"I love you, Maxie -- like there's no tomorrow."
Those heartbreakingly prophetic words, uttered by Nathan just before he closed his eyes for the final time, broke me. I sobbed like a baby as I watched Nathan die and as Maxie made the horrific realization that the man of her dreams, the man she loved with her heart and soul, the man who had made all her deepest desires come true, and the man she planned to grow old with was gone. In just a blink of an eye, Maxie's world was completely shattered.
Kirsten Storms was amazing. It's easy to forget what a powerful performer she is because most of the time, Maxie is written to be flighty and superficial. However, the final scenes with Nathan at the hospital, and later at the apartment, were a perfect reminder that Kirsten isn't just a pretty face. She's capable of doing so much more than what she's been getting since her return. Her scenes with Nina were perfect, and they left me a blubbering mess as I watched Nina try to push her own grief back to help poor Maxie. It was all so tragic, and both Kirsten and Michelle did a phenomenal job.
After I wiped away the tears and blew my stuffy nose, my sadness shifted to confusion because I wondered why Nathan had been killed off. What purpose did it serve other than to usher Ryan Paevey off the canvas and to make Maxie single -- again? And not for nothing, but this is the third police officer that Maxie has been involved with who has died. Jesse Beaudry died in the line of duty, and Cooper Barrett became a victim of Diego Alcazar, the Text Message Killer. Now this.
I understand that it was Ryan's decision to leave, and I absolutely respect that. I wish him all the best, but just because an actor opts to move on doesn't mean that it's necessary for the character to follow suit.
I liked Nathan as a character. Nina was right, he was true north. You knew where he stood; he was good, honorable, and the glue that held his crazy ragtag family together. Also, Nathan and Maxie are a pretty popular couple, especially now that they were about to become three. I'm crushed that their story was cut short, and I know that I'm not alone.
I also fear that everyone is going to line up to blame Lulu for Nathan's death, even though Nathan was a grown man who didn't need any prodding from Lulu to do the article. He wanted to flush Faison out of hiding. It was actually a brilliant plan, and it would have worked if Faison had just taken a moment to Google his son before showing up in Port Charles with guns blazing.
It's Faison who deserves the blame for what happened to Nathan, not Lulu for writing the article, not Liesl for admitting that Faison was Nathan's father, and not Peter/Henrik for pushing Lulu to write the story. Faison is the one who gleefully pulled the trigger on the cop exiting the elevator. No hesitation. No remorse.
I just wish that Liesl had been the one to send Faison into cardiac arrest, or even Nina, because my heart broke for them as much as it did for Maxie. Nathan was so loved by the women in his life, and for good reason. He challenged the people around him to be better, and his kindness was contagious. Look how far Liesl has come because of her son, and now he's gone, and her daughter is languishing in jail. I've really grown to love Liesl, so I hope that Franco helps her through her grief until her Enkelkind is born.
Besides, Franco could use a surrogate mother right now as much as Liesl could use a surrogate son.
Still, it was a waste of a perfectly good character. Nathan shouldn't have died, and it felt like salt in a wound that Peter/Henrik had had the foresight to wear a bulletproof vest, while a police officer who had ready access to one, and a family to live for, didn't.
They should have recast the role with Wes Ramsey instead of creating a new one that appears to be headed for quite a convoluted twist. I'm referring to Anna's revelation that she and Faison have a secret child. One doesn't need a crystal ball to figure out that a search for that child will lead Anna straight to Peter/Henrik. Anna made a point of snipping a piece of Faison's hair, suggesting that there's also a possibility that someone else might be Henrik's father, which will take this story in yet another winding direction.
It's time to retire this particular tired old plot twist, especially with characters that we've watched for decades. Are we really to believe that Anna would never mention this secret child after losing Duke's child? Leora? Robin -- when everyone thought that Robin had died in a lab explosion? Unlikely.
More importantly, I can't imagine Anna allowing anyone to care for her secret child if there was even a remote possibility that they might hand him over to Faison to raise. Anna would have kept tabs on her secret child, and she would have acted the minute she learned that he had vanished. She would have hunted Faison down to make certain that he didn't have her child then she would have killed him to ensure that he didn't get his hands on him.
