Volume I, Issue vi

February 1999

GH in Review by Amy McWilliams

View a section by clicking on the links below, or read the entire review by scrolling down. The review takes up 8 separate pages, but the navigation at the top and bottom of each remains consistent.

General Hospital

Carly/Jason/Robin

Carly/Jason/Robin cont.

Sonny

The Cassadines

The Cassadines cont.

Mac and Felicia

Justus

Jax

The Spencers

Bobbie

Lucky and Elizabeth

Laura

The Quartermaines

The Cassadines

• Laura again insists that she and Stefan tell Nikolas that Stefan is his father, and he agrees. Nikolas has left, however, before they can give him the news. They talk about the past, and Stefan tells of arranging for the medical tests to prove that Nikolas was Stavros's son. Laura then receives a call saying that her mother is ill; she has to go to North Carolina and be with Lesley. Stefan welcomes the respite, and they plan to tell Nikolas upon her return. (12/28)
• Meanwhile, Nikolas overhears Katherine in conversation with Helena, and it seems very clear to him that Katherine is using him to get back at Stefan--is seeking to divide him from his uncle. When Helena leaves, he confronts Katherine, who tries to defend herself. She begins to criticize Stefan, saying that Nikolas shouldn't trust him, and blurts out that Stefan is Nikolas's father. (12/28)
• Katherine tries to explain to Nikolas--to smooth things over, to say she never intended to tell him in this way or to hurt him. He'll have none of it, and goes home. (12/29)
• Tony comes to Wyndemere to hear how Stefan wants him to help with Katherine. Stefan gives him a letter reinstating him at General Hospital. (12/29)
• Nikolas arrives then and asks Stefan for the truth. Is Stefan his father? Stefan breaks down in tears and says that he is. Stefan tries to explain, then and later, when he tells him son that he loves him. With no visible emotion, Nikolas leaves Wyndemere. (12/29)
• Katherine goes to Wyndemere to check on Nikolas, but doesn't tell Stefan the real reason she's there. Instead, she asks him to serve as emcee for the bachelor auction; he agrees. He later instructs Tony to take part in the bachelor auction. (12/30)
• Nikolas asks Lucky if he can stay at Lucky's apartment. Lucky consents, and promises not to ask Nikolas any questions. Nikolas tells Lucky, Elizabeth, and Emily that he's paid for the girls to bid at the auction--and that he and Lucky will be auctioned off. (12/30)
• Katherine is not happy to see either Tony or Carly at her charity event, but she graciously greets her guests, getting the cold shoulder from Monica and Nikolas both, and then announces that the festivities will begin. (12/30)
• Stefan calls out the matches for the men the women have blindly bid for. In the end, Katherine is left with Tony. At dinner, Tony remains calm and charming, surprising Katherine, who was expecting him to make a scene. He inquires after her condition, and she evades his questions. Later, he updates Stefan and agrees to continue to work for him. (12/31)
• Nikolas ends up with Emily, and he tells her a little more about his family troubles. She comforts him, and is thrilled to have ended up with him. (12/31)
• Helena offers Jerry a job over their charity dinner, but he turns her down and then leaves the table. (12/31)
• Nikolas tells Lucky that Stefan is his father. He asks Lucky to keep the news a secret for now, and Lucky agrees. They discuss the possibility of an affair between Laura and Stefan in the present, and Lucky seems convinced that it's what drove Luke out of town. (1/4)
• A desperate Stefan leaves a message for Laura. She comes to Wyndemere immediately upon arriving in town, and he tells her that Nikolas knows the truth and that their son confronted him about it. She asks him how Nikolas was, but Stefan can only say that he had no apparent reaction. Stefan says that they should have told him on Christmas Eve, that she had been right. Nikolas arrives home to find the two of them together. (1/4)
• Meanwhile, out on the docks, Alexis holds the key Luke gave her when he told her the truth about Nikolas. She mentions the possibility of future business to Jax, then goes to the PC Grill and tells Helena that her reign is about to end. (1/4)
• Nikolas is angry about his parents' lies, but listens, this time, to their explanations. Nikolas tells his father that he loves him and they embrace each other, weeping, as Laura leaves. Nikolas then tells Stefan that he wants to announce to the world that he is not the heir--he's only Stefan's son, and that's precisely what he wants to be. He agrees to move home and to give Stefan some time to prepare before they make the announcement and give up the fortune and power--together. (1/5)
• Alexis hints at the information she has, and Helena is just a bit impressed in spite of herself. Alexis then goes to Wyndemere and tells Stefan that she wants what is rightfully hers. She wants what he has kept from her all these years. (1/5)
• Meanwhile, Helena approaches Nikolas on the docks. (1/5)
• Alexis rages at Stefan for keeping Nikolas's true parentage a secret from her. Stefan claims that it was all for Nikolas, but Alexis threatens to expose him. She tells Stefan that she will go after the part of the fortune that is rightfully hers, not because she wants the money, but because it's the only way to reclaim what he has taken from her. (1/6)
• Nikolas confronts Helena, meanwhile, telling her that he knows all about her plans with Katherine. When he returns home, he tells Stefan that Katherine was the one to tell him the truth. Stefan says that he's afraid Katherine will tell Helena. (1/6)
• Katherine later meets with Helena. She says nothing of Nikolas's true father. (1/6)
• Nikolas admits to his affair with Katherine; Stefan tells him that he already knows. He then asks Nikolas to keep Katherine on his side, to pretend to still be on hers, so that she won't tell Helena what she knows. Nikolas goes to Katherine, but can't hide his anger. Helena arrives, coming through the windows in the same manner Nikolas had, to witness their argument. (1/8)
• Nikolas orders Katherine to send Helena away. She does, and then he works again at regaining her trust by apologizing. She promises that she won't tell Helena the secret. (1/11)
• Nikolas tells Stefan about his meeting with Katherine. Katherine, who's been pestering Emily to get in touch with Nikolas, arrives to inform Nikolas and Stefan that the auction had been a success. Alone, Nikolas convinces her that he wants to see her again. Later, he comforts himself and Stefan with the thought that they can soon tell the world that they are father and son. (1/12)
• Stefan plans to meet Laura and asks Nikolas to join them. Nikolas tells him to take the time with Laura alone, as Nikolas knows he wants to. He encourages his father to make up for lost time. (1/14)
• Nikolas tells Stefan that he will continue lying to Katherine; Katherine hears that Nikolas will be at Emily's birthday party. Later, he goes to Katherine's room at the Q mansion and she invites him in. They talk, and then make love, and Emily walks in on them. Nikolas accuses Katherine of setting him up. (1/15)
• Meanwhile, Stefan meets again with Tony Jones. (1/15)

