A look back at some of the goings-on in Port Charles for the year 2022; from the house that used to be the Corinthos mansion to what's now simply a mansion that Carly lives in, to the increasingly haunted-if-not-cursed Wyndemere, to the Quartermaine mansion (that Alan left to Monica!), to the million location sets at Metro Court, to everywhere in between.
Greetings again, Mr. and Mrs. Port Charles! I'm back with a few thoughts and observations on the some of the goings-on in Port Charles for the year 2022. And what goings-on there were!
I haven't written a column since August, so I hope that 2022 has been good to all of you. May you all enjoy the last days of 2022, the college football bowl games on TV, and, of course, our beloved General Hospital -- soon to hit its 60th anniversary!
Let's address some of what has happened or is still happening with a few of GH's biggest storylines over the past year. I've compiled these into a "best of/worst of" format. I can't comment on as many storylines as I would like, but I've shortened these to three in each category, along with some other thoughts.
Let's start with the worst of GH and get that ugly, beat-up Christmas tree that looks like a mob hit gone wrong out to the Dumpster once and for all.
"Elizabeth who?"
This wasn't just a question that Spencer asked during his latest screaming match with Nikolas. Let's start with this fact: 2022 was the incomparable Rebecca Herbst's 25-year anniversary on General Hospital. You remember when Elizabeth first arrived in Port Charles at Grandma Audrey's house, right? "The stork brought me, remember?!" Those were fun times. Few probably guessed then that that one line, spoken by a feisty, cigarette-smoking teenager outside her grandmother's house in 1997 would lead to a quarter-century love affair and an ardent fan base.
And yet, if you watched General Hospital for most of 2022, you wouldn't know it was actually Elizabeth's 25th year in Port Charles. That's because from the moment the year began, Elizabeth became a secondary character in her own storylines. Instead of frequent trips down Memory Lane, what the audience saw instead were endless months of Liz's boyfriend, Hamilton (Doctors Without Boundaries) Finn, whining and gossiping about All Things Elizabeth to anyone who would listen.
When the show finally got around to addressing the question of why Elizabeth's once-beloved father, Jeff Webber (portrayed many moons ago by Richard Dean Anderson), had been absent since even before Liz's arrival in Port Charles, the show made zero effort to hide who this storyline was really about: Finn, Michael Easton's latest GH role. Admittedly, Finn was never the first choice I would have paired Elizabeth with, but I was willing to give the relationship (such that it was) a chance.
But back to Jeff. A lot of viewers who fondly recall Jeff have voiced their complaints about the character being portrayed in such a vile way, including myself. In August, I wrote that I hoped the show wasn't about to take a similar path with Jeff that it had taken with his brother Rick 20 years earlier in 2002. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the show did by portraying Jeff as not merely a serial cheater (for these things happen; it's a soap opera, after all), but someone who had actively played a willing hand in having conditioned his own daughter to block out a decades-old memory of pushing a woman down a flight of stairs that led to said woman's dead.
That woman, of course, turned out to be Reiko Finn. That's perhaps the most absurd and galling part in all of this. In a year in which Liz fans were promised a major storyline to honor a milestone anniversary for a legacy character, GH expected the audience to care as much, if not more, about two other characters.
One of those characters had never even been seen during the show's entire 59-year history. That's right. Until 2022, Reiko had only ever been referenced in conversation, as if she were a ghost or a figment of imagination. That leads to the second character that viewers were asked to care more about: Finn, who only arrived in Port Charles in 2016. By making Finn the victim in Elizabeth's story, the show did a great disservice to everyone involved -- from Jeff, to Finn and his increasingly dwindling likability, and, most especially, to Elizabeth and her fans.
In fairness to the writers, when a beloved character has been off-screen for as long as Jeff was (41 years), sometimes it can feel almost impossible to explain the "why" without making said character the bad guy. No matter how fondly longtime viewers recall Jeff, a lot of the GH audience simply has or had no idea who Jeff even was.
Still, fans are justified in being upset about everything from Elizabeth's story, to Finn's incessant whining, to the character assassination of Jeff. Here's the thing: Jeff married his wife, Carolyn, off-screen. Until this past fall, Carolyn had never once been seen on GH. In other words, Carolyn was the unknown. If the writers were set on doing a story that involved brainwashing and a repressed childhood memory, the smart play would have been to make Carolyn the fall person. There was no history or any loving memories viewers had of Carolyn the way they had with Jeff.
The writers could have explained that even Jeff himself had been unwittingly brainwashed by Carolyn, who would then have manipulated Jeff into abandoning his daughter. That would have led to endless storyline potential, such as: who is Carolyn? Who does she work for? What are her real ties to Port Charles, and what is her true agenda? Carolyn could have been anything from a rogue WSB agent to someone in cahoots with Victor Cassadine. Sadly, these are questions that are now all irrelevant what-ifs.
