Last week's General Hospital was basically a repeat of the week before, at least in terms of being a fairly painless semi-pause that seemed mostly meant to move pieces in place for the next big flurry of action. We did see some major developments, and one of them actually made me kind of excited, so overall I'm really not complaining; it's mostly just that compared to the excellence we were seeing a little while ago, the show has lately reverted to more standard stuff.
Despite that minor caveat, I still feel like GH is in a good place right now, and for the first time in a long while, I can see a world where the show’s current crop of storylines sets things up for years of stories to come. Am I predicting that will happen? Of course not. But let’s take that little dash of optimism and carry it with us through this look back at everything that went down in and around Port Charles last week, shall we?
Milk Bubbles
In a recent column, I think I hypothesized that the lengthy lack of action in the cold fusion storyline might have had something to do with the writers stalling for time until Finola Hughes and Steve Burton were taping again. I’m really not sure whether that was the case, but Anna returned last week, and there was an awful lot of Jason talk, and the way all of it was handled further reinforces my hunch.
We’ll get to that in a minute. First, let’s talk about the core of the action, which mostly revolved around the hunt for Britt and Rocco in the British Virgin Islands. As we saw at the end of the previous week, Cassius went straight to Dante and Lulu with the address of their hideout, and after wasting half an episode harassing him about not being willing to share where he got the information, they dismissed him — Lulu actually said “you can go now” — and caught the next flight out together.
Cassius then went to Wyndemere, where he let himself into Sidwell’s safe and stole a box full of Britt’s meds — or what he believed to be her meds, anyway. After he left, Cullum also entered the safe and found the empty box, but that’s what he wanted to happen: as he told his new right-hand man, a brush-cut goon I’m calling Agent Exposition, the vials Cassius stole were actually full of poison. While keeping Cassius close so he could finish the rest of his responsibilities to the project, Cullum decided to test his loyalty — and the fact that Cassius failed just meant he’d be able to eliminate Britt without getting his hands dirty.
Pretty clever! Cullum talking about all this with another WSB agent does raise the question of just how many people know about this project, but whatever; I’d rather wonder about something like that than have to watch Cullum talk to himself, and that’s really the only other option now that he’s double-crossing one of his co-conspirators and the other one’s in hiding.
Before taking off with Dante, Lulu left Charlotte with Laura, and told her pretty much everything about why Rocco went on the run, including the fact that Rocco’s the one who shot Cullum. Charlotte, showing eavesdropping skills that would have made Valentin beam with pride, overheard the entire conversation — and almost immediately told Danny everything she’d heard. This wasn’t a particularly smart move on her part, but it’s also exactly the type of thing a teenager might do, especially if, as Charlotte told Danny, she thought he had a right to know.
Danny, unsurprisingly, stormed off half-cocked, determined to use this new information to somehow get his father out of WSB custody. His best idea? Showing up at the WSB field station and demanding to talk to someone — and then trying to break in when he was turned away. He was arrested and hauled down to the PCPD by Detective Bennett, who’s apparently still on the force even though it’s been forever since we’d seen him; Bennett called Alexis, who was in the middle of reading Danny the riot act when Cullum slithered in through the side door of the interrogation room and started making threats. Alexis, who’s still a Cassadine no matter how neurotic she might get, threatened him right back, and he eventually agreed to drop the whole thing with a warning that if Danny tried that stunt again, there’d be consequences.
Although he’d had every intention of telling Alexis about Rocco shooting Cullum, Danny decided to keep his mouth shut, and headed over to Crimson so he could assure a pissed-off Charlotte that he’d stayed mum. On his way back out, he crossed paths with a hilariously conspicuous WSB agent that Cullum had sent to kidnap Charlotte, and smartly doubled back from the elevator just in time to knock the guy out from behind before he could chloroform her. With her would-be captor crumpled in a heap, Charlotte and Danny bolted out of the office. Two teens on the run and summer's just begun! Dare we hope for a good old-fashioned adventure here?