Stefan: "Laura, I am--I am depending upon you. I am asking you to be my advocate. Now, he may want to turn away from me. That's understandable for a time. But if Nikolas should ever cut himself off from me for months, for years, I don't--"
Laura: "Listen to me. You held our son and comforted him when I couldn't. If it's my turn to do that now, I will do it with pleasure. I don't believe that he will ever forget everything that you have meant to him. But if he tries, I will be there to remind him."

Laura: "No. No, I was just remembering how all of this began and how that day lead to this one. Do you believe that I meant to return to you and Nikolas when I left you on the island?"
Stefan: "When you left, yes. But when you saw Luke alive--"
Laura: "No. That's not true. When he saw me--when he saw me, I ran away. I never told you that? I ran away, and he ran after me. He caught up with me, and I tried to pull away from him. I begged him to let me go. That was never, ever supposed to have happened. I was terrified. I didn't know if we were going to be shot at. And then he just picked me up, and he carried me back into the house. And that's when it all began--all the lies. And then Stavros came after us."
Stefan: "And then Helena's order to stay away. The threat she used me to carry out against your mother. I know the rest."
Laura: "Do you? Do you know that Luke didn't kill Stavros?"
Stefan: "It's best we don't speak of that."
Laura: "Why? If he had--if I had, I wouldn't regret it today. He terrorized us. He took me prisoner, for god's sake. He forced me to live with him as his wife. You think there weren't times when murder occurred to me? Did it ever occur to you? You must have thought--I know I did--that life would have been better for us if Stavros didn't exist."
Stefan: "Once you left the island and left Nikolas with me, I had already procured the poison."

