Rebecca Herbst and Elizabeth Webber have been mainstays in Port Charles and on General Hospital for a quarter of a century — and fans have rooted for her all along the way.
General Hospital Needs To Honor Elizabeth The Right Way
When Elizabeth first arrived on the scene, she was a smart-mouthed teenager smoking cigarettes on Audrey Hardy’s (Rachel Ames) front porch and it was clear she was carrying a chip on her shoulder then. The question we still ask ourselves 25 years later is why.
As Elizabeth sat in the Shadybrook rec room and told Kevin Collins (Jon Lindstrom) why she resents her parents so much, it seemed like the tip of the iceberg. Yes, they basically dumped her on her grandmother’s doorstep, but they did the same to her older sister, Sarah Webber. Yet Sarah never seemed to feel the same animosity that Elizabeth does towards their parents.
For years, it seemed odd that Jeff Webber (last played by Richard Dean Anderson) and Caroline Webber (who viewers never met) were no-shows in their daughter’s life. They never got in touch with their daughter and weren’t there for any of her life events, just as she described to Kevin, but we still don’t know the real reason.
It seemed doubly odd earlier this year when Jake Webber (Hudson West) told his mom that his grandparents had gotten in touch with him and he was getting to know them via the Internet. Fans had to wonder if they had wanted to be there for Liz all these years, with her only turning them away.
The fact that GH decided the absence of Elizabeth’s parents needed to be addressed as she marks 25 years as a major character is just what we wanted, but so far, the story is not being told right.
Elizabeth’s (Her)story Needs To Be Front And Center
The fact is General Hospital is taking too long to tell this much-needed tale that would explain so much of Elizabeth’s life. It was late last fall when Liz’s kids first found the photo of Jeff Webber that Elizabeth promptly tore up.
Since then, this tale has taken too many detours and seemed to focus more on her not knowing whether she should move on from losing her husband Franco Baldwin (Roger Howarth) by dating Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton). In the midst of everything, we got a ghost story and a stalker story that still didn’t tell us what really happened between Elizabeth and her parents.
After Finn discovered Elizabeth was unwittingly her own stalker, the show carted her off to Shadybrook and let her languish there off-screen for the most part until now. If Elizabeth’s backstory fans have waited 25 years to see is to be done right, Elizabeth first needs to be an active part of it.
Then, it needs to be sped along rather than thrown to the wayside for other plots involving new characters we have no emotional investment in yet. Only then will this character be given the storyline justice she so richly deserves.
General Hospital (GH) airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Port Charles, check out all the latest that’s been posted on GH spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.
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