Serial Drama

Celebrating GH: Our Favorite Characters

On April 1st, General Hospital will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary and we couldn't be more excited. For the returns of much-loved characters. For the copious amounts of flashbacks we hope/politely but firmly request the show air. For the Nurse's Ball. For the show being lightyears better than it was the last time it celebrated a milestone anniversary. We're all jazz hands and celebratory bottles of champagne at Serial Drama Headquarters!

(Okay, we don't actually have official headquarters, but if we did they would be fabulously decorated and also filled with celebratory bottles of champagne)

In honor of the big day, we're going to be taking a few trips down memory lane and indulging in some prime reminiscing and we'd love to hear from you, our wonderful readers! Let's start with our Favorite General Hospital Characters.

But! Before we officially start the reminiscing, a DISCLAIMER: these are only our opinions. We are sure many of you (possibly even most of you!) will disagree with our choices and will roll your eyes at our taste. That is fine! We welcome your commentary and additions. And this list is by no means exhaustive, either--we've probably excluded about a dozen of our own favorites, and forgotten about a dozen more.

LUCY COE: Bless her heart (and welcome back!). It's been a blast to watch this character's decades-long arc from mousy librarian to scheming femme fatale to wacky ne'er-do-well to Nurses Ball Emcee Extraordinaire to the big-hearted, nutty, self-absorbed but huge-hearted woman we have on our screens today.

And for every misdeed and every ridiculous bright red wedding dress in Lucy's soapy journey, she got a chance to show us her depth of feeling when learning of BJ's death or acting as a surrogate for Scotty and Dominique. 

ANNA DEVANE: Let's face it, this is a genre whose viewer demographic is overwhelmingly female. When you're working in that world, while lots of washboard abs and sexy bad boys are key, you can't go without a serious bad-ass chick or two. We present to you one Ms. Anna DeVane -- superspy, double agent, brave and honorable, and with hair that any 80s girl would covet.

Sure, her romances and her relationship with her daughter gave us great stories over the years, but she never needed to be anybody's mother or anybody's wife to drive story. She had lives to save, regimes to bring down, and national monuments to save from nuclear attack by the evil DVX. (And yes, has also served her time as a damsel in distress, but one who is quite capable of handling herself.) We can have our fun battles till we're blue in the face about who is truly the love of Anna's life, but one thing is for certain: she doesn't need any man. She kicks ass all on her own. (Yes, even in her weird two-year stint on All My Children.)

JAGGER CATES: Never before in the history of soaps has there been a character so multi-layered and fascinating as the young Jagger Cates when he... oh forget it. But seriously, you guys. What does it matter? Have you seen him?

What more must anyone say?

Lady of MY Heart? Tracy Angelica Quartermaine

Sometimes Tracy The Ball Buster gets on my nerves a little bit -- never because of Jane Elliot, who is a rock star champion of the world at all times and is beyond reproach -- just because she is occasionally overwritten. But when she's on, she's on.

And today she just slayed me when she suggested that perhaps Luke wants to be with Laura. It wasn't that she suggested it, and it wasn't that she called him out on acting as if Scott Baldwin is his own issue when it's really not about him at all. It's just the way she said the word "Laura." Because, see, it was like this:

And, see, that is just awesome. (And I say that with all due respect to Laura, who is also awesome. Just in a totally different non-Tracy-esque way.)

She even teased it again later!

(By the by, I'm oddly glad Luke's back on the sauce. I don't think Luke Spencer is a man who'd ever stay on the wagon for life.)

80% of Feeling Good is Looking Good

Okay, that title isn't really all that relevant, but when I turned on my TV before turning on the DVR for today's General Hospital, that was a direct quote from some sort of men's hair club commercial and I almost died laughing. 80%, you guys. Empirical fact! STUDIES HAVE SHOWN! And so I couldn't help but experience the entire episode in this context.

For instance, Trey doesn't look half bad. Sure, he's got some dark circles around his eyes, but he's a pretty boy. Brain dead? C'mon! When you look like that, chances are you feel good.

Carly has looked fabulous for two weeks of episodes. Seriously. Ridiculously fabulous. That hair! The sort of night-before smoky-eyes residue! That cute jacket! Plus she's a little less made up than usual, so her freckles are showing and I am a fan. And she always looks cute in jeans. So what's she feelin' so bad about? Please! Just because she just found out her ex-boyfriend killed some kids and blackmailed her current boyfriend, who it turns out swapped her friend's live baby out for a dead baby and is like the world's worst grandfather and was blackmailing her ex-boyfriend right back... I mean that's no reason to feel bad.

So 20% of her current state is not so great. She looks good, and that's 80%. Quit whinin'!

(And hey, shout out to this excellent sequence:

Sam: Sounds like you saw yourself in Todd. (laughs) You should've known that was a huge, huge mistake, Carly.

