Cliffhanger Fridays and backstabbers

As news of Silas' murder spread, several had reason to be concerned as the shadow of guilt was cast over them. Will the police unmask the killer, or will another murder victim be denied justice? Meanwhile, Sonny made a bold move to protect his territory by taking a traitor's word at face value, but was that the right move? Our columnist looks at the week in review and offers some advice to the incoming writers.

Hey, I have an idea. Let's go badger a person who just woke up from a coma with questions about what she had been about to say moments before she was shot in the head. Oh, and for giggles, we'll ignore those pesky laws designed to protect the privacy of patients from non-family members who have no business marching uninvited into a hospital room.

Tip #1: Realism. Please make an effort to be a little more realistic and recognize that the vast majority of the viewing audience is intelligent and has a general knowledge of basic medical stuff, especially since many of us have watched a medical show or two -- *coughs* Grey's Anatomy.

I like Sam, except when she's being ridiculous, and this week, she was being a bit ridiculous with Hayden. I get that she doesn't like Hayden or trust her. I feel the same way. However, that doesn't give Sam the right to stomp into Hayden's room while Hayden is recovering from a bullet to the brain and a coma and harass and accuse her of lying about having amnesia. Not only can that wait a day or two until Hayden is out of the hospital, but a person catches far more flies with honey than with rocks. Jake's tactic is much better because Hayden is more likely to confess the truth out of a brief moment of compassion than through Sam's intimidation tactics.

Like Sam, I, too, think that Hayden is lying her pretty little face off about not remembering anything except her scam to convince Jake that he was her husband, Jake Barnes, but I suspect Hayden is trying to buy herself some time because she's figured out that Nikolas was behind the dirty deed, which landed her in the hospital at death's door rather than the victim of a stray bullet intended for Jake.

It's shoddy police work on Jordan's part because even if she accepted Shawn's confession at face value, you'd think she'd at least want the evidence to back it up on the off chance that maybe, just maybe, Shawn's bullet hadn't struck Hayden.

Back to Jake/Jason and Hayden's secret. I think Hayden is not just biding time before she can figure out how to deal with Nikolas, but she's also genuinely attracted to Jason and hopes to use the secret to her advantage to win him over. He'd certainly make an ideal protector against any gunman Nikolas would send, so it would be a win-win for her.

Too bad for Hayden that she has to deal with not just Jason's wife, but also Jason's current paramour, both of whom can run circles around Hayden when it comes to lies and cons. There is also Carly to contend with, and she is a force of nature of her own when it comes to her darling precious Jason.

Oh, that Jason -- a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Of course, it's clear as the lies spilling from Hayden's lips that Liz is headed for a great big fall when the truth about Jason is revealed -- and that appears to be fast approaching. If I were a betting woman, I'd say it will be a Friday cliffhanger event.

Tip #2: Cliffhanger Fridays. Best. Resurrection. Ever. I love that they've brought that back because a good hook on Friday reels in viewers for Monday.

I was stunned that Nikolas actually admitted to Liz that he had arranged for Hayden to be killed. I had expected him to continue to lie about it, but then I realized that Liz is that one person he can tell all his ugly, dark secrets to without her turning her back on him. She's loyal to Nikolas the same way Carly is to Jason.

Luckily for Nikolas, Hayden survived and is apparently none the worse for wear, which means that redemption is possible. What he did was terrible, but he is a Cassadine. A slip every now and then is to be expected. I'm just relieved that Liz made it abundantly clear that Nikolas had better not kill Hayden.

I get the feeling that on some level, Liz is resigned to her fate of losing Jason and the backlash she will face once the whole ugly truth comes out. I think she feels it will be her penance for all the lies she told to keep him. I also suspect there will be a measure of understanding from some, especially Jason, that she made the decision to keep the truth from him after she fell in love with him again. People do crazy things in the name of love, especially on soap operas.

I just hope Liz finally sees just how much Nikolas truly loves her. A man doesn't do the things that Nikolas has done for Liz if all he feels is friendship. I know he benefits from the truth about Jason remaining buried, but when you have priceless Faberg eggs and centuries-old artwork scattered around the castle, how broke can you really be?