The only thing left in this story is our regrets about what could have been for Elizabeth, for Jeff, and for the entire Webber family, which GH continually mistreats.
The self-destruction of Nikolas Cassadine
I could have used this space to weigh in on some thoughts about Carly vs. Nina, but plenty of space has already been devoted to them, and honestly, I don't care about the Carly/Nina rivalry. So, I chose to address someone that perhaps folks aren't talking about as much as GH's preeminent dueling memaws.
Folks, what happened to Nikolas Cassadine? Prince Nikolas Mikhail Stavrosovich Cassadine. Poor damn dumb Nik. The better question might be: what is going to happen to Nikolas in the not-too-distant future? The more I ponder this, the more I believe that Nikolas is not long for this world.
This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the news that current Nikolas portrayer Marcus Coloma has already taped his last scenes, but that news certainly raised my eyebrows. In my opinion, Nikolas (whoever portrays him next, if anyone) is not only a legacy character; his presence in current storylines has become essential. Consider all the irons Nikolas currently has in the fire.
He is the father of a baby that is being carried by latest NKOTB sociopath Esme Prince. Esme wants Nikolas dead, and she might well have been the one who already tried to kill him with the hook. All the while, Nikolas is involved in a toxic, never-ending love/hate relationship with Ava. Ava would just as soon see Nikolas dead, if only because he double-crossed her before she could double-cross him.
Nikolas has been all but disowned by his son, who no longer seems to care if his father lives or dies. If that weren't enough, our once-sweet prince has also had his life threatened by his great-uncle, the deliciously evil Victor. Valentin can't stand Nikolas, either, and now that Heather Webber and Ryan Chamberlain have teamed up as GH's Supercouple of Sociopathy, they also have it out for Nikolas.
Add it all up, and what do you get? Perhaps one big "Whodunit" storyline.
To be clear, I am not advocating for Nikolas to go anywhere. Quite the contrary. I've cared about the character -- who is Elizabeth's true best friend! -- since I first started watching GH. Nikolas has been a Port Charles regular on and off since 1996. While I didn't approve of his actions in 2022, or largely since his return to Port Charles in 2019, the character is worthy of screen-time investment.
His many recent misdeeds notwithstanding, I hope the writers don't choose a point of no return for Nikolas, such as killing him off. That would be too extreme and altogether unnecessary. Ironically, it was Esme's haunting laughter at Nikolas through the other side of the door at Wyndemere recently that really got me wondering if it was foreboding of something far worse to come for Nik.
As it stands, Nikolas can't stay out of his own way. Sleeping with Spencer's girlfriend, who Victor so eloquently labeled as "some vengeful Lolita," was very out of character. The same can be said about most of Nikolas' actions dating as far back as his decision to fake his death in 2016, leaving Spencer, Laura, Elizabeth, and others in the dark. And who could forget Nikolas tricking Ava into believing that he had visited her as a ghost to say that Kiki was in hell next to him? Some prince.
That doesn't mean Nikolas can't be redeemed while still maintaining the edge the character has always had. He can still be the kindhearted son of Laura and possess the same cunning abilities to stop anyone who gets in his way, much in the same fashion as his Uncle Stefan. Here's raising a glass for what I hope is a better, brighter, and less self-destructive Nikolas in 2023.
Michael and his delicate sensibilities
Readers, allow me to type the following words before I give them proper context: "Arrogant little pissant. Born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. Never had to work an honest day of labor in his entire life. Had every girl he ever wanted and with few exceptions, he flushed them all. All the worst traits an elitist can possess."
This was a tweet I wrote last summer during one of Michael's many tantrums where he raged against Sonny. Folks, I know I am repeating myself to anyone who read either of my Two Scoops columns last summer, but I can't help it. Michael annoys me to no end. As in, there is literally no end date in sight with this.
For almost a full year now, Michael has been a brooding, grumpy-faced, wannabe thug in a nice suit. His hypocrisy, his choice to live in misery (for he does choose this; no one ever has to spend their life in anger) and to spend seemingly the rest of his days being red-assed about Sonny's decision to carry on with Nina, and his overall despicable behavior of the past year are all things I have come to loathe about a character I was perfectly fine with being indifferent toward.
Vendettas do not suit Michael well, and I had hoped by now that Willow's cancer scare would sober him up to the realities of life. Instead, we have seen Michael only double down on his months-long rhetoric about Sonny to anyone who will listen. His clandestine meetings with Dex have become comical, given how often they occur and that they seemingly happen all over town.
Look, sometimes slow pacing happens on a soap. I get that. Often there is no other choice but to stretch a story past its expiration date due to unforeseen circumstances. But that is not what is happening here. There is slow pacing, and then there is just repetitive dialogue. That is what we have here with this prolonged and lame attempt at a vendetta that Michael has against Sonny.
