Love is a many splendored thing

Love is in the air for Valentine's Day in Port Charles, but all of our favorite couples are struggling to capture the romance. Did your favorite couple end up together? Let's dish in this week's Two Scoops

The citizens of Port Charles know that it's Valentine's Day and yet fumbled around trying to get romance right.

Due to a last minute edict by Dr. Obrecht, Patrick had to work, so he sent Sam off with a very tall "Dr. D" to escort her until he could arrive. I got lost in thinking about the very tall doctor. How could he even operate on people? Does he have to get down on his knees and kneel around the operating table? Because if he had it cranked up to a normal height for him, it would be about at Elizabeth's nose level, so she could never assist him with surgery. Seriously, this occupied my mind for a substantial amount of time because I am a nerd.

Ned went to a lot of trouble to impress Alexis by hiring a chef, J.L. Picard (hahaha, my inner Trekkie leaped for joy at that one) to make Alexis her favorite dishes, but she was running a little late due to her meeting with Julian. So, the stage was set for a romantic night, but Alexis was secretly pining for Julian, Olivia was openly pining for Ned, and Ned was trying to make things work with Alexis while inwardly fuming that she had sneaked off to see Julian. Their night went up in flames, and the gazpacho landed on the floor, uneaten.

What's the moral of that story? Be true to yourself and to your heart's call. If you know you love someone, act on it before you get entangled with the wrong person and can't break free. Ned and Alexis have a history and were once in love, and it seemed the perfect time for them to recapture that, but in truth, they had both fallen for other people. In spite of that, they've been trying to force the relationship due to loyalty and allegiance to their past. So here is some free love advice from Aunt Tamilu: if you're torn between two people, don't dwell on all the obstacles, just leap into love with the one person who lights up your soul, and take a chance on passion and happiness.

That having been said, now that Ned finally did that and rushed off to find Olivia, he arrived just as she discovered she is pregnant, most likely from her night of anger sex with Julian. Yikes, this is going to be messy. Ned will have two reasons to hate Julian now, as both of his babes have succumbed to Julian's many charms. But can they overcome that obstacle? I believe so. They are a great match and started as friends. I think they have a foundation to build upon that can move past her unintended pregnancy. Although I doubt Tracy will approve of her son's choice.

I loved Ned and Alexis as a couple back in the day, but I certainly understand Alexis' inability to resist Julian. I mean, have you seen him? Sure, he's a mobster and is up to no good most of the time, but he did try to quit the mob and only went back in after Alexis' house got blown up and his son was shot.

Speaking of things blowing up, I will go on record about last week and admit I was wrong -- no one at all blew up. I tried to do the soap math of "Rumored cast cuts" + "Bomb on a boat with half the cast" = Someone dies. But I was wrong. And you know why I was wrong? Because Sonny is a freaking hero! He escaped from prison, survived a car crash, got to the Haunted Star, intercepted a bomb as it counted down to like three seconds, and jumped into the freezing water with it as it blew up. And would you believe he only has a small gash on his forehead and a scruffy beard to show for it? Hero.

For weeks I have been wondering how we were going to get all these people out of prison, and now they are all out! No more orange jumpsuits, no more badly choreographed prison fistfights and fake bruises. Huzzah!

Ava is presumed dead, but there's no body, so of course she isn't really dead. Sonny has been pardoned for saving the life of the governor's daughter, Ivy. Julian is in the hospital and of course was only in prison, hiding from Fluke, and Alexis can certainly get his false confession overturned. Franco is in Shadybrook after purposely injecting himself with LSD to stay close to Nina. The only inmate still in prison is Madeline, who got kicked out of her own prison escape van.

