With that snoozer of a big winter storm having passed through Port Charles, General Hospital got back down to business last week — and business was surprisingly good, delivering a batch of episodes that moved the action along while incorporating a bunch of characters. This doesn't change the fact that some of these stories aren't working the way they should, or that some of the action continues to hinge on desperate coincidences and dumb behavior, but those sins are a lot easier to forgive when GH feels as well-balanced and smoothly paced as it did last week.
This lifelong Seahawks fan was derailed by the Super Bowl, which prevented me from getting this column finished on time. But better late than never, right? Let's get Critical!
Silent Drewcidity
Willow drove a lot of the action last week, starting with her taking a trip to Alexis' office and asking her to take over as her lawyer in the custody case. When Alexis balked at the offer — ostensibly because she doesn't really do a lot of work in family court, but really because she knows Willow's guilty and would rather not be dragged into more of her shenanigans — Willow clamped down, threatening to yank Scout back to Drew's house if she didn't comply.
Alexis reluctantly agreed, but unbeknownst to both of them, Sonny was making his own move by getting Ric to agree to help broker a compromise custody agreement — and then getting Michael to actually listen to Ric. Those efforts culminated in a surprise sitdown at Alexis' office that ended with Michael agreeing to offer a 60/40 custody split, and Willow agreeing to it… but only after she sneaked into the lobby and planted the key to Drew's house on Michael's keyring.
Naturally, when Michael returned home, he left his keys on the kitchen table, where Chase found them and suddenly had the bright idea that he should grab them and head over to Drew's house so he could see if any of them worked on the front door. Of course, the idea that Chase would think to do this after merely glancing at Michael's keys is very silly, and so is having it happen the same day Willow did her frame job, but in this case, I think the ends will justify the means.
I say this because after leaving Alexis' office, Willow signed Drew out of General Hospital and had him transferred home, where she'd arranged for round-the-clock care under the pretense that she just had to be the one to nurse him back to health. And then, once they were alone, she joked that since his current condition prevents him from talking over her anymore, he's become her captive audience. "You have to listen to me now," she told him. "And you should know… it was me. I'm the one who shot you."
If you're a regular reader of this column, you know my one major gripe with making Willow the shooter has been our lack of insight into her true feelings and motivations, so I'm very happy that she finally has someone to talk to about all this. The fact that it's her jackass husband, who she's rendered immobile and unable to speak? Delightful. Watching Drew helplessly look on while Willow ran down her long list of reasons for shooting him, and then hiss that her only regret was that he survived? Soap gold.
Unfortunately, Willow's tirade was interrupted by Chase, who'd let himself in using "Michael's" key while she was laying into Drew. Having used his handful of functioning brain cells to come up with the idea to do this, a mentally exhausted Chase somehow managed to hear Willow chuck a tray, but miss every word she'd been yelling while doing so. After she thanked him for stopping by and ushered his dopey butt back out, she returned to share an even more important bit of news with Drew: He hadn't had a stroke at all. Instead, the medicine she injected into his neck only mimicked the symptoms.
As she explained while injecting more of the mystery drug into his IV, Drew's incapacitation gives her open access to his assets, as well as his power of attorney — all of which she intends to use to build a new life for herself and her kids, presumably while also doing whatever she can to make sure Michael ends up in prison. She's obviously going to get caught, and probably pretty soon; as fun as it is to watch Silent Drew look on in horror while Willow does her thing, lying mute and motionless isn't what the network pays Cameron Mathison to do. So who's going to bring her house of cards tumbling down? I have no idea, but I think it might be the most fun if it ended up being Brook Lynn, ideally after Chase and Willow tumble into bed. The writers clearly have nowhere else for Chase and Brook Lynn's marriage to go, and giving Brook Lynn a new enemy to hate might restore some sorely needed spark to her character.
My only complaint right now is the looming likelihood of Michael being charged with Drew's shooting, and that's mainly because the key isn't really evidence of anything. On the other hand, I can't deny a certain attraction to the idea of Willow completing her evolution from wide-eyed waif to storyline driver by putting her husband in a hospital bed, ruining one ex-husband's career, and sending her other ex to prison. Nelle would be proud.
PSTDeez Nuts
Remember how Anna saw "Faison" and screamed just as the power went out on Spoon Island? And then Cullum spent the evening playing chess with Joss at Wyndemere? Well, somehow, at some point, someone managed to get Anna off the island and way the hell over to France. The morning after the storm, Emma received a call from a French police officer, who told her Anna had been picked up after wandering into a farmhouse, ranting about Faison, and getting into a physical altercation with a policeman who tried to detain her. That's quite an itinerary for someone who'd been locked in a dungeon across the Atlantic Ocean less than a day before, but there's no point in troubling ourselves about that; the important thing is that Emma ran to Felicia, and then Mac got on the phone with the French authorities, and before you could say "zut alors," all three of them were at the clinic where Anna was being held.
