Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies; General Hospital Two Scoops for the week of September 16, 2024

The Davis girls are at war, Ric has an agenda, and Anna is determined to bring John’s killer to justice. Will Sonny stand by and let Alexis take the fall for his crime? Will Jason once again save the day—and Lulu—by rescuing and bringing Lucky home? Let’s discuss in this week’s special Two Scoops with Tamilu and Liz Masters.

This week Tamilu and I decided to write an extra heaping Two Scoops of soapy goodness together. We’ve been partners-in-writing for nearly two decades now, sharing our thoughts about General Hospital and our love for the soap that has been a part of our lives since childhood. Through all the highs, lows, shocking twists, unexpected cliffhangers, and everything in between, it has been a labor of love for us to write this column week after week, year after year, sharing our take on things with all of you.

Confession time: I was a huge fan of Tamilu’s before penning my first column, so when I was first asked to pinch-hit for her, I almost fainted. I remember asking Dan Kroll, the founder of Soap Central, “Me? Have you lost your (censored) mind? Me?”

Dan’s faith in me was humbling, and Tamilu’s graciousness in welcoming me to the team was one of the best gifts I’ve been given because it allowed me to pursue two of my passions: writing and watching soaps. I will forever be thankful to both of them. Let me assure you, Tamilu is as sweet, kind-hearted, and hilarious in real life as she comes across in her columns. A true gem of a person that I’m proud to call my friend.

Now, let’s get into it.

Battle of the Davis sisters

Liz’s take:

I’m #TeamMolly all the way, and this week only reinforced why I feel that way. Alexis is a mess because the relationship between Kristina and Molly is broken. Whether it’s irrevocably broken remains to be seen, but to repair this mess will require a lot of work. More work than I think Kristina is prepared to invest at the moment because, as far as Kristina is concerned, she has done nothing wrong. Molly is equally entrenched in her anger and resentment that Kristina’s feelings always seem to matter more to her family than Molly’s. This is about more than the baby’s tragic death, for sure.

My heart bled for Molly when it became clear to her that Alexis, who insists that she’s not taking sides, sided with Kristina by reminding Molly how hard the pregnancy was on Kristina, and how no one—least of all poor, unfortunate Kristina—“could have foreseen” how the pregnancy would impact her. Um, wrong Alexis. Everyone—from strangers off the streets of Port Charles to the viewers—saw this slow-motion trainwreck approaching before the first pregnancy test turned positive.

What bothers me is that Alexis fails to recognize the impact the loss of the baby had on Molly. The hopes and dreams that Molly had for a family with the man she loves have been shattered because of her sister’s betrayal and reckless choices. That is on top of losing another child earlier in the year and the heartache that Molly struggles with every day, knowing that she will never experience motherhood without medical intervention or adoption. When she should have her family rallying around her, she instead is pushed to the side because Kristina’s pain is somehow greater.

The irony was not lost on me when Alexis insisted that Kristina had no one but Alexis to support her through this terrible time, and all the while, Kristina was off being chauffeured around town by one of her brothers who rescued Kristina from being confronted by Molly with some hard truths.

What truly irked me was Kristina’s attitude throughout all of it. As Molly tried to share her pain and her perspective, an exasperated Kristina sat on the sofa, threw her head back, and let out a sigh as if to say, “Get over yourself, Molly.” Worse, Kristina actually had the audacity to tell Molly that Molly didn’t know what she was talking about when Molly insisted that Kristina was the only source of tension between Molly and T.J.

Kristina has to believe that Molly and T.J. were headed to Splitsville because that’s her justification for crushing Molly’s dreams and secretly taking steps to keep the baby.

The moment that truly broke my heart was when Molly admitted that she had long ago accepted that Alexis would never be there for her the way that Alexis is for Kristina.

I used to love Kristina. She had her faults—and she had definitely made poor choices—but she was a kind person with a loving heart. That has been lost. Since Kate Mansi stepped into the role, the writing has shifted. There’s a cruelty about Kristina that I never saw before. She seeks affirmation from everyone, and if she doesn’t get it, she lashes out to the point where everyone seems to continually walk on eggshells around her.

