Volume I, Issue v

January 1999

The Good Stuff: 1998 in Review by Julia Hayden

The proper interweaving of storylines sometimes seems to be a lost art in the modern soap opera. General Hospital is a glorious exception. It requires proper attention paid to show and character history, family, friendship, professions, and the social interactions of small communities. That attention is evident in both the grand strokes and in the details of this show. The storylines flow into each other, invoking and echoing show and character histories. These stories affect a community of people, sometimes peripherally, sometimes totally. It does more than add a certain verisimilitude; the quality of stories and performances that are so inextricably linked make the interweaving sparkle.

History matters in this town, and it plays a potent role in these stories. These people's pasts are a part of them; their histories make them who they are, and draw some together, and push others apart. One act can ripple through the present and the past: Liz's rape sparked the eventual explosion of the never-spoken truth that Luke raped Laura, as well as her own grandmother's experience; Laura's other great unspoken truth--Nikolas' parentage--was pushed closer to revelation in the wake of the first act. In another clear example, Carly's lie over the paternity of her son echoed the lie told about the paternity of the real father decades ago. Today, it is still a ticking time-bomb in the social dynamics of the whole town, with the power to change the power dynamics.

It is a rare feat for a show to be able to spin out long, emotionally complex, storylines that arc over a period of years without the audience growing antsy or bored in the middle. Even in the case of Alan's addiction, the audience--ready to move on months ago--is still transfixed by the depth and quality of Stuart Damon (Alan)'s performance: infuriating, heartbreaking, desperate, and despairing. Who could have imagined that Carly's revelation of her maternity early in the year--two years after she arrived in town--would have seemed so natural in the arc? The Cassadines have been imploding ever since they hit Port Charles; the explosion of Nikolas paternity looks like it will ripple for a good long while.

The exquisite unfurling of the other old secret--Luke's rape of Laura--was a protracted pas de deux. In six weeks of extraordinary breath-stopping scenes, Luke's self-loathing rose to the surface and demanded his attention, even as his son was demanding answers. Those scenes, fraught with fear and loathing, were some of the most extraordinary television I've ever seen. And all around this, the Spencer marriage continued slowly disintegrating.

Even with spectacular storylines, superb acting, and witty, well-written dialogue, the show wasn't perfect. Brenda's final rejection of and goodbye to Sonny was long-overdue and quite good; but her manner of exit from the canvas was truly lousy, even if it gave Ingo Rademacher a tour-de-force sorrow and grief to portray. Additionally, the once-potent chemistry between Robin and Jason just evaporated, and the miracle drug that saved Katherine was just silly. Jane Rogers was wasted in her storyline (a fake Mac? Yawn.). Dara continues to be the world's most inept DA--and watching her taken down by doodled hearts on a fax? I'd be aggravated if I wasn't bored.

The worst thing all year was the inexplicable firing of Joseph C. Phillips. Phillips' Justus was a marvelous character, steeped in the traditions of the Wards and the Quartermaines, an infinitely interesting man. Even after his alliance with Jason, he was still a Q and a Ward, he was still the same man--a man bent on eternal punishment and exile, a man of strong loyalties and strong feeling. This Justus had a thousand layers, a complex mind, and a great rapport with his cast mates. The layers of personal history that were exchanged between the glances of Luke and Justus! That unexpected, unwilling, disbelieving smile that Edward could elicit with one of his grand schemes! Monti Sharp, who is a very talented actor, simply isn't Justus. His Justus is thinner and less complex, less driven, and seems utterly foreign. It's as if Justus had been replaced by pod people.

The recasting of Justus was a rare misstep.

Mark Teschner casts both General Hospital and its sister show, Port Charles, and he is, without a doubt, one of the best in the business. Aside from casting everyone from Rena Sofer to John Ingle, he shows particular verve in his casting of bit and supporting players. Some are merely very good. They push the story ahead, and pass through like shooting stars, but a surprising number capture the audience's attention, and become stars in the firmament. These characters--the Reggies, the Garcias, the Greg Coopers (PC)--return again and again to our screens as the cherries on our sundaes. Some--like Lisa Cerasoli (V.), and Real Andrews (Taggart)--eventually get contracts. (What a wonderful Christmas gift to get her face in the opening credits!) These characters provide an unexpected texture to the show, whether they are getting away with murder or pining after a mobster's wife.

The latest addition to this group is Patricia Healy's Tammy. She burst onto our screens in one of the first bright flashes of Luke's self-hate coming to the surface. To hold your own against Tony Geary, immersed in his brilliant portrayal of a self-loathing Luke? No easy task, and Healy handled it, well, like a pro. The man who once used sex as a tool of power and the woman who sells herself, and the scenes were riveting. The powers that be must have seen it too, for Tammy has become the sounding board and advisor to half the men in town, all of whom struggle with issues of control, power, impotence, sex, love, and hate. Healy's performance is subtle and nuanced; this is no golden-hearted stereotype.

