Dear readers, I've been watching soaps for 40 years now, and the main staple of every soap is the Love Triangle. It's passionate. It's compelling viewing. It's heartwrenching. It's relatable. We, the viewers, eagerly line up and pick sides. We root for the couple we connect with, and we hate the other guy...sometimes.
The first GH love triangle I was invested in was Laura, Scotty, and Luke. God help me, but I was on the Luke and Laura side. Scotty was a good guy, a lawyer, an upstanding citizen, a guy who had stood by Laura through thick and thin, but damn, when she was in a room with Luke, it was all sizzle and no fizzle, and it made my heart race. Luke was a bad guy, but I rooted for him anyway. I was 17, what did I know of love? Nothing. I just knew Luke excited me.
But the most challenging soap love triangles are the ones where there is no clear bad guy. In the version of a triangle where one person is a true villain -- like say when Maxie was with that hippie Levi Dunkelman who turned out to be a criminal weasel. That one was easy. 99% of us were rooting for the perfect and upstanding Nathan.
But this week on GH, with this particular triangle? It's much more complicated. This triangle is a tapestry woven over years, involving most of the town, and any decision made will level someone. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been in the spot Sam is in, knowing that any choice you make will completely destroy someone else? It's like death.
I have been on Twitter, watching people ripping Sam apart. But really, in her place, could you do any better? I couldn't. I know this for a fact. Sam is (not legally but in her heart) married to a man she now knows is Drew Cain, but when she married him, she believed with all of her heart that he was Jason.
Now, the real Jason is back, and Sam discovered that the man she is currently married to is his twin, Drew. She had her son, Danny, with Jason. She had her daughter, Scout, with Drew. Both men have fathered her children. Both men love her. She loves both men. Jason was first, but he wasn't her only.
Readers, let's be honest -- if Sam had immediately tossed Drew to the curb for Jason, you'd hate her for that, too.
Jason has stepped back and is allowing Sam the time and room to figure this out. But in his heart of hearts, he's probably singing this Olivia Newton John song in his head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W1wWNFL4Sg
I must pause my love triangle discussion momentarily to send a little love to Kelly Monaco... Kelly, I hope you are saving all these scenes for your Emmy reel. Sam's angst, confusion, and heartbreak are so evident, palatable, raw, and real. You're doing your best work with this storyline, and I applaud you. Sam has an impossible choice to make, and you are portraying the hell out of it.
Back to love triangles...
We loved Jason and Sam. We loved Drew and Sam. Both men love Sam. Sam loves both men. This triangle is breaking my heart. How can she possibly choose?
Potentially, some light is breaking through the darkness to give us hope for both men's happiness. Now that we know that Drew is Oscar's father and that Drew and Kim (Welcome home, Tamara Braun!) had a love affair, there is hope that if Drew is able to have his original memory map implanted, he may recall his love for Kim.
That way, when Sam eventually goes back to the real Jason, Drew will have a built-in family waiting for him. I do think Sam will choose Jason, but I think it will take some time. Be patient, and let the story play out.
The scenes with Drew and Oscar were precious. Oscar's fear of his dad not liking him broke my heart this week. There is such sweetness to that kid. I just want to hug him like he was one of my grandkids.
If both men have love, will you be content? A happy ending for everyone, right?
Probably not, because this is a daytime drama, and it could never be that easy. We still don't know what Faison's plan was, or who the traitor is, or what evil things have been done in the missing years. Did the traitor have Jason out killing people for him? Did Drew really go AWOL from the Navy SEALs and run off before he was kidnapped? There are still so many missing pieces to this puzzle.
I used to watch a gazillion soaps. I watched All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital, The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, and way back, Ryan's Hope, and a brief stint with As the World Turns while I was dating a guy whose dad was hooked on it. But now, I mostly just watch GH. I still kind of watch Y&R, but it doesn't have the same thrill for me since Justin Hartley left for This Is Us (the best primetime show in like... ever). I'll pick it up again when Adam comes back. I had stopped watching The Bold and the Beautiful, too -- until Ingo Rademacher came on as Thorne, and now I'm interested again, but mostly in his scenes, and mostly because I love him. I changed the voice on my Siri to Australian Male so I can pretend it's Jax.
All of this is to say that in my humble opinion, General Hospital is the clear winner of soapdom in 2017. Nothing on any other soap compares to this year's writing, acting, and creative vision on GH. It's been very compelling viewing with minimal fast-forwarding. I'm on the edge of my seat! Although I do have a few characters that make me cringe when they come on-screen.
Which brings me to Nelle. She makes me cringe for all the right reasons. Chloe Lanier does a great job of making me hate her. She's despicable! She lies almost as much as our current President. (Views expressed here are my own; don't blame Soap Central!) Is she truly pregnant with Michael's baby? If so, did she get pregnant on purpose so she could milk Michael for free surf and turf?
I don't know, but I love to hate her. She drives me nuts, and I get mad when I see her, and that means she's doing her job. Soap villains are supposed to be despicable! She's an idiot, too. I mean, who tells Sonny Corinthos that they aren't afraid of him? Does she know how many people took a drive to the Pine Barons, never to return?