The idea that Kristina thinks that she was in any way fit to raise a baby is laughable. She can’t go five minutes without making self-destructive choices, which ultimately hurt others as well as herself. Just look at her decision to steal a gun from Sonny to—by her own admission—kill John and Ava. As Friday came to a close, Kristina even admitted that she drove to the Quartermaine mansion to follow through on the impulse but changed her mind.

Kristina blames Ava for Irene dying, but she takes no responsibility for her own actions that turned a conversation into a confrontation. Let me be clear, the fall was an accident—a terrible tragedy that no one is to blame for—but Kristina put herself in that position by thinking that she could bully Ava into retracting a subpoena, despite Molly helping Kristina prepare for the custody hearing.

Do I blame Molly for deciding to make a statement and putting her sister in the crosshairs of the police? No, not really. Both Alexis and Kristina forced Molly’s hand because Molly is an officer of the court, and as such, she has an obligation to share what she knows in an ongoing investigation into a federal agent’s murder.

The truth is, it’s all on Alexis and Kristina. All they had to do was be honest about the missing gun because we all know Alexis didn’t toss the murder weapon. The murder weapon was dissolved in a vat of acid, thanks to Jason.

Instead, Alexis jumped to conclusions without so much as a “Hey, Kristina, whatcha doing with this gun in your bag?” Alexis then compounded the problem by acting like Kristina is too fragile to be honest with the cops. Alexis insisted that Kristina is suffering from “severe postpartum trauma,” yet Kristina seems able bodied and clear thinking enough to lie and bounce around town, scheming with Michael.

Tamilu’s take:

Liz and I disagree on this one, and especially after Molly accused Kristina of a murder we know she did not commit. Throughout the pregnancy, Molly and T.J. made assumptions of Kristina that weren’t accurate. When Blaze and Kristina did their interview, Kristina genuinely thought it was the right thing to do to protect her sister’s privacy about why she was pregnant, and T.J. and Molly not only jumped to the worst conclusion but attacked her, unprovoked.

This entire storyline was a mismatch for me from the start because Molly never wanted to be married, never wanted kids, and was fully career driven. It always seemed forced to have her become so completely baby crazy and falling apart when she found out she was unable to have kids. Molly was the Davis sister who was steady and calm.

I realize we have had multiple writers this year, so several GH storylines have taken unexpected twists and turns as writers and their visions came and went. Like Sonny, I have always had a soft spot for Kristina. A great deal of that was due to my love of Lexi Ainsworth. I was so unhappy when both roles were recast, even though I knew one of those recasts was necessary. But my affection for Kristina remained. Sure, Kristina has had many lapses in judgment. She fell for a man who beat her (Kiefer) and then blamed someone else for it (Ethan), she joined a cult (Shiloh and Dawn of Day) and slept with her much older professor (Parker), she wanted to be a bartender and then run a charity, and probably more shenanigans than I can even recall.

But this time, Kristina stepped up to try to help her sister have a child. I understand why Molly said no at first, it was a complicated situation. In hindsight, she should have listened to T.J.’s concerns and said no when Kristina offered again. But she didn’t. She said yes, and it’s been a game of tug of war ever since.

Kristina is in the throes of postpartum depression and grief, and she has her normal impulsivity all working against her. Molly isn’t taking any of that into consideration. Certainly, Molly and T.J. are grieving, but Kristina is, too. To deny her that grief and pretend that Kristina played no part in that baby’s existence is cruel, in my humble opinion. Finding out on Friday’s episode that Molly told the police that Kristina was missing on the night of the murder makes me even angrier.

As to the debate over the baby’s name, Molly and T.J. should have chosen a name for the baby months ago. If they had told Kristina three months ago that they had chosen the name Irene for the baby, then Kristina might have been calling the baby Irene. But they didn’t have a name picked out at all, or even a shortlist that they had discussed together, which I find odd.

If Kristina was calling the baby Adela in her head, just like Esme was calling Ace by his name while he was in the womb, why is that such a terrible thing? What does it matter to Molly what name Kristina whispers to the baby as she is weeping over her grave?

I see both sides, I feel both sides, but I reject the notion that Kristina is the villain. I do agree with my co-Scooper Liz that it was sad and true when Molly told Alexis she knew that her mother would side with Kristina. It is a fact in some families that when one child needs special attention, they get it, sometimes to the detriment of the other kids in the family. Molly absolutely had to handle more things on her own and became stronger than Kristina. I didn’t see Molly as a villain, either, up until she decided Kristina was a murderer. Now, in Molly’s defense, Kristina had murder in her heart when she left with the gun, but never took action on those feelings. (Or did she?)

