Even in a perfect world where the General Hospital writers didn't have to worry about scheduling issues, lapsed contracts, and budgetary constraints, it'd still be almost impossible to consistently achieve narrative balance on the show. Five episodes a week is a lot, but it still isn't enough to allow for each character's complete perspective — and as much as we all have our favorites, and as much as we resent certain characters eating the show. It's also true that some characters are easier to write for than others.
Now, we're obviously not living in a perfect world, and GH hasn't been a balanced show for a long time — partly, if not largely, due to the type of real-world issues I listed in the previous paragraph. Producing this show has got to be a logistical nightmare on a good day. It's still interesting, though, to note which characters tend to get the writers' full attention, and which ones… simply don't.
I'm thinking about all this right now because last week was one of those weeks when the writers decide it's time to give a few minutes of storyline love to characters who typically aren't allowed to drive story anymore: Lucy and Serena saw their latest scheme go up in smoke, Molly contemplated moving to Chicago, and Elizabeth revealed that Aiden was going off to some pastry academy in Europe. None of these events felt like they were really connected to the canvas in a meaningful way; instead, they felt like little ideas that had been saved for a rainy day in case an actor needed help satisfying an episode guarantee.
As others loudly noted last week, this treatment is particularly egregious where Elizabeth is concerned. She's directly connected to the characters who basically built the show, and her family should be a top narrative priority, but instead, they're perpetually left cooling on the back burner — or existing offscreen altogether. I could make similar arguments on behalf of Molly, Lucy, and Serena — even if they aren't Hardys, they're rooted into the history of the show in other meaningful ways — but I think you get my point. It's interesting to see which characters consistently get the writers' full attention, and which ones end up getting friend-zoned, never to escape.
Aside from these musings, I'm not sure there's really a lot to say about anything that happened on GH last week. Some things happened, but none of them felt particularly impactful, so with that in mind, I think this week's Critical Diagnosis will consist of a handful of shorter paragraphs. Let's see how this goes…
Crocodile Fundee
He still hasn't said his name, but we know the guy Britt hooked up with is Jude, the latest new arrival. The safe bet seems to be that he's Hudson's boss — and based on the way he blanched when Britt suggested that they use "John and Jane" as their anonymous sex code names, it also seems pretty apparent that the show wants us to at least wonder whether he has a connection to the Jacks family. So far, I can't be bothered to care: There's no real spark between Britt and Jude, and the guy playing him comes across like a slightly older, slightly puffier version of every other guy they've added lately — if you mashed Tristan and Hudson together, you'd end up with something that looked kind of like Jude.
Anyway, if I had to guess, I would guess that Jude is some sort of secret Jacks, and he has Hudson on the payroll as part of a plan to take control of JJE. Maybe he's actually Phoebe's father, which would make some actual sense; Hudson has never come across as anywhere near as evil or intimidating as the guy Ethan was afraid of. Jude, on the other hand, sleeps with a gun in his hotel nightstand, so you know he's dangerous.
While we wait to be told what Jude's deal is, we can see Hudson moving closer to the center of the action, as a result of Sonny summoning him to Cafe Cherie and offering to put him on the secret Corinthos payroll. But Sonny isn't trying to hire Hudson away from Joss, no no — instead, he wants to pay him to keep an eye on Joss. The idea, as Hudson quickly realized, is that he'll be able to steer her away from her anti-Sonny mission, get her to focus on simply running JJE, and therefore save his own job by presenting Jax with a healthy company when he returns from his sailing adventure.
Britt, meanwhile, is a whole new person after her night of quadruple schtupping with Jude — to the extent that Stella, who was ready to bring down the HR hammer, insisted that the suddenly sunshine-and-roses Dr. Westbourne must have been "abducted by aliens or possessed by a benevolent spirit." It's retrograde insulting for Britt to undergo a personality upgrade after a night of sex, but on the other hand, it's even more tiresome to have her perpetually acting like an asshole for no real reason.
Foxy Proxy Moxie
Lucy Coe has always been a bit of a birdbrain, but historically, she's also been a fairly effective schemer. Since returning to the canvas a decade or so ago, however, she's existed mainly as poorly written comic relief, often as a result of a big plan that falls apart twice as fast as it came together. Remember when Lucy and Scott plotted to make Tracy think Scott had fallen in love with her? No? No big surprise there, since the storyline lasted for maybe two weeks.
Lucy's attempt to regain control of Deception by using Serena as a honey trap has gone on for longer than two weeks, but that's mainly because the writers have ignored it for days at a time. Up 'til now, Serena's done nothing more than sort of vaguely flirt with Michael; in fact, it wasn't until he left with Jordan for Baden Baden that Lucy decided to make her move. Unfortunately, she decided to make it against Jason, and since Jason is never allowed to fall for anything, this phase of the gambit was doomed to fast failure.
Conceptually, pitting Lucy and Serena against Jason was never going to be anything more than a waste of time, but GH made it even worse with the details: Lucy's big idea was for Serena to try and bluster Jason into signing a document under false pretense, tricking him into giving away Michael's Deception proxy so she could… well, that part was never clear. The point is this: Lucy Coe has been reduced to attempting corporate fraud that hinges on the belief that nobody reads anything before they sign it. Lame.
Jason caught Serena, of course, and quickly understood she'd done it to try and help Lucy. When she realized Jason was on to her, Lucy doubled down, trying to sweet talk Jason into signing over Michael's proxy for ten days — and then she panicked over the idea that Jason would tattle on her to Tracy. Fortunately for her, Jason still abides by the "snitches get stitches" code, and he promised Lucy and Serena that as long as nobody asked him, he wouldn't tell.