There are many problems with this storyline, and many more problems with the "Anna is kidnapped yet again" portion of it, but I've gone into those before, so there's no reason to do it again right now. All I want to say about these scenes is that they feature some really outstanding work from Braedyn Bruner, who matched Finola Hughes moment for moment as Emma and Anna reunited. The instant Anna said Faison was alive, Mac was annoyingly quick to believe she'd lost touch with reality. Felicia was more willing to believe in the possibility, at least until Anna said she'd been visited by Peter; there was also some great work here from Kristina Wagner, who brought all of Felicia's history with Faison brimming to the surface with little more than a facial expression. Emma, though, remained steadfast in her belief that Anna would never crack like this, and there had to be something else going on — and the way she broke down at the sight of Anna being physically restrained by attendants was emotionally impactful in spite of the ocean of hooey surrounding their performances.
While the Scorpios tended to Anna, Faison-related business continued in Port Charles. Caught up in the afterglow of her post-hypothermia hookup with Jason, Britt floated back to her room above Bobbie's, excited to grab a vial of her medication so he could have Brick find someone to reverse engineer it — only to discover that Cullum had gotten there first and stolen it all. He showed up a short while later, explaining that he'd come to the realization that she needed to be further incentivized to do her best work, starting with confiscating her meds and administering them in single doses at Wyndemere. Rotten luck for Britt, and a clumsily contrived spanner in the works of Jason's big plan to free her from Sidwell's clutches; on the other hand, it prevents Brick from magically saving the day again, so I approve.
(It's also worth noting that Cullum returned to Britt's room later on, bringing a dose of medication as a sort of good faith gesture, but insisted on administering it to her himself. I have to admit that he was actually legitimately creepy during this scene. I still think this character is a dead end, but…)
Rounding out the PC side of things was Joss, who was first spotted toward the end of an absurd interview with Laura, which I guess was supposed to be an information-gathering expedition in the guise of a school project, but mostly just served to make me wonder why in the hell neither Laura nor the PCPD seem to be at all concerned that someone blew up the power substation sending electricity to Spoon Island. Like, the storm's over, so… we're all just moving on? No big deal?
Less credulous was Liesl, who bumped into Joss at Bobbie's and took two seconds to see through her seemingly innocent questions about The Crystalline Conspiracy. Obrecht sees Joss for the lightweight she truly is, so she wasn't willing to get very far into Faison's legacy, but she did seem at least slightly intrigued when Joss mentioned finding the book and a pack of cigarillos at Wyndemere. Intrigued enough, anyway, to point out the obvious: Someone has taken it upon themselves to emulate Faison. After watching this conversation, my greatest GH dream is now for Obrecht to end up being the one to save Anna, take down Cullum, and become the new director of the WSB.
That's it for me, at least for now. I leave you with bullets!
- Lucas told Marco he wants them to get their own apartment on the mainland, but agreed to wait until May
- Dante casually asked Nathan if he'd learned anything new about his whereabouts or activities over the last seven years, and blithely accepted it when Nathan said no
- Molly questioned Michael about his whereabouts the night of Drew's shooting, and Diane was delighted by the obvious conflict of interest
- Gio has a new dog named Fizz and he's keeping him at Sonny's house, which seems like kind of a dick move considering how much time he's spending at Anna and Emma's apartment
- Sonny and Turner remain one hundred percent dull
- Lulu and Nathan agonized over their feelings for one another
- Sonny said "son of a bitch"
- Turner and Jordan talked about a Sonny-related cold case that I'm pretty sure transpired entirely offscreen and has never been mentioned before, mostly so they could chat about how charming he is and make me want to die
- Ric gave Molly fatherly advice regarding her relationship with Cody; in return, she encouraged him to woo Elizabeth
- Curtis warned Portia that if she didn't take a paternity test within a week, he'd get a court order
- Dante got in Britt's head about her being a danger to Rocco, which led to her telling Rocco she might not make it to his hockey game after all
- Elizabeth tried softening Dante's attitude toward Britt, which made me wonder what an Elizabeth/Dante pairing might look like
- Taking Molly's advice, Ric sent Elizabeth flowers and asked her out to dinner, which she accepted, making me wonder what a Ric/Elizabeth/Dante triangle might look like
- Brook Lynn and Michael had a talk about the "tension" between Michael and Chase without ever once even so much as mentioning the full-on fistfight they got into mere days ago
- Ezra took selfies at the gym
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