I wasn't willing to believe it until I felt like I was really seeing it, but boy howdy, I think General Hospital might have finally reached a boiling point with the Sidwell situation — and that heat seems to have carried over to the show's other major storylines, too. From Curtis' descent into jerkdom to Brook Lynn's quest to pry Willow out of her marriage, pretty much everything clicked last week.
Were there things that fell flat, didn't land as well as they could have, or didn't make much sense? Dear reader, you know there were. But by and large, GH gave excellent soap last week, and I'm genuinely looking forward to finding out what happens next. Let us join together and look back in the spirit of celebration.
Faison's Boondoggle
The week kicked off with Cullum bringing Liesl to Anna's old cell under Wyndemere, finding Joss there, and grumpily informing her that "the two of you will have to be roommates" before striding up into the mansion to interrupt Sidwell's breakfast with a lecture about keeping him in the loop. After cheerfully pointing out that Cullum had made plenty of his own moves without saying anything to his supposed partners, Sidwell had to hustle over to the mainland, because he got a call informing him that Laura had shut down his helipad and helicopter path. That left Cullum to air his grievances with Cassius, who wasn't hearing it — primarily because he was pissed that Cullum kidnapped his mother to complete Faison's project.
Meanwhile, Joss was busy filling Liesl in on, well, all sorts of stuff. In a matter of minutes, Obrecht went from groggily returning to consciousness to realizing she'd been pressed into service to finish her crazy ex's final attempt to achieve world domination — and also that Britt had been forced to work on the project before going on the run. Referring to the cold fusion project as Faison's "boondoggle," she said she understood why Britt never went to her for help, but wondered why she didn't lean on Nathan.
Right on cue, "Nathan" entered the cell, and here's where I talk about the magic of soaps again.
It's often said that two things can be true, and all this Cassius business is a good example of how that can work on a show like General Hospital. Nathan's long-lost, morally ambiguous twin is undoubtedly a very poorly conceived character, and his very existence smacks of someone in charge wanting a thing (in this case, Ryan Paevey's return) without having any clear idea of how to make that thing work. We still don't know nearly enough about who this guy really is, or why Cullum and/or Sidwell have any need for him. And yet. And yet! Liesl meeting Cassius still offered some tremendous opportunities for stellar, emotionally impactful writing and acting, and Kathleen Gati sunk her teeth into every one of them.
Again, this whole scenario is dumb and very silly. But the emotional core there — the idea of a woman realizing that the baby she thought had been delivered stillborn was actually standing in front of her as a grown man, but that she also had to mourn his twin all over again — makes for outstanding melodrama, and Gati really made us feel Liesl's whirlwind of emotions. The writing called for her to go from slapping Cassius in his face to tearfully pledging to finish the project in order to save his life, and every single moment made sense, because Gati made them make sense. The only false note was Obrecht nodding and saying Joss was "the WSB type" after learning she was an agent.
Lucas the Hero
As previously mentioned, Sidwell skipped out on Cullum's tantrum because he felt it necessary to find Laura and bring her to heel after hearing she'd taken away his precious helicopter path. Slumming it onto the mainland via ferry, he found her with Sonny at the Metro Court Gardens, where he tried his usual "smoothly threaten the enemy" trick before realizing that neither of his blackmail targets were willing to play along anymore. Figuring he'd just replace Laura with Ezra after he had her sent to prison, he stalked back to Wyndemere and opened his safe, only to find that the photos of Laura and Sonny with Dalton's body were missing. Sidwell immediately knew Lucas was the one who'd stolen them — and right on cue, Lucas left Sidwell a message, asking to meet him at the construction site for the Marco Rios Tennis Center.
At the construction site, Sidwell and Lucas chatted about their shared love of Marco for a bit before Sidwell asked Lucas what he'd been doing near the safe earlier. This led to a little cat and mouse dialogue, with Lucas initially pleading ignorance and insisting Sidwell didn't have anything he'd need to steal, and Sidwell inching closer to the truth; eventually, Sidwell just came out and said he'd been storing evidence implicating Laura and Sonny in a crime. Going tit for tat, Lucas then admitted he'd stolen them — and then the gloves came off, with Sidwell accusing Lucas of poisoning Marco's mind and ultimately getting him killed, and Lucas saying Sidwell used Marco's grief over Natalia's death to lure him into a life of crime. When Lucas shouted "Marco is dead because of you," Sidwell snapped, shooting him three times, point blank, in the chest.
