The GH BLT Special: baddies, lies, and treachery

Was Nikolas the latest victim of the Hook or a copycat? Will Josslyn end things with Cameron before she gives in to temptation with Dex? Are Jeff and Carolyn still harboring secrets? It's time for Two Scoops of good -- and cruel -- intentions with lasting consequences.

Dear Josslyn, please get over yourself. Yes, Cameron loves you -- bless his kind, sweet, and innocent heart -- but losing you won't be the end of the world. He's not the type to fling himself off the footbridge just because a girl broke up with him. Cam is a wonderful guy, handsome and respectful, who is unlikely to stay single for long once word gets out that he's back on the market.

It's not fair to let Cam cling to a relationship that's already lost. Ignoring his calls, making excuses not to talk to him, and lusting after another guy is far crueler than an honest conversation and a parting of ways. No one likes to break up, but sometimes it's the kindest thing to do.

If there's a soap god, Emma Scorpio Drake will soon transfer to Port Charles University and help Cam mend his broken heart. Emma has been mentioned twice in recent months, so there is hope. The latest person to mention Emma was Heather as she strolled down memory lane, fondly recalling chasing young Cam, Emma, Joss, and Prince Spencer around Spoon Island and terrorizing the kiddies with the stuff of nightmares.

Heather is a lunatic, but her scenes with Cam at Kelly's were almost touching. As soon as Heather said that she saw Franco in Cam's eyes, I knew she meant him no harm. By the time Dante arrived, it almost felt as if Heather saw Cam as a grandson. It's both chilling and reassuring. Even though Heather is not likely to hurt Cam, she is volatile, dangerous, unpredictable, and often illogical. She could easily hurt him without intending to.

Back to Josslyn, though. It's painfully obvious that the writers want to explore a relationship between Joss and Dex. Why, I have no idea. Yeah, Dex is cute and has the bad boy thing going for him, but I don't trust him. Dex is no angel. He might have a few redeeming qualities, but he's lying to Joss, and he's courting danger.

Michael hired Dex from a private security firm, and by Dex's own admission, he was a mercenary. A hired gun. Dex had no qualms about beating up a guy at Sonny's orders and putting that guy in the hospital. Now, Dex has helped a prisoner escape. Yes, it was Anna, and it likely saved her life, but it was still against the law. Dex doesn't get a free pass on his criminal activity just because he's working undercover to take down Sonny. Dex isn't a police officer; he's a hired thug.

While Dex was seeking safe harbor in Josslyn's dorm, Sonny was busy spreading salacious gossip at the hospital about his future daughter-in-law.

I love T.J., but this week, I loved him a wee bit more when he went looking for Nina to set her straight and ran into her pit bull instead. Sonny looked like an idiot, goading T.J. and suggesting the insulting accusation might be true because T.J. didn't immediately deny it. T.J. handled everything perfectly, but I hate that Sonny wasn't set straight about what was really going on. I wanted T.J. to put Sonny in his place, but I respect why T.J. didn't. Unlike Sonny, T.J. is an honorable man.

I don't understand why the writers have gone down this road with Sonny and Nina. It's like they try to make them as unlikable as possible. What was the point of Nina thinking that Willow was having an affair with T.J. and for Sonny to back up Nina's completely false assumption to Michael? Do they not see how bad it makes both Sonny and Nina look? It's absurd because T.J. is utterly devoted to Molly, and Willow just found out that she's pregnant.

The worst part is that it's not like Nina had good reason to suspect an affair. All she saw were a couple of hugs and a few intense conversations between two friends who worked together at a hospital. If that's the litmus test to determine an affair, I'd be walking around with a scarlet letter "A" after one trip to the grocery store.

Sonny and Nina assumed the worst because they were projecting. At least, that's how it looks to me from where I'm sitting. In nearly every instance lately, Sonny and Nina come off as either selfish, manipulative, or both. In the park, when Sonny and Nina approached Willow, Sonny told Willow that they had stopped to say hi when they saw Wiley, even though both Michael and Willow have made it abundantly clear that they don't want Nina around Wiley.