Carly: You know you can be a real bitch sometimes.

Sam: You know it takes one to know one.

Carly: You know, who knows, maybe I can use this for good? Maybe I can get women to line up their boyfriends in front of me, and if I'm attracted to them, they should run -- run -- for their lives.

Nice, ladies!)

Oh My Jason, I'm Totally Bugging

If you had told me a few years ago that Steve Burton would be leaving General Hospital and that we'd soon be seeing a Jason-free Port Charles, I'd...I'd probably be chagrined that my 2012 was still watching General Hospital. But after THAT, I'd say "No! You lie!" because the thought of Port Charles without its religious idol/mafia hitman is so bizarre that the very thought of it would have to be a joke.

Except that it is not: Steve Burton is leaving General Hospital and taking the amoral, non-blinking hired killer with him.

And I have nothing to say about it. Actually, I have plenty to say about it. I have been stockpiling things to say about this very event for EONS because such an event would have a prominent spot on my dream board, if I had a dream board, and now that it finally happened, it's like so many things are running through my head at once that I can only stammer and then throw my hands up (literally--I'm nothing if not dramatic and prone to wild gesticulations) but you can't see me do that, you can only see me abruptly end this post with a series of exclamation points. Me of a few years ago would be so disappointed at my complete and utter speechlessness!

!!!

 

A Happy Return and a Good Laugh

I admit I have extremely mixed feelings about Todd Manning on General Hospital. Sure, part of it is that it's bittersweet to see any Llanview residents in Port Charles because it serves as a reminder that One Life to Live is no more. And in many ways it would be easier on my heart just to imagine the characters living on happily with their families. And while I really love Todd Manning as a character (I phrase it that way to emphasize that I find him compelling, not that I think he's a super-swell guy who I'd really root for in real life), my very favorite thing about Todd Manning just happens to be Blair. So it's hard to see him without her -- even broken up they're better in each other's orbits than outside of them. Not to mention one of the coolest things about how they've developed his character over the years is that they resisted the urge to turn a gray-hat former gang rapist into some heartthrob who went from hot relationship to hot relationship. We've only ever seen him with Blair and with Téa (and in both cases, these were not typical romances by any means), and sexual intimacy has always been a careful issue for him. And that is so important to me. If you're going to pull that standard soap trick of turning a rapist into a viable leading man, it's the only way I can stomach it. I absolutely in no way, shape, or form, ever ever want to see Todd bounced from leading lady to leading lady and put through the usual battalion of chem-tests. I will lose my lunch. 

And, since I've launched into this dissertation, another thing that worried me was that we already have Sonny, a bad boy who gets away with tons of stuff but who genuinely loves his family and sometimes his woman and always has a gaggle of people making excuses for him, and do we really need another? And yes, I find Todd a million times more compelling because of his self-loathing and his constant battles with himself, but still. Might it be too much? 

So I was nervous. Very nervous. And today I was reminded why there's so much more that differentiates him from Sonny and the number one characteristic? Humor. Sonny is rarely written to have much of a sense of humor and, in fact, is quite frequently such a depressing wet blanket. The trademark Todd Manning humor was a breath of fresh air for me today.

So for now, I am cautiously optimistic and very glad to see him. For now. And he apparently is free of all charges due to PTSD which, ha, but it would be a pretty easy case to argue considering what he'd been put through for eight years (although I loved that his original version was that they acquitted him because his mother didn't love him!).

Also, I love how people (especially Sonny) on this show routinely point guns at people and threaten to kill them and then either change their minds or are somehow thwarted and it's either witnessed by or admitted to the police and nobody ever gets arrested for attempted murder, ever. Because attempted murder is not really a crime in Port Charles. And now Starr's locked up for it. I can't say I hate Michael for it, though, because it stops the cycle. I know he did it for childish reasons, but honestly if he'd ever been held accountable for flirting with crime early on, he might not have gone in the direction he did. (Of course here I am applying psychological growth principles to GH, when we know full well Starr won't "learn" from this because... well, soaps!)

It Gets Cuter

Seriously, what is wrong with me that I am so enchanted by the One Life to Live babies and toddlers? (Shh, don't tell my parents, they'd given up hope of my giving them grandchildren long ago and we do not  need to encourage false hopes!)

There's just so much cheek-pinching to do. Y'all? They dressed Liam as a baby seal.

I cannot take it. And with his "daddy?"

I mean when the situation is that cute? It's tempting to root for Brody's secret to stay secret. He's fighting for something so adorable, how could it be wrong?

Tell me again why this man has to go all Crazy-Eyes and threaten people and lie just to get a wife and child? 

Second (+) Lives for One Life to Live Characters, Installment #2

Hallelujah. And I mean that.