Again, I must ask: all for what? Because Sonny saw another woman he had to have that wasn't Carly? That's Sonny! Much like Carly keeping babies from their biological parents, it's sort of each character's "thing!" Nothing about it is shocking at all, and it's certainly nothing that hasn't been seen before.
Don't believe for a minute that Michael's anger has anything whatsoever to do with Sonny having poor, little lost lamb Dex hung from a meat hook. This is all about Sonny's decision to pursue a relationship with Nina. That's all this has ever been about. Personally, I don't like Sonny and Nina as a couple, but it certainly has nothing to do with Michael's dopey feelings.
If Michael wants to be angry at Sonny for something, he should visit A.J.'s marker in the Quartermaine crypt every so often. Otherwise, what was the point of Michael ever forgiving Sonny for having shot A.J.? Sonny personally put A.J. in that crypt, and it is beyond insulting that the audience is expected to believe that Michael is more red-assed over an affair-turned-romance than he is about the murder of a man he had finally gotten to know and care greatly for.
This storyline was never believable to me, but I had hoped the writers would get to a certain point and explain it in a way that made sense. Or throw in some new wrinkle, like Dex turning out to be a deeply disturbed individual with a traumatic past from his time serving in the Middle East. That hasn't happened, and the writers have only kept prolonging this story. What is the endgame here? Where is the finish line? It cannot come soon enough. Speaking just for me, Michael has reached a point of no return. I can never like the character or even respect him again.
Honorable mention
I don't know who found Cody's pathetic attempt at wooing Britt to be romantic, but if social media is any indication (and it usually is), the answer is pretty much no one. Cody, like Finn, spent months chasing after a woman and trying to control her. Like Finn, Cody ignored a woman's boundaries at every level, violated her personal space, made her problems all about himself, and gaslighted her every chance he got. That isn't romance, folks. What part of "no means no" do GH men not understand?
Can we please do without this type of misogyny in the year 2023? It's beyond gross to me that Britt and Elizabeth, two highly accomplished women in their own right, both went through this with men like Cody and Finn. As my friend Tamilu noted in a Two Scoops column this year, it's time for GH to add more women in the writers' room. Or, you know, just stop writing misogynistic men.
With all that black coal out of our stockings, let's get to some real presents that were under the tree in Port Charles this year!
Who says love in the afternoon is dead?
There are some good love stories that have the potential to be great ones that fans will still be talking about years from now, the way only a great soap romance can do. While I've already copped to not being a fan of Sonny and Nina's relationship, "Sona" has many fans. This is a major fan base, not a vocal minority. I know many people still think that Sonny and Carly are endgame, and maybe they are. But Sona isn't going anywhere for now, and I'm happy for the folks that genuinely enjoy Sonny and Nina together.
One of my favorite pairings of 2022 was the continued romance between Sam and Dante. Getting those characters far away from Jason and Lulu has done a world of good. To see Sam now is a breath of fresh air. To me, the character had grown stale and tiresome during the many JaSam pairings and the Eggplant Emoji War years (I can't say the adult word so I'm using Eggplant Emoji, but IYKYK).
I love that the writers have given Sam a good romance with Dante. In some ways, "Sante" feels like the most realistic couple GH has. Kelly Monaco is soon to be in her 20th year on GH, and she looks very happy in scenes now. Dante has long been one of my favorite characters on any soap. It doesn't hurt that he is by far the most likable of Sonny's children.
Among the other budding romances in Port Charles, Anna and Valentin positively light up any room and scene they grace. This romance was a bit of a slow build, but Finola Hughes and James Patrick Stuart are true pros. The magic in their scenes together -- as lovers, as friends, as partners in crime, and often somewhere in between -- is magic. I can't say enough good things about "Vanna," and I think GH has a bona fide supercouple with these two. I don't know how long Anna and Valentin will last, but I will enjoy the ride for as long as they do.
As good as Vanna is, they fall just short of topping my list of Port Charles's best romances in 2022. That honor belongs to a young prince and the girl he would truly give everything for. I'm talking, of course, about Spencer and Trina. I know Spencer and Trina aren't technically a couple yet, but make no mistake: "Sprina" is endgame. The question is not if, but when?
The looks they give one another, the way their eyes meet, the way they dance in perfect rhythm of each other like finely tuned orchestra pieces is all poetry in motion. Do a Twitter or Google search for "Sprina," and you will find more people who love this pairing more than any other on GH.
Sprina has staying power in a way that other couples their age simply don't have. Their romance is somewhat indescribable in that you have to tune in to see for yourself how good it really is. I almost envy the writers because they will be under so much pressure to get the big payoff love scenes right when this couple's moment of love in the afternoon finally arrives. And it will arrive, no matter how much Portia, Curtis, Marshall (Hat Daddy), Josslyn, or others might stomp their feet.
