A cold dish of revenge with a side of something that makes your hair fall out

How far would you go to avenge a loved one? Would you lie, cheat, steal, and destroy their family? Would you kill someone? If revenge is a dish best served cold, several in Port Charles are about to be served up some frozen dinners.

If this week had a theme, it was revenge. Julian is out to liberate Lucas from Brad, Kendra hopes to avenge her brother's untimely demise, and Cassandra and Nikolas have Valentin dead to rights in their sights. Well, okay, Nikolas is out to take Valentin down, while Cassandra appears to have more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants vendetta against the general population, and in particular Nina and Valentin.

Let's start with Nikolas, who is hanging out at Jax's place until the codicil can be located. Everyone is certain that Ava has the painting of Helena, but they don't know where she stashed it. Ava isn't telling. Despite being holed up at Shadybrook for some much-needed mental health R&R, she easily figured out why Jax paid her a visit. She wasn't about to help Jax, but I'm certain that Ava will have a change of heart once she finds out that Nikolas is alive. Ava owes Nikolas for choosing plastic surgery to restore her beauty over helping Spencer take down Valentin in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Speaking of money, I'm curious how exactly Nikolas is bankrolling his current exile because the last time that I checked, Valentin had control of the Cassadine purse strings, and Mrs. Cassadine is flat broke and raising a child. Is Jax footing the bill until Nikolas follows through on their agreement? If so, he might not be too keen on knowing that his houseguest is paying off prison guards and helping international fugitives escape. Then again, Jax doesn't have much room to judge, given his own checkered history with his brother Jerry.

I'm also dying to find out if Violet knows Nikolas, and if so, what their relationship is. Please, don't let him be Papa Nikolas. I love Nikolas, but what a slap in the face to Spencer that would be. Spencer suffered terribly without his father, so it would crush him to learn that Nikolas was playing daddy to Hayden's daughter during his time away. Also, I'm not a fan of Nikolas and Hayden as a couple. They are the definition of toxic together.

Plus, I need time to get used to this new Nikolas before I start shipping him in a pairing.

So far, Marcus Coloma is doing a great job. I'm not thrilled that he's aiding and abetting in Cassandra's escape, especially now that she has sunk her poisonous claws into Charlotte, but Nikolas is known as the dark prince for a reason. He's Laura's son, but he was also raised a Cassadine. There will always be a war waging inside him between the two sides of his nature, which is why he's such a complex character.

Luckily, I don't think that Hayden and Nikolas are the end game based on what I've seen brewing between Finn and Hayden. Finn was already questioning his relationship with Anna before Hayden showed up because he'd grown tired of Anna's continued absence. I can't blame him. I think they've spent longer apart than together at this point. I realize that Anna is on a mission for answers, but at what cost?

Before Robert's decision to take a job in Port Charles, I would have been disappointed at the thought of Finn and Anna breaking up, but I'm a sentimental person. I will always root for Robert and Anna if there is even a remote possibility of a reconciliation. These days, the chances are much higher than they have been in decades, so I'm back on the Scorpio-Devane bandwagon.

Also, I want Violet to have a happily ever after with both of her parents. She is the most adorable little girl, and her precious lisp is absolute perfection. Chase is going to fall in love with his niece at first sight. I can't wait for them to meet.

However, I wonder how forgiving Liz will be when she learns that her sister kept the truth about Nikolas from her. Liz and Hayden have grown close, but this is going to sting because Liz and Nikolas are more than friends. They are ex-lovers, they are family, and they are childhood friends. They have always had each other's backs even when others didn't. It's for that reason that I was a little surprised that Nikolas hasn't mentioned Liz or what she's been going through. It's my one complaint with Nikolas' return storyline so far.

That brings me to Liz -- and her disappointing confrontation with Kim.

Okay, in real life, I would applaud Liz for being mature and saying all the right things when Kim showed up to get Liz's approval to run away with Franco. I real life, I don't condone violence. However, this is a soap opera, and one of the reasons that I watch soaps is to live a little vicariously through the characters, and to watch people faced with certain situations do the things that we all wish that we could do but probably shouldn't.