Stefan: "I know now that I never would have gone through with it. He was, after all, my brother. But once the possibility began to take shape in my mind, I had to research it to know what I needed, to be sure it would be on hand when I needed it. The day Nikolas was born, I took the doctor aside. They'd just examined Nikolas and placed him in your arms. Stavros was at your side--his proudest hour. I had confided to Dr. Lastiras that certain family members had begun to whisper about the closeness between my brother's young wife and one of the menservants. And it was imperative to confirm for Stavros' own sake that the child was truly his. The doctor promised discretion. He agreed to run the necessary tests. And I told him I would find a pretext to have my mother's nurse draw Stavros' blood. I furnished the doctor with a sample of my own blood instead. The day we learned that Stavros was dead, that very evening the doctor called, said he had good news. Stavros was definitely Nikolas' father, which of course meant that I was definitely Nikolas' father. I--I couldn't sleep, imagining your face when I told you, wondering if I should tell you. You never came back."

People who have read me for a while will remember that I am fond of retellings. This particular set was intriguing because one was of events burned into our memory--images of a balcony, of a blue dress, of a desperate embrace--and the other was events written new into the history of the show. Laura will comfort and guide the son she abandoned so long ago. Laura will defend Stefan to Nikolas because she cannot bear to see another son turn on his father because of lies that she helped keep. She will also defend Stefan to their son as pennance for the return to life and Luke that she was never supposed to have.

Her retelling of that day is, technically, correct. Laura did start to move away from Luke, scared of the consequences, but then went back to him. I would be lying, however, if I said her recounting of the story didn't bother me. She was using that moment to prove to Stefan, it felt to me, that she hadn't abandoned their son willingly. Yes, she intended to go back to her son; she's said that before. But this time, she says or seems to say that she meant to return to Stefan, but that Luke made her decision for her. With that stroke, she elides any certainty we have that she would have chosen to stay with Luke, convincing Stefan, instead, that she wanted to return to him. In addition, she says that life would have been better for them if Stavros had been dead. Stavros was the obstacle to her and Stefan's happiness, rather than hers with Luke, or even rather than Stefan being the obstacle himself. Her retelling moves from the assurance that she intended to return through a recasting of that famous scene as a proof of that assurance to a contemplation of life together--with Stefan. She drains the scene on the Mayor's lawn of its importance by creating a fictional, "what if," timeline of her and Stefan together, back on the island, without Stavros.

Perhaps it is the fame of the scene that bothers me, or the knowledge of the relief and joy on her face when Luke caught her up her arms that keeps me from accepting whole-heartedly the frame or intent of her retelling. What I do not object to, however, is Laura allowing herself to imagine Stefan as a concrete, current possibility--allowing herself what to see what could have been and what could yet be. She needs to do that, but she also needs to claim the power to make a choice. Yet even in her retelling, she denies herself all choice in her return to Luke, just as she casts Stefan as an option only in the past.

Laura: "Why burden him in that way? Wouldn't it be better for him to have a father than a title?"
Stefan: "How can I answer that now? Obviously, I thought that he had more to gain from his heritage than from his parentage."
Laura: "You were so wrong."

I also do not begrudge Laura the pleasure she finds in the prospect of giving Nikolas his father--of reuniting two people whom she loves. One of the things I've always loved about her is that she can see the good in people. If she is choosing to only see good in Stefan now, it is because she has tried for so long to force herself only to see the bad.

Love it.

Nikolas: "'Real.' So that would make me third? The third person you've had real feelings for in the short time that I've known you? I'm telling you, maybe you're just not capable of feeling anything more for a human being than for a blouse or a handbag."