Something I didn’t expect was that Ric Lansing was going to turn out to be such a fantastic father-in-law. I teared up watching that soul-stirring scene where T.J. was crying to Ric about all the hopes and dreams he had for Irene. Tajh Bellow and Ric Hearst were fantastic together.

A murder mystery that’s not so mysterious

Liz’s take:

I love a good mystery, so it absolutely baffles me why the writers didn’t go with a whodunit when killing off John. Just think how much more exciting things would have been if, instead of seeing Sonny kill John Jagger Jingleheimer Schmidt, we had only heard the two shots ring out before Michael discovered the body at the boathouse. We’d have three viable suspects for the murder: Sonny, Alexis, and Kristina. The viewers would have a mystery to unravel that would have them eagerly tuning in each day for clues as they tried to figure things out.

It feels like a huge missed opportunity, and I have no idea why no one thought of that. Isn’t the goal to drive up ratings? What better way to do that than to engage the viewers?

In this case, it’s unlikely that Sonny will ever be held accountable for executing Jagger, mainly because there is no evidence—thanks to his trusty enforcer—and even Michael didn’t actually witness the shooting. I’m okay with that. It’s not that I think Sonny was right to kill Jagger—he absolutely was not—but at the same time, he won’t be the first soap character to get away with a crime, especially on GH. Everyone from Anna to Ava has committed crimes that they’ve gotten away with, up to and including murder. Carlos Rivera and Connie Faloneri are just two people whose murders were never “solved.”

I don’t particularly like Sonny because he’s not really a good guy, he’s just good to the people he loves. (Tamilu’s input: I would love to have Sonny as a friend, though, so people would know I was under his protection and would not mess with me.)

However, Sonny serves an important purpose on the show and in Port Charles. Sonny pushes boundaries, which translates to drama, and he provides plenty of action by keeping the mob wolves at bay who would otherwise swamp Port Charles with drugs, guns, and a heavy dose of anarchy. There’s no denying that Maurice Benard is an icon and loved by all, including myself, so losing Sonny would be a massive blow to the show.

Jagger went rogue, and as much as I dislike Kristina these days, she was horribly mistreated by him. He got the soap justice he deserved. Had he lived, Ava would have been killed—and who knows who else—in his quest to take down Sonny.

Tamilu’s take:

I know there is someone out there waiting to call me a hussy, and I will accept it. My God, Adam J. Harrington was gorgeous. When everyone else was bickering about the recast being blond when the previous Jagger was brunette, I did not give a rat’s booty about that. I just wanted to look into his dreamy blue eyes every day for decades. (Liz’s input: Make that two hussies! Adam is definitely easy on the eyes, and he had chemistry for days with each of his co-stars)

But that was not to be. Jagger came to town as part of Jason’s return. That was quite a shocker, to discover that our favorite hitman Jason had been working for the FBI all the time he was missing! When Jason’s return was tied into the Pikeman storyline, I was intrigued. When Agent Cates was shot and Carly nursed his gunshot wound, I was spinning story ideas in my head, like Carly was going to fall for Sonny’s archenemy. But then that fizzled, and Jagger connected with Ava. Maura West’s Ava seems to have chemistry with everyone but had sizzling chemistry with Jagger. I suspected the writers were going that route instead. But the next thing I knew, Jagger double-crossed Ava and sent her to be executed. He took a grieving Kristina, framed her for murder, and tortured her by arresting her for her own baby’s death. What a monster!

But why? I was so perturbed about this sudden villainous turn. Again, I must mention the merry-go-round of writers GH has gone through this year. I am 100% convinced this was not the original trajectory for Jagger’s character. Like Liz, I am somewhat disappointed we didn’t get a murder mystery. Multiple people wanted him dead. Instead, we got the odd sight of Sonny doing his own dirty work and putting two bullets into Jagger’s chest.

That scene bothered me. It seemed out of place that Jagger would meet Sonny all alone, unarmed, in the dark of night, with no witnesses. Knowing the sort of man that Sonny is, did he not see this coming? I’m thinking he wasn’t such a great FBI agent.

