In spite of the name of this column, I don't particularly enjoy being extremely critical of General Hospital. Every time I point out a flaw in the show, I'm doing it from a fan's perspective; while this column has its share of critical analysis, it's being offered by someone who's been tuning in for a long time, ever hopeful of seeing its ever-abundant potential fully realized. Whenever I make a glum or snarky prediction, I'm always very happy to be proven wrong.
In my last column, I did a lot of complaining about the Unwell Anna storyline that's been festering since her return from France, and during that rant, I predicted that the previous week's big cliffhanger — which found Britt kneeling on a murder tarp while Anna aimed a gun at her — would be nowhere near as pivotal or impactful as the show wanted us to believe. We all knew Jason would put a stop to it somehow, but I didn't think the story had been drawn out long enough for the writers to do anything truly interesting with it.
I was — I'm very happy to say — quite wrong about this. Time will obviously tell where things go from here, but Anna was actually confronted with her growing madness last week, and it led to some genuinely affecting scenes. The happiest surprise of all was the way Jason's involvement spun the story, turning it from a dark vendetta to a series of thoughtful, difficult conversations about trauma and redemption. I've been pretty outspoken about the annoyingly limited bandwidth Steve Burton has been asked to draw on during the majority of his GH tenure, so if I'm complimenting something he's done, you know I really mean it.
Again, this doesn't necessarily mean all's well that ends well. Anna has sought help, and when we last saw her, she was heading off for her first appointment with Dr. Nichols at GH. I have no faith in the show's willingness to really explore Anna's therapy journey, but then again, I'm not sure any of us really want to have a close look; to portray that, GH would have to be a different show, moving at a very different speed. It may be enough just to reframe this from a story about Anna's trauma into one about her long-overdue healing.
Additionally encouraging are the signs that a story about Anna's healing could dovetail with one about Jason's decision to change his life, and how his efforts to do so are both fueled and complicated by his own trauma. He ended last week in a difficult position with Britt, who's understandably shaken by her near-fatal encounter with Anna, and was outraged by his unwillingness to help her report it to the PCPD by serving as a witness. While I'm not a huge fan of either character, and I think their relationship has lost 100 percent of whatever spark it ever had, this was still a pretty great setup for the best kind of soap conversation — one in which both parties are speaking from entirely reasonable, yet also entirely incompatible, points of view.
The best outcome here, in my opinion, would be a story that gives us a partial view of Anna and Jason's separate recoveries while leading Anna and Britt toward a place of healing. As Britt has pointed out before, she and Anna have more in common than either of them is necessarily comfortable admitting, and having them find a way to bond over the scars they share from their proximity to Faison might be the only truly satisfying way to finally lay that character to rest.
Will we get that? I kinda doubt it. For the moment, I'm just happy to say that if you're the type of viewer who values understated work from talented performers, you had a lot to choose from last week. I really appreciate the quiet touch Burton's been bringing to post-Jakarta Jason, and we saw a lot of subtle yet deeply impactful stuff from Dominic Zamprogna, Braedyn Bruner, and Kristina Wagner. Finola Hughes, of course, knocked every line out of the park. If this had been the only story GH had told last week, I'd be pleading with you to go back and watch every episode.
Tick Talk
Alas, the aftermath of Britt's abduction by Anna was not the only story GH focused on last week, and a lot of the other stuff we sat through was less than captivating, including whatever nonsense we're watching go down with Drew. Cain-related shenanigans didn't lead my list of annoyances last week — we'll get to the truly revoltin' developments in a bit – but a lot of this just felt like treading water.
We started the week with Drew threatening to have Sonny arrested for kidnapping Scout, only to be stunned and (slightly) embarrassed by the discovery that Scout wasn't even at Sonny's place — her phone was buried in the couch cushions, where she'd dropped it before skedaddling off to the Quartermaine dock to smooch Rocco. This led to some mildly entertaining banter, with neither Alexis nor Sonny willing to take any guff from their former congressman, but we've heard it all before.
The real point of Drew's outburst was really to try and drum up some additional drama around Scout and Rocco's upsetting lakeside hookup — and to remind us that, as much as he goes around woofing about his daughter, he doesn't really know her at all. Unable to track Scout down via her perpetually offscreen nanny, and convinced she had to be out with Danny, he told Ava he was going to call the cops, at which point she hastened to point out the foolishness of sending the police anywhere near the Quartermaine estate, given that they'd recently buried Brennan not far from the property line. She also pointed out that if Drew doesn't know who Scout's friends are or where she likes to go in her free time, that's a pretty big problem on its own.
I'd actually be interested in exploring this. The fault lines between Scout and Drew are bound to rip wide open at some point, and when it happens, it ought to happen because of what Drew hasn't done — be a truly involved father to Scout — as much as anything he has. But in vintage GH fashion, the show cut away from this looming conflict right when it had its best chance to develop; after Scout returned home and Drew called BS on her story about losing her phone by loaning a hoodie to Donna, she flat-out lied again, telling him she'd been out with Danny.
And then… nothing. We didn't see Scout again last week, and the next time we saw Drew, he was waiting for Willow in her office, ready to threaten her with the exposure of her dirty deeds. This exchange was entertaining enough to watch in the moment — Willow cheerfully called his bluff, pointing out that if he went public with what she'd done to him, it would only make him look like a pathetically obsessed "vain dupe" — but the way it went down didn't make a ton of sense. Brennan hasn't been gone very long at all, so it should seem highly suspicious to anybody for Drew to be acting like he's dead and gone — and also, Willow has been living in fear of Drew threatening exactly this, so as fun as it was to watch her smile while filleting his ego, it was impossible not to question her abrupt switch from panic to smug gloating.
