When 2013 began, my daily television diet consisted
of The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, and the same-day
rerun of Days of our Lives courtesy of SoapNet. By the end of the year, I had
picked up General Hospital and dumped the other three, though I did watch
several episodes of Days just before SoapNet (RIP) went dark. What happened, you may wonder? GH was the only soap that was any fun to
watch. Y&R began to lose core cast
members like rats fleeing a sinking ship, while adding so many new characters
and recasting others that my mute button got a serious workout. B&B senselessly killed off Steffy and
Liam’s baby and wrote out Hunter Tylo in order to shove yet another
Hope-centric triangle down our throats.
And Days, while well-written, has too much Sami and EJ for my taste. If you’re a fan of their pairing, bully for
you. The only DiMera I like is Lexie, and
she’s currently not acting outside the Salem Cemetery.
Let me get the fan boy routine out of the way before
I begin: I love Genie Francis. Loved her as Laura, loved her as Diana
Colville, and loved her as Genevieve Atkinson.
I would follow her to the gates of Soap Hell and back. My main impetus for returning to GH, a show I
had watched in the glory days of 1994 and 1995, was the return of Laura
Spencer. While Laura’s return was
ultimately something of a disappointment—she was gone by Thanksgiving—there was
something nice about seeing her back in Port Charles again, going on another
fool adventure with Luke and battling the Cassadines like the good old days (which
occurred before I was born). General
Hospital also celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a two-day marathon on
SoapNet, which aired episodes from the very beginning. To finally see Luke and Laura’s wedding, and
the first meeting and wedding of Frisco and Felicia, and to revisit young
Brenda, Jax, Jason, AJ, Ned, Lois, Jagger, and Miguel—not to mention Bobbie and
Tony—was a real treat. I only wish I’d
been able to record the entire thing and save it for posterity. Soaps used to be about romance, adventure,
heartaches, healing, and overcoming challenges.
Nowadays they are more often than not about heartache and suffering,
with little happiness and even less romance.
The reason GH remains on my viewing schedule
throughout its fiftieth season is the skillful way the writers balance the tone
of their storylines. While Dante and
Lulu were devastated over losing their baby in a custody battle, elsewhere in
Port Charles Robin was being reunited with her loved ones. The circumstances surrounding Connie’s death
have played out a mystery for months (though most viewers undoubtedly know that
“AJ” stood for “Ava Jerome”, right?) The
show isn’t perfect, of course—not every storyline works, but enough of them do
to matter. A perfect example can be
found in the two episodes of Y&R that CBS aired last Thanksgiving and New
Year’s Day; both were from 1998 and featured characters such as Katherine (how
we miss thee) and Jill, Brad and Jack, Ryan, Victor and Nikki (in saner days),
Nick and Sharon (our beloved Shick) and were masterworks of pacing and
drama. But said episodes also featured
Jennifer Gareis. You win some, you lose
some.
GH’s anniversary coincided with a revival of the
Nurse’s Ball, a 90’s staple that had been tossed onto the trash heap when the
show decided to venture into much-too-dark-for-daytime territory. Viewers got to see Frisco, Bobbie, Brenda,
Jax, and Noah Drake return to the canvas briefly, along with the presumed-dead
Stavros Cassadine. Bobbie is still in
town visiting, and Felicia and Mac were reunited in marriage. Nikolas, Lucy, Kevin, and Scotty have also
taken up permanent residence in town once again. Robert sadly came and went, but Anna and Duke
are here for the long haul. To see old
friends and new ones interact is what soap opera is all about—multigenerational
storytelling that is shared through families and loved ones, passed down from
others to us. Many of those with whom I
watched soaps in my formative years passed on a long time ago. Even lapsed soap fans felt a piece of their
life ripped away from them when the Guiding Light was dimmed and As the World
Turns stopped. I still think Days of our
Lives is one of the best ever at fully integrating its cast—Maggie Horton and
Caroline Brady are tentpoles and beacons for their family and friends, much in
the way Dr. Tom and Alice Horton were for much of the show’s first thirty
years. Alice remained an important
figure through 2007, and the Hortons are still, in my mind, one of the
quintessential soap families. While GH
has sadly said goodbye to the elder Quartermaines Edward and Lila, I wish there
could be more interaction between Monica and her grandchildren, Michael and
Danny. While Danny may not be a blood
relation, Monica’s connection to Jason is unbreakable even by death.
But I’ve gone off on a tangent. We’re here to talk about GH’s 13,000
episode. Now that’s an accomplishment. We begin our day at the MetroCourt, where
Sonny has moved his “coffee importing business” to Connie’s old office.
Sean begins to thell Sonny who has been bankrolling
the Jeromes. My suspicion is that it’s
Ric Lansing. It helps that I’ve been
following Rick Heart on Facebook for several years now, so if my guess is
wrong, I’ll just blame him! But these
things must be drawn out for at least forty minutes, and I can see that even
Sonny is growing frustrated. Sean
mentions something about dummy corporations and Sonny immediately blames the
Quartermaines. Then Sean mentions
Barrett Enterprises which is meaningless to me.
We learn that Brenda inherited this corporation and it was apparently
run by her sister. I only remember the
highpoints of Brenda and her love stories, but not her backstory. Sean then tries to convince Sonny to call
Brenda, and we go through a brief sojourn back to the Nurse’s Ball last year. After a brief chat with his soul mate, Sonny
tells Sean that majority interest in the corporation has been sold. But we don’t know to whom! Stay tuned…
Alexis and Julian play with Danny. Despite their sordid history—or perhaps
because of it—these two have a palpable chemistry, and share an obvious mutual
attraction. Still, Alexis’s reluctance
is understandable—the revelation that Sam is Julian’s daughter meant that all
three of her children were the spawn of mob kingpins. Love in Port Charles only seems to run in one
direction. Julian tries to leave, but he
and Alexis are magnetized to each other.