Katherine: "Nikolas, please."
Nikolas: "It's not going to work. All right? I will never take your word over my uncle's."
Katherine: "Don't compare me to him. You mean more to me than some fortune to be collected. That's all you are to him. Do you understand that?"
Nikolas: "Wait a minute. My god--Helena's thoughts, her words, her everything--coming from you. Are you that brainwashed, Katherine? I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved with you."
Katherine: "Nikolas, don't."
Nikolas: "I should have listened to my uncle when he said you were someone that we didn't want to know anymore."
Katherine: "Someone who knew too much, is what he meant."
Nikolas: "Too much?"
Katherine: "He's afraid that I'll tell you that he's not your uncle. He's your father!"

As Laura went to see after her mother in North Carolina, Katherine made her decision with Stefan to tell Nikolas the truth beside the point. I applauded Nikolas for his response to her, for keeping his cool and not giving anything away, thereby keeping himself from being even more vulnerable in front of a person he believed to be his enemy. As for Katherine, she simply looked worse, and I didn't think that was possible. She couldn't stand to be accused of lying to Nikolas, but she couldn't defend herself without hurting him with the truth. She wanted to hurt Stefan; I'm sure of it. She couldn't stand knowing that he was a liar and not telling somebody, but she couldn't tell anybody who could hurt Nikolas. Instead, she simply told Nikolas, hurting him herself in the process.

Tony: "Katherine. Well, I assume you don't want her killed."
Stefan: "Would you care for a glass of sherry, doctor?"
Tony: "No, thank you. Do you want her bankrupted? Driven out of business? Driven out of town? No, wait. I think that's already been tried, actually. So, let's see, if 's not a medical matter, would you like me to cultivate her? Just kidding. I mean, like, distract her. Become her friend? Her enemy? Make a fool out of her? Make love to her?"

The look on Stefan's face at this last suggestion cracked me up. These two play off each other very well, and I wouldn't mind seeing them actually have a plot. Heck, Tony with a plot? What a novel idea.

Stefan: "Oh, I didn't hear you come in. You left early this morning. Meetings? Oh, no matter. You don't have to account for every move. Will you be having dinner here?"
Nikolas: "Are you my father?"

Stefan: "When I first brought you to this country--"
Nikolas: "Wait. You didn't bring me here. You followed me here."
Stefan: "I knew there were certain attendant risks, but I thought the benefit of knowing your mother--"
Nikolas: "What is this, a speech?"
Stefan: "The benefit of knowing your mother outweighed.... Yes. I am--I am your father. Yes. We--we had planned to tell you. It was Christmas. And then today your mother was called away."
Nikolas: "Stavros? Stavros? What about Stavros?"
Stefan: "Stavros. Stavros. My brother. A lost, lost soul. He was overindulged, undisciplined. Starved of everything but power and flattery. He became a drunken tyrant. It was the only thing he ever forced himself to learn."
Nikolas: "And that made it all right? Laura said that she saw something in him. But it--wasn't him, was it?"
Stefan: "No. But don't blame her. She tried. He adored her, but he--she never used it against him. He would go away for weeks at a time, force distant relatives to entertain him, always hoping when he returned to see something in her eyes other than fear. At home, he drank himself unconscious more nights than not."
Nikolas: "Why did you teach me to revere him? Huh? Not him, this--this person that you created, who half existed and who was half a play on words. You told me that I was conceived in love. You told me about how my father and Laura met, about how this fairy tale that I was supposed to believe and not understand."
Stefan: "I thought it was important."
Nikolas: "What was?"
Stefan: "For you to think of your father as someone you could have loved and respected."
Nikolas: "I couldn't have loved you? Respected you?"