Anyway, none of this has been worth saddling poor Ava with Drew, or having her gab with Nina about being bitten by a Lone Star tick while covering up the fact that she colluded with the biggest jerk in town to drug her best pal's boyfriend and bury his body. And knowing that this is all just the preamble to a Drew/Ava/Sonny war makes the whole thing feel a lot worse.
Still, it isn't the worst thing happening on this show right now.
No Touching!
If you're anything like me, you've spent the last several months suffering through all this Curtis vs. Isaiah nonsense while telling yourself that at least, at some point, you'd be able to experience the small satisfaction of watching Curtis hear and process the revelation that Isaiah actually wasn't the one driving the other car that night.
Well, it happened, and it wasn't worth the wait.
There have been plenty of soap storylines that ended up delivering riveting drama despite being built on rickety foundations. Just because a story's fundamentally dumb doesn't mean it won't end up entertaining you, or even make you feel things; such is the magic of daytime drama that these things often end up accruing dramatic weight along the way. Right now, you can feel the writers trying like hell to make that happen here, but no amount of effort will be enough to overcome the deficit they started out with.
To recap, ever so briefly: Jordan and Curtis nearly caused a car accident because they were kissing while she was driving. After almost hitting another car, they swerved off the road, narrowly avoiding death. Curtis became obsessed with the idea that the driver of that other car should have stopped to help them, and decided — based on the flimsiest of evidence — that Isaiah was that other driver. He badgered him about it publicly until Isaiah snapped and disparaged his parenting skills, at which point Curtis violently assaulted him in a public place. He then refused a plea deal, believing he could convince a jury that Isaiah had it coming to him. Now he is in prison.
Any reasonable person reading that paragraph would conclude that Curtis is not only 100 percent in the wrong and totally responsible for everything that's happened to him, but also that he's a deranged asshole. You would expect his family to ostracize him; his girlfriend to dump him. You wouldn't be surprised at all if he ended up losing his job, especially if he was the public face of an allegedly major media corporation. You would not expect to be asked to care about his feelings, at least not enough to support any major corner of the story, especially if he remained self-pitying and unrepentant throughout his completely foolish and unnecessary ordeal.
So of course, the story nobody would want is exactly what we have on GH right now. Brook Lynn confessed to everyone that she was the other driver the night of the accident, and now she's on an Ashford apology tour that started with her prostrating herself before an enraged Trina. Jordan, meanwhile, pulled some strings to visit Curtis so she could break the news to him, and rather than finally experiencing some semblance of self-awareness, he threw a little tantrum.
It's impossible to be a soap character for any real length of time without doing regrettable things, which makes it hard for anyone to have much moral high ground in situations like this. Still, the hypocrisy under all this whining is hard to ignore, even by soap standards. Trina laid into Brook Lynn for failing to come forward, but she and Kai kept quiet for months about Willow shooting Drew. Jordan fed dutifully into Curtis' self-pitying, conveniently forgetting how she covered up for the car accident that left Drew with a whole new face. And Curtis was gunning for Isaiah long before he started to believe he was the other driver that night.
GH has made a sad habit out of trying to make the audience feel things that are in no way supported by anything we're seeing onscreen, and this is a glaring example of that nonsense in action. I refuse to believe that anyone in that writers' room really sees Curtis' actions as anything but wrong. They have to know how impossible it is to take this seriously. They seem to think the solution is to devote extra heaps of screentime to people propping him up as a good man who was pushed too far, but they're wrong.
If we're looking for silver linings, we can at least point to this moment as the catalyst for the dissolution of Chase and Brook Lynn's boring marriage. I won't be surprised if they end up staying together in the end, but in the short term, it looks like we'll see some semblance of the Chase/Willow redux they've been toying with. My hunch is that Chase will eventually shack up with Willow, allowing Hudson to swoop in; eventually, Chase will find out about Willow's gun-toting maniac side, and Brook Lynn will find out Hudson is hiding whatever he's hiding, and blah blah blah. If we can get a few months of Brook Lynn doing something other than furrowing her brow and/or crying, I'll take that as a win.
Oh, we also got Ned last week. That's a positive development too, even though some of his scenes were devoted to him telling Chase that he and Brook Lynn need to stay together for Phoebe's sake. This was horrible advice even when people believed it, and that was decades ago.
That's it for last week's big stuff. Bullet time!
- Ava told Isaiah that she must have been bitten by the tick when she stopped to pet a stranger's dog
- Giovanni Mazza should not be asked to cry
- Joss told Hudson she pulled his personnel file and saw that he's only been a "VP of Operations" at JJE for a few months
- Tracy tried to hire Alexis to represent Brook Lynn in her "inevitable" divorce from Chase, and Alexis reminded her that she'd actually need to hear from Brook Lynn first
- Joss let Britt spend the night at her apartment
- Ned talked to Brook Lynn about his role in the aftermath of AJ and Jason's accident
- Chase told Willow that Brook Lynn tried to frame her out of jealousy
- Joss told Jason that she secured his release from Jakarta by agreeing to the WSB's official lie about Cassius
- Anna gave her gun and badge to Dante and asked him to be acting commissioner again, which is apparently all it takes for someone to be acting commissioner
- After telling him he has a tiny little head, Britt vowed to Lucas that Anna will pay for what she's done
- Carly, Valentin, and Agent Baines all woofed at each other about who might be responsible for Brennan's disappearance, culminating with Carly pointing the finger of suspicion at Nina
- Reaffirming this show's constant need to have it both ways with Sonny, Curtis told Jordan he's safe in Pentonville because of the retired mob boss' "associates"
- Ava wore leather pants to brunch
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