I am sorry to see John “Jagger” Cates come and go so fast, but once they wrote him into a corner, there was no way to redeem him that we would have accepted. Such a shame. He was so pretty. Bring him back in a month as someone else, and I will pretend not to remember he was Jagger.

Three men and a lady

Liz’s take:

Folks, Elizabeth has always been my favorite character, and my favorite pairing of hers was Liason—Liz and Jason—so when I saw Jason step off the elevator this week and make eyes at Liz, I squealed with delight. Becky Herbst and Steve Burton still have sizzling chemistry all these years later. With just one tender look between them, all my hopes and dreams for them have flared back to life. I truly believe that these two are meant to be together.

But Ric is back in town, and his intentions are clear. He is trying to woo Liz back and keep himself on the straight and narrow, but that has always been a struggle for him. Ric has a bad streak in him that is easily triggered, especially by Sonny and Jason. Ric’s issues with Sonny are legion, and Ric knows that Jason will always be Ric’s strongest competition for Liz’s heart, which speaks volumes about Liz and Jason’s undeniable connection.

Unfortunately for Ric, Lucky will also be returning, and Lucky, too, holds a special place in Liz’s heart. Lucky was her first love, and she was Lucky’s. As we recently saw, Liz has been on Lucky’s mind, but frankly, Lucky has bigger things to worry about than rekindling a romance with Liz. Lucky—hopefully—will save his sister and then begin the task of building a relationship with Aiden. That should be his priority.

It’s absolutely tragic that Aiden has never really had his father around to watch him grow up. Aiden is such a pure soul that I worry Lucky getting close to Aiden will only set Aiden up for heartache when his father once again feels the call of wanderlust, packs up, and leaves town again.

I’m #TeamLiason, so that’s who I will be rooting for.

Tamilu’s take:

My dear readers, I have loved Lucky and Liz, L&L2 as we called them way back since this.

I am always rooting for Liz and Lucky, I can’t help myself. I can only hope the writers share my fondness for stories of first loves who come back home and find each other again like in most Hallmark movies. Lucky hasn’t been off doing bad things; he’s been working for a humanitarian organization, so he’s still a hero, and Liz deserves a hero, even if he’s a hero who hasn’t been home much. In Lucky’s defense, Liz did sleep with his brother, Nikolas, when she and Lucky were engaged, so I can see why that might have kept him away. I wonder if he will visit Nikolas in prison.

Bottom line, I am happy that Liz will have three viable candidates to win her golden heart. And I hope Finn comes out of rehab, determined to stay away from her, because four exes would be one too many.

Sleeping beauty awakens—soon

Liz’s take:

Will Lulu get a life-saving transplant? Yup, she sure will. If the revelation that our new handsome doctor Isaiah is a renowned transplant surgeon wasn’t enough of a sign, the news that Alexa Havins has been tapped to step into the role was confirmation that Lulu will not just get a new liver, but she will also soon have a second lease on life.

I’m so excited about this recast. I wasn’t a huge fan of Babe Carey on All My Children, but Alexa has the acting chops to tackle the role of Lulu Spencer Falconeri.

The question is, who will be the one to save Lulu? Will it be Lucky—or Sam? I remember years ago when Lucky found out that Nikolas was a bone marrow match for their sister and how angry Lucky was that he couldn’t be the one to save Lulu, so donating a portion of his liver to save his baby sister’s life would certainly be a full circle moment.

However, Kelly Monaco will soon be exiting, and Sam is slated to be killed off. I hate that for both the actress and the character, so a part of me is really hoping that Sam would get to live on in Lulu.

Otherwise, I will be expecting Sam to have her turn at resurrection—in the form of Kelly Monaco—down the road.

Tamilu’s take:

It’s reported that All My Children will be revived in some way, as a movie and possibly more. So, is that why Martin disappeared, because Tad Martin is getting ready to make an appearance? If so, then I am okay with Martin’s absence.

Willow is baring her soul to a comatose Lulu, but what if Lulu wakes up and has heard every word and tells Michael that his wife is hot for his uncle?

“Were Carly and Lulu ever close?” I’m tired of people saying Carly and Lulu never talked or had a relationship. Here are a few examples of just how close Carly and Lulu were:

https://youtu.be/b6ML4H7swVk?si=wIVvETgnZppuzuRf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO2u_Mv3q9w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwm0ybECDLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu651hwMsIU

https://youtu.be/iBi27xnCh7Y?si=mCBQuN-44dkt8OtA

Sonny versus Ric round 23,876?

