The Cassadines (cont.):

Helena: "Well, how does the place look to you? The same?"
Lucky: "Seems smaller."
Helena: "You grew up."

Helena: "Why don't you select the table."
Lucky: "This one right here."
Helena: "May I ask why this one?"
Lucky: "My mom used to help me with homework here before the dinner crowd."
Helena: "I'm glad to hear at least some effort was made on behalf of your education, even if it was only a public school in British Columbia."

Helena: "Well, it certainly is an interesting place."

Helena: "Do you have any idea how it got its name?"
Waitress: "From the first owners, I think, for luck."
Helena: "Isn't it nice to be back where it all began?"

Helena: "Were you a regular student?"
Lucky: "Except when my dad picked me up to go fishing. He'd scribble out these notes from the dentist and the doctor and the podiatrist."
Helena: "Your father can be very persuasive."
Lucky: "After the tour, we're going to head back to Port Charles?"

Lucky: "You know, when we moved in there, we'd been on the road a long time. All over the place. It was weird waking up in the same bed day after day. Anyway, that's where we lived."
Helena: "Well, the stability must have been a tremendous relief."
Lucky: "Yes, it was."
Helena: "I only wish that your parents had cared enough to have given you that stability from the very start."

Helena: "Would you like some coffee?"
Lucky: "Only if you do."

Helena: "Lucky, I so appreciate our tour, but you must be anxious to leave."
Lucky: "Kind of."
Helena: "It was a rare opportunity for both of us, don't you think? I mean, I really felt privileged to share your memories, your past."
Lucky: "You're giving me cash?"
Helena: "Well, $500 should be sufficient, especially when you add it to the money that you have appropriated. And you might as well keep the jewelry, too. But try to get a fair appraisal."
Lucky: "So, what's the money for?"
Helena: "I'm very proud of you. You're a clever, most independent young man. And I think those qualities will serve you well."
Lucky: "When?"
Helena: "Now. You're on your own, Lucky. I'm leaving."

Lucky: "I can leave?"
Helena: "Or you can stay."
Lucky: "What about Port Charles?"
Helena: "I seriously doubt that Port Charles will sink into the harbor."
Lucky: "But I thought we were going back."
Helena: "What's to stop you from going? Although you might want to wait for your parents. I thought they might be here by now."
Lucky: "Just like that? I'm on my own?"
Helena: "Now it's all up to you."

V. Stefan Confronts His Mother (4/7, 4/10)

Helena looked in at Lucky at the diner, apparently making sure he was going to stay, before leaving for her plane.

Helena: "Andreas, tell the pilots I'm ready to leave and bring the champagne. Today definitely calls for a celebration."
Stefan: "What are you celebrating, mother? It wouldn't have anything to do with Lucky Spencer, would it?"

Helena reached down and kissed the king from her chessboard just before Stefan put his hands around her throat. He would leave his hands there for much of their conversation.

On the next day:

Stefan: "None of your minions are available, mother."
Helena: "How very inconvenient."
Stefan: "And potentially fatal for you."

Helena: "I delivered Lucky to the haven of his choice--a grim little diner outside of Vancouver."
Stefan: "Delivered him in what condition?"
Helena: "Healthy and vigorous, at the peak of his youthful appeal. If you don't believe me, ask his mother. They're probably reuniting as we speak."
Stefan: "Well, that's a dream come true for Luke and Laura but not very satisfying for you."
Helena: "Luke and Laura will soon discover the depths of my revenge. Years of waiting and planning, patiently biding my time, all leading up to this moment. Oh, kill me if you like. I'll die content."