It can be a very dangerous thing for a soap to radically change a character, even more so if you don't change the beloved actor. Brad Maule's Tony Jones was--for years--the nicest man on daytime TV. No more. Slowly pushed to the edge of a dismantled life, Tony Jones flipped. And it was good. Smug and self-righteous, self-absorbed, the new Tony Jones is alternately appalling and thrilling. To stand up at the Nurses Ball and tell a few home truths? Oh, the horror! Oh the delight! You hated him, even as you had to admit he had a point. Brad Maule has taken this opportunity and run with it, and the soap is a much better place for it. A loose cannon in the best sense of the word, Tony manages to be malevolent and manipulative and bitter and angry and a caring doctor, still. I sit up tall when he stands there smiling; he's magnetic and I can't take my eyes away.

The actors have always been one of GH's strongest strengths--picking one best actor is simply impossible, especially this year. How can anyone possibly choose? Anthony Geary [Luke] was matched step for step by Jonathan Jackson [Lucky] in those riveting scenes where Luke tells his son his most hideous truth. Stephen Nichols completely disarmed me when Stefan answered Nikolas' question "Are you my father?" Sarah Brown's bravura performance as Carly Roberts is complex and charismatic. Rebecca Herbst was a revelation as Liz Webber; a richly nuanced performance replete with exquisite feeling. Maurice Benard made an all-to-brief stop en route to an eventual return. The man could read the phone book, and have you hooked in the palm of his hand.

And then there are the characters who came into their own. Bobbie Spencer is there. If there is a central linchpin of the show, she is it. She ties everyone together--and her daughter is shaping up to be the same way. This was Bobbie's year. She found her daughter, and stood on her own. For the first time in my memory, Bobbie didn't need a man. She was fine where and who she was, and when love came knocking, she wasn't the one chasing the brass ring. Bobbie's the voice of wisdom, often unheeded. Who'd a thought? But she's still Bobbie. Cross her, and she's got a long memory. Tony's currently in her sights, and will be for a while (and ex-husband #4, Stefan Cassadine isn't that far out of scope). Ferocious as a tiger, but not so restless as one.

If Bobbie has come into her own, Audrey's life has been turned upside down, which is good news for those of us who enjoy watching Rachel Ames. Suddenly raising two teenage girls is no easy task, especially after recently losing her husband, getting operated on with a power drill and having that troublesome group of interns to look after on PC. But that was nothing, compared to what came next. When something you've been pushing away for thirty-five years moves in in such a brutal way, denial becomes a hard row to hoe. Rape. And Audrey's own fear, shame, and thin shell of denial-fed safety cracked. Fear and anger was written large over Audrey's face as she begged everyone around Liz to help her forget it. As the girl of the nineties moved towards that most modern of innovations, the support group, the acknowledgement of her experience, the danger of facing the unspeakable horror face on, her grandmother, the woman of the fifties couldn't imagine the benefits of such a thing. The pushme/pullyou of the two near about broke your heart. If Liz has emerged stronger for her experience, Audrey is still experiencing the fear of the lack of control.

Yes, they said in 1998, it was rape. In a brilliant cross-fertilization of storylines, the truth came out, and the Spencers were ripped apart in ways once thought unthinkable. In the hands of extraordinary actors like Tony Geary, Jonathan Jackson, and Genie Francis, the continuing reverberations are brilliantly portrayed. From the revelation in the vacuum of Laura's absence and the well of Lucky's anger over Liz's experience to the cascading ripples throughout their lives, this hugely complex and delicately built story has been told with rich emotion and a strong dramatic flair. The complications of Laura's relationship with Cassadine men, her Cassadine son, and her son's love for a rape survivor feel natural and organic parts of the tale.

If the fairytale of Luke and Laura has been cracked open to show the twisted and unstable roots and structure, the romance of Liz and Lucky is a sharp counterpoint. Theirs is a sweet and innocent (determinedly so) blossoming friendship. These are two people older than their age, yet their love has a purity that should feel off-center and false. It is a tribute to the abilities Herbst and Jackson that it feels just the opposite. These two are in no rush, no need to hurl face-first into the thrills of life. They are each other's haven, each other's home.

It seems a miracle; the summer of 1997 was not good to the teenagers of Port Charles. An inane storyline centered around silliness dragged them down, diluting their individual power. 1998 saw them restored to the great foursome they really are. In addition to the obvious symbolism of their antecedents (each represents a prominent Port Charles family--Spencer, Webber/Hardy, Cassadine, Quartermaine), these four share feelings of alienation and difference. They are the offspring of their families, wrapped up in those complex bonds, and yet feeling the outsider there, too. Each is struggling with an alienation specifically from their parents, but they have the wounds of real people, and not the teenage pod people so frequently seem on television. Yet they are clearly not adults; their growing pains can be painfully adolescent. There are moments of such discomfort between them when one accidentally steps on another's secret that you can almost see the spider's web that connects them all stretching almost too taut.

These four fine actors (Jonathan Jackson, Rebecca Herbst, Tyler Christopher, and Amber Tamblyn) have created real people who happen to be teenagers. Their interactions with each other and the adults in their lives ring true. Emily's adoration of Nikolas is so very sixteen, even as her love and acceptance of her father is grounded in her own experience. And Nikolas, a manchild in a strange land, has these moments of such stiff-necked vulnerability that shockingly remind you that Nikolas is a teenager still.