Nikolas: "So, what was it for? Hmm? The title and the power, the fortune? Was it for you, or was it for me?"
Stefan: "Nikolas, I know you must be angry. I don't blame you."
Nikolas: "How? You've taught me everything from Greek to table manners. But you can't know me very well if you thought this is what I'd choose."
Stefan: "I did what I thought was safest and best for you. If I was wrong, I don't suppose I was the first man who wanted to give his son the world."
Nikolas: "That's not what you did. You remember when I made you take me to see that hypnotist in Prague when I was about 7 or 8? Remember?"
Stefan: "Yeah."
Nikolas: "The lady, she hypnotized this man in the audience. And she made him walk around like an ape, act like an ape. And then she snapped her fingers, and it was over, and the man began to cry, not because she made him walk around like an ape, but because he really believed he was one. Now, tell me how is that different than what you've done to me, huh? You turned me into a thief. My inheritance isn't even mine."
Stefan: "It would not exist if not for you."
Nikolas: "No, it belonged to the Belgian Cassadines and the baron's children in Macao and to Helena, Alexis, and Cousin Mikhail who took holy orders from--"
Stefan: "Where would be our center, then? Who would bind us the way you bind us now? Only you have the compassion and the grace, the intelligence, the training."
Nikolas: "Everything but the right. Or is that the point, huh? Am I your revenge against all of them? Was the secret to put them in their places, huh?"
Stefan: "No."
Nikolas: "To put Laura in her place, then?"
Stefan: "No."
Nikolas: "Oh, come on. You never used it and wanted to use it against her? You never threatened to tell Luke? Oh, I see. I see. It's like the secret of the rape. You were just waiting for the perfect moment, huh?"
Stefan: "No, it would have gone to the grave with me."
Nikolas: "You just said you were going to tell me on Christmas."
Stefan: "Only because we knew what Luke intended. Laura and I were going to tell you, yes."
Nikolas: ""Luke intended"? Intended what?"
Stefan: "Did you hear this from him or from someone else?"
Nikolas: "What difference does that make now?"
Stefan: "It makes a great deal of difference. If it was Helena, steps must be taken for your protection."
Nikolas: "Helena? I'm not important enough to kill anymore."
Stefan: "You are more than important to me, as she well knows. Now, you must--you must promise me that you will tell no one else what we have discussed."
Nikolas: "I can't do that."
Stefan: "Nikolas, I have handled this badly. I know. It makes no sense for me to sit here and defend my choices, but all of your questions have answers. I will give them freely."
Nikolas: "Then you tell me why it's a Cassadine's duty to hate the Spencers. Luke didn't kill my father. You did."
Stefan: "Nikolas."
Nikolas: "Get away."

The editors were split on this scene. On the one hand, Stefan's tie to Nikolas has always been his most humanizing quality, and by that I mean what makes him appear most fallible, sympathetic, vulnerable, and strong all at once. No matter who's writing or what the story is, Stefan loves Nikolas in the same, constant, self-sacrificing way. This revelation has been a long time coming, and that it would be tarnished by Katherine's articulation makes it, perhaps, even more moving.

At least in theory. On the flip side, there was something off about these scenes for more than one of us. Terry loved them: "Stefan has really lost it like that twice--when he thought Laura was dead, and when Nik walked out. Since he is usually so restrained, the collapse was jarring, I agree, but I think it was effective. It lasted once scene only, and then he was back to being overly in control. That worked for me." It is in character for Stefan to have these rare bursts of emotion; that may be paradoxical, but it's true. But there was something in the execution that tripped me up, as well as Joan. Joan said, in a post to ratsa, "If Stephen Nichols had overacted any more, he would have turned into a glazed ham. He hugged furniture, he wept rivers, he did that horrible ear-grabbing thing I hate--I was appalled. The Stefan I used to love would have kept it all back and then dissolved--quietly but tellingly--after Nikolas had left. Bah, hambone!"

I came somewhere in the middle. I liked it better than Joan, by many degrees, though there was still something in it that wasn't...perfect. I liked best Stefan's attempt to give the speech he had no doubt been preparing ever since Laura convinced him to tell Nikolas, and, most probably, ever since they landed in Port Charles. This is the man of words trying to fall back on those words in a moment where words fail, and I thought that beginning of the scene was the best. The painful relief Stefan must have felt that the secret was out made his reaction understandable to me. Even his display of emotion, rather than some stoic response to his son, made sense. After all, with no emotion, would Nikolas have responded any better?