In this case, I would have been more than okay with Liz knocking a few of Kim's teeth out, leaving a couple of bald patches on her head, and kicking her keister black and blue all the way to the door. Kim deserved that and more.

I don't care if Kim is grieving. That is no excuse for the horrible things that Kim has done. At this point, she is using her grief as a blanket excuse to be an awful human being. That woman drugged a man with the intention of sexually assaulting him and getting pregnant. If a man had done that to a woman, he'd be sitting in jail right now.

The way that I see it, Franco has a form of dissociative identity disorder. He is an alternate personality named Drew, but the host is Franco Baldwin. Until "Drew" is in therapy and finds a way to integrate his life as Drew with his life as Franco, he's a fractured person who has no business being in a relationship with anyone. He might be mentally competent in the legal sense, but he's far from okay because, whether he acknowledges it or not, there is a lot of Franco bleeding through.

But for Franco, it would have been Cameron, and it bothers me to no end that no one confronts Kim with that one undeniable fact. Why has no one asked her, "What if it had been Cameron?" It would be the first thing that I'd ask Kim, followed up with, "Would you have slept with him and be planning a life with Cameron far away from Port Charles and his family?"

Equally frustrating -- but incredibly brilliant -- was Brad's decision to tell Lucas the truth about Julian's efforts to drive Brad out of Lucas' life. Well, a portion of it, anyway.

I want to give a quick shout-out to Parry Shen for being a wonderfully cool guy and for making me laugh on a day that I didn't think it was possible. Scheduling my dog's first chemo appointment hit me harder than I thought it would, so when I sat down to watch GH, I was pretty glum.

Listening to Brad twist things around to paint himself the victim during his confession to Lucas had me seething, so I took to Twitter to rant about what a lying, no-good, miserable little weasel Brad was and to plead for Lucas to be set free. Within minutes, Parry replied. "Alright, now you're insulting weasels. And that's NOT okay."

It was the last thing I had expected, and it made me burst out in laughter. Not a chuckle or two, but real, honest to goodness laughter. It had been so long since I laughed like that it startled both dogs and my husband, who, bless his heart, came running into the living room because he thought I was crying. He was pleasantly surprised -- and mighty relieved -- that I was not.

I love that Parry has fun with the viewers and that he has a wonderful sense of humor and didn't take what I had said personally because it certainly was never intended that way. I recognize that the actors are not their characters, so while Brad is a complete jerk, Parry most certainly is not. Thank you, sir, for lifting my spirits, and my apologies to weasels everywhere.

Now, back to Brad.

I do have to hand it to him because Brad certainly did the unexpected by telling Lucas about Julian's efforts to make Brad skedaddle. However, I also thought it was incredibly risky because Julian could easily tell Lucas the truth about why he really wants Brad far away from Lucas. I could see Julian coming clean to Lucas without much prodding because Julian knows that it's just a matter of time before Brad slips up or Nelle makes a move. If not Nelle, then Liesl.

Ben Franklin famously said, "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

Four people know this secret, and at least two of them aren't very trustworthy. Also, there's no good reason to keep Michael from his son, so even fate (the writers) is against Brad.

However, Lucas just spent time with the dad who had raised him, so Julian might be reluctant to take the Band-Aid approach with Lucas in front of Tony Jones's grave.

My, oh my, Tony sure was a sight for sore eyes. He's so missed, and his appearance was a reminder of just how senseless his death was. I will never understand why characters like Tony Jones and Alan Quartermaine are written off, yet characters like Ryan Chamberlain and Cassandra Pierce get a second or third life.

I loved that Tony reminded Lucas that he wasn't perfect. How like Tony to be humble. Yes, he was flawed, but he was also one of the good guys, which is what made him such a beloved character.

My favorite part of Brad Maule's visit was at the very end when Tony appeared behind Bobbie at the hospital's memorial wall. It was a beautiful, poignant moment as he gently caressed her hand then leaned into her. Until Tony died, I had always hoped that he and Bobbie would reunite. Alas, that was not to be.

Despite the chance that Brad took in telling Lucas about Julian's plot, I doubt that it will lead to a shocking revelation on Monday. It's not going to be that easy. Too many lives are impacted by this secret. Truth bombs like this always land during Sweeps.

