A Critic’s Review of General Hospital: Taking A Tribute To Task

When it comes to General Hospital, every fan has their own opinion – and Soap Hub is no different. For five days we sat and watched the good, the bad, and everything in between, and now we offer you a handy review, and a cheeky critique, of the GH week that was.

General Hospital: A Critic’s Week In Review

As far as tribute shows go, the one thrown together for Sean Donely (John Reilly) was so-so. The build-up to it was virtually non-existent. Anna (Finola Hughes) got the news via a phone call from Tiffany while speaking to Maxie (Kirsten Storms); she informed Robert (Tristan Rogers), and they in turn went and told Monica (Leslie Charleson).

We didn’t get to see Monica’s reaction to the news, and we weren’t even privy to word reaching the likes of Bobbie (Jacklyn Zeman), and Laura (Genie Francis)

In fact, the latter went from praising Nikolas (Marcus Coloma) for his purchasing of Pentonville – and what could be a great personal cost to himself – on Thursday to suddenly being in Ireland with a motley crew that included Mac (John J. York) and Felicia (Kristina Wagner) on Friday.

And that brings us to the biggest problem of all. Felicia dropped everything to head to Sean’s memorial service, but she couldn’t show up for Maxie’s wedding, or visit her daughter ONCE in all the time since? We get that Felicia has been written as a piss poor mother since around the early aughts, but this is just the height of incredulity.

Ditto her random assertion that Anna had been there for Maxie, “long after Sean and Tiffany left.” Huh? Anna was presumed dead in 1992 – three years BEFORE Sean and Tiffany relocated from Port Charles to Boston, Massachusetts (and then, eventually to Ireland). Then she spent 2001-2003 in All My Children’s Pine Valley. When exactly was she “there” for Maxie? Not only can’t Felicia parent, but she’s incredibly bad at arithmetic and history.

Another gripe, where were the relevant flashbacks? Sure, the Sean/Tiffany wedding clip is always a guaranteed hoot, but how come there wasn’t a single remembrance of Sean’s Mexico set adventure with Luke (Tony Geary) and Laura and Frisco and Felicia? And couldn’t they find a single clip of Sean and Monica plotting the Quartermaine’s downfall? They could have, at the very least, gone back in time to the moment that Tiffany revealed that she was pregnant with Annie (Caitlin Reilly), their miracle baby.

Where was Lucas (Matt Trudeau)? Do the writers even remember that he’s Sean and Tiffany’s nephew? The battle Tiffany waged to gain custody of Lucas when he was a baby was GH at its finest…and not one person wondered where in the world he was. Did Bobbie even tell the boy that Sean was dead?

Now, lest we be accused of only accentuating the negatives, let’s discuss those positives. How glorious was it to hear Sharon Wyatt’s voice? Since we couldn’t see the much-missed Tiffany (owning to the actress’s ongoing health issues) this was just as welcome. And kudos to the show for remembering Sean’s son Connor.

Further GH Musings

* The goings-on in Nixon Falls still continue to bore. The only point of interest in the whole of that storyline is the repeated references to Corinth (the setting of ABC’s Loving) – and even then all we can do is wonder whether or not the once-popular Alden University still stands or if it too has been torn down and replaced with one of Elijah’s (Dan White) many strip malls.

* Once upon a time, in the glorious era known as the early 1990s, there lived in the Quartermaine House, Lucy (Lynn Herring), Tracey (Jan Elliot), Lord Larry Ashton (Hugo Napier), Alan (Stuart Damon), Lila (Anna Lee), and Monica. It was a deliciously awkward and frequently combustible menagerie, and it seems like the writers are working towards evoking that story.

So far, the inhabitants include Monica, Olivia (Lisa LoCicero), Brook Lynn (Amanda Setton), Valentin (James Patrick Stuart), Charlotte (Scarlet Fernandez), Yuri (Cyrus Hobbi ), and Michael (Chad Duell), with Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) in one of the many guest houses. And now that Chase (Josh Swickard) is on his way, we say let the games begin!

* It was such a deceptively simple action – petit Bobbie deliberately positions herself in front of Maxie in an attempt to put as much distance between the mother-to-be and big, bad, six-foot-something Peter (Wes Ramsey) – but it spoke volumes.

* “You just want things that you can’t have.” – Sasha (Sofia Mattsson) has Cyrus’s (Jeff Kober) number, and make no mistake about it. General Hospital (GH) airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings for airtimes.