‘General Hospital’ Picks and Pans for the Week of May 15, 2017

Pans of the Week

Unplanned Parenthood

Hayden and Finn discuss her pregnancy.

I like the pairing of Hayden and Finn, but their current flood of obstacles is the opposite of what I want to see for them. For starters, I could have lived without the drug addiction story line. It works for Finn as a stand alone character but is too heavy for his relationship with Hayden. I was looking forward to moving to the next story until I found out it’s a baby story line. Really? Who thought that was a good idea? At this point, it’s hard for me to think of Hayden and Finn as being in love let alone see them as parents together. This story is just starting so I hate to kick it so early but it’s just so not what I wanted.

There was a tease that maybe this story would be about a woman’s right to chose rather than another instant family via unplanned pregnancy. That could have at least been thought-provoking. Hayden is not in a good predicament right now. Her boyfriend is a recovering addict, she just started a new career and she wasn’t really looking to settle down. I’m not saying that she should have an abortion, just that it feels like there should have been more than a two episode discussion about this.

Chimera Twins

Finola Hughes is the best and watching a good actor play duel roles is soapy gold. That being said, this is unfortunately yet another example of a character being rewritten to serve plot. All My Children viewers know that Alex was not a villain. Last time they saw Alex and Anna together, the sisters were on good terms. Alex was brainwashed in the past so that could have been what was going on in this situation but alas it isn’t. Alex has been made the big bad because the plot needed a scapegoat.

Another very confusing aspect of this plot is the timeline. Apparently, years ago Alex attempted to obtain the chimera project from Valentin by posing as her sister and seducing him. She didn’t get the chimera but has returned many, many years later hoping to finally get her hands on it. Meanwhile, somewhere between being kicked off Pier 52 and frozen, Jason was part of the chimera project or had something to do with it or whatever. A presumed dead Jake was kidnapped when he was four-years-old and held on Cassadine island so that years later he could release the chimera in Port Charles. That’s a lot of rewriting. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional rewrite but you have to find that grey area in history for which the story could be possible. I don’t feel like that has successfully happened here.

On the Fence

State of Affairs

Michael rescues Nelle after she’s attacked on Pier 54.

Out of the four remaining soaps, I feel like GH is the one with the best couples overall. It has the kind of romantic pairings that can hook a viewer. Sweet moments like Franco and Liz’s vows to not be so overprotective of each other and Dillon and Kiki’s excitement over her exam are the kind of things I love to watch. I also liked the push and pull between Valentin and Nina, with Nina deciding she was not longer willing to see past the lies just to get to play house and Valentin realizing he lost a woman who genuinely cared for him because of his desire for “Anna”.

There were a couple of romances last week that I felt were given a bit of a heavy hand. I’ll admit that the pairing of Nelle and Michael has gotten better than when they first started but they have to overcome the fact that Nelle drugged his father and pretended she had sex with him. I’m not sure the writers really thought things through very well when they wrote that. Now Nelle has been beaten and is about to lose her remaining kidney in what I assume is an attempt to make her sympathetic. Michael’s girlfriends really have the worst luck. It could be interesting if Nelle’s need for a new kidney leads to a reveal that she has an actual familiar connection in Port Charles. Not sure if that’s how this story will go though.

Another romance that I have a mixed reaction to is Sonny and Martina. I don’t really see this as anything more than a quirky affair which is probably exactly how it is intended to be seen. The actors have really good chemistry and it’s evident why this particular formula has worked in the past. But it has been done many times before. My initial positive reaction to it faded pretty quickly and by the end of the week it just seemed silly. If GH was going to tell this tale again, they could have at least used this as an opportunity to bring on a One Life to Live or All My Children character such as Tea Delgado to spice it up a bit.