In one breath, Sonny says that he loves Michael and will never give up on his son, and in the next breath, Sonny is warning Michael not to push him too far. It's not just how Sonny treats Michael and now Willow. Sonny and Carly have been divorced for roughly six months, and Sonny was recently whining to Carly that keeping Nina away from Donna isn't working for him. Never mind that Sonny's infidelity with Nina ripped apart Donna's family or that he only sees Donna for half the week, since he and Carly share custody, or even that Carly and Nina have an ocean of bad blood between them.

All that matters to Sonny are his wants and needs.

I don't think it's unreasonable for Carly not to want Nina around Donna, especially since Nina has a history of forming unhealthy attachments to children. She was obsessed with Charlotte and felt threatened by Lulu, she became fixated on Avery while Avery was still in the womb, and now Nina is all about Wiley. Sonny and Nina bring out the worst in each other, and their love is toxic because it's built on a foundation of lies and self-indulgence.

Luckily, all the action on Spoon Island distracted me from my frustration with Sonny and Nina.

Esme tied some sheets together, tossed them over the balcony, and shimmied herself down to a nearby room through which she made her escape. Esme got as far as the living room when she had a change of plans. What the new plans were remains unknown, but not long afterwards, Nikolas tangled with the Hook -- or did he?

A few eagle-eyed viewers noticed that this assailant had the hook clasped in her right hand. During all the other attacks, the killer used their left hand. Additionally, Nikolas seemed to easily overpower his attacker, but Brando had struggled mightily with the killer. That suggests to me that the person who killed Brando was not the same person who clobbered Nikolas. Also, Nikolas recognized the hook as one from his boathouse, which means it was a different hook than the one used in the previous attacks.

It's not clear if the tip of the hook used in Nikolas' attack was poisoned, but it's doubtful because Nikolas quickly recovered from the assault.

I don't think Esme is the killer. She might be homicidal, but I just can't see Esme running around town, pregnant, with a poisoned hook, trying to slay people. Surprisingly, she seems sincere in her denials that she's the hook-wielding killer. However, that said, I do think she took advantage of the situation by attacking Nikolas in the hopes of it looking like he'd been the latest victim of the Hook. She just didn't count on Nikolas gaining the upper hand.

That's why it was a different weapon, and there was no poison on it. I also noticed that Esme was wearing a nearly identical coat on the pier as the woman who had attacked Nikolas. The only difference was that Esme's hood was down.

Folks, I have no idea what Nikolas is thinking by imprisoning Esme in the tower. He should just turn her over to the police, let them file charges, and lock her up until her trial. She'll get convicted of attempting to murder Oz, and likely framing Trina, so all Nikolas will have to do is swoop in when the baby is born and take full custody. Stashing Esme in the north tower makes no sense because, at some point, he is going to have to explain the newborn infant in the nursery.

I miss the old Nikolas -- the charming prince with the soul of a poet, who strived to listen to his better angels and who treated women with care and respect. How is it that Nikolas was wise beyond his years in his teens, yet in his 40s, he's an immature and impulsive cad? Lately, Nikolas acts more like Stavros than my beloved Stefan, who raised him. It's a true Greek tragedy.

I'm so conflicted about what I want Ava to do. On the one hand, I wish she would just wash her hands of Nikolas and walk away, but the other part of me hopes that she somehow finds a way to save Nikolas from himself. I want that better version of Nikolas back. Nikolas and Ava would make a formidable team, capable of facing any challenge, including Victor. Too bad Nikolas can't get out of his own way and stop making foolish and self-destructive choices.

Carly suffers from a similar malady. One of those bad decisions is about to blow up in her face, and she's about to get a painful lesson about good intentions with disastrous results. Carly had no business keeping Harmony's secret from Willow. Harmony was a manipulative liar who murdered innocent people. Willow was not a child who needed protecting; she was an adult perfectly capable of making her own decisions.

Carly is going to pay a very high price for not telling Willow about Nina, and it galls me that Nina is going to take great delight in Carly's downfall. I can't and won't defend what Carly did. Good or bad, Carly owed Willow the truth. It was up to Willow to decide if she wanted a relationship with Nina, and we all know that if the shoe had been on the other foot, Carly would have wanted to be told. Carly did what was easy for her at the time, not what was best for Willow.