Lucas' shooting was an effective cliffhanger for Tuesday's episode even though I doubt many viewers were really worried he'd actually die. For starters, he was standing outdoors in a zipped-up jacket in the middle of June, which I can tell you is absolutely not something anybody was doing in the Northeast last week; from the beginning, it was pretty clear that the bulk under that jacket was the result of a bulletproof vest rather than Lucas hitting the gym extra hard. Still, we knew it was a turning point — and we saw that turn the following day, when Dante and Fitzpatrick stepped out with some other officers, guns drawn, telling Sidwell he was under arrest.
Laura and Sonny emerged soon after (Sidwell to Sonny, making me laugh: "Hello, you bastard"), and everybody started slapping cards on the table. Sidwell claimed entrapment, Dante scoffed; Sidwell then claimed he had evidence that Laura and Sonny committed a crime, but Lucas had stolen it, and Dante scoffed again, saying his word didn't amount to much, considering what he was being hauled in for. While Fitzpatrick tended to a woozy Lucas, inspiring some viewers to wonder whether we were watching the start of a new couple, "Nathan" ran up, asking what he'd missed. Dante asked him to take Sidwell down to the station, setting up the escape we all knew had to be coming.
Sure enough, after pulling over partway to the PCPD and arguing for a little bit over whether this was truly the end of the road for his part in the project, Sidwell assured Cassius that he had numerous contingency plans for just this sort of occasion, and demanded that Cassius hand over his gun so he could administer history's politest pistol-whip in order to make his escape look real. By the end of the episode, Sidwell was in the wind.
I'm not really mad about any of this. We knew Laura and Sonny would get out from under Sidwell eventually, and he's a fun enough villain that anything other than his escape would have been a disappointing outcome, at least for now. My one source of disappointment is the way Sonny escaped being humbled as a result of his ordeal. Yes, he was forced to sell his precious piers, but he shrugged it off and bought new ones in Rochester; aside from a few meant-to-be-important conversations with Jason, Sidwell's blackmail barely inconvenienced him at all. His and Laura's moment of triumph would have been a lot more meaningful if Sidwell had ever truly managed to bend Sonny to his will, but this show always has to make him the smartest and toughest guy in any given situation.
If Sonny's part in this ended up being little more than an annoyance, and Laura's was barely better, it was all worth it to get to see Lucas' long-overdue emergence as a vital, three-dimensional character. We all know that killing it in a storyline doesn't always mean an actor will get more or better opportunities on GH, where (eminently believable) rumors of favoritism toward certain players always run rampant. But Lucas Jones is a character with a ton of untapped potential and deep roots on the canvas; if there's any justice on this show, he'll remain at the center of the action.
Cullum Unbound
With Sidwell off the board for now, Cullum wasted no time taking the reins of the project, using the WSB to take over Wyndemere (and "pretty much all of Spoon Island," whatever that means). He decided to start snipping loose ends by killing Joss, hilariously pulling a knife on her before Cassius came rushing in to put a stop to it. He also started summoning people out to the island to be interrogated, starting with Ava and Carly, who of course bickered at each other before offering Cullum no useful information and being told to leave.
Carly's visit, however, proved more productive than Ava's. While she was there, the mansion's head housekeeper told Cullum — in full view of Carly, mind you — that she'd found a ring in the sitting room. Carly immediately realized it belonged to Joss (a gift from Trina, as it turns out, which was just another painful reminder that Trina deserves better storylines), and after briefly mulling the possibility of stabbing Cullum with a letter opener, she rushed back home and told Valentin what she'd seen.
This led to another one of those "I have to do this thing!" "But you can't do that thing!" conversations I've complained about before, with this one being extra annoying because we've already seen countless installments of Carly and Valentin arguing over whether or not one or both of them should break into Wyndemere. Looking past that annoyance, though, this whole thing served as a solid example of how the chamber can click on a big soap storyline like this one. Lucas teamed up with Sonny and Laura, advancing their segments of the story and shaking up the players; now, presumably, it's time for Valentin to finally come out of the attic and truly enter the fray. No complaints here.
A Burger for Brennan
Brennan is at least nominally still part of the storyline too, and before very long, I assume he'll be the catalyst for the arrival of whoever this Z person is. But more and more, it feels like he's being drawn into a different orbit — specifically, the looming battle between Willow and post-"stroke" Drew, with Nina in the mix.
