The General Hospital Thread (Part 2)

I’m starting to think that maybe the show is repositioning some characters to ultimately de-emphasize them and shift focus to the hospital with a different set of characters? I say this mostly because, while I liked the idea in theory, it’s hard for me to see Josslyn as a doctor — it always felt kind of doomed, with her motivation being wanting to do a better job of patching up Dex when he got hurt doing mob stuff — and because Willow becoming a nurse never really made sense to me. I liked her as a teacher, and would have loved to see her take a teaching position for sick kids at GH. Part of the reason the show is having such a hard time getting people to work at the hospital is because they currently only have doctors, nurses (almost all of whom are recurring and barely seen) and a pair of patient advocates. Imagine how much more interesting stuff they could do if they focused more on some other positions, like when Franco was doing art therapy and Brad was a lab technician. They could easily get some people doing in-house counsel, public relations, administrator positions, even more young people doing candy striping or other volunteer work. It would be great to see the show burnish GH’s reputation among the community as a really big deal, a place of honor where people aspire to work. Every dumb thing Drew is starting at Aurora could be done instead through the hospital.

Maybe I’m just crazy thinking there’s a better long-term plan. And if the rumors about Michael Easton being on his way out are true, the situation is even more dire.

Thursday’s episode was rather bizarre in a number of ways. So many people just hanging around the Quartermaine mansion, Michael and Willow thinking it’s a good idea to knock boots in the middle of the day when all of the kids are home for spring break, the way nothing seemed to be happening even when things were happening. I also don’t understand why the needed to recast Aiden. I guess they wanted something different for this storyline they’re starting with him?

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Patrick Mulcahey has been fired after only a few months as co-headwriter (with Liz Korten) – Liz will be joined by Chris Van Etten (without Dan O’Connor) as the new headwriter. This is all very surprising to me. I haven’t been in love with these stories although the decision to get Alexis back to being a lawyer has been much needed…

There is supposed to be a big cliffhanger on today’s episode – yesterday’s episode didn’t have much drama, just Chase and Brooklynn’s uneventful wedding (Gregory gets jittery and that was all the drama – Jane Elliot was great in the scene as Tracy helps Gregory through it). Hoping for something big and exciting to happen, the show has been boring to me lately.

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That was a total dud of an ending to Friday’s episode ): Very disappointing ): The show has been misfiring so much lately…

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I watched the three wedding episodes over the weekend, and I guess I’m in the minority, but I really enjoyed them. I really miss the days when a soap wedding was multiple days long, at a venue that is not just someone’s living room or some shabby location, featuring lots of characters including relatives from out of town, extras that we don’t know, and characters on the canvas who it’s maybe a stretch to have included, focused exclusively on the wedding for at least a couple of episodes. I realize that Chase and Brook Lynn are kind of a mid-tier couple who don’t really get the audience excited, but I’ve come to really like them together and enjoyed seeing the celebration and the mingling at the wedding.

One thing I complain about a fair amount is that soaps have become too jaded to what they are and what people expect to see from them. (I say this mostly about DAYS and Ron’s writing on it, but it applies across the board.) Weddings are de-emphasized because everyone knows that soap opera characters gets married and divorced over and over again, but I don’t like seeing something like a wedding getting treated like it barely matters. I love that Brook Lynn, Chase, Lois, Ned, Gregory, and others were treating this similar to how a real person might treat their wedding, not pay lip service to the idea that people are making a lifetime commitment while barely bothering to go through the motions.

That’s not to say I had no complaints about the wedding. It feels completely ridiculous that Sasha didn’t go to the wedding, when honestly she would have made a more reasonable bridesmaid that Willow, on the excuse that Olivia and Lois made her stay behind and made food for the after party. I don’t think anyone even mentioned that Chase’s mother Jackie wasn’t present, when it seems like that would made for some interesting scenes with Gregory, Finn, Chase, Brook Lynn and Tracy, especially given Gregory’s ALS. It didn’t have to be Kim Delaney. They could have easily recast the part. Finn accidentally drinking the sip of champagne he had will likely be further explored in the coming days/weeks, but as a beat that was meant to be thrilling, it fell pretty flat. And the bit where Sonny was someone able to beat Dex to a bloody pulp just felt silly. I understand the point of it, but it just wasn’t believable.

Speaking of Sonny, I don’t really have a problem with how long the story is taking per se. If they hadn’t written it in that Valentin messed with Sonny’s meds, which was retconned in after he beat Cyrus nearly to death, I wouldn’t think he’s off his meds, so I can get behind most of the characters not jumping to that conclusion, especially since it appears that he is taking the medication in the correct dosage. But if nothing climactic is happening in that story, it needs to be more in the background. Sonny is on so much, and his mental state is the primary focus of that, so the lack of many discernable story beats makes the story feel like it’s dragging on too long.

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I was out and missed yesterday’s episode – surprised they killed off Gregory already, thought there would be a few more “beats” to the storyline. Having Finn fall off the wagon could be interesting, remains to be seen.

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I just watched the episode of Gregory’s passing. I’m not crying, you’re crying! …..

Beautifully done and props to all in involved at GH and especially to Gregory Harrison. I love it when an actor plays for integrity instead of sympathy. Well done sir.

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The episodes surrounding Gregory’s death were well done, I agree. There was one episode about a week ago that really balanced the pathos of that loss with some humor with Alexis and Diane in Albany bickering with Fergus Byrne, which was nice. The Tracy/Cody scenes were nice and then Tracy with Chase later was also really nice.

But I’m having a hard time with a couple of things. For one, I don’t remember the last time a phrase wore itself into the ground as quickly as “And Kristina saw the whole thing.” Almost everyone involved in this story is acting like a lunatic in some way or another. Molly can’t find any way to talk to Kristina about what happened and seem supportive? TJ is mad that Kristina is not keeping in touch with him and Molly enough, even though Molly told him she’d just seen Kristina earlier that day, and Kristina hasn’t been ignoring them? Why does every person in town seem so worried about Kristina having a nervous breakdown over this? I am especially bothered that Joss and Carly seem so concerned. It feels incredibly insincere and just not believable to me that the two of them now have this well of sympathy and understanding for her.

Related to that, the way the show is working the Sonny storyline has become pretty garbled. I think it was clever that they had it revealed that Valentin messed with Sonny’s meds, so they can have Sonny act out while giving him some cover for it, as well as giving some cover to people who are suddenly realizing that Sonny is worse than they thought. But the problem is that in some conversations, people like Carly and Michael and Jason will be talking about the Sonny/Dex incident like of course this is who Sonny has always been and Kristina has been naïve not to see it this whole time. But in other conversations, those same people will be talking about those same actions and talking about how off Sonny is, that he’s changed, that he was never like this before. The show needs to pick a lane at this point. It’s clear that being off his medication is making Sonny do things he normally wouldn’t. Sending two guys to try to kill Jason in his own warehouse was nuts. But then they don’t need everyone in town talking about how any person who was paying attention would know Sonny has always been like this rather than a general sense that Sonny is being more extreme than he’s been in a long time.

Also the path they are going down with Ava is really not good. I don’t mind her being deceptive and self-serving, but her actions feel reckless with so little regard for anyone’s well-being.

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