The many machinations of Victor Cassadine
I almost saved this one for last because, God help me, I love watching Victor Cassadine on GH right now! Ask our fearless leader Dan, or my friends Tamilu and Liz, and they'll all confirm this. I know it's "wrong" to love Victor, or at the very least it's a guilty pleasure, but as far as I'm concerned, GH struck gold when it decided to bring Victor back from the smoldering ashes of Crichton-Clark, especially with an actor as dashing as Charles Shaughnessy. I didn't think anyone could or even necessarily should play Victor after the great Thaao Penghlis -- the king of the impeccably distinguished three-piece suit and tie -- appeared in the role.
What makes Victor so unique is that he's the type of villain rarely seen on soaps anymore. Why? Because the writers never forget that he's a villain. Sure, Victor will occasionally do a good deed for someone he cares about, such as when he arranged for Spencer to visit Saint Courtney's grave on Valentine's Day. Otherwise, Victor doesn't care who he has to step on or whose heart he must break (or put a bullet through). He doesn't care that people outside of his family seem to despise him. Indeed, with the exception of Lucy Coe, he seems to almost revel in it.
The way Victor dismisses a person with thinly veiled passive-aggressiveness and acid-tongued one-liners that are uniquely Victor keeps the character fresh. I've always thought that Sonny, Ava, and Scott had the best dialogue of any characters on GH, but I think Victor has since tied if not surpassed them. My only hope is that Victor's grand plans (the ones he's been referencing for a solid year now) turn out to involve something that lives up to the Cassadine family name. Freeze, baby, freeze!
Simply put, Victor is the best villain on General Hospital since at least Jerry Jacks.
Heather Webber returns... with a vengeance
Consider this my submission as a late contender for storyline of the year: the return of Port Charles's favorite local loony, the BLT-loving Heather Webber.
Folks, I have to be honest. In May, when it appeared that Elizabeth was being stalked by someone (other than Finn, that is...), my guess was that it was Heather Webber. When it didn't happen, a part of me was strangely relieved. This isn't a knock on Robin Mattson's Heather, but I thought the writing for Heather had grown somewhat stale and predictable in recent years.
Months later, during the last Friday cliffhanger in October, we saw the illustrious Alley Mills strapped to a gurney at General Hospital, yelling like a raving lunatic at Olivia. At first, I was slow to catch on to what -- and who -- I was watching. The reveal was one of the best surprises that GH has done in a long time. It's rare that my jaw drops after so many years of watching soaps, but my mouth actually dropped when Olivia said, "Don't you know her? That's Heather Webber!"
Part of it was the shock of seeing Kevin Arnold's sweet and loving mother Norma (who Ms. Mills played to perfection in The Wonder Years, one of my favorite series of all time) acting... well, like Heather! This felt like an old-fashioned "stunt cast," and I've loved seeing Alley Mills in the role since then with everyone from Cameron to Dante to even the heinous Ryan Chamberlain.
I am even willing to suspend disbelief and accept that Heather had never noticed the resemblance between Ryan and Kevin in her previous run-ins with Kevin, because the current Heather/Ryan tandem works so well for me. The writing isn't perfect with this, and it's a bit of a stretch that Heather would have given birth to Esme due to Heather's age, but the Ryan and Heather "chemistry" (if you will) works so well that I find myself simply not caring. As I tweeted during a recent episode that leaned heavily on Heather and Ryan, I can't take my eyes away from these two!
Whatever Ryan and Heather have planned for Port Charles, Jordan and the Civilian Review Board had better do their best to see to it that Chase is back on the police force soon. Enough with the pop star bit.
If you tuned in to GH this past week, you were certainly caught by surprise to see Anna and Valentin run across the familiar face of Dr. Andre Maddox. Perhaps Andre's background as a psychiatrist could be used to help Jordan and the police track down the killer or prove her identity. I say "prove" because unless I read too much into it, it sure seemed like the writers were telling us that Heather was, in fact, the killer, based on the earring found in the latest victim's attack.
My theory all along has been that there is at least one other person behind the hook attacks. I liked the introduction of the hook killer at first, but the pacing has been off recently -- in no small part because I believe the writers wanted us to believe the killer was Esme. The thing is, I never thought that it was Esme and still don't.
Honorable mentions
Peter August's death at the beginning of 2022 was more than long overdue; it was essential to keeping the show held less hostage by a character few people in the audience seemed to like near the end. I suppose that Felicia had to be the one to kill Peter and put us all out of our nightmare, but I'd have been perfectly happy with Maxie, Elizabeth, Sonny, Jordan, Robert, or even a random stray character having offed Peter for good. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
That's it for me. Thanks for reading along this year! As I always say this time of year, may we all hope that the best is ahead of us... and may we all be right.
Here's to what's soon to be 60 years of General Hospital!Steve Holley
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