After two back-to-back weeks of torrid General Hospital action, I think we all knew we were overdue for a little bit of a lull. Last week definitely fit that description — it was basically the Willow and BLQ Show, with a smattering of other storylines sprinkled in — but it was still a pretty entertaining batch of episodes overall. Not as entertaining as the ten that came before it, of course, but still: Last week's GH felt like the show was taking a breath before getting back down to business, rather than the writers stalling for time. Just kind of a regular old-fashioned soap week, in other words.
That being said, it's worth noting that the week ended with a weirdly flabby Friday that was loaded with the type of "get the casual viewers caught up" exposition you normally expect from a midweek episode. I'm sure the editing is always being impacted by the ripple effects from the last time the show was pre-empted, but still — everyone knows you've got to leave 'em wanting more with the last few minutes of a Friday airing. All in all, though, I'm still feeling pretty positive about the way things have been going on our show lately. Am I giving the GH staff the benefit of the doubt more than I probably ought to? Perhaps. But if the show hits the ground running next week, it'll mean a month of mostly solid episodes, and when was the last time we could say that?
She Got a Boo-Boo on Her Knee
With various players in the cold fusion storyline settling into their new positions on the board last week, it felt fairly likely that we'd get a pause in the action. For the most part, that turned out to be true, which meant another storyline needed to step up, whether or not it's far enough along to support several days of increased screen time.
In the last column, I said I'm not mad at the idea of trouble in paradise for Brook Lynn and Chase, and I'm still not. This story is still deeply dumb at its core, however, and it's also just starting out; Chase hasn't even acknowledged any interest in Willow, let alone fallen into bed with her. So how did the writers go about trying to turn it into front-burner stuff last week? By pulling the time-honored GH trick of having something fairly minor happen and then making us watch characters yell about it for a few days.
The "something fairly minor," in this case, is Willow throwing herself into the lake and claiming Tracy shoved her, which led to Chase arresting Tracy, which led to several days of people rehashing those events. Pure wheel-spinning, in other words, but also the type of wheel-spinning that can be kind of entertaining in spite of itself. A lot of this has to do with Jane Elliot, who's often at her best when Tracy is pissed off and forced to spend time in a place she feels is beneath her; having Chase arrest her is a gimmick that's already worn thin, but still, watching her sass Dante and call Chase a fool was pretty painless stuff.
What dragged these scenes down was the same thing that's undermining all the Curtis/Jordan/Portia/Isaiah stuff — namely, the overwhelming feeling that the situation doesn't match the reaction, and everything you're seeing is only happening in order to advance a predetermined plot. In this case, it seems safe to assume that the writers mostly had Chase arrest Tracy in order to expedite his departure from the police force, with the added bonus that it would place his marriage under further stress. These are desirable outcomes, so we can forgive a certain amount of laziness on the part of the writers, but still — Willow going into the lake was the subject of a lot of conversations last week, and most of them felt like padding.
It also didn't really amount to much. Once Michael caught wind of Tracy's arrest, he went into "strategic" mode and laid it on thick with Willow, assuring her that while he completely agrees that Tracy was out of line, it might be bad for Wiley and Amelia if all this went to court. This led to Willow refusing to press charges, and Chase thanking her for being the bigger person, and Brook Lynn doubling down on her plan to frame Willow for being the other driver in Curtis and Jordan's car accident.
The most interesting thing about all this is the way Brook Lynn is hiding that plan from Tracy. When she intervened in a fight between Tracy and Chase — which was packed with great Tracy lines, by the way, including one about Willow showing up at the lake dressed for a hoedown, emphasis on the first part of that word — Brook Lynn ended up defending Chase, saying he was right to accept her version of events. We know this isn't what Brook Lynn thinks, of course, and Tracy immediately assumed she was lying for Chase's benefit too, but when she confronted her about it, Brook Lynn chose not to come clean about her scheme.
Since the late '70s, there hasn't been a scheme in Port Charles that wouldn't have benefited from Tracy's involvement, so why is Brook Lynn keeping mum? Especially when by luring Willow to the boathouse, Tracy proved she's still more than willing to engage in subterfuge to protect her granddaughter? At this point, we have no idea, although if I had to guess, I suppose I'd guess that Brook Lynn doesn't want to involve Tracy in something as illegal as tampering with a car's GPS history in order to destroy a political career. From the writers' perspective, it makes sense to keep Tracy out of this just because she'd get it done fast, and I'm sure they'll want to drag this out for a while.