Additionally, Anna often spoke about how hard it was to walk away from Robin when Robin was an infant, and how she had hated settling for occasional visits with her daughter and pretending to be a family friend. It's simply unimaginable that Anna would walk away from another child and never mention him. To anyone.
I always try to keep an open mind with storylines, but I'm not thrilled with this one so far because it just doesn't jibe with what I know to be true about Anna. Also, if they were going to give Anna a long-lost son, why not let it be Griffin? There's a small army of us who have long wished that the writers would find a way for Anna and Duke's child to have lived, and we would have gladly suspended a bit of reality to have seen it happen.
The idea that Anna gave birth to her homicidal stalker's baby makes me ill.
Admittedly, I'm not very happy with the powers that be these days, so I'm a little less forgiving.
I hate that Genie Francis is out simply because she refused to be relegated to a few measly episodes a year. What was the reason for offering Genie such a paltry contract? Not only is Genie soap royalty, but Laura is an icon on General Hospital, and she's arguably the better half of one of the most popular supercouples of all time, as well as the star of the most-watched GH episode ever. Everyone that I talked to about Genie's exit told me that they looked forward to her storyline with Ned, and they were thrilled with Laura's marriage to Kevin.
I honestly can't understand what would prompt such a boneheaded decision, and my mood didn't improve when the show announced that they had just renewed Maurice Benard's contract, and they had recast Sonny's father.
Please don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge Maurice securing a contract for himself. He's an actor just like Genie, and he, too, has a family to support. He has every right to negotiate the best deal that he can get. My issue is with the decision-makers who determine who stays and who goes, and what value they place on the actors. There's no denying that the optics here are bad because it appears that ABC/Disney treats the gentlemen far better than they do the ladies.
Ironic, since a mouse and a legion of princesses built the house of Disney.
Recasting Mike Corbin, bringing on a new male character, and renewing Maurice's contract at the same time when Genie was forced out the door because they saw no value in her or her character looks bad. Very bad.
I don't expect women to receive special treatment; I want them to receive equal treatment. Shame on whoever allowed Genie to walk, because they are part of the problem, not the solution.
It's no secret that Genie spent years fighting to get the same treatment as her male costars. She wanted a generous contract like Tony Geary, nothing more, but TPTB never gave it to her, even though her character was on the show long before Luke Spencer showed up. TPTB have always valued Luke, the rapist, more than his victim, Laura, and I have no doubt that if Tony decided to step out of retirement, they would move heaven and earth to accommodate him.
That makes me incredibly sad because Genie deserved the same, no less, no more.
Moving on, this week, Nelle's veneer of reformation slipped, and we saw a glimpse of the crazy in her when Carly let Nelle know that she is well aware of Nelle's year-long stay in a psychiatric hospital. Right on cue, great big tears welled up in Nelle's eyes as she tried to play the victim, but this time, Carly saw through the act. However, I was surprised that Nelle didn't throw Carly's own history right back in her face.
Carly has no room to judge anyone about spending time in a sanitarium because she has a couple of nervous breakdowns under her own belt. Then again, Carly is ever the hypocrite, and she was bristling because Nelle had scored kudo points with Josslyn by providing Joss with a designer dress for the school dance. I cracked up because Brenda sent Carly a hideous replacement, but I was also disappointed because Brenda should have known that the dress wasn't for Carly. Josslyn is several inches shorter than her mother, and she's an adolescent.
I have no idea what Nelle has planned for Carly, but it's a safe bet that it's not going to be good. Is Nelle out to put Carly in her place, or will Nelle go the Heather Webber route and begin howling at the moon and plotting murder and mayhem? It's possible, especially since I saw sparks fly between Kiki and Michael when they bumped into each other at Kelly's. I can't see Nelle taking a rekindled romance between Michael and Kiki in stride because Nelle's plan is to become a wealthy stay-at-home mother, not a working single parent.