Readers, those scenes where all of Franco's LSD hallucinations were of James Franco's movies or Oscar hosting experiences had me howling. They seriously could milk that theme for a month, and I would still think it's funny. Franco as the Green Goblin, Franco riffing on the Pineapple Express, Franco killing world leaders in The Interview -- keep bringing it, GH writers! Even James Franco himself was enjoying it, I know, because when the GH peeps were tweeting about it, he was playing along. I love that. I also find it amusing that Nina is now the most sane and stable person in the asylum. I am still smitten with the love affair of Franco and Nina, even though it's unfolding in the walls of a mental hospital.

Carly is very glad Sonny was pardoned but unwilling to give him a free pass for shutting her out and refusing her visits while he was in prison. My husband, who pretends he doesn't watch GH, said, "I have to leave the room until those two stop screaming at each other," but then he didn't leave the room because he secretly wanted to see the rest of the show.

One person who was very unhappy about Sonny's pardon was Michael, who wears his rage and anger like a badge of honor these days. Even after Sonny broke out of jail to save his life, he hasn't backed down an inch. Readers, I have to say one of my favorite scenes of the week was when Julian told Michael off for being ungrateful to a dad who was willing to grab a bomb and dive into the water with it to save his life. Julian wasn't wrong.

I understand that Sonny killed A.J., but Michael also knows that Ava goaded him into it and that Sonny thought A.J. killed Connie and believed he was trying to kill Ava when Sonny walked in. That doesn't necessarily justify Sonny's actions, but after the whole bomb incident, you'd think Michael could at least acknowledge that Sonny has goodness inside him.

I'm getting somewhat weary of "angry Michael" -- the only times he wasn't angry was with Rosalie, but we haven't seen her in eons. We still don't know her secret or what Helena has over her, and I wonder if or when that will ever be picked up again. Maybe when Nu-Kiki comes to town, Michael will be unable to resist her.

Maxie was unable to resist Johnnie's plea for help, and I loved their scenes together, knowing they are in love for real and married -- and I really loved the added bonus of their beautiful baby, Harper, now playing baby Georgie! It's a family affair for sure. But, on canvas, Maxie's heart belongs to Nathan, although he is none to pleased with her right now.

I really relate to Maxie on this. Like her, I am extremely loyal to my friends, and I can see myself doing exactly what Maxie did. She knew helping Johnnie would jeopardize her, so she only "kind of" helped him. She didn't physically put the cash and keys in his hands -- she just left it lying there, knowing he'd take it when she went into the shower.

Yes, it was dumb. Yes, she put her newly found relationship with her daughter at risk. But her other option was Johnny's demise, and she couldn't live with that either.

Life is full of hard choices and she made the one that her heart could live with at the time. I hope Nathan will forgive her. But on the other hand, Spinelli is back, and Ellie dumped him because she knew that Damien was still in love with Maxie.

Now I am torn. I like Maxie with Nathan, and yet the relationship she shared with Spinelli might be my favorite of all soap romances ever. At the beginning, Spinelli was a quirky nerd who didn't fit in anywhere. Maxie was a beautiful but self-centered fashionista, and yet they found something real together. He is smarter than she is, she's wilder and braver than he is, but they made each other better. He was the brains; she was the heart. I loved their pairing. No one on the outside understood what they saw in the other, but as soon as they were in a room together, it was magic.

So, whom do I root for? In my heart of hearts, I'm team Spixie, but I don't hate her with Nathan either. There is no bad guy in this love triangle, and that's the kind that troubles me most. I want a villain, someone who is truly evil, so I can root for the good guy, but in this scenario, they are both good guys. They are both good, honorable, decent men, and neither of them deserves heartbreak. Both of them love her. She loves both of them. How does one make such a choice? I don't know. Maybe the writers can make it more clear for us. I'm counting on them to help me make up my mind.

I also can't make up my mind about Lucas Lorenzo Spencer. We have been misdirected so many times. Is Fluke, Luke? Is he under Helena's mind control? If so, as he pointed out to Lulu, that would imply that everything we have known of Luke for eons is a lie, and I would hate to think that was true. Readers, I want the real Luke back in such a deep way, I can't describe it. I think about people who are caring for loved ones with dementia, and they look the same, but they don't act the same or know the same things, and you find yourself terribly lonely for the person who is sitting right beside you because it's not their body you miss but their essence, their soul, their heart, and their brain. I see a guy who looks like Luke every day on my TV screen, yet I miss the essence of Luke.