I'd been wondering where the list of returns was. So far the list was small, just Kim and Langston and Markko (and the last two don't count as they were just there), and that seemed insufficient considering the barrage of announcements we were getting about All My Children returns. But then I realized the timing. The cancellation announcement came just over 3 months ago. OLTL got a three-months-longer lifespan than AMC, meaning right now is when we can start fairly comparing how AMC is wrapping things up with how OLTL plans to do so (this "they'll live on online" business has yet to take any credibly shape, so I'm speaking as if it's full cancellation till we get any real information). Today it begins.

And right on cue? SWEET MERCY SOMEONE UP THERE LOVES ME. Because Cord and Tina are coming back!!! Honestly if that hadn't happened I would've been seriously mystified because it's probably the most obvious return of all, but hey, we soap viewers are used to being mystified by the choices of the showrunners.

Allow me to gush with no shame. OH EM GEE CORD AND TINA.

I also feel it's important to go on record and saying if they're reuniting these two, it would be unacceptable for them to come back already reunited. I need to see this onscreen. NEED. (Isn't that picture crazy, y'all? Look behind them, remember when soap weddings used to mean huge budgets and a cast of extras by the droves? Now we're lucky if 1/10th the contract cast is there.)

Now This Is Just Not Playing Fair

Call me old-fashioned, but try as I might to see them with other people, to see them as other people, I'm a sucker for Viki and Clint. I've loved their friendship, I've loved their romance, and I've loved both of those with both Clint Ritchie (I seriously get misty even typing his name) and Jerry verDorn portraying Clint. Maybe it's because Viki and Clint's love story was the first major story that really drew me into a soap opera. Maybe it's because it's Erika Slezak and two men with wild charisma. Maybe it's, uncharacteristically, writer after writer on this show getting one thing very right. I don't know. But it gets me every time. And today?

Clint: I'm not the man that you married. 

Viki: Twice. I think that's proof that maybe you weren't all that bad.

Clint: Maybe not back then. But I changed.

Viki: Everyone changes, Clint.

Clint: Yeah, but you're supposed to get better with age. You did. And maybe I would've, too, if... 

Viki: If what?

Clint (with tears in his eyes): If I had somehow found my way back... to you. I was my best self with you. Hell, I had to be because you wouldn't settle for anything less. And that is what I'm going to take with me. Knowing that there was one point in time where I did something good. Because there was a certain someone there that brought it out in me. Dear Viki, I'll die owing you for that.

Viki (now with tears in her eyes... and most certainly in mine): I think... I think we'll call it even, huh? 

I just have one question: why are they trying to kill me?

Second Lives for One Life to Live Characters, Installment #1

We have to assume that in the months to come, we'll be getting a string of actors returning to One Life to Live to re-visit their former characters, whether they be characters from way back when (c'mon Karen Wolek!) or characters we've seen more recently but might come back one more time to wrap up a storyline somehow (Alex Olanov? Tina? [pleasepleasepleasepleaseTina] Cord? Mitch?). I've said before that I don't think we're going to be getting many of them till closer to the finale date (I'm thinking the parade, if there is one, will start around late October), but we did indeed get one announced today: Amanda Setton will be back as Kim!

Now we all know I've always been very quiet about my feelings on Kim. Virtual silence here. I barely even remember what I thought of the character. I wonder if her departure bothered me? It's so hard to think that far back. I probably completely forgot her after she left.

So, you know... cool.

Reunion Time, In Brief

So they found Liam. Or sorry, John found Liam, because he is King of Heroes. All of it very anti-climactic. And really, most of it about John. John looking longingly at Liam as Brody reunited with him. John looking sad when Brody thanked him for finding his "son." Characters elsewhere blathering about John and how John is really Liam's father and how Marty somehow thinks telling John that would absolve her of all the murdering and attempted-murdering.

Somehow this:

...is worth less than lame-ass broody sour-faced John McBain. I just can't get how a John-and-Natalie reunion is the root-for scenario here, especially because it's been telegraphed from miles away that Liam's paternity will be the game-changer that leads them back together and, yes, that still drives me nuts since it changes absolutely nothing about why they broke up. But I'm a broken record with this one so I might as well just give up. The kiss was cute, anyway.

I don't know who he is, but this kid playing Brad absolutely cracks me up every time.

 

I don't know what it is about him. Maybe it's because he's so miserably miscast for a bully (not just because he's so much shorter than Shane, but also because my quick read on him would be that he's a "class clown" type), and maybe it's because of that hilarious shit-eating grin he gets every time he and Jack are being all evil. I mean I know we're supposed to hate him because he's just a one-dimensional bad guy , but I have to say I'm giddy every time he shows up. (I think, perhaps, that giddiness and laughter are not the hoped-for reactions to this storyline. Oopsie!)