Stefan: "Don't move. You are strangely smug for a woman who's come away empty-handed."
Helena: "My heart is full."
Stefan: "With so much time and money wasted, what have you managed to gain?"
Helena: "The rush you felt when you poisoned me, watching me lie still and mute, standing over me with my life in your hands. That is the satisfaction I feel now."
Stefan: "Momentary exhilaration fueled by denial."
Helena: "Momentary for you, yes. You didn't inherit my tactical skills."
Stefan: "Oh, the skills you used to unite Luke and Laura in a desperate, dramatic search for their son?"
Helena: "It was a lovely touch, don't you think? My tour of their glorious past."
Stefan: "Brilliant. Now they have everything. You've lost your leverage, mother. The Spencers have won."
Helena: "The Spencers are ruined."
Stefan: "You're deluding yourself."
Helena: "No. But Luke and Laura are. No, their childish dreams will shrivel and die, not once but a thousand times."
Stefan: "Ah. How Dante-esque."
Helena: "You are as transparent as ever. You're curious, but you're too proud to ask. Let me give you a hint. Delegation is the key to lasting success. One must never handle the details. One recruits experts for that. Now, poison, for example--it's very effective when administered by a professional, but you made the mistake of acting alone. I hired competent staff."
Stefan: "Faison."
Helena: "Yes! Oh, you finally figured it out. After how long? Eight months?"
Stefan: "It's too bad for Faison you're so literal when it comes to terminating the help."
Helena: "I was very fond of him. He was very clever, unlike you. And it was very dear of him to unearth the drug that allowed me to speak and move. Unfortunately, Cesar had a rebellious streak."
Stefan: "So you killed your only ally?"
Helena: "You're speculating."
Stefan: "So what are you left with?"
Helena: "The joy of watching my enemies suffer."
Stefan: "But for Luke and Laura the suffering is over."
Helena: "Oh, no. No. No, it has only begun. You wait and see. You may enjoy it as compensation for your loss. Or haven't you admitted to yourself that Laura is permanently out of your life?"
Stefan: "You're right. I have lost Laura. And for that I sincerely thank you."

Stefan: "They say men fall in love with their mothers. I never thought that applied to me."
Helena: "Isn't it a little late for Oedipal mumblings?"
Stefan: "I understood too late that you molded the contours of my heart."
Helena: "You were a stranger to me from the day you were born, like you were someone else's child, some insignificant person--a tutor, a shopkeeper perhaps."
Stefan: "A mortal born to a goddess with golden hair and luminous eyes."
Helena: "You were a painful disappointment to me. Sallow, puny, underweight."
Stefan: "You were exquisite, poised, a feast for the eye, but toxic to the heart."
Helena: "You wouldn't sleep. You wouldn't nurse. And you never smiled."
Stefan: "How could I smile with a mother as cold as ice?"
Helena: "You barely acknowledged me. I could have been anyone--the wet nurse, the maid who changed the sheets."
Stefan: "I adored you. And I hated you."
Helena: "Stavros was my saving grace."
Stefan: "I promised myself I would find someone different from you in every way."
Helena: "So you threw yourself at a silly peasant."
Stefan: "I unwittingly returned to the source--the golden hair, the luminous eyes. The porcelain skin that cried out to be touched. Laura had all that and something more. She needed me, I thought."
Helena: "The comparison revolts me. I imagine that's the point."
Stefan: "I fell in love with my mother--a kinder version, but just as remote."
Helena: "Introspection doesn't become you--or anyone else, I might add."
Stefan: "I fell in love with rejection."
Helena: "Don't you dare blame me for your inadequacies."
Stefan: "No. I'm not, mother. You gave me great strength. You taught me the seminal lesson of my life--how to close my heart and turn my back on a woman who offers only pain. So you see, I owe you an enormous debt. And all my debts I repay."
Stefan: "This is the fugitive, Helena Cassadine. These gentlemen will escort you to jail. Following your extradition, you will again be escorted to Port Charles where you will be taken into custody, arrested, and charged with kidnapping. I believe this settles my overdue account."

Helena: "How many times have you sent me away in handcuffs? Haven't you noticed I always come back?"

Stefan: "Mother? Thank you. Thank you for breaking the grip of my obsession. I've never felt better in my life, proving that quaint old adage, 'Mother's love is the best love there is.'"

Stefan moved the chessboard and set down close to her on the coffee table for this conversation, touching her cheek at one moment, and kissing her hand before rising to go to the curtain and call the guards. The last segment began with a shot of her hands in cuffs. I wondered if he was more obsessed with Helena or Laura.

Judy: "This was a HUGE moment, superbly acted, but it did feel a too 'pat' for me, a little too neat and tidy. I mean, here's a 20 year obsession wrapped up in the course of about 10 minutes: shades of Culliton's heavy-handed 'I've burned Laura's portrait, now I can move on to Kayla...er...Katherine.'"

"Granted, we could certainly see it coming this time, after Laura stood by Luke and refused when Stefan offered his help. But Stefan's spent the majority of time lately off-screen, so I feel as if this story's lacking that 'middle thing' again (Guza's biggest problem, in my opinion). Suddenly, we've gotten from point A to point B, but I'm not sure how; there's been no real progression. (One positive thing, however, is that Stefan's acknowledgment of his 'blonde obsession' may subvert any romantic attachment to the very blonde--and very bland--Chloe, who now seems destined to insert herself into this story.)"