Willow, for her part, continues to deny that she has any romantic interest in Chase. She did, however, admit to Nina and Brennan that she threw herself in the lake. Not that Brennan needed her to; after hearing her tell Nina what happened, it took him about two seconds to figure out what really went down, and compliment her with a "well played." (This upset Nina, who doesn't want her daughter antagonizing the Quartermaines. There's a nice, light comedic spark between Nina and Brennan, and I'm kind of looking forward to finding out where these two characters are headed together.) For the moment, it makes perfect sense that Willow would deny those feelings, however obvious they might be — for starters, she has to deal with the fact that with Sidwell on the run, she's lost access to the medication that's been keeping Drew locked in. Brennan has the dirt on Drew she'll need to keep him quiet, but Brennan's the only one who can get it; fortunately, he has about a week's head start on Drew, so he should be fully recovered before Drew's back on his feet again.
Will this be enough to keep Drew from tattling first, though? Given that Felicia just told Willow she's arranged for communication therapy for Drew — her way of saying thanks for pulling those strings on Anna's behalf — I'm betting that Drew will find some way of putting Willow and Nina at risk of exposure before Brennan's evidence has a chance to work its magic.
We can't close out this section without talking about Ethan, who — just as many of us suspected — appears not to be Phoebe's father after all. We don't know which case is related to the evidence he stole from the PCPD locker, and we don't know how he knew where to look for it, but we do know why he wanted it: it contained a DNA sample from Phoebe's actual father. When Ethan went to GH to get swabbed and prove his paternity, he waited until Elizabeth oh so conveniently left the room, then swapped his sample out for the one he'd pilfered.
Everything I've read says that those saliva/cheek swab samples only last for a few months, but I guess that doesn't mean anything on GH. I don't have any idea which way the writers are going with this — the father could be a dastardly character from the past, or he could be one of the numerous new characters that have already been announced. Whatever happens, it seems likely to give Ethan an actual reason to be back in Port Charles instead of just wandering around like 2025 Lucky, so… progress, I guess?
From V to Z
After months of hiding out in Carly's attic, Valentin is finally on the move — in fact, he's moved so much that he's offscreen again, while he makes his way from Port Charles to the WSB headquarters in Geneva. All it took was a visit from Nina.
Nina, who is forever the queen of unintended consequences, didn't even come by to see Valentin. She only went to Carly's in order to ask for access to the Metro Court security camera footage, which she was hoping would allay her fears regarding Liesl's sudden disappearance. But once Carly and Valentin heard that Liesl was missing, they immediately understood why. As Valentin told Carly, "They found their scientist. We're out of time."
Here's another example of supposedly smart GH characters being very stupid simply because that's what the writers think they need. If anything, Liesl is better qualified to complete this cold fusion thing than Britt ever was, so the minute Britt hit the road, Liesl's safety should have been Valentin and Carly's first concern. On the other hand, if Liesl hadn't been kidnapped, then Valentin wouldn't have had to nobly sacrifice himself by going to Z at WSB HQ — after one more sex montage with Carly and a tearful farewell with Charlotte, of course.
Valentin's exit proved well-timed, because just as he was whispering "mon petit," Cullum was finally getting around to solving the mystery of where the call from "Kevin Collins" to Anna's French facility came from. Remember weeks ago, when Cullum told Sidwell that the call was made from somewhere in Port Charles? And then no one did a single thing about it? Well, apparently the time for action was last week. It took Cullum's men a few minutes to figure out that the call pinged off a cell tower near Carly's house, and a few more minutes to print up some warrants, but they were still too late; by the time the Bureau searched the place, there was no trace of Valentin.