In a perfect world, everyone would put Willow's needs first and forgive each other, but that's not how soap operas work. Carly will be ostracized from her family, Nina will go on the warpath, Willow will be caught in the middle, and no one will learn a blessed thing.

Just look at how Elizabeth's parents handled the situation with their daughter. She went looking for answers, and their first impulse is to lie. Now, everything is worse than it ever was.

Initially, I believed the story that Jeff and Carolyn spun about Elizabeth catching Jeff and Reiko in a compromising position. On the surface, the argument between Elizabeth and Reiko seemed to be about an affair, but the more that I thought about it and how Reiko told Elizabeth that there were things Elizabeth didn't understand, the more I thought maybe Reiko was hiding something else.

As Tamilu said last week, things just don't add up.

I'm really disappointed in Finn and how he reacted to the news. I hate to say it, but Elizabeth was right to be concerned about telling him what was going on. Finn says he loves Elizabeth, but when she tells him about her childhood trauma, he's more upset about a woman who died over two-and-a-half decades ago than the woman he was building a life with. Elizabeth carries psychological scars from what happened, and the least he could do was hear her out and perhaps have a chat with Jeff.

Finally, Cyrus reunited with Laura when she went to Pentonville to check on a freshly shaved Spencer, who finally got a decent-fitting prison uniform. Uncle Cyrus was quick to take credit for Spencer's improved circumstances, and he revealed that Olivia Jerome is gunning for Anna as soon as Anna gets to Pentonville.

And just like that, I had a new prime suspect for the Hook.

Think about it. Olivia hates her baby sister Ava, so she would have absolutely zero qualms about burying a hook in Ava. Olivia definitely knows her way around Port Charles, and she'd target Diane and Josslyn for being close to Sonny, whom Olivia hates almost as much as she does Ava.

Have Olivia and Victor had clandestine meetings at Pentonville, and has Olivia found a way to take periodic excursions from the prison? Heather has always found a way to sneak out of the various prisons that have housed her, so why not Olivia? Olivia has far more nefarious connections than Heather, and Olivia is cunning. A homicidal rampage is certainly within Olivia's wheelhouse, and I do believe she has a history of dabbling in poisons.

Then again, Finn recognized the poison from his time working in the tropics, and Heather does have that flesh-eating virus from the same region of the world. Somehow, all these dots are connected, and I'm certain Jeff Webber is the key.

I love when the show goes outdoors, but come on, guys, it's November in New York. The trees have lost their leaves, and the grass has gone dormant. The park scenes -- filled with lush greenery -- just looked silly.

Why hasn't Laura given Ashby the boot and thrown her in jail? Did Valentin neglect to tell Laura during their flight home from Switzerland that the deputy mayor and Victor were in cahoots?

I definitely think that BLQ is being selfish, but I'm not certain that her objective is purely revenge. I suspect that on some level, she (or the writers) is trying to re-enact her parents' relationship.-- Bianca Jackson

I totally get Josslyn's POV. She was raised to believe one thing about Sonny, then watched as the man who justified everything he ever did as doing it for his family, turned against them. If you have ever been blindsided by someone you trusted absolutely and unconditionally, you begin to question everything. And in her mind she wonders how much Sonny actually cared about Jason since he was so easily able to kick his family to the curb. It doesn't hit Dante and Krissy as hard as Michael and Josslyn because they have never had blind faith in Sonny. -- FleurdiLIsa

I'm glad that they took their time with Valentin and Anna's "night of passion." Compared to BLQ and Chase's unintentionally comical wrestling match, Anna and Vlad's slow burning tryst allowed for a welcome dose of romance, as well as equally intense passion, without them having to bounce off doors and walls, while desperately trying to maintain their lip lock. That wasn't romance; that was Slapstick! -- Scrimmage

I love hearing from readers, so please feel free to leave a comment below or email me

Take care and happy viewing,Liz Masters

What are your thoughts on General Hospital? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- and there are many ways you can share your thoughts.