Dare we to hope, friends? Dare we to dream? Last week's General Hospital contained some thrills, some laughs, and plenty of narrative movement — is it a sign of things to come?
Probably not. My next column will probably be full of a bunch of complaints about listening to Curtis pout and whine for five days while everything that happened last week is left to simmer on the sidelines. For now, though? I'm a fairly happy viewer, because this most recent batch of episodes served as a reminder of how much fun GH can be when it starts to get cooking. Let's dive in.
Ex Machina
Things started zipping right along from the opening moments of Monday's show, when Nina sashayed into Brennan's room at Turning Woods. He asked if she was there to drug him again, she told him that was the plan and took a syringe out of her purse… and then she squirted his meds into a flowerpot, disposed of the syringe, and got down to business. In a matter of minutes, she and Brennan laid a big ol' pile of cards on the table: She told him she was lying to Willow about drugging him, and that incapacitating Drew was not only Sidwell's idea, but that Sidwell was blackmailing Willow into compliance. Regardless of her role in his own incapacitation, Nina told Brennan she was his only way out, and they'd have to work together.
Brennan, being a spy, always has a few cards he isn't playing, but he did tell her that they'd need Carly — and when she scoffed, he told Nina that Carly was their conduit to Valentin, who'd not only been hiding out in her attic, but shacking up in her bed. Appalled by this news ("She's not even his type!") and infuriated by the realization that Carly had been trolling her during their last conversation, Nina hurried over to Greystone Manor, where she demanded to see Valentin and delivered him a message from Brennan: "Ex Machina."
Purse-lipped and googly-eyed after hearing those words, Valentin disguised himself as an orderly and sneaked into Brennan's room with Carly. These were good scenes, starting with Valentin greeting Brennan by saying "You look awful, Jack. It's nice to know some things never change." Brennan did look a bit peaked, and not just because he's trapped in a long-term care facility; he'd also just been visited by Cullum, who threatened to kill him if he didn't blink the combination to the safe in his office. His plan for a way out? Have Valentin contact someone known only as Z.
This isn't a plan Valentin seemed to care for, mainly because he predicted it would end with this Z person taking him back into custody. He quickly took a hike, but during the moments Carly spent waiting in the room to avoid arousing suspicion, Brennan worked her over, telling her he knew she could tell he wasn't lying about the necessity of Z. She acknowledged that this was true, but instead of addressing any of that, she laid into him for still being focused on the mission instead of Josslyn's whereabouts and safety.
Carly and Valentin's chemistry has cooled way down since the writers decided to go there with them, and at this point, I'm not sure they'll ever recover from all these endless weeks of lame banter followed by arguing followed by making out. At moments like these, though, they still make a good team. As I said when the chem tests began, Valentin is one of the few male leads on the show who's strong enough to push back on Carly's overbearing histrionics, and you saw that here — they went to Brennan's room as equals, and he trusted her enough to leave her alone with Brennan when he slipped away. Anna remains the endgame for Valentin, but I'm still sort of interested in seeing how things between these two play out. At the very least, we can look forward to watching the rest of the town sputter in shock and disgust when they find out.
I'm less enthused about this Z business. If this person is powerful enough to take down Cullum and Sidwell, then why didn't Brennan push that button when he found out Cullum's a double agent? Well, we know the real answer — so another curtain can be pulled back and this storyline can go on a little longer, perhaps with another new character on the canvas once it's over — but it doesn't make a lot of sense for Brennan.
The Lackey Who Knew Way Too Much
While Carly fretted about Joss' absence, Joss continued to try and find ways out of captivity. She scored herself a lucky break when Pascal brought her food, kvetching about how he'd had a good life at the Five Poppies before she ruined it, leading to him being cooped up on some crappy old island — a comment she immediately realized was in reference to Spoon Island. She proceeded to try and get inside his head, pointing out that as soon as the project was complete, he'd be an inconvenient loose end just like her; he dismissed her and left, but the damage was done. After already being rattled by Lucas, Pascal was a prime target for Joss.
This was just the start of a very bad week for Pascal, who went from concerned to terrified when Fitzpatrick showed up at Wyndemere, saying he had questions for Pascal regarding Marco's murder. Sidwell, who was in the middle of being threatened with a whistleblower audit by Tracy, Brook Lynn, and Lucy, was simultaneously furious and relieved by the interruption — at least until Joss somehow managed to knock out power to the entire mansion by disassembling a ceiling fixture in her room and touching two wires together. The whole place went dark until the generator kicked in, at which point voila! Pascal was gone, having fled to save his own skin.
What Pascal didn't know was that Fitzpatrick went to Wyndemere after Lucas showed up at the PCPD and said the police needed to take a closer look at him for Marco's murder. His "evidence" was thin — basically, he brought up Pascal stealing the tie he'd bought for Marco — but as Lucas predicted, Dante was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because they're "basically family." (Add another raised eyebrow to the list for Detective Fitzpatrick, who's discovering he can't go a day on the job without being confronted by something like this.)