Indeed, I think the thing that gave me trouble with Stefan's reaction was Nikolas's stoicism--the shot of him with his chin in his hand was especially effective to show his removal from the situation and his refusal to break down. He learned that from Stefan. It came across as comic exasperation, however, and wrecked the tone of the scene for me. Nichols overplayed, I think; the scene when Laura "dies" in the explosion is much stronger stuff, "Twist of Fate" fiasco aside. Finally, it was a scene that worked for me better in theory than in practice. Perhaps that's because I wanted perfection, or perhaps it was something in the writing or performance. I know that I liked better the first segment with the failed speech and the last segment--when Stefan told NIkolas that he loved him--than the middle part.

Stefan: "Where are you going?"
Nikolas: "I don't know."
Stefan: "Nikolas, please don't leave."
Nikolas: "I'm going into town."
Stefan: "For how long?"
Nikolas: "I don't know. All I know is I can't be here right now."
Stefan: "Why not?"
Nikolas: "Because everything I have is stolen."
Stefan: "Well, it's too dangerous. It's better if I go instead. I'll go."
Nikolas: "I'm going, all right? You'll hear from me."
Stefan: "No. Nikolas, wait. There's something I forgot to tell you. I love you. You are life to me--sun, moon, and sea, blood and breath. I would ask you not to leave. Please."
Nikolas: "I'm sorry, uncle. I--you see? I don't even know your name."
Stefan: "My Nikolas--"
Stefan: "Oh, god."

And I did like this scene very much. What struck me most was the comparison of this scene to Lucky's departure from Luke and his parents' home after the revelation of his father's secret, also heard second-hand, also ending in confrontation and accusation. Luke sat mute on the sofa, unable to speak after baring his guilty soul to his son; Stefan managed to find words of love because his secret was of love, not violence. That difference would mean that Nikolas would respond, in the end, unlike Lucky had. He still walked out after hearing the truth from his father's lips, leaving Stefan to wonder what he was thinking and feeling.

Katherine: "Thank you for seeing me. I--I didn't think you would."
Stefan: "And why wouldn't I?"
Katherine: "Well, I just know how you hate people showing up without warning."

I was surprised that Katherine's lines above didn't give away the fact that she was the one who told Nikolas. It was clear that she expected Nikolas to have told Stefan; perhaps that was simply her guitly conscious acknowledging that she did want to hurt Stefan and had done so through Nikolas.

Stefan: "Have you made plans for this evening, doctor? Or do you prefer to spend New Year's eve in quiet reflection?"
Tony: "Oh, no, I love big parties and lots of noise. The problem is all my invitations have been lost in the mail."
Stefan: "Good, then you're free."
Tony: "To do what?"
Stefan: "To be auctioned off at general hospital's aids charities event."
Tony: "I thought the idea was to make money."
Stefan: "Yes, of course."
Tony: "Well, then you should get yourself another bachelor because my stock's been down lately."
Stefan: "Well, the auction is blind, doctor. The women won't know who they're bidding on until it's too late."

We saw it coming, of course. Bachelor auction, Katherine and Nikolas break up, Tony Jones visiting Wyndemere. It was still a hoot to realize what Stefan was up to. Predictability is not always a bad thing.

Lucky: "I don't have a cot here. I mean, it's the floor or the tub."
Nikolas: "Listen, if you don't want me to be here, then all you got to do is say that."
Lucky: "I know."

Nikolas: "Yeah, that's mine. Thanks."
Lucky: "Guess you figured I was a lock for saying yes."
Nikolas: "I was hoping pretty hard, yeah."

It was also predictable that Nikolas would go to Lucky--would tell Lucky the truth. I was still absolutely thrilled to see him go to his brother for help, and to see Lucky give it without question.