As villains go, I have to say I have always loved Faison. He's so creepy and weird, but kind of cool, too -like The Phantom of the Opera. He's kind of scary, but he turns you on a little bit, too. Or is that just me?
I keep hearing people talk about Faison being in Port Charles, but I have been on vacation and on a cruise, so I missed GH (Thanks, Liz Masters, for filling in for me!) -- I had 18 episodes of GH on my DVR and scrambled to catch up -- and there wasn't a single Faison sighting. Is anyone else as disappointed as I am?!
Faison was here and was given a P.J. Sinclair manuscript about a Severed Branch that he tossed into the flames, but it was pulled from the magical Mary Poppins fire that only singed the edges...
Is Drew the severed branch, or is there more to this mystery? What was Caesar Faison's aim in all of this? Does Britt know more than she's saying? (Welcome home, Kelly Thiebaud!) I am hoping Lulu won't press charges against her, and Britt can resume her job at the hospital -- and maybe we will get some Brad sightings. The two of them were so much fun together.
In other mysteries, Charlotte has been using old ballots for coloring paper, and newly crowned investigative reporter Lulu Falconeri smells a story. This is a great plot point -- GH has been sorely missing an investigative journalist to unravel the mysteries in town. I'm happy to see this finally coming to light, since it's been a few years since Felicia lost the election, I think.
Does this mean that Nikolas will also be back? If memory serves, Laura knows about her son's dirty dealings and the reasons he was running away and faking his death. The odd thing was that at the time, the Cassadine fortune was dwindling, and Nikolas was doing shady things to protect Spencer's financial future, but now that Valentin has the Cassadine fortune, they are rolling in it again. Is Valentin the former WSB hunchback such a great businessman that he brought the fortune back to its former glory, or did the writers hope we'd forget that Nikolas was going bankrupt?
But I digress. If Lulu breaks this story open, does that mean Felicia will become the mayor, or will there be another election? I hope Felecia becomes mayor and appoints Mac as police commissioner and sends Jordan back to being an agent. Maybe Mac doesn't want to be police commissioner, but at least we'd get to see him more if he were in that role.
In the plot point that drove me mad this week, Andre confessed his sins to Anna while Jordan eavesdropped from a speaker outside the holding cell at the Port Charles Police Station. Wait. What? Has that speaker been there all along? I mean, mob deals have been made in that room. Many a private criminal confession has happened in that room. Attorney/client sessions have happened in that room. And suddenly there's a speaker system in there? All this time, anyone could be listening to all the shady things that happen in there? Am I nuts? Has that always been there and I just now noticed it?
I can sympathize with Andre's initial intent to save his wife from losing her memories to Alzheimer's. But how he got from that noble intent to agreeing to steal Jason's life is still unclear to me. Whatever his motives, one thing is clear -- Andre is going away for a long time. At least Jordan got him some food from Kelly's before he was sent to Pentonville.
On the other hand, Julian is a free man now and can roam the town freely with no ankle monitor. His first order of business was buying Alexis' favorite bar. Readers, is it just me, or do you find it odd that recovering alcoholic Alexis spends an awful lot of time in bars? Supposedly, she is testing her resolve, but we all know bars are horrible places to be if you're the only one not drinking. I always loved the old scenes with Alexis and Diane kibitzing over a bottle of wine. I hate that the writers made Alexis an alcoholic because now we have lost that comic gold.
Why do you suppose Julian bought the bar? He sold Derek Wells media to Sam and Ja-Drew, but is that sale even legal now? Being that Julian is Sam's dad, my bet is that he will let her have it to try to score points.
Will we have a Julexis reunion by Christmas? Even one little Christmas kiss under the mistletoe? Oh, I sure hope so.
One kiss we all knew was coming and finally got was the Fanna kiss. Anna and Finn had that love/hate bickering passion thing down this week. It erupted into a passionate kiss, and then a phone call interrupted the moment. They took a step back and pretended it was nothing, but I think before the New Year, we will see more fireworks between these two. Especially since Anna forcibly moved Finn into her home. I mean, c'mon. One night they will bump into one another in the hallway on the way to the bathroom in pajamas and BOOM.
What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Luke crash Kevin and Laura's Christmas wedding? (Tony Geary was in L.A. recently. Just sayin'.) Will Cassandra foolishly try to move her drugs through Sonny's territory? Will Ned buy Drew and Jason's ELQ stocks and wrestle control away from Michael? Will Olivia and Monica go get a Christmas pedicure together now that they are bonding? Will Liz and Franco remember she has three kids instead of just Jake and buy enough toys for the boys for Christmas? Will Monica adopt Drew so she's officially his mom, too? Will Charlotte go to jail for coloring on official mayoral ballots? Will someone find Faison lurking around the tunnels at Wyndemere?
Only tomorrow knows, dear readers, and I will tune in tomorrow as long as there are tomorrows.
Tamilu
What are your thoughts on General Hospital? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