Last week, these characters were wound tighter together when Willow, thinking Nina was tied up at Portia's baby shower, decided to administer Brennan's latest injection herself. We've been led to believe that these are being given on a weekly basis, and it's only been a few days since Nina emptied the previous syringe into a flowerpot, but whatever; putting Willow by Brennan's bedside meant he was able to dramatically stop her by grabbing her arm and growling "Don't." Hearing him speak, she said she'd better hurry the hell up and dose him, to which he responded with "Your mother disagrees" — just in time for Nina to bop in with a cheeseburger for Brennan, who had earlier complained about being fed through a tube. (Cynthia Watros is very good at being very funny, and deserves more opportunities to do it.)
Thus rung the bell for the latest Nina/Willow argument, only this time, instead of cowering for her mistakes, Nina punched back, saying that Willow had protected her after she accidentally injected Brennan, and now it was Nina's turn to protect both of them — specifically by giving Brennan an opportunity to neutralize Drew by handing them evidence that Drew had misappropriated funds meant for the McConkey Esplanade and spending them on his campaign.
This is pretty dumb, admittedly, and I winced upon hearing "esplanade" again after all these months of believing we were done with that storyline forever, but I think it's fine. Drew is rich enough that he shouldn't have to dip into federal funds to pay for his own campaign, and given how many scandals he's already weathered, it seems highly unlikely that this would be the one that did him in, but it doesn't matter; this is just the MacGuffin meant to put Willow and Drew in a place of mutually assured destruction. While I certainly don't miss Drew as a character who can walk and/or talk, and I'll miss watching him sit and stare during all of his scenes, I'm also at least mildly interested in finding out what this next chapter looks like for him. Will he be smarter about the way he goes after his enemies? More lethal? Will he find allies? Before, most of his misdeeds were coated in a layer of smarmy deniability; now, there's no reason for him to pretend to be anything other than a villain. Could be interesting. Maybe.
Willow's Wiles
According to Brennan, Drew should only need another dose or two before he can begin his miraculous recovery from his stroke. The dirtiest thing Willow's doing with her seat in Congress is drumming up funding for the WSB, so that means she'll need another scheme to stay interesting — and fortunately, she already has one brewing, in the form of trying to steal Brook Lynn's husband, (Ex-) Detective Dimwit.
Up 'til now, Katelyn MacMullen has been playing Willow's interest in Chase as potentially platonic. Yes, she's spent some time mooning about how great they were as a couple, and yes, she went right on spending time alone with him after Brook Lynn threatened to destroy her, but we haven't seen any outward signs that she wants him for herself. Last week, though, something changed, and Tracy — as she so often is — was the catalyst.
First, we'll back up a bit. Willow isn't yet aware that Brook Lynn is full-on coming for her ass; in fact, last week, Brook Lynn pretended to apologize for the way she'd behaved, and was even hugging her when Lucy showed up for a conspiratorial session at Bobbie's. When Lucy wondered what the hell was going on, Brook Lynn assured her it was all an act; she was really just lulling her adversary into a false sense of security while she plotted. That plot, unfortunately, is now being advanced by Brick, who was loaned to her by Sonny when she told him she needed help protecting her family but couldn't really share any details.
Brick, mercifully offscreen at least for now, is apparently going to tamper with the GPS history in Willow's car in order to make it look like she was at the scene of Curtis and Jordan's accident, thereby ruining her career in Congress or whatever. In our current political climate, this idea would be laughably quaint even if it didn't depend on highly circumstantial evidence, but again, whatever: we've suffered so long with the milquetoast brand of Brook Lynn, I'm just excited to see her get down in the dirt. Her husband is a fool and her marriage is too boring to survive, but her motivations don't matter; Brook Lynn's rightful place is Tracy's devious heir, and this needs to happen in order to get her back there.
Tracy is also unaware of Brook Lynn's plans for Willow, which is why she hatched one of her own last week, using Wiley's phone to lure her to the Quartermaine estate under the false promise of a fishing date with him and Chase. When Willow bounded palely out to the boathouse, she was shocked and annoyed to find Tracy — and that annoyance turned to righteous anger when she realized Tracy had duped her into showing up. It took no time at all for the claws to come out on both sides, with Tracy telling Willow she sees her for who she truly is, and Willow shooting back that she sees Tracy too — specifically as a bitter old woman who hates her because her own children can't stand her. Rather than doing the right thing and smacking her across her mouth for this insolence, Tracy grabbed Willow by the arm — and then Willow, spotting Chase doofing his way up to the boathouse, shouted "Tracy, you're hurting me!" and threw herself in the lake.
Chase, of course, went diving in after Willow. After helping her out of the water, he demanded to know what happened; naturally, after hearing both sides of the story, he decided to ignore Tracy's version of events, and place her under arrest.