Liz’s take:

Ric has his faults for sure. He’s done some pretty heinous things, most notably kidnapping a pregnant Carly with the intention of ultimately killing her and keeping her baby, which he planned to pass off to his wife as an orphan given up for adoption. He also nearly accidentally killed Elizabeth by secretly feeding her birth control pills, which she had a near-fatal reaction to.

But Sonny is a cold-blooded killer. Not just John Cates, but he has also executed numerous enemies, including Andrei Karpov, who was shot down on the pier in a manner similar to John. Sonny has no moral high ground when it comes to his brother.

That said, I genuinely thought that both Ric and Sonny were in a better place the last time that Ric was in town. They were never going to be friends, but they had seemed to have stopped actively hating each other.

I want to believe that Ric is trying to be a better person, but he did seem to make an effort to paint a really incriminating picture of Alexis’ actions on the footbridge, including reminding Chase that Alexis has killed before. I believe Ric was referring to Luis Alcazar’s death, which was ultimately ruled self-defense because Luis had approached Alexis on the balcony with nefarious intentions. Ric doing that certainly raised a red flag because he really had no reason to throw Alexis under the bus like that, especially given that Molly dearly loves her mother.

Does Ric have an ulterior motive for being in town other than to support his grieving daughter and represent Heather in a malpractice case against the company that designed the artificial hip implant? I hope not. I also hope we don’t get another round of Ric vs Sonny because it always ends the same—with Ric slinking out of town.

The truth is, I rather like the chemistry between Ric and Nina, so I wouldn’t mind seeing him stick around for a while to see if anything develops between him and Nina. The added bonus, Sonny would hate to see Nina find happiness with his little brother.

Tamilu’s take:

Did you see Sonny’s face when Ric’s name came up? I laughed so hard. How will Sonny react when he discovers Ric is representing Ava? The one thing I don’t know is if Ric has matured over the years or if he still has a vendetta against his half-brother. I would love to see the two of them reunite and get to know each other anew, but all those years of hatred can’t be erased so easily. My real question for Ric is why now? He has been away for so long, and he came to comfort Molly when she and T.J. lost their baby, but will he stay?

Random thoughts and observations:

Liz: I don’t know why, but Dex annoyed me this week. He comes off as petty rather than someone who has a genuine thirst for law and order. From the way he enthusiastically shared where Sonny kept his gun safe to how he seemed to relish going with Chase to question Alexis, it all struck me as wrong. He’s a witness, not a police officer.

Tamilu: Leading the cops straight to Sonny’s guns is a surefire way for Dex to get back on Sonny’s enemy list. They just came to an understanding!

Liz: I was a One Life to Live fan, so I can’t help but wonder if Dr. Isaiah Gannon is related to Llanview’s Hank and R.J. Gannon. We need Nora Hanon Gannon Buchanan (yes, that is her name)—or her lovely daughter Rachel—to visit Port Charles and clear things up.

Tamilu: I don’t care who Isaiah is related to, but I hope he is Jordan’s new lover.

Liz: Why has Willow been referring to her Aunt Liesl as “the donor” lately? It is so insulting because Liesl put her life on the line to save Willow by donating her bone marrow. Drew deserves praise for getting Liesl back to Port Charles in time, but he didn’t work alone in Greenland. There were a host of people who each played critical roles in defeating Victor and saving the world, but to hear Willow talk, you’d think Drew did it all single-handedly and breathed his life force into Willow.

Tamilu: Bring back my Liesl! I would love to watch Kathleen Gati make mincemeat of Drew for hitting on Willow. As to Liz’s query, nothing Willow is doing makes any sense to me right now. She beat cancer with Michael faithfully sitting by her side every minute and, upon recovery, starts an affair with Michael’s uncle? She attended nursing school and then decided not to be a nurse and went into spokes-modeling and then quit and went back to being a nurse? She hates Nina, likes Nina, hates Nina, likes her again—I can’t keep up with her ever-changing mind.

Liz: I love Mac! He gave me a new favorite nickname for Tracy—Cruella Quartermaine.