Meanwhile, Cassandra took full advantage of a Pentonville outing in the park. For reasons that I can't quite wrap my head around, Pentonville scheduled a park beautification project in the late afternoon with a mixture of convicted criminals and those still awaiting trial. Regardless, when it became clear to Cassandra that she needed to initiate the escape, she knocked Nikolas' guard out with a shovel then miraculously found Nikolas waiting for her in a van.

Cassandra quickly realized that Nikolas had other plans for her than taking her to the nearest private airport for a flight out of town, so she jumped out of the van and returned to Port Charles, where she stumbled across Charlotte sitting in Kelly's. This is not going to end well for Cassandra because if Valentin doesn't kill her for targeting Charlotte, Nikolas made sure the police believed that Cassandra was armed and dangerous. Sure, it was a lie, but as we have seen, Cassandra doesn't need a gun to be lethal. She will use anything at her disposal -- including a child.

I hope when Cassandra is killed this time that she stays dead -- and she takes Kendra with her.

Kendra's plans to make Alexis pay for killing Kiefer are going off without a hitch. Alexis is in the hospital, suffering from a mystery illness that has all the earmarks of a nasty flu, and for an added bonus, Alexis' hair is falling out in clumps.

I'm not sure that I would have been as blas as Alexis was about a fistful of hair falling out, but she does have Finn working on the case, and he's the best.

Folks, I didn't like Kiefer Bauer or his abusive father, Warren. I didn't know about Kendra then, and I don't care to know about her now. The Bauers were terrible parents who made endless excuses for their monstrous son, and Warren tried to kill several people before he was killed. I'm not rooting for Kendra, nor will I, so the sooner this storyline ends, the better.

Alexis has more interesting things going on in her life, especially now that Julian and Kim are over and her beloved nephew is about to rise from the ashes with a codicil to unseat her brother as head of the family. I can think of far better uses for Alexis than having her play damsel in distress for Neil or Julian to rescue.

Finally, Nelle was full of surprises this week. We learned that she recently got married -- and the hubs died before the ink was dry on the wedding license. Oh, and there's an inheritance with an expiration date. All signs point to Nelle and Shiloh having gotten hitched in a jailhouse wedding before his great escape and richly deserved demise, but I'm a little confused about the money that Nelle was referring to.

It was my understanding that Drew had the satchel of cash with him when his plane went down. Is there another hidden fortune? More importantly, how does it all connect to Martin and Valentin?

As intriguing as this little plot twist is, the only thing that I'm interested in at this point is Nelle exposing the truth about Wiley. Until then, Mrs. Archer can rot in jail.

Nikolas seems awfully confident that no one is going to recognize him in the town where he grew up and his entire family is infamous. I'd at least wear a hooded sweatshirt to help conceal my identity. It's almost like he's hoping to be caught.

Why in the world would Cassandra run to Port Charles, where no doubt every cop is looking for her, instead of hiding out in the woods until she can make her way to a nearby town where people might not be quick to recognize her? Everyone knows that Port Charles has conveniently located cabins throughout the woods, perfect for anyone on the lam, faking their death, or giving birth.

Why has no one even suggested having a memorial service for Drew? Is it because he will soon be returning from the dead? Right now, no one should call themselves Drew's loved one if they can't even give the man a proper farewell.

Where exactly did the other Pentonville guards and prisoners vanish to when Cassandra escaped? And why didn't Sam or Jason go to get them instead of waiting for Chase?

I'm sorry, but I, for one, do not like that Julian is gas lighting Brad. This is another example of Julian taking the cowardly way out of a mess, rather than sitting down with Lucas, and spilling the whole story. What does he hope to accomplish with this juvenile scheme to break them up? All it does is prolong the heartache that Lucas will feel when he discovers that both his husband and father have deceived him. -- alic

Where the heck is Frau Blcher?? Everyone knows that Halloween is Liesl's favorite time of the year. How can we have a Port Charles Halloween without Dr O making an appearance? -- Scrimmage

Laura and Jax were stupid enough to talk about Helena's portrait in public, and then when they get caught and agree to no longer discuss it in public, they go and do just that mere seconds later. -- Maci Robin

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. I love hearing from readers, so please feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment below.

Take care and happy viewing,Liz Masters

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