General Hospital’s Rick Hearst reveals why Ric is really willing to blackmail Alexis

Ric (Rick Hearst) and Alexis’ (Nancy Lee Grahn) relationship on General Hospital has been tenous at best. They finally came to a truce recently for the sake of their daughter, Molly (Kristen Vaganos). He helped prove that Ava (Maura West) didn’t intentionally cause the death of Alexis’ daughter Kristina’s (Kate Mansi) unborn child, which caused some tension for a while. But now the gloves are off because Kristina cut the brake line on his car thinking it was Ava’s vehicle, causing an accident that landed Ric and Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst) in the hospital with critical injuries and a broken leg, respectively. Hearst opened up about Ric and Ava’s next move.

It’s a complex dance on General Hospital

General Hospital's Ava and Ric. | Image Source: ABC

Ric was parked in Ava’s spot, and because his and Ava’s cars looked similar, Kristina mistakenly cut his brake line instead of Ava’s after the women had a heated exchange. Everyone assumed he hit black ice on the road, and that’s why the car careend out of control and crashed. But Ava learned from the guy who ran the impound lot that the brake line was cut, and after seeing Kristina on her apartment building’s security camera recording, they surmised what truly happened.

Now Ava came to Ric with a plan to use that knowledge to leverage Alexis into forking over some of that plentiful Cassadine money to help ease Ava’s financial woes. Hearst explained to Soap Opera Digest that because Ric has dabbled in underhanded schemes in the past, blackmail “didn’t feel like a stretch.” He referred to Ric’s decision to join Ava in her extortion scheme as a “complex sort of dance that he’ll go back and forth with.”

But in the end, Hearst's rationale is, “He’s more about getting her to come to his side and realize that my daughter is our daughter as much as Kristina is hers and Sonny’s (Maurice Benard).” Up until recently, Molly and Kristina have been at odds but recently buried the hatchet, and this incident may jeopardize that.

Alexis is in a tough position

General Hospital's Ric Lansing. | Image Source: ABC

Hearst explained that he truly enjoys the complexity of the story and the fact that several characters bring different emotions to the table about it. Molly and Ric have both felt that Alexis favors Kristina over her sister because she feels Kristina is needier while Molly is strong. Molly explained that she also needs her Mom, but she just doesn’t overtly make that opinion known.

Hearst stated that Alexis is going to have to come to terms with the fact that Kristina screwed up royally, endangering peoples’ lives. “Now, what does Alexis do?” he asked, continuing, “What would a parent do at that point? Do you protect them, or do you let them fall and learn the lesson? That’s a tough position to be in.”

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