Tamilu: It shocked me when Mac arrived Friday and carted Alexis off in handcuffs as Sonny stood helplessly watching, calling Mac’s name. Sonny can’t call Diane, because she’s representing him. Scotty is AWOL; Ric can’t take her case, since he is the witness who saw her dispose of the gun; and hopefully Alexis isn’t foolish enough to serve as her own attorney. Unless Laura’s brother Martin Gray appears in town, who will defend Alexis? This may be a time when Diane will want to choose Alexis over Sonny, but will she? I’m intrigued to see who will ultimately represent Alexis. She just got her law license back! If she survives this latest crisis, I hope she goes to work for the Innocence Project, since she has been falsely accused so often.

Liz: I see some people suggesting that the writers should or might be exploring a romance between Jason and Anna. I want to go on record by saying I hate this idea. Anna is old enough to be his mother, and it would be so disrespectful to his history with Robin. I prefer Jason and Anna as adventure buddies.

Tamilu: Did you see Anna’s smile when Jason walked up to her on the plane? It appears that it’s going to take Anna, Jason, Holly, Laura, Kevin, and possibly Mac and Felicia to rescue Lucky. Kind of hard to sneak into a criminal’s camp with 20 people…

Liz: Luke is dead, but his legacy lives on. Normally, I would say Luke is about to return, given how many times people have mentioned Luke’s name lately. Sadly, I don’t think the Beetlejuice effect applies here. What a fantastic twist, though, if it did.

Tamilu: It gives me joy to see that the people of Port Charles still love Luke as much as I still do, and they feel obligated to find and rescue his son. I have honestly never gotten over Luke’s death and have hoped every day since that he would pop up somewhere along the way. Hey, Tony Geary! I’m planning a trip to Europe next year, and I would love to take you and Claudio out for coffee in Amsterdam. I’ve had a career writing about soaps for two decades because I fell in love with Luke and Laura in high school. I swear I’m a lovely person. I won’t even try to interview you. Just a thank you.

Liz: I adore Tracy, and I hate seeing her in so much pain. Please, dear writers, give Tracy some joy.

Tamilu: Now that I got that off my chest, I want to talk about the beautiful scene on Friday with Lois and Tracy. I think Tracy likes Lois more than she lets on. Lois admitted she spent years worrying about Tracy’s influence over Brook Lynn, but she can see how much her daughter and former mother-in-law love and respect one another.

As a longtime viewer of this show, that was a real full circle moment. I hope that as Lois continues to Eliza Doolittle herself up, she and Tracy become closer. I think they could bond over Brook Lynn and Chase’s baby. Some people are angry that she is changing for someone else, but readers, that’s reality. I can name 100 TV shows where someone had to change their accent to play a role, and Lois is a spokesperson on TV to sell a product. She could have said no, but Lois made the choice to make the change on her own. It is something she wanted to do. As we heard today, her Brooklyn accent will come out when she’s mad, so we get to have it both ways!

A final note

To make this into a real lovefest, I am a huge fan of Liz’s columns, too. I love that we don’t always agree, but we both love the show with equal enthusiasm. Years ago, I mentioned that I was in California, homesick for Cincinnati chili, and sweet Liz, an Ohio girl like me, mailed me packets of spice mixes and pouches of chili to scratch my itch, and I just thought, “This is the sweetest woman on earth,” to send me a gift, a total stranger. We have been texting and Zooming and writing together, and I have been so thankful for her partnership in this crazy job we have, where we get paid to write about soaps. And special thanks to Dan J Kroll, Soap Central’s founder and former owner whom we happily worked for for all these years.

Dear readers, Change can be hard. When you read those “What things can affect your emotional, physical, and mental health?” articles, they say things like moving, change of job, breakup of a relationship, loss of a loved one, etc. They all focus on change, where the life you had is uprooted by things outside your control.

Last week on X (formerly Twitter), a lady posted this: “Does anyone else feel like they’re suffering from a weird sort of attention deficit disorder ever since the pandemic? I don’t know what it is, but I can’t seem to find my mojo to get projects done like I used to. I can’t read books like I used to. It’s odd." This exploded into a giant thread of people saying, “Me, too.” Me included. Since the pandemic, everything has been topsy-turvy. I haven’t been able to steady myself.