That promise was put to the test not long after, when Tracy asked Jason point blank if Lucy had tried taking control of Deception. How did he answer? Unless I completely missed something, we don't know — and that conversation took place on Wednesday. The writers do not care about this story.
Your Biggest Fan
As we all suspected, Quinn is not Trina's stalker. What looked for all the world like an abduction turned out to be nothing more than one doofus trying to do a favor for his even bigger doofus of a friend: Kai rented an Airbnb for himself and Trina without telling her, then asked Quinn to bring her there, and then dashed out to get some champagne at the last minute. This is a rare example of soap characters acting like actual human beings, because if you know any dudes in their early 20s, you know they're typically almost too stupid to exist, and definitely prone to doing something like this.
Trina's fake abduction served a couple of purposes. One, it gave the previous week's GH a cliffhanger-type thing; two, it pushed the dawdling story of Trina's stalker into a higher gear. We know this is the case because later in the week, we found out that Trina asked Emma to look into the origin of the flowers that were delivered to her apartment. Why Emma? Let's not think too deeply about that, and just be happy that Emma finally had a scene that wasn't 100 percent about Gio.
Anyway, Emma learned that Trina's flowers were ordered by someone named "Alan Smith," which isn't particularly helpful from an internet searching perspective. Instead, Emma used the internet to show Trina how many fans she has, which is a great example of soap characters behaving like no person who has ever lived. Even if we're willing to accept the idea of a singing career that takes off literally overnight, and even if we're willing to accept the idea that Simon is so distantly involved that Trina wouldn't be getting weekly reports about social media activity, it's ridiculous to think she wouldn't be searching obsessively on her own.
Regardless, Emma's quick search showed Trina that there is indeed a lot of fan activity around her burgeoning singing career — specifically one particular page displaying the stalker's photo collage, overlaid with the words FROM YOUR BIGGEST FAN! Recognizing this extremely common phrase from the card that came with the flowers sent to her apartment, Trina freaked out.
I have no idea where they're going with this, although since we know Heather's on her way back to town, we're obviously meant to think she's the stalker. I'm not really interested in the return of Evil Heather, especially after they made us sit through all that crap about metallosis, so I won't be upset if this turns out to be a fakeout; all things considered, it's very easy to imagine Heather turning out to actually be Trina's biggest fan. There's also the obvious implication that Esme's on her way back, and Heather's return will be connected with that somehow. I'm not all that excited to see which way the storyline pans out, but I'm also even less interested in whatever comes next for Trina's singing career. GH has never known what to do with pop stars in Port Charles, and I doubt that's changed; here's hoping that after this silliness is over, Trina's allowed to switch jobs just as quickly as Frisco did when he made his abrupt leap from teen idoldom to the PCPD.
Divorced from Reality
Once upon a time, Brook Lynn and Chase had a real spark, but for the majority of their relationship — and certainly their marriage — they've been a black hole of doom for watchable drama. I rooted for their divorce in the hope that splitting them up would make them interesting again, but so far, if anything, they've been even duller than they were before — just scene after scene of the two of them whining and blubbering to anyone in earshot about how much they love each other, but they just can't make it work.
Last week's sole flicker of interest where these two are concerned came courtesy of a too-brief showdown between Ric and Monet. Both of them had to push and prod their clients to let them act like lawyers, but as soon as they started getting testy, Brook Lynn stood up and put a stop to it. Next thing we knew, Chase and Brook Lynn were seated next to one another on a flight to the Dominican Republic for a quickie divorce — and then, once they were in the judge's chambers, they spent the entire time cooing sweet nothings to each other, causing the judge to ask them if they were sure they wanted to go through with the divorce. He returned later with the paperwork, and that was our Friday cliffhanger: Is this really the end for Brook Lynn and Chase?
God, I hope so. Maybe we'll have our answer by the end of next week! In the meantime, your bullets:
- Valentin tried and failed to get Joss to call off her war against Sonny
- Faced with Jason's moralizing, Serena made the fairly excellent point that fraud isn't really all that bad when you compare it with being a contract killer
- Baffled by his sister's sudden wisdom and maturity, Lucas tried rattling Carly about the risk of sending Valentin into Anna's arms
- Monet got Portia to agree to do an interview talking up Curtis' heroism, in exchange for Curtis not giving her a hard time for Isaiah's presence in Desmond's life; afterwards, Isaiah told Portia he doesn't trust Monet, and Monet called someone to tell them she'd gotten everything she wanted
- Isaiah and Portia drink milk with their ice cream, which is more upsetting to me than I would have guessed
- Two or three weeks after she was hired at Miller & Davis, Monet and Alexis finally shared a little bit of screentime
- Alexis told Valentin that a mystery bidder exceeded his offer for Wyndemere, and is now the new owner
- Jason the genius told Sonny that "Whoever got Vito to turn on you definitely doesn't want you to know who they are"
- Sonny told Jason that he decided to go legit for Turner
- Turner met with Drew and offered to give him immunity if he can bring her information about anything actionable he saw or did while he was working for Sonny — although we aren't really sure whether she was referring to the ten minutes Drew worked for Sonny as Jake Doe, or if she was talking about Drew having Jason's memories
- Valentin convinced Anna to let him be part of her therapy sessions
- Cody knows how to build shelves
- Alexis is hosting Thanksgiving
- Jordan was cleared for treatment in Baden Baden, and Michael offered to stay with her until they got started
- Ava and Drew yelled at each other about Brennan after Joe asked Ava what she and Brennan were talking about the night he disappeared
- Elizabeth and Dante are going to bake together
- Jason asked Joss if she arranged for the attack on Sidwell and framed Sonny for it
- Ric tried to get Willow to drop her libel suit against Lulu, but Willow wouldn't blink
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