What a cliffhanger Friday!

Jason learned from Huey and Duey that Sam hired them to terrorize Elizabeth and her children in the park and set it up so that Sam could be the hero and save the day.

Hi everyone. My name is Liz, I'm a HUGE General Hospital fan and have been for years. I am temporarily filling in for the wonderful Tamilu. She will be back soon, no doubt with entertaining tales of her adventures in moving! :)

So let me start with my impression of Friday's cliffhangers!

Wow! Now that is a way to get us to tune in on Monday.

First, Rick Springfield. His much awaited performance was Friday and if you missed it, you missed some serious rocking! I'm telling you, if that man comes to my town for a concert, I am going! He performed Who Killed Rock N' Roll which I've already downloaded on my iPod.

It was a little sad that right after the concert Anna had to leave town for a mission in London. I liked her chemistry with Noah and he's going to need help now that he's started drinking again. Another person who's going to need help is Sam.

Jason learned from Huey and Duey that Sam hired them to terrorize Elizabeth and her children in the park and set it up so that Sam could be the hero and save the day. The look on Spinelli's face as he looked on from outside the seedy motel room as Jason interrogated those guys said it all. Jason is scary when he's in enforcer mode. Then again, I guess you have to be in order to be a mob enforcer.

The previews for Monday's show have Jason driving down the road with death rays shooting out of his eyes while Spinelli frantically tries to find a way to spin things in Sam's favor. Alas, Spinelli seems destined to failure as Stone Cold races to confront the Doomed One...Sam.

Things are not looking good for Elizabeth and Lucky's marriage either. Both seem to be treating the idea of saving their marriage like something akin to root canal without the benefit of Novocain.

This week, Jason finally admitted to Elizabeth that he loved her. Elizabeth returned the favor and told him that she would always love him. Then, in typical soap fashion, the star crossed lovers went back to their lives determined to make things work even if it kills them. It won't. It's more likely to kill me.

I'm frustrated. Jason told Spinelli that he would want Elizabeth and the boys to move in and share a life with him if she could learn to live with the danger.

WHAT?!?

Why exactly should Elizabeth be the one to make concessions? When exactly did the needs of the one, in this case Jason, become more important than the needs of many, in this case Elizabeth and the boys?

I've seen the argument that Jason leaving the mob would never work because once in the mob always in the mob. Well, I say pfft to that. Katherine survived a fall from the parapet, Stavros lived on ice for decades and aged absolutely beautifully...sexy muscles and all..., and Emily was brought back from the brink of death with a kiss in the magical garden of Aphrodite.

Jason can leave the mob if he wants to.

After Elizabeth and Jason parted, Elizabeth went home to work on her marriage with Lucky. He looked less than thrilled at the prospect. Judging by their body language, the idea of working on it sounds very unappealing. There is a lot of hurt, betrayal and lost trust between them. Even before Lucky learned about his wife and Jason sleeping together, he turned on Elizabeth within a matter of hours of Jake's kidnapping. He believed the very worst of a woman whom he claimed to love. Elizabeth on the other hand couldn't stay away from Jason.

This marriage has been in crisis since before it began and the only way there's going to be any resolution is if they both walk away.

The hot kiss that Lucky planted on Sam as the show closed should be the first step that in that direction.

Across town, Sonny is having a very rough day after a pretty tough week. Kate has suddenly turned stupid. I don't understand what exactly happened during that hit and run but she hasn't been the least bit reasonable since. She seems to think side swiping a parked police cruiser is no more serious than jaywalking. She intended to jet off to Paris for a fashion consult even though she is out on bail and scheduled to go to court. Luckily Diane and Sonny talked her down from that boneheaded move.

Then shock of shocks, Kate goes and tries to make a deal with Ric to have her charges dropped and in exchange for going public with Sonny's bi-polar disorder. Ric declined, pointing out that hurting the woman Sonny cared about was much more fun. Guess Kate never heard about Carly's stint in the panic room.

Oh but Kate wasn't done there. After leaving Ric she went back to her hotel room where some creepy old guy was waiting for her. He promptly pulled her into a kiss that frankly gave me the heebie jeebies.

Turns out the old guy is none other than Trevor Lansing, Richard "Ric" Lansing's dad. In just the few minutes that Papa Lansing was on, I came to understand how Ric ended up the twisted mess that he is. Tevor Lansing is some piece of work and joy of joys, he happens to work for the toughest mob boss in Manhattan.

Ok, I seriously fell over laughing when Sonny told Kate this. Manhattan? A bad mob boss from Manhattan? What does he do? Steal designs and sell them to knock off makers?

I have no idea what's going on with Kate but I demand my old Kate return and kick this one's butt.

Another one who deserves a butt kicking is Irina a.k.a. Natasha of Bullwinkle fame.

This creature isn't a woman. She's not even human. She is a delusional rapist who deserves a slow and gruesome death. She raped Jax a couple of times and is now taunting Carly with the news as if it somehow makes her more desirable than Carly. Carly isn't falling for it. She is calling Irina out on every twisted thought that comes out of her mouth and adding a few painful truths for good measure.

For the first time ever, I was actually happy to see Jerry arrive. He's obviously playing Irina but I can't quite figure out if Carly and Jax realize it yet or if they are really falling for his lies. As the show closed, Jerry was holding a gun to Carly asking Irina whom he should kill to prove his loyalty. My hope is that Natasha says "Oh, me! Pick me, pick me!"

You can read more of Liz's take on General Hospital -- as well as All My Children and One Life to Live -- in her soapcentral.com blog. Click here for more.

Liz