I confess that I'm actually looking forward to seeing how this all unfolds because Chloe Lanier is incredibly talented, and she would rock as someone going off the rails.
A crazy Nelle will have the added bonus of distracting Carly from Jason's love life.
I feel sorry for Jason. He lost everything, including five years of his life, and every time he turns around, he has Carly yapping in his ear, encouraging him to fight for Sam, despite Sam making her choice very clear by marrying Drew. Even if Carly was right about Sam marrying Drew for all the wrong reasons, it's up to Sam to figure things out for herself, not Carly. Carly also doesn't see that all she's doing by pushing Jason to not give up on Sam is setting him up for more heartbreak.
Poor Sam is stuck in the horrible position of having to repeatedly hurt Jason by rejecting him. It's obvious that it kills Sam to see the pain in Jason's eyes every time she looks at him because she knows that she's the cause of all that sadness. However, she made her choice. No one forced her to marry Drew, least of all Drew. It was Sam's decision, and she had ample opportunity to change her mind. No one would have blamed her if she had, but she didn't. Each time she was given an opportunity to back out of marrying Drew, Sam chose Drew, not Jason.
It's cruel to both Jason and Sam to continue the torture, so Jason needs to respect Sam's decision and move on with his own life.
That said, I have a feeling that Drew's search for his past is going to yield some answers that might put a strain on his marriage. From the beginning, I've suspected that Kim has been hiding something about her past with Drew because her claims that their relationship was casual doesn't line up with the picture that Oscar painted of a woman who'd been pining for her ex-lover.
What would inspire a woman to hold onto the memory of a man for fifteen years? Love, and not the unrequited kind.
This week, we finally got some answers about why Jason and Drew had been snatched out of their lives. It turns out that Faison wanted a perfect assassin, so he needed Jason's skill and Drew's undamaged brain because Jason's brain damage made him immune to Faison's mind-control technique. Meanwhile, Henrik kept Jason drugged and hidden because he intended to unleash Jason on Faison when the time was right. Oh, and Henrik has the flash drive with all of Drew's memories, but it's still unclear how he knew that Andre had hidden it in the disco ball that he gave to Anna.
What happens next remains to be seen, but if Sonny has any say in the matter, then more bullets will soon be flying because he's decided that Henrik needs to die in order for Jason to stay safe.
What kind of cop picks up a canister with his bare hands that he suspects was filled with a toxic gas and was left by the wanted criminal he's chasing down? Answer: A soap opera cop who is lucky that whatever substance Faison had in the canister wasn't deadly to the touch.
Did anyone else notice that Faison didn't have so much as a knick or a scratch on his forehead when Anna paid him a visit in the morgue, despite Kevin showing up earlier to collect Faison's brain?
I don't understand why Ava has to grovel and beg for time with Avery. Wasn't Ava granted visitation with her daughter?
I was looking forward to the mayor story line with Laura and thought Spencer could get involved when he returned for the summer. What a crock. Bad optics, GH, really bad. But yet Lucas and Valerie are back for probably 5 shows and then disappear again for a year? Oh, yay. -- Kymba O
So, let me get this straight (no pun intended). Carly and Kim don't believe their kids are mature enough to even consider having sex, or in Carly's case, capable of choosing an appropriate dress for a school dance, but they're both 100% on board with the idea of them hosting an "alternative" party where other kids their own age are encouraged to dress in a manner contrary to their natural gender. -- Scrimmage
There are several GH fans who aren't having a major problem with the character of Sam choosing Drew because she had been with Drew although she thought he was JASON. The biggest problem is how Sam has treated Jason since his return. If she had been glad to see him since he returned from the dead and hadn't avoided him except when she needed something for example, to save Drew or get a divorce. She could of simply explained to Jason how she felt and there wouldn't be as many upset fans. The show has also draw out this storyline with making Jason look so sad all the time, that GH fans want to see him less miserable and moving on with his life. -- Lynn Schultz
Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. I love hearing from readers so please feel free to email me or leave a comment below.
Take care and happy viewing,
Liz Masters
What are your thoughts on General Hospital? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
