A Critic’s Review Of General Hospital: A Roundup of the Best and Worst of 2022

Unlike some, more cowardly competitors, we here at Soap Hub are never shy when it comes to giving General Hospital its lumps when it proves grating or downright frustrating, nor are we backward at coming forwards with praise when it’s due – moi especially.

In that vein, below you’ll find a roundup of the staff’s Best and Worst of GH followed by my ever-cheeky, always heartfelt endorsement or rebuttal…how surprised you must be to hear that I don’t always agree with my colleagues.

General Hospital — Soap Hub’s Best and Worst of 2022

Best Couple: Contributing writer Hope Campbell is a big ‘Vana’ fan. Massive. Huge. I expect any day now to see her published treatise on the subject. I’ll agree with Hope on principle, given that there’s not one other viable couple on the whole canvas.

‘ChaLynn’ – torn asunder. Ditto ‘Nava’. Maxie Jones (Kirsten Storms) and Austin Gatlin-Holt (Roger Howarth) were DOA. ‘Millow’ are less “young people in love” and more “I’ll keep secret the fact that you’re slowly dying just so no one will pity you”, and the less said about Ned Quartermaine (Wally Kurth) and Olivia Falconeri Quartermaine’s (Lisa LoCicero) toxic marriage the better. I don’t think Olivia could be a worse wife to Ned even if she really put her mind to it.

Best Return: Alina Adams — poll analyst extraordinaire and authoress of Soap Hub’s original text serial Go On Pretending — offered up Emma Samms’s name for this category, and nostalgia alone precludes me from quibbling…much.

As wonderful as it was to see Holly Sutton back amongst her people — Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) in particular — would it have wounded anyone at General Hospital to give Samms a storyline more worthy of her talents?

Best Character Turnaround: Cyrus Renault (Jeff Kober) Finds Religion…maybe? and Worst Character Turnaround: Willow teleports back to the 1950s — courtesy of Soap Hub’s very own Editor-In-Chief, Diane Brounstein. No arguments from me.

Biggest Waste of Talent: Kelly Thiebaud [Britt Westbourne] and Biggest Waste of Chemistry: Thiebaud and Roger Howarth — suggested by Hope Campbell, co-singed by yours truly.

Most Tortured Character: Sasha Gilmore Corbin (Sofia Mattsson). Enough said.

Worst Character Assassination: Jeff Webber — across the board.

Further GH 2022 Musings:

Best Schmaltz: Gregory Chase (Gregory Harrison) to Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton):

“Love doesn’t fade away so fast. It may shrink or be eclipsed by other feelings, but it’s still inside there, waiting to re-emerge, sometimes stronger than before if both people want it enough.”

Worst Schmaltz: Anything and everything spewed between Carly Spencer (Laura Wright) and Drew Cain (Cameron Mathison) during the former’s “spiritual journey” in Jacksonville, Florida.

Most Appreciated Death: Peter August (Wes Ramsey).

Least Affecting Death: Rory Cabrera (Michael Kruse). Less of a character than he was a cipher.

Most Appreciated Breakup: Austin and Maxie

Worst On Location: Malibu’s cliffs and rocky shoreline double for a Florida beach.

General Hospital 2022 Report Card: D — and this is me being generous. Despite its plethora of acting talent, GH is continually dragged down by a storytelling style that can best be described thusly: launch 5 plots, build steadily to the middle of each, stall indefinitely, and launch 5 more plots. It’s all buildup and no climax — and when stories do finally achieve some form of closure, it always comes far too late to be of any interest to fans. See the conclusion — and again, I’m being generous by designating these tales closed — of Elizabeth Webber’s (Rebecca Herbst) “haunting” and the explanation for Marshall Ashford’s (Robert Gossett) abandonment of his family.

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