Lucas' trip to the police department was prompted by his meeting with Laura and Sonny, who filled him in on how Sidwell managed to get them under his thumb, as well as their new plan to get to Sidwell via Pascal. Lucas told them about Pascal's role in Marco's murder, and hatched his scheme to flush him out by going to the cops. All of which is to say that when Pascal fled the island, he was doing exactly what Sonny, Laura, and Lucas were hoping he'd do — which is why, when Pascal hoofed it to his car, he was greeted by a smiling Sonny, who was holding a tangle of wires from the engine.
At the Corinthos Coffee warehouse, Pascal got the lowdown from Sonny, Laura, and Lucas, and in exchange for some quick cash and a free trip to parts unknown, he agreed to give Lucas the combination to Sidwell's safe so he could steal the photos and negatives of Dalton in Laura's trunk. (Sonny, actually funny for a change, initially offered Pascal $50,000 under the premise that he'd return to Wyndemere and get the photos himself; when Lucas offered to do it instead, Sonny said "Now it's $40,000.") Off Pascal went to the airfield while Lucas sneaked out to Wyndemere, stole the photos, brought them to Sonny and Laura, and then went back to the mansion so he could plant something incriminating — we don't know what it is yet — in the safe. Sonny and Laura, meanwhile, argued for a bit over whether Sonny was allowed to have Sidwell killed. Insisting that they handle it her way, Laura said she knew exactly what needed to be done, and she's eager to do it.
In between all this action, Joss used the chaos surrounding the brief power outage to bust open the door of her room and make it to the front door of Wyndemere — only to be met by Sidwell, holding a gun on her and asking "Who's a clever girl?"
The answer to that question is "Certainly not Joss, never Joss" — especially given her clod-footed decision to try leaving Wyndemere via the front door rather than finding a tunnel — but she was clever enough to avoid further hurting her own case when Cassius showed up and convinced Sidwell not to shoot her dead in the living room. (Apparently, Sidwell knew Joss was being held under Wyndemere. Whatever.) Rather than running her mouth, Joss sneakily dropped a ring on the floor and kicked it under the couch, hoping someone would see it; she also demanded to know how Sidwell was blackmailing "Nathan" into working with him, thereby showing Cassius she was willing to play dumb in order to help their position. When Cassius took her back to her cell, she admitted she'd come to accept that she needs to trust him to help her get out of all this alive.
Sidwell, meanwhile, took the Pascal bait hook, line, and sinker, and spent the rest of the week brooding about how he'd let a "psycho" into his son's life. This left him in no mood to deal with Cullum, who showed up looking for a status update on Britt's whereabouts, only to be mocked for needing Sidwell's people to help out at all. Cullum complained that Dante and Lulu hadn't involved the FBI in the search, which both of them understood is the result of Dante and Lulu being well aware that Rocco shot Cullum, as well as why he did it.
None of this was of much importance to Sidwell, who told Cullum it was his problem to deal with; Cullum disagreed, playing the "our project's nearly complete" card and saying they both stood to lose everything if it all fell apart. Sidwell acknowledged as much, and they both agreed that priority number one wasn't necessarily finding Britt and/or Rocco, it was replacing Britt with someone brilliant enough to take all that research across the finish line.
Oh hey, check it out, Liesl was on this week. I wonder why? Ha ha, just kidding, we all know why — it was so she could pop up in a few scenes and peel off some great lines of dialogue before being kidnapped by Cullum, who was waiting in the back of her car to chloroform her at the end of Friday's episode. If Faison is dead and his daughter has disappeared, why not turn to her mom?
I'm not complaining about this development at all; it's high time Liesl was involved in this storyline. My only real complaint about the way all this stuff went down last week relates to the way the writers have turned Pascal into a simpering coward — not because I necessarily care about what happens to that character, just because it's out of line with the way he was presented initially, and also because it happened mainly in order to prop up Sonny and make him look fearsome. Pascal knows what line of work he's in, and he should have had multiple contingency plans set up for a situation like this one — and he also should have responded to Sonny and Laura's offer with cold pragmatism rather than terror.
Master and Apprentice
The rest of the week was basically spent on Brook Lynn and Chase, which was surprisingly not as painful as that might sound. As I've said before, even though the way it's happening is pretty stupid, I'm not unhappy about trouble in paradise for these two; once upon a time, they were actually fun to watch together, but those days are long behind us, and if they're ever going to be anything other than storyline wallpaper, both of them need a hard reset.
Again, the way it's happening is pretty stupid, but it's also admittedly rooted in classic soap behavior. In the real world, Michael's plan to wreck Willow's political career by tricking her into having an affair with Chase would never work, but on daytime, people fall in bed for all sorts of ridiculous reasons, especially if they aren't very bright — and our poor doofus Harrison Chase might be the dumbest man to ever live in Port Charles.