Tip #3: Please give us love in the afternoon. A nice steamy love scene once a week would be great, but there is a tremendous lack of romance on the show currently.

We have Sabrina and Michael, who might be getting an unplanned pregnancy storyline in the very near future now that Teresa Castillo is pregnant with her second child. I love them as a couple, so I'm not opposed to the idea of seeing them start a family. Of course, we also have the Liz (Taylor) and Richard (Burton) of Port Chuck, Sonny and Carly, taking a shot at a fifth march down the aisle, but everyone else is either off-screen, on borrowed time, or in a completely dysfunctional relationship.

I expect couples to face challenges and go through rocky patches because that's life, and this is a soap opera, but the only happy long-term couple we had was ruined by a completely pointless affair. I don't know if Dante and Lulu's marriage can survive Dante's betrayal with Lulu's cousin because it's obvious that Dante and Valerie are still very much drawn to each other if we were to go by the awkwardness and inability to make eye contact during their encounter at the Floating Rib. I'm surprised neither Dillon nor Lulu noticed it.

Scratch that, Dillon clearly is crushing on Lulu, so I get why he didn't notice or care.

I have tried really hard to like Valerie and was actually happy when she decided to stay in Port Charles, but her feelings for Dante showed me a side of her that I simply can't like or respect. Her catty comment to Lulu when Lulu talked about the emotional toll being a cop's wife takes on her person is one of the reasons why I just can't like Valerie right now.

How Valerie can compare Dante having doubts about his wife's fidelity -- in part because Valerie had planted the seeds of doubt -- for twenty-four hours to a wife spending night after night not knowing if her husband will return home alive from work is beyond me. But then to use that as some kind of justification for Dante's faithless behavior was simply outrageous.

Until Valerie stops trying to shift some of the blame for sleeping with her cousin's husband, I just can't root for her.

Moving on, Silas is dead, and it appears that Ava was responsible for both figuratively and literally stabbing him in the back.

Tip #4: Stop with the flashbacks of scenes we've seen before. If there has to be a flashback then let it be something that provides us with information that we hadn't been privy to before, like Ava slipping out of Silas' apartment and using the sleeve of her dress as a glove on the doorknob to keep from leaving fingerprints behind.

I think Franco was right when he told Ava that it was the end of the road for her. Getting her hands on the recording of her confession and blackmailing Franco into keeping quiet his theory that she killed Silas will only bide her time, not make that hangman's noose disappear. Too many people know the truth now, including a couple of diabolical people (Nina and Liesl) who despise Ava with a passion. Ava's secret has turned into a hydra with too many heads to possibly vanquish it. Eventually, someone is going to expose the truth.

In my last column I suggested that Franco and Nina should be written off, but I have changed my mind. I want Kiki and Morgan gone. I actually found myself caring more about Nina's loss than I did Kiki's when Silas was found dead. Kiki's caterwauling and screaming hateful accusations at Franco didn't move me one iota. I honestly didn't care about her grief because I felt that Silas had been too good for her.

I also found myself being disgusted with Morgan's attitude when he dared to suggest that a father didn't have a right to tell his daughter about her cheating boyfriend because Silas had once cheated on his wife. What kind of ridiculous logic is that? Never mind, this is the same idiot who decided to sell out his father to an enemy, tricked a woman into marriage, slept with his wife's mother, and drugged his own brother out of spite and jealousy. There really isn't much to like about Morgan.

How sad is it that even Morgan's own parents questioned if he killed Silas in a fit of impulsive rage because Morgan has a history of self-destructive behavior?

With Silas gone and Ava likely on her way to join Shawn in prison, I don't see the point of Kiki sticking around. Send her off to live with her grandmother, Delia, since Kiki is incapable of getting a job and supporting herself. Maybe Delia can give Kiki a job at the bar.

As for Morgan, I will happily trade him for Kristina, so maybe they can send Morgan back to school to get a real education.

And just like that, Tony Geary decided that perhaps he wasn't quite done with General Hospital after all. Minutes after Luke Spencer disappeared into the mist, Tony began making noises about returning for a short stint.