Kissing ensues. Before Alexis can
rip Julian’s all-black outfit from his well-defined body, a knock comes at the
door. Rafe alert! Rafe alert!
Looks like he’s going to c*ckblock two relationships tonight. Anyway, they leave Rafe to look after Danny
while they flee toward the hotel in search of Molly’s chastity. Poor Daniel Edward Morgan—he’s being tossed
from sitter to sitter while Sam and Si take their show on the road. Fast forward to the end of the episode, where
there’s a knock at the door. Hey,
there’s Ric Lansing! I nearly freaked
out. Nice to see you back on daytime,
Mr. Hearst.
Elsewhere Ava meets with Carlos. With Ava and Julian on the outs due to her
relationship with Morgan, Ava is trying to surmise who is backing their
organization. She doesn’t know who the
money man is? Interesting. Ava and Julian work together for the “greater
good”, but they clearly don’t work together very well. Interesting family dynamic going on between
those two.
AJ hangs out in the cemetery, drinking himself into
oblivion. His imbibing conjures Connie’s
ghost/aura/spirit/image/apparition. The
Connie rendered by AJ’s subconscious is actually a bit more fun than the late,
lamented Real Thing. She was a perfectly
enjoyable character, but DID has a limited shelf life on soap unless Erika
Slezak is playing the role. But I’m just
happy to see Sean Kanan on the screen, which hasn’t been the norm over the past
several months. Storylines cross paths
when AJ stumbles from the cemetery to the Floating Rib, where he begins to interrogate
Ava. Carlos tries to remove AJ from the vicinity,
but Ava defuses the situation. Then she
tells AJ he reeks of vodka. Oops. AJ keeps trying to get at the truth about
Connie’s murder, while Ava threatens to tell Michael what she saw on the
surveillance tapes. The footage she
conveniently destroyed, of course. Ava
is a femme fatale, people—they can’t be trusted with the truth! AJ gets aggressive and Carlos drags him
outside. When Carlos returns to the table, the truth emerges: a convenient trip into Ava’s mind shows that
after AJ stumbled out of the Crimson Publishing offices, Connie was still alive
and well. Hmm.
Michael and Kiki.
Can I just say that “Kiki” is the Worst Soap Name ever? Either of her given names, “Lauren” and
“Katherine”, would be preferable. But
names don’t even matter in this case, because these two just don’t have
it. The actors may have it, but the
characters are dramatic dead weight when blissfully happy. The drama involving Kiki, Franco, John
McBain—er, Silas—is the only interesting thing to happen to this duo in
MONTHS. Michael wants Starr—er, Kiki—to
apologize. She’s too busy babysitting Rafe,
though, so she’s not going home with Michael tonight. You win some, you lose some, buddy.
Another bout of Molly/TJ/Rafe has broken out. Molly and TJ don’t really work for me, in the
same way that young soap love so rarely works these days. I haven’t seen a teen pairing on soap in the
past ten years that worked. I suppose it
would be hard to recapture a Holden/Lily, or Nick/Sharon, or Philip/Beth story
nowadays. Anyway, the young lovers have
checked into the MetroCourt and been given a sermon by Olivia on how to be
safe. I’ve determined that there is no
such thing as safe sex on a soap opera. Even
abstinence doesn’t seem one-hundred-percent effective. They dine on room service. I don’t know what Molly was drinking, but surely
Olivia didn’t send up wine? Maybe it was
sparkling soda. Afterward Molly and TJ
change into their sex clothes. Don’t get
your hopes up, kids. They are under the
covers but still dressed when there’s a knock at the door. Hey, there’s Alexis and Julian! And Alexis is giving The Look.
Patrick and Robin drama. Robin’s return to the show was one of the top
soap moments on 2013—maybe the top
moment—but the storyline has been somewhat marred by external factors. Obviously Kimberly McCullough has her own
ambitions outside the show and didn’t have to return at all, but chose to give
the fans some closure. And, I mean,
she’s been on this show since she was a child.
They couldn’t very well kill Robin.
The storyline is a bit like overcooked spaghetti buried under amazing
sauce, or hot fudge dumped atop freezer-burned ice cream. Everyone’s initial joy was quickly tempered
by Sabrina’s pregnancy announcement, Patrick waffling between the two women,
and Robin’s decision less than three months later to flee Port Charles to cure
Jason. Are they planning to recast
Jason? I’m sure there are several men
out there who could fill the part—I’d put my money on Timothy Adams if he wasn’t
New York-based—but fans are often the biggest obstacle in the recast game. Robin
tells Patrick she wants one last night together, but Patrick is feeling a
different kind of anxiety. Having to
grieve for his wife once, now twice, is doing a number on his psyche. Finally Patrick submits to his desires and
takes Robin to bed. I hope Rafe doesn’t
show up there, too, because then no one would get loved in this episode. Alas, it goes off without a hitch. Let the music play, let the clothes come off. After the love scenes, Robin tells Patrick
she will return to him someday, and they will be together again. Bittersweet, but hopeful.
All in all, a decent episode if not celebratory in
an outward way. It’s clear that there
are enough interesting storylines designed to carry the show forward into its
fifty-first year, though if Ava keeps shooting people the hospital is going to
be overrun with casualties, and I’m not sure Dr. Patrick Drake can be
everywhere at once. Now if they could
just bring Laura home again, things would be perfect. And maybe Stefan Cassadine…
Credit: ABC
