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‘General Hospital’ Week In Review: Love Is Blindness

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Julian and Alexis’ marriage reaches a breaking point.
Julian and Alexis’ marriage reaches a breaking point.

Last week was another solid week for General Hospital with some nice moments and terrific performances. However, what stood out the most was the further destruction of super couple Julian and Alexis’ marriage. The choice to go from selfless adoration to brutal betrayal has felt a little too extreme for the couple’s large fanbase. It certainly has the audience talking.

I had this article completed yesterday but this morning I woke up to the horrific news of the mass murder at an Orlando nightclub. 50 human beings are dead because of who they chose to love. This is sickening. GH had a lot of dark moments this last week and my Week In Review was all about violence and murder. I couldn’t publish it as it was. I had to keep a lot of what I wrote about but have made some changes to my editorial to try to give it some more love and light rather than focusing so much on the mob violence. Soaps are suppose to be escapism and, when I look at what’s going on in the world, I don’t think that GH is focusing enough on the right things to provide us with that escapism. Of course a lot of that has to do with who has been chosen as the leads and heroes.

I wasn’t able to write about everything that happened last week. If you would like to share your thoughts on something I did or did not mention, please leave a comment below or tweet me and we’ll chat.

General Hospital Week In Review for the episodes that aired June 6th-9th.

Love Don’t Live Here Anymore

Julian and Alexis are so over now. This is a soap and couples who do awful things to each other often reunite but what has happened to Julexis just seems so final. A lot of fans are questioning why their breakup had to be so ruthlessly done. I don’t get it myself either though I remain intrigued as to what’s next.

It wasn’t unexpected that Julexis would split (again) because soap couples breakup all the time. The shocking part in all this is the way in which it was done. Julian’s personality has shifted quite a bit in the last month or so and his hurtful behavior towards his new wife keeps getting worse. GH is definitely pushing the envelope with this but have they gone a little bit too far? Is this the real Julian coming to the surface or is this character destruction? Fans were told that Julian loved Alexis and it’s a bit hard seeing this side to the character. Alexis is making some smart choices in how she’s handling her predicament by getting advice from her friend Diane and deciding to turn over the evidence that Julian murdered Carlos to the PCPD. But she feels like she was a fool for believing she’d finally found the love of her life. Their loyal fans feel a bit fooled too. I wish Julian and Alexis’ conflict had been handled more gently. William DeVry has an interview in this week’s Soap Opera Digest in which he expresses some of his thoughts regarding the current story. It’s a good interview and worth the read.

Julian got back into the mob to protect his sister after she was threatened. He cares about Ava so his reentrance into the Jerome Organization does make sense. Being a mobster again definitely triggered something for him because he has mistakenly found making the wrong choices to be to his benefit. Julian got the bloody shirt away from Alexis and burned it but he’s an idiot if he thinks that his troubles are now over. Alexis isn’t going to let this go and she still has the murder weapon. Their once loving relationship has now turned into a game of cat and mouse.

Peace, Love and Understanding

Dillon and Kiki have become a fast favorite amongst fans.

Dillon and Kiki have become a fast favorite amongst fans.

While I’m mourning the loss of Julexis, I’m becoming hopelessly devoted to many of GH’s new and potential pairings. Watching the path two characters take along the way as they fall in love can be the best. I think the writers are doing a terrific job of setting the foundations of attraction and building up the longing. It’s so much easier to get sucked into a couple’s journey with both those things present. GH has a sweet young romance, a pair of beautiful losers and the tease of a scheming power couple on the horizon. I really appreciate the care and slow burn given to the show’s latest love stories.

If a pairing is only together because they are single and in the same age bracket, it can be next to impossible to connect to them. Thankfully the writers have been moving characters around the canvas more and knocking down some of the barriers that had previously limited potential romances. For example, Kiki and Dillon’s romance is happening now because both characters were taken out of the boxes they had been placed in. Kiki doesn’t have to bounce between Michael and Morgan. Dillon doesn’t have to only pine after Lulu and everyone in her social circle. Most importantly, their romance doesn’t have to be based on anything tragic. They can lift each other up, supporting each other rather than tear each other down. There are other couples that are also following similar principals and fans are responding positively to these new romantics.

Jenn Bishop
Jenn Bishop was TVSource Magazine's Soap Editor. She's a thirty-something fan girl of soapy television and anything involving Joss Whedon. She began sharing her views on daytime soaps in 2012 with her blog Save Our Suds. A former philosophy major, she loves discussing different view points with fellow TV addicts and aficionados. When not watching television, she enjoys art, live music, exploring the Midwest food scene, and drinking too many lattes. Follow her on Twitter at @SourceJenn.

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2 Comments

  1. I regularly put none romantic couples (friends, enemies, etc.) on the list and thought Kelly & Dom played off each other well. Thanks for reading!

  2. ???? When did Sam and Dante become a couple after a blink and miss it scene???? Did something other than a bunch of eye rolls happen and I missed it? The scene was so insignificant you couldn’t even write about it in the column but they’re a couple now? Lol.

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