Admittedly, I was never a Luke fan, but I have always been a General Hospital fan and feel that Luke's was by far the lamest send-off ever. It's not really that he walked into the fog -- it was rather symbolic -- but how the whole episode was handled poorly. Where were the flashbacks and deep meaningful conversations with Luke and Sonny? What did that letter say, and is it the real reason that Laura left town so quickly?

I realize that everyone assumed they would see Luke again, but we the viewers knew it was really goodbye. At least it was when we watched the scenes. I wanted the flashbacks, the sentimental tears, and the show to be centered on Luke. Instead, the show seemed all about Madeline and Maxie's showdown rather than Luke's farewell.

Frankly, Silas got a better goodbye than Luke, which I appreciate as a Michael Easton fan but resent as a General Hospital fan. Good or bad, Luke Spencer had a long, rich history with the show, which should have been the focus of the episode.

Tip #5: Dead is dead, so let's leave it that way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with some of the resurrections, like Jake and little Jake, but enough is enough. We need to know that when we see someone killed -- whether it's stabbed in the back or in the final hours of terminal cancer -- they are really dead. We have plenty of the walking dead roaming the streets right now, so it's time to let the dead rest in peace.

Plus, it eliminates the Wow factor when the writers do decide to have a zombie pop up out of the ground.

So, is or isn't Julian the one behind the hijacked shipments? I want to believe that he truly did retire from the mob, but there have been a few scenes over the last couple of weeks that raised alarms. Example, that cryptic phone call he had at Metro Court Restaurant when he told a mystery person to stop questioning his orders. It could have been newspaper related, but then again, it could also have been mob related.

What I do know is that Sonny is a fool to assume that Julian is behind the attacks simply because Serge from the Russian Bratva said a middleman who had once worked for the Jeromes sold him one of the hijacked shipments. It's too obvious for someone like Julian.

If any of the Jeromes are behind the hijacked shipments, then my money is on Ava, not Julian.

Why exactly would Delia Ryan allow a mob meeting to take place at her bar? More importantly, why would Sonny, or anyone else in the mob, ever think that the bar owned by Ava Jerome's mother was a "neutral" place?

How can Morgan not realize that the woman he slept with is Ava? Are we really to believe that Ava maintained that phony New York accent during the throes of passion?

Apparently, Franco took the time to legally change his name to Franco Baldwin. I thought it was funny how Dante knew that when he arrested Franco because Franco has had more name changes than Prince.

Ric begins to crumble under the pressure as his day goes from bad to worse Ric

: "Yeah, Max, what is it? Yes, today is the day that Sonny meets with the... heads of the five families. Y-yeah, it's -- it's on? Great. Well, I'm -- uh, no. I'm -- I'm not gonna be able to make it. Just tell Sonny that -- that something came up. Look, Max, I really don't need to be lectured by a bodyguard about what my job is, okay? It's -- it's already been a really, really lousy day."Nathan: "Where have you been?"

A question I have asked many timesAva: [posing as Denise] "Carly, right?"Carly: "Right." [pushes past Ava]Ava: "What are you -- you can't just bust in here."Carly: "Yes, I can."Ava: "What? Is that what people do here in Port Charles? Just barge into people's homes whenever they feel like it?"

Even the patients at Shadybrook know Ava killed SilasNewscaster: "Dr. Clay's body was discovered on the floor of his waterfront apartment, and sources inside the PCPD say that robbery does not appear to have been a motive."Female patient: "It's always the girlfriend."

Liesl rushes to Franco's side when he called her instead of an attorneyLiesl: [sighs] "Oh, mein lieber, Franco. How I hate to see you like this."Franco: [sighs] "Thank you for coming."Liesl: "Of course. Where else would I be in your time of need?"

Jake tells Hayden about NikolasJake: [clears throat] "According to Nikolas, you two were, um, involved. Hayden: "Involved? Like lovers?"Jake: "I mean, he didn't talk to me about this directly, but, yes, that's what he implied."Hayden: "Did he say where this happened?"Jake: "Europe. I believe it started in Europe."Hayden: "Oh, wait. So, now I've been involved with a rich guy I can't remember, while I was in Europe?"Jake: "Well, all I can tell you is before you were shot, you were staying at Nikolas' house. Actually, it's more of a castle. It's on an island."

Take care and happy viewing,Liz Masters

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