Speaking of people who decided to run, let’s get back to Britt and Rocco, who started out their week arguing over whether or not Rocco should promise to grab his passport and run at the first sign that Britt’s condition is truly worsening. (That fainting spell from the week before? Might have just been food poisoning.) We’ve been watching Britt nobly vow to limp off and die alone for months, and it just keeps getting more tiresome, but the writers clearly thought we needed to sit through one more round, if only so her love for Rocco was freshly evident when Dante and Lulu showed up to pry our fugitives apart.
The argument between Rocco and his parents was inevitable, and it followed a path that anyone could have guessed, but I still found it somewhat affecting — primarily because of Finn Carr, who’s really got his finger on the pulse of the purity of heart that makes Rocco a compelling character. Guilt-stricken for inadvertently leading Dante and Lulu to their door, he pushed back against their insistence that he come with them and leave Britt behind, arguing passionately that they’d always taught him to take risks for the people you love.
Ultimately, Lulu said she’d leave it all to Britt to decide, giving her nemesis one more opportunity to make a drawn-out show of sacrificing herself. After lots of blubbering — and Britt giving Rocco a bottle of soap bubbles, which she’d bought for him at the local bodega because it reminded her of how he used to blow milk bubbles as a baby — the Spencers took off together, leaving Britt alone to lead Cullum on a wild goose chase. Before she could plot her next move, though, police burst in with guns drawn, saying she was under arrest for kidnapping.
I’ve seen Wubs theorizing that Dante and Lulu are the ones who called the cops, which does seem like something Dante and Lulu would do — him because he’s a cop, her because she’s spiteful and self-righteous. We obviously don’t know for sure yet, but we do know why the writers did this: Before leaving, Rocco handed Britt the box of “medicine” that Cassius stole from Sidwell’s safe, and if she hadn’t been arrested, there wouldn’t have been anything to keep her from accidentally killing herself. As it stands now, Cullum’s shooter is still on the run — now with his ex-WSB dad for company — and Britt will live another day. Curses, foiled again!
Did You Blink? I Missed It
While Cullum consolidated his grip on the cold fusion project, Sidwell continued to evade capture — and he didn't have to go far to do it. While we still don't know what exactly he's making Ezra do to help him, we can assume it must not be terribly pressing, because after leaving the Metro Court, Sidwell popped up at Willow and Drew's house, where he cheerfully announced his intention to lay low for a few days while waiting for alternate accommodations to be prepared.
This is, of course, a great idea, if only because it gives Sidwell more opportunities to mock Drew while hassling Willow. She was actually in the middle of telling him he absolutely could not stay when she was interrupted by a knock at the door from Chase, who came by on his way to work in order to turn down her job offer; while she expressed her disappointment, Drew was trapped in the other room with Sidwell, who gleefully remarked on how difficult it had to be for him to have to listen to his wife throw herself at another man.
Drew may have had this on his mind a few minutes later, when Fitzpatrick showed up, hoping to ask Willow a few questions about her whereabouts the night of Jordan and Curtis' car accident. (He was there following up on a tip from Lucy, who went to the PCPD in order to get the ball rolling on her and Brook Lynn's scheme.) Willow was initially more than willing to cooperate, but Chase cut her off, asking to speak with her privately — at which point Fitzpatrick excused himself to use the bathroom, only instead of finding the facilities, he let himself into Drew's room.
With Sidwell hiding in the shadows, Drew blinked his wife straight under the bus, telling Fitzpatrick that Willow was on Route 91 at the time of the accident. Willow quickly found Fitzpatrick and got rid of him, but the damage was already done, and Sidwell — who loves a good mess, as long as it doesn't impact him negatively — was absolutely delighted by Drew's subterfuge. As was I, honestly. I'm really going to miss Silent Drew.
Armed with Drew's tip, Fitzpatrick headed over to see Turner and asked her if it was possible to get a warrant based on a blink. Although she was initially skeptical, her eyes lit up when he mentioned Chase running interference for Willow; seeing an opportunity to prosecute a big case while ridding the force of an inept cop, she pounced, and signed off on Fitzpatrick going after a warrant for Willow's GPS records.