Did Helena really tell all of her secrets about Luke and Jake to Nikolas and the Port Charles Police Department to gain full immunity? Time will tell. But if Luke is Luke under mind control, who was the guy locked up slobbering in Miscavige, and who was the guy locked up in the basement of the house on Elm Street? Was he just a figment of Luke's messed-up brain? Does Luke have D.I.D.? Too many pieces in a puzzle that keeps moving for my brain to solve, but I'm ready for it to end.

If you've watched GH lately, you have most likely seen the ads for #GHFanFeb and maybe you've even been to the website to vote on the character you'd like to have back. Of the list they offered, my first impulse was to vote for Stefan Cassadine just because I enjoy Stephen Nichols. But the more I thought about it, I went back in and changed my vote to Courtney Matthews. Why? Because of the endless storyline possibilities! For instance: A) Spencer Cassadine getting his real mom back, B) Nikolas realizing Helena had his son's mother held captive all these years, C) Sonny having his sister back, D) Jason coming back to his senses and finding his ex-wife standing over him, E) Carly getting her best friend back, etc. There are just so many amazing storyline possibilities if Courtney returns! So, if you haven't logged on and voted yet, this is my campaign pitch for #TeamCourtney.

In other Valentine's adventures, Lucas finally found the nerve to boldly and publicly proclaim his love for Brad, and it was such a sweet scene. We also got some comedy thrown in when, after Lucas said, "I love you Bradley Cooper," one of the bystanders said, "Don't we all?" And another said, "Not that one." Hahaha. Also, it was nice to see Felix, who has been AWOL for months. He's the nicest guy in Port Charles, and even though he's not in the center of the Sabrina or Brad and Lucas action, I hope they keep him around. He's been the moral center of the hospital sine he arrived in town, and Port Charles needs one of those.

In the past week, I received some letters complaining about the love scenes between Brad and Lucas. One pointed out, "Children are watching," to which I reply, "So?" Children are also watching when the unmarried couples of Sam and Patrick go at it, when the unmarried Alexis and Julian get it on, when the singles Maxie and Nathan spend days on end in bed together. So, if it only bothers you when Lucas and Brad are having romantic scenes, it's not moral purity that is your issue, but bigotry, and "ain't nobody got no time for that," as they say.

As I am writing, my husband, the closet GH watcher, asked me to add his important point about how the launch from Wyndemere must only take three seconds because we saw Lulu at the police station, and then the next scene, she was in Nikolas' living room, telling him off. Shortly thereafter, Nikolas was at the police station, demanding Helena confess, also conceivably just having arrived by boat in record time.

I am a fan of Emme Rylan, and I really loved her passionate scenes with Nikolas this week. I feel sad for Lulu. Laura left to "get a checkup" in Paris about three years ago, her dad is an imposter, her brother Nikolas is in cahoots with Helena and almost let her get blown up, and Lucky never even calls to check on her. Thankfully, she has Tracy, Olivia, and Dante because her real blood family isn't all that nurturing these days.

What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Kiki get custody of Avery by getting Michael to side with her over Sonny? Will Ric be able to talk his way out of his foot-in-the-mouth confession about coercing the brain-addled but hunky Jake to leave her house? Will Scott Baldwin ever get a good haircut? Will Olivia's baby be born with psychic visions? Will the very tall doctor realize he was destined to be a giraffe vet? Will Dr. Obrecht go visit her sister Madeline, the only person who did not escape from Pentonville? Will we find Ava being raised by Mowgli and Baloo in the forest? Will Alice get J.L.'s leftover gazpacho? Will Sonny ever wash the blood off his head and shave? Will there be ten more characters I have never seen or heard of before on Monday in spite of cast cut rumors?

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.