We haven't seen Valentin since he wept his way out of Carly's kitchen, but we did get to check in on Britt and Rocco, who've been hiding out in the British Virgin Islands. Naturally, she installed a VPN on her tablet so Rocco would be able to check on his friends back home, which is how they learned that Sidwell shot Lucas and escaped; moments later, Britt started experiencing tremors and collapsed on the floor, where Rocco found her after he finished getting changed for the beach. Out of her miracle meds, she sent Rocco to a drugstore for some over-the-counter medicine to take the edge off, but as soon as he was out of earshot, he called Charlotte and Danny, gave them the address where he and Britt were staying, and asked them to have "Nathan" bring a fresh supply of doses.
Charlotte and Danny went straight to "Nathan," who in turn went straight to Dante and Lulu and told them he knew where Rocco was hiding. (They already knew the general area where they needed to look, thanks to Brick, who has remained mercifully offscreen.) No idea yet which combination of these three ends up making their way to the British Virgin Islands, but one thing is very clear: the writers have shifted into full-on Cassius Redemption Tour mode, with conversation after conversation dropping anvil after anvil about just how beloved "Nathan" is, and how much it's going to hurt all the people Cassius has lied to when they realize he isn't the man he's pretended to be. We're obviously in a spot where Cassius is meant to perform numerous noble acts, so I'm betting that he'll be at least one of the people who takes the trip; he does have to bring Britt her meds, after all.
Now. About those meds.
During their search of Britt's room, the PCPD discovered an empty syringe in the back of a drawer, and after analyzing its ingredients, they discovered it was only saline. Without telling him where they'd found it, Fitzpatrick asked Lucas why someone would inject themselves with saline — a conversation that happened partly because the writers needed someone to tell the audience that this means Britt has been injecting herself with a placebo, and partly so they could continue chem-testing this inevitable future couple. Anyway, even though no one has said it out loud yet, the upshot here is that Britt doesn't really have Huntington's.
The implication, I suppose, is that Sidwell and Cullum wanted Britt's involvement in the project so badly that they went to the trouble of falsifying her diagnosis, which is the outcome we've wanted since Britt came back, if only because it means the show isn't planning to pretend there's a cure for a real-life incurable disease. I have no idea how they're going to explain Britt's symptoms now that we know she's been dosed with saline, but this is already one of those GH storylines that threatens to make you lose your mind if you think about it too much, so let's just be thankful for what we've got.
Speaking of things we aren't meant to spend much time thinking about: Sidwell is still in Port Charles, which we know because he lured Ezra to a room at the Metro Court by pretending to be Jacinda (long story, details aren't important). I'm not unhappy to see him turn up again this quickly, and it makes total sense that his contingency plan would involve putting the screws to the only local politician he can still blackmail, but… the Metro Court? Seriously? Isn't this place supposed to be a five-star hotel? Does it not have cameras all over the place — like, you know, the ones Nina asked Carly about this very same week? How can Sidwell just go sauntering through the halls of… ugh, nope, not going to try and pull this apart. There's no point. The only thing that matters is that Sidwell still has Ezra under his thumb, and he's planning to somehow use a corrupt city councilman to get himself out of shooting a man three times in the chest. Stranger things have certainly happened in Port Charles, so who knows?
That'll do it for last week's major events. Until next time, I leave you with your customary bullets:
- Emma and Gio are happy and adorable and in desperate need of an actual storyline
- Ric and Alexis are throwing Molly a book launch party at the Metro Court pool, which seems like a colossally insensitive location for something like this
- Cody made me laugh when he awkwardly went in for a hug with Ric, and later asked Molly if she thought her mom and dad might be "rekindling the old flame"
- Yuri put a Band-Aid on Willow's knee and made tea
- Fitzpatrick, who hasn't been with the PCPD long enough to be infected with the department-wide case of Dumbass Disease, told Dante that he thinks Sidwell might have a man on the inside
- Scout was brought to GH for an exam after she aged five years, fell out of a tree, and hurt her ankle
- Jordan and Laura talked about what a fantastic job of doing nothing Jordan did while she was "undercover" and "investigating" Sidwell
- Ric had his feelings hurt after being left out of the Sidwell sting, but Sonny made him feel better by sharing his plans to murder Sidwell
- Portia got rid of Curtis' favorite chair
- Brennan taunted Carly by predicting that Valentin will dump her for Anna
- Laura has said not one word about bringing her husband and grandson back from Ireland
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