he was able to dupe Brennan regarding her whereabouts with no more than a phone call. If it's that easy to trick the WSB, then why has it taken Sidwell so damn long to set his plans in motion and reveal his true intentions? Why not just waltz into town, toss a few shiny objects in different directions, and do whatever you want while law enforcement bumbles its way into oblivion?
Not a serious question, of course; soaps wouldn't be soaps without their long buildups. All I'm pointing out here is that the writers insult our intelligence when they pull stunts like this. If you're going to have Sidwell hold Anna at Wyndemere, then don't also have him moving things around to hide from the PCPD. If you want us to believe Brennan is one of the world's most dangerous spies — or even that he has the slightest idea what he's doing — then don't also make him a credulous chump. Pick a side and then tell the stories that follow from there. The bottom line is that all the players in this game should be smart and/or powerful, and they should be engaged in a cat-or-mouse game that takes time to unravel — but it should unravel through the clever exploitation of actual weaknesses rather than plot-driven shenanigans that we're supposed to be too dumb or distracted to notice.
The most upsetting thing is that I sense we're still a ways off from learning the full scope of Sidwell's true agenda. Sonny and Laura met last week to lament their lack of leverage against him, and the chief takeaway seems to be that Sonny and Jason expect to be ordered to do various things for Sidwell, and they figure that while doing these things, they'll slowly learn more about the inner workings of his organization. Sonny's also interested in seeing how Sidwell plans to use his power over Laura; as he sees it, the key to figuring out why Sidwell's in Port Charles and what he's trying to accomplish lies in finding out what he does through the mayor's office.
The idea of Sonny being forced to do someone else's bidding is appealing to me for various reasons, but this needed to happen like nine months ago. The type of incremental reveal suggested by Sonny and Jason's plan would have been interesting and/or even exciting at one point, but that point passed a while back; I no longer have the patience for anything other than big strides now, and I seriously doubt I'm alone in that.
You Have the Right to Remain Silent. Also, You Are Free to Go
In the last column, we talked about the abrupt, absurd revelation that Curtis hired Selina to put out a hit on Drew, only to change his mind and cancel the transfer. The fact that he did this after she flew all the way from Singapore to meet with him is something no one seems all that concerned about; if I were Curtis, I'd be terrified for my life right now.
On the other hand, I guess Curtis had more immediate concerns last week, starting with Nathan arriving at his office and arresting him for obstruction of justice and making a false statement. Given what Curtis did, these are reasonable charges — and given that the police found out about it because Curtis didn't even bother to delete the Savoy security footage showing Selina on the premises, he 100 percent deserved to end up in handcuffs. (One week, everyone's talking about how Curtis is an ex-cop who'd know how to stage a crime scene; the next, he's exactly the type of idiot who'd arrange a meeting with a mob boss at his own club and not bother to cover up the evidence. Again: PICK A SIDE.)
Turner wasn't exactly thrilled when she heard about Curtis' arrest, because of how easily it could complicate their case against Willow, and she was right to be concerned. As is so often the case on GH, the writers' pursuit of juicy melodrama has made the cops look like fools. Another great example of this is the moment last week when Zombie Nathan, Cop of the Year, happened to notice some traffic camera footage that had been mislabeled. Part of this footage? Why, a crystal-clear head-on shot of Willow weeping in her car down the street from Drew's house.
I'm not even sure Curtis was in jail long enough to spend the night, but his arrest sparked a flurry of activity that included Portia experiencing sudden cramping (because that's what happens anytime a pregnant woman experiences stress), Nina rushing over to Alexis' place to interrupt her trial prep with Willow with the wonderful (but woefully premature) news that she wouldn't have to stand trial after all, and Drew heading to Curtis' cell so they could threaten each other with mutually assured destruction.
Given that we ended the week with Willow back on top of the PCPD's list of suspects, I'm not really sure what purpose any of this served. The best I can guess is that it was mostly meant to put an obstacle between Portia and Isaiah, who were making goo-goo eyes at each other and talking about her spending her post-cramping bed rest at his place before Curtis showed up, fresh out of custody, to join Trina at her bedside and invite her to come home and recuperate. She accepted, Isaiah looked sad while watching from the door, and I checked my watch. Does anyone in the audience really care whether Curtis and Portia stay together anymore? Does anyone feel like they've even seen enough of Isaiah and Portia as a couple to be the slightest bit invested in whether they end up together? Can't any of the writers think of something better for Jordan to do than pine for Curtis?
Questions for another day and another column, friends. For now, I leave you with your customary bullets:
- Ned, who can no longer drink chamomile tea, spoke with Brook Lynn about Valentin escaping, and their conversation included a Peter mention that I swear to god had better not mean that cursed character is somehow on his way back
- Marco, who is regrettably much more interesting now that he's a full-on Sidwell lackey, told Pascal that Lucas can never know he's up to his neck in his father's dirty dealings
- Turner told Molly that she's only pretending to be charmed by Sonny in order to make it hurt that much more when she takes him down
- Emma showed up at the PCPD to tell Mac she'd received a voicemail from Anna saying she'd be home as soon as possible
- Peeved to find Marco at Willow's trial prep meeting, Drew tried sassing him into leaving — and was subtly reminded by Marco that Sidwell has his nuts in a vise
- Drew thought he remembered something happening after the second shot hit him, but it slipped away
- Dante took a break from yelling at his kids to rudely and disloyally suggest to Nathan that perhaps Anna's the one who helped Valentin escape
- Marco brought Britt the key fob to her new super-secret lab and basically told her she'd have to quit her job at GH with zero notice
- After watching Britt be pressed into service to help Portia, Lucas offered to write her a letter of recommendation to the reaccreditation committee
- Rebecca Herbst and Kristina Wagner got out of bed one morning, drove to the studio, sat in makeup, and delivered lines they'd memorized in order to tape a series of scenes about Elizabeth having eyelash mites
- Kristina got an allergy shot
- Nina caught Michael and Jacinda when they were moments away from humping in her office, the fallout from which was genuinely pretty funny
- Jason told Britt he wants to reverse-engineer her medication in order to free her from the clutches of whoever's giving it to her; after suddenly and passionately kissing him, she whispered "Not a chance"
- Nina tried getting into Jacinda's head by warning her that Michael could drop her at any moment and dangling the possibility of a real career at Crimson
- After Michael learned that Chase let Willow into the Quartermaine mansion, the two of them nearly came to blows in what might have been the most erotically charged brawl in the history of the show
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