Chase showed his smooth brain repeatedly last week, starting with Jacinda easily fooling him into taking a dunk in the Quartermaine lake in order to save the $700 glasses she borrowed from Crimson's supply closet and lost in the water. At the same time, Michael was busy sending Willow to the boathouse to get Wiley's baseball mitt, which meant of course she'd bump into her glistening, swimsuited ex-husband after he came climbing out of the water.
Goodness gracious! How can they help but have sex when they're being confronted with all this temptation?
Chase invited Willow for a swim, and after remembering how Brook Lynn threatened to destroy her if she didn't back off, Willow happily agreed, which led to the two of them hanging out and reminiscing about their relationship — which in turn led to Willow offering to hire Chase as her chief of staff. This is a ridiculous idea, so ridiculous that even Chase knows it's ridiculous, but Willow kept coming up with reasons it could work: Chase is a man, which means he could help her get around the D.C. boys' club; he's about to be a dad, which means he shouldn't have a job that risks his life and requires him to be away all night; he's a straight shooter, which people in Washington will find refreshing. So on and so forth.
Their conversation was interrupted by Tracy, who accused Chase of cheating on her granddaughter. This made Chase scrunch up his face, get mad, and call Tracy's bluff by asking Brook Lynn to come out to the boathouse, at which point Tracy had to acknowledge she hadn't really seen anything, but she could absolutely tell that even if Chase hadn't strayed yet, he would soon.
This was more than enough to put Brook Lynn in scheming mode. Later in the week, she and Chase were summoned to Alexis' office, where Alexis told them she'd located Phoebe's father, and he was open to them adopting her, with a catch: It had to be a closed adoption, and neither they nor Phoebe could ever know him. Brook Lynn's happiness was short-lived, though, because Willow called Chase to let him know she had some adoption paperwork she'd managed to extradite, and she was headed right over to the office to give it to him. Inventing a Deception crisis, Brook Lynn took off for the Metro Court Gardens, where she told Lucy she needed her help protecting her marriage from Willow.
This is a delightful development, even if I have no faith that the show will actually use Lynn Herring enough for Lucy to actually have an impact on this storyline. For now, I'm entertained enough by Lucy hearing Brook Lynn's woes, recognizing she's immediately back in her wheelhouse, and saying something like "In matters of adultery, I am a master, and I will make you my apprentice."
While Lucy took Brook Lynn under her wing, Ava and Ethan chatted a few tables away. Remember what I said about Alexis saying she'd found Phoebe's father? Yep, it's Ethan — or that's what he says, anyway. When Alexis confronted him with the photo of him and Delilah, he said they were friends who hooked up once, and when he returned to Port Charles, it was partly to meet up with her and talk about her pregnancy. Feeling confident about not being cut out to be a father, and recognizing the standard of life that awaits Phoebe if she's adopted into the Quartermaine family, he eagerly agreed to sign over his parental rights, as long as Alexis agreed to keep his identity secret in order to prevent any awkwardness that might arise from future visits to the estate.
Alexis was pretty iffy on this request, and Brook Lynn was taken aback when she found out about the closed adoption requirement too — after all, she was burned by the fallout when she gave Gio away — but in the end, Alexis agreed to keep Ethan's involvement a secret, and Brook Lynn agreed to go ahead with the adoption even though she couldn't know who Phoebe's father is.
Of course, every soap secret has to have a thread that's just waiting to be pulled, and in this case, it's Ava. Ethan, aware that she was there when Apollo sold him out by sharing that photo, tracked her down at the Metro Court Gardens in order to try and ensure her silence. We don't know how he intends to do that yet, because she derailed the conversation by accusing him of lying about his altruistic intentions for Phoebe, suggesting instead that he had to be playing a long con against the Quartermaines. She said that keeping her quiet won't be cheap, but those details aren't super relevant; what really matters here is that the writers are clearly testing an Ava/Ethan fling, which is fine by me, I guess, if only because it's been a long time since Ava had anything interesting to do.
That'll do it for the big stuff! Now for your bullets:
- Lulu had the audacity to trash talk Valentin's parenting
- Fitzpatrick ran a tox screen on the syringe they found in Britt's drawer
- Lucy hurt her arm in a stripper pole-related accident
- When Dante told Fitzpatrick to go to Wyndemere, he said it'd be a good idea to familiarize himself with the estate because "we go over there often enough"
- Kristina told Michael she's going to med school and he didn't laugh in her face, perhaps because he's been a CEO since he was old enough to drive
- Fitzpatrick went out to Wyndemere by himself and then left Pascal alone in the house after Pascal disappeared, which seem like things a good police officer would not do
- Michael counseled Tracy about her suspicions regarding Chase, telling her it might be best to hang back and let Chase show Brook Lynn what a creep he really is
- Nina and Liesl agreed that Drew would be less annoying if they put sunglasses on him
- After seeing Drew blinking SOS, Liesl immediately knew what was really going on with him — and in a perfectly Liesl move, she told Nina and Willow she didn't care
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