The one constant I had, the one thing that I had both before the pandemic and after the pandemic, was…you. This column. Soap Central. Two Scoops. The soap buddies I have made over the course of two decades. I never take that for granted, and I know Liz never does, either. We love you!

I’m appreciative that the networks found a way to keep our shows alive and to even thrive when so many other things failed. I think soaps survived both the pandemic and a Hollywood strike because the soap fan base is the most loyal group of human beings I have ever encountered. But why am I talking about this now?

Because I have been wowed by the soap community lately. When word hit that Kelly Monaco had been released from GH, fans banded together to petition the network to change their minds. A few years back when Rebecca Herbst's role was in danger, the GH community did the same. I appreciate the fervor and loyalty that the daytime TV community has and the way they rally around actors and characters they have loved for years. We are the Swifties of the soap world. Will this devotion ultimately save Kelly’s job? I don’t know, but at least she knows we cared and tried to use our might on her behalf.

It's especially hard to watch a beloved veteran lose their job when so many new and unnecessary characters are being added. If I were in charge, I’d cut other people to keep Kelly. I want to say up-front, I am not implying that I don’t like any of these actors, and I am not dismissing their value as human beings. I am merely saying their characters have had less overall impact on the overall story than Sam McCall has in her years of GH history.

With that being said… Bye, Gio. Bye, Natalia. Bye, Violet (unless Finn is coming back). Bye, Olivia. (I was torn on this one, but we need to either keep Lois or Olivia, and if Olivia left, Ned and Lois could reunite, and I have loved them much longer.) Bye, Sasha (unless they send her back to Deception instead of having her making mac and cheese for Leo. Zzzzz). Bye, Drew, I hope you win your election and move to DC permanently. Bye, Nina. Pack your bags and go to DC with Drew.

There have been changes here at Soap Central. Our long-time editor and pal Dan J Kroll is no longer at the helm, and the little soapy family we have created over the years is morphing and changing. It’s been hard to watch the site we are so devoted to changing every day. I know many of you have noticed and commented on the changes, too.

The thing is, I don’t think just anyone should write about soaps. But I am not naïve. I know they can, will, and do. But if you have watched the show for 40 years, you will write a different column than if you just started watching last month.

You don’t know all the nuances and changes a character has seen over the years. To say Bobbie Spencer was the head nurse at GH without knowing she used to be a call girl or knowing how she had to claw and fight her way out of that life to succeed, you are missing the heart of the story. I hope that you know how much Liz and I love General Hospital, and I hope you have seen our devotion to this show in our writing. While we don’t always agree on storylines, as we noted with Kristina and Molly, for instance, at the end of the day, we want the best for ALL the Davis sisters, especially the one the Powers That Be intend to kill off…

I am basically a giant fan-girl of GH who somehow Forest-Gumped my way into a soap adjacent job. For the better part of two decades, I’ve had the privilege to write about a show I have loved since I was in high school.

The highlights were the appreciation and kindness we received from you, our readers. You have showered us with words of love over the years—even sometimes from the GH stars themselves! I was always so thrilled when one of my favorite soap stars read what I wrote and appreciated my take on their work. It’s been an amazing ride. Just like Thelma and Louise!

What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Tony Geary ever come out of retirement and give this old girl one more thrill? Will ABC bring back any more '90’s legacy characters, played by an extraordinarily handsome and instantly popular actor like Adam J Harrington, and then suddenly turn them into a villain and randomly kill them off? Will Jack Brennan and Carly ever have the fling I want them to have? Will Laura know exactly who Sidwell’s girlfriend is as soon as she hears the name “English”?

Will Nicholas A Chavez ever tire of making movies and come home to GH as Spencer so Trina can feel joy again? Will the new improved Lois sing "The Rain in Spain" at the Nurses Ball this year? Will Jason decide he likes Isaiah’s new nickname and trade Stone Cold for Lone Wolf? Will Anna get malaria after taking Felicia’s expired malaria pills? Will Tracy demand quiche every day next week to make up for Sasha trying to serve her leftovers?

Will Finn come back for Violet before Brook Lynn and Chase have their own baby and forget all about her? Will Holly choose diamonds over Lucky, or will her conscience get the better of her? Will Liz and Tamilu discover they have evil twins taking over their Two Scoops columns?

Only tomorrow knows, dear readers, and WE will tune in tomorrow as long as there are tomorrows.