What makes a parent? If one thread underlay the past year, this was certainly it. Biological, emotional, moral, ethical, and loving relationships were explored through many different lenses. Carly's hat trick (her own biological maternity, her son's paternity, and her relationship with her adoptive mother) is but the most obvious example of this thread. Every successful storyline on the show explored this issue from Liz's underlying sense of abandonment by her parents to Tony's desire to regain custody of his son. Paternity and power are intertwined: Nikolas' alleged paternity keeps his clan's power concentrated in his hands. The Quartermaine grandsons are bred to compete for ELQ power and the approval of their grandfather. The custody of Lucas symbolizes Tony's return to his old position in the world (and an upper-hand over his ex-wife).

Some children are lucky; Michael Morgan has people clamoring to be in his family. His godparents are inspired choices--his Aunt Emily, the orphan who has become a Quartermaine, and Mike Corbin, who himself only recently became a true father to his than-absent son. Michael's situation echoes a classic GH storyline--the paternity of his biological father was thought to be another for his first year of life. Jason, his caretaking father was himself raised by a woman not his mother. Some children are also unlucky. Michael is a pawn, a prize sometimes to his mother, frequently to his great grandfather and the man who thinks he's Michael's uncle, and classically once to the man who wanted to be his father. Michael's birth heralded the implosion of Tony Jones.

Laura Spencer's path to motherhood has never been easy. Her lies have caught up with her and her sons. If her children have grown closer, her relationships with them remain strained. The fathers of her children have been less lucky. Their sons are instrumental in pulling their worlds down around them, but Stefan and Luke share their deepest fear--the alienation of their sons from them. Both the Spencers and the Cassadines were buffeted on all sides by the lies told between parents and children. In a family like the Cassadines where primogeniture is more than a rule, it's a way of life, these lies are timebombs. Alexis's true place in the family is nothing compared to the fireworks that will ensue from the newest revelation there is no Cassadine prince. Helena's beloved son is not the father of her grandson.

Helena Cassadine is a complex and calculating lady whose family perspective can be gleaned from her reactions to her sons Stavros and Stefan. Stavros, conveniently dead, is beloved, the man whom she thinks fathered a Prince, a young man who is the only one with the birthright to control the reigns of the Cassadine fortune. That prince is a man she can control and achieve that ultimate power she yearns for. Stefan, on the other hand, gets in the way. He is independent and separate and contemptuous--and a rival. The news that he is the father of the Prince will infuriate her beyond anything we have seen before. In one fell swoop, this will spread the Cassadine money and power thin, rob her of her last living connection to her beloved son, and severely hurt her chances for holding the Cassadine power.

How delicious. The Cassadines never do things halfway; this explosion will be good.

GH is sometimes a very atypical soap. I can count the number of marriages in the past few years on one hand; I'd hate to be a wedding planner in that town. But that's not what makes it atypical. It's the level of pandering. It feels awfully low. One gets the impression that these stories are spun without a ratings chart in one hand, and a VCR freeze-framed in the foreground. Guza and Riche have asked us to place our faith in their hands. Trust us, they say, and we'll weave you a story. We may not have liked Carly a year ago and we may want Alan to stop taking drugs already, but we do have faith that the payoff will be worth our faith.

It usually is. As disturbing as it is to think of Luke and Laura breaking up or staying together, or Laura loving Stefan, or to see her lying to her son, we are pulled along by the drama of the piece. We are caught up in these people, in their lives, these beautifully constructed lives. For every Shakespearean echo, for every invocation of Faulkner, for each literary hint I see, there is also the humanity of the sweet sad truth of a high school crush, the inability of long-married couple to fully connect with each other, and the overwhelming desire of a man to defeat those who have stolen his better days from him. These same stories have the power to make you chortle, or snort in disbelief, or simply sit in disbelief.

Beautifully constructed, I said, and I mean it. Somehow Bob Guza and his band of writers have crafted stories that delight on so many levels that the most disparate people can find joy or pathos out of the very same scene. It may not be the same joy or pathos, but it speaks to a wide variety of people. The storylines are largely well-crafted. Structurally, they are strong with investments in character and history. They are adorned with excellent dialogue and superior acting. These last two frequently save those weaker storylines.

It seems odd to end off without mentioning most of the cast, entertaining storylines, the always wonderful Nurses Ball, and beloved characters; as usual, they made me laugh and grumble and groan and mutter mean things. I still love that Lila clearly has the upper hand over Edward--and her choice of New Year's Eve companions. I adore Lisa Cerasoli's V and hope that her totally unique character won't be "soapized" into something great but relatively ordinary; Nancy Lee Grahn's Alexis and Wally Kurth's Ned have clearly been underused. Leslie Charleson's Monica is still intriguing: professionally calm and competent, but her personal life is a mess. Constance Towers Helena is cold, calculating, and conniving but I long to see her really wreak havoc.

Finally, I will miss Norma Connolly's Ruby.