This is a silly thing that's clearly only happening because Chase was just warned by Turner that if he steps out of line and makes another police decision for personal reasons, she'll railroad him off the force. Arresting Tracy for allegedly tossing Willow in the lake would definitely seem to fit that bill. I imagine Tracy's latest trip to the PCPD will end with Chase losing his badge, but even if it doesn't, it still feels like the last push he needed in order to leave the force and become Willow's chief staff — er, chief of staff.
This will naturally complicate things for Brook Lynn and Chase as they navigate their adoption of Phoebe. Not a lot happened on that front last week, aside from Alexis trying and failing to get Ethan to change his mind about remaining entirely anonymous as Phoebe's father. The best she could do was get Ethan to admit Phoebe should one day know who her mother was; after that, we saw him cosplay as a cop to break into the PCPD evidence locker, where he used Crocodile Dundee's knife to open a box and retrieve something. What is it? Is he really Phoebe's father? I still don't care, but at least Ethan is doing something besides strolling around town and listening to people tell him he's just like Luke.
Who'd Start a Fight at a Baby Shower?
I mentioned Portia's baby shower a little while ago, and now I must mention it again. You all know how I feel about this storyline, so I'll keep it brief. The very short version is that Curtis is an even bigger asshole than he was the week before, and he's rubbing off on Jordan, but at least we got to see Stella reading him for filth. Silver linings, people! Silver linings.
Curtis started the week by asking Alexis to represent him against Isaiah. She declined — partly because Isaiah had already asked her to do the same, but mostly because she wants no part of putting Portia on the stand again after helping to set all this in motion with her line of questioning during Willow's trial. Portia, meanwhile, asked Isaiah to hold off on suing Curtis, at least until after the baby's born. ("For Trina's sake," she said. Whateverrrrrrrrr.)
These are the vibes that wafted into the Metro Court Gardens for the shower. Stella acknowledged the inappropriateness of the venue, explaining that they'd already placed a non-refundable deposit on it before Curtis was arrested for punching Isaiah there; his presence at the shower raises the question of why in the world he'd even be allowed on the premises, but again: whatever! This was always going to take place, and all we could ask for were sparks.
The show delivered, at least within the context of how many sparks can actually fly in a storyline this soggy. People smiled at each other through gritted teeth until the "baby's first words" game started, and Portia pulled a slip of paper saying "Dada," and Curtis and Isaiah both raised their hands to take credit for it. Curtis woofed, Isaiah barked, and Trina — who'd been putting off rehearsing for her big musical showcase in order to plan this party, in the hopes that it would somehow heal her family — slipped out without saying goodbye.
There were some genuinely funny moments in here, and some genuinely good jabs during the big blowout, including Portia telling Curtis that she gave Trina a gift by not allowing him to raise her. In a vacuum, you could watch it and call it nicely soapy stuff. But we aren't watching in a vacuum, and this story still stinks. While we can award the writers points for arranging the pieces for an entertaining argument, that doesn't change the fact that these characters are all being woefully misused. The only thing I'm looking forward to is Curtis finding out that Willow did it — and then, if I'm right about Danny and Charlotte actually being in the other car that night, watching Curtis feel like a dick all over again whenever the real culprit is revealed.
And that'll do it for the big stuff! Until we meet again, your bullets:
- While waiting to find out if or when his hand will heal, Isaiah is staying on at GH as a diagnostician and surgical consultant
- Emma and Gio swam and made out
- Kai brought everybody lunch
- At the baby shower, Felicia and Elizabeth talked about how suspicious it is that Drew and Brennan had serious strokes at Willow's house within a couple months of each other
- Fitzpatrick spoke for all of us when he asked Lucas what would have happened if Sidwell had shot him in the head
- Nina rushed to GH after "Nathan" was "attacked," reminding us that she'll be one more person whose heartbreak will be on Cassius' conscience when the truth comes out
- Cody and Molly made s'mores with James
- After Valentin warned her to stay away from Danny, Charlotte met up with him and they talked about breaking into Wyndemere again as soon as there are fewer law enforcement officers on the island
- Nina warned Ava that she could be in danger from Sidwell
- Before finally leaving town, Kristina made Michael and Molly promise to be all up in each other's business from now on
- After taking his statement and commenting on how eerily similar it was to Lucas', Turner accused him of hiding something from her and wondered if he engineered Sidwell's escape just so he'd have a plausible reason for killing him in "self-defense"
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