While waiting for those results to come in, Fitzpatrick tracked Willow down again — this time at the Metro Court pool, where she just so happened to be having a meeting with Curtis, who flat out refused to believe Willow could have had anything to do with the accident. Instead, he loudly insisted that Fitzpatrick should be focusing on Isaiah… who just so happened to be within earshot. Also at the pool? Chase and Brook Lynn. Noticing her husband craning his neck while Willow left with Fitzpatrick, she told Chase to go on ahead to the PCPD and find out what was going on — and then she told Isaiah about the warrant for Willow's trip logs.
All this came to a head at the PCPD, where Chase interrupted Turner questioning Willow and told her she was free to leave — only to be stopped in dramatic fashion when the results came in, putting Willow at the scene of the accident.
Some damn thing will eventually come up to exonerate Willow, but in the meantime, this a nicely juicy situation for all sorts of reasons. It's great to see Brook Lynn in payback mode, it gives Chase a fairly organic reason to drift further into Willow's orbit, and it'll give Isaiah all sorts of high ground over Curtis' obnoxious ass. And we haven't even gotten into the other side effect of Lucy and Brook Lynn's scheme: After Lucy lied to the police, she demanded compensation for her efforts, to the tune of half of Brook Lynn's shares in Deception. Michael overheard it, too, and took the opportunity to suggest that Brook Lynn call Lucy's bluff and just let Willow have Chase.
Here's where I sing my old song about the magic of soaps again, because this is a terrific example of an unforgivably stupid story that has still managed to work its way into a position where it's being used to drive the narrative in interesting directions. This happens all the time on daytime, and because of the way soap stories tend to sprawl out for years, we tend to forget that even the best storylines can sometimes sprout from moments we'd rather forget. (Again: Casey the Alien led to Faison.) There's absolutely nothing interesting about the Ashford feud, but the things currently happening around it could lead to years of drama.
Knit Picking
Finally, a few words about Port Charles' long-absent police commissioner, who's finally back on the canvas after taking several months off to get a chic new haircut and work on her knitting. Apparently, this is just how long it took for Anna to be able to convince her doctors that she's well enough to have visitors; after getting the green light, she asked Felicia if she'd come, and Felicia immediately agreed to get on the first flight the next morning.
After hanging up and being left alone in her quarters, Anna pulled out a letter, and although we couldn't see what was written on it, she had a look on her face that made it crystal clear she was up to something. We learned more when Felicia arrived with Mac and Emma the next day; after having a sweet conversation with Emma about how much Robin loves her, Anna asked for a few minutes alone with Felicia, and — after doing her best to gain assurance that Felicia could hear what she was about to say without tattling on her to the doctors — she revealed that she suspects Nathan isn't really who he says he is.
What tipped her off? How long has she suspected this? And does she feel incredibly stupid for putting him back on the police force now that she has these suspicions? These are all answers for another week, but in the meantime, "Nathan" has been put in charge of the search for Sidwell, and he's also been handed a big fat lead: After going through Sidwell's papers and finding the deed to a house he'd purchased as a wedding gift for Lucas and Marco, Jordan and Laura called Cassius over to tell him they'd discovered Sidwell's likely hideout. After telling them not to share this information with anybody else, he called someone and said "We've got a Sidwell problem."
That'll do it for the big stuff for the week! Until next time, your bullets:
- Trina told her parents she wants less attention from them
- Ava and Sonny had a painfully dull argument over whether she knows where Sidwell is
- After noticing Ethan deferring to Ava, Sonny warned Ethan how quickly he could find himself in over his head with her
- After some long-overdue sharing of secrets, including Joss' involvement in the WSB and Lucas knowing that Cullum killed Marco, Carly and Lucas made plans to break into Wyndemere and save Joss
- Tracy was unamused to learn that Willow offered Chase a job
- Joss did pushups and bickered with Cassius, part XXVIII
- Charlotte calmly and coolly revealed that she knew Nina tried selling her and Valentin out to Brennan, and then eviscerated her for doing it to protect Willow
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