"What I wanted, since Stefan and Laura completely fizzled (languishing because Guza sorely neglected them), was a good Cassadine story involving the real reasons behind Helena's animosity toward her son. I hope that 10 minutes of expository dialogue wasn't it...."

Terry: "I would agree that hurting Stefan is part of the fun. It seems clear that she is still bent on making the two of them suffer, but perhaps she does expect them to do so together. That makes Stefan's airplane conversation with her the other day intriguing--how serious was hi about thanking her for helping him get over Laura, and how much of that was false bravado designed to keep her from seeing how hurt he was by Laura? Bad enough to have Laura hurt him so badly, but even worse to let his mother see his pain and revel in it as part of her plan."

"I think Stefan has been deeply affected by Laura's repudiation, but to me, he's sounds a lot like the bitter man who arrived in PC years ago, in love with Laura but wishing he weren't."

Amy: "Consider the audience. This was primarily performance for his mother, to whom he'd never admit that Laura could still hurt him. I also chalk his seeming density about the possibilities that a L&L&L reunion could be unhappy to the act of performance as well. Finally, I found the description of his obsession to be more about his mother than about Laura. He may see the similarity finally (and I was waiting for one of them to note that Helena, too, always loved somebody else more), but that doesn't mean that he has made his peace with Laura. He thought he'd lost her before--was angry with her for her choices--and still came back."

Joan: "Yeppers, it was a head moment, not a heart one, a set piece. While I admired Stefan's chat with Helena intellectually, I didn't believe a word of it. It's funny--I called Terry 20 minutes into the episode because I couldn't contain myself--the Martinez-Zeman scene was so hot!--but that was precisely when Stefan told Helena he was grateful to her. When I tuned back in, all of this carefully crafted (and scripted) stuff was flowing seamlessly from his lips. I didn't believe any of it."

Amy: "But it was oh, so fun to watch! Delicious. And how long has it been since I said that about Stefan?"

Judy: "What I want to know is: Is this Andreas making a final commitment to Stefan (how romantic-sounding!) by allowing him access to Helena's plane (and cervical spine)? Or is he bound and gagged in the galley? If it's the former, I do hope Stefan rescues him from Helena's wrath, rewarding his loyalty with a permanent position!"

"...and if it's the latter, I've gotta get to that galley! *g*"

Amy: "I don't know what's up with Chloe, but it might be interesting to find that Helena was aiming for Chloe, rather than Alexis, for some reason, but wouldn't tell Andy because she knew he'd go to tell Stefan. Whatever. Let's have more Andy."

VI. The Search Continues (4/12, 4/14)

Stefan: "Helena is in custody."
Alexis: "Oh, yes! Where?"
Stefan: "In British Columbia, awaiting extradition."
Alexis: "Oh, my--what are the charges?"
Stefan: "Kidnapping, of course. Helena was on her jet. She was ready to leave the country."
Alexis: "Yeah."
Stefan: "I caught her."
Alexis: "Mm-hmm."
Stefan: "My hands were around her neck."
Alexis: "No."
Stefan: "I watched the police escort her off her jet in handcuffs."

Stefan: "Lucky will tell us he was kidnapped."
Alexis: "Maybe. That's if she didn't kill him."
Stefan: "No. She didn't kill him."
Alexis: "How do you know that? She doesn't have any use for him anymore."
Stefan: "Maybe she still has use for him. You know, she allowed me to almost find Lucky. She thought I would break when I realized Laura was gone."
Alexis: "Where is Laura?"
Stefan: "She's with Luke, I suppose. Doesn't really matter. Helena miscalculated. Lucky is free now. So am I. After all these years, I've finally realized that Laura was nothing but a fantasy, a substitute, really."
Alexis: "Good for you."
Stefan: "Yes, good for me."
Alexis: "So now you can just let her go."
Stefan: "I have let her go. But I still have to find Lucky to prove she misjudged me. Then I'll walk away."
Alexis: "Walk away now."

Nikolas: "She probably already killed him. Can't you see that?"
Stefan: "Nikolas, she would not kill Lucky--for your sake, if nothing else."
Nikolas: "Look, if you know where Lucky is, tell me, Stefan, please."
Stefan: "All right, listen, listen--I will find Lucky."
Nikolas: "And how can I believe that?"
Stefan: "You'll believe it when I bring him home."
Nikolas: "Well, I won't wait that long."

On the next day:

Stefan: "How soon will Helena be released from custody?"
Alexis: "Tomorrow, if you don't find some evidence against her."
Stefan: "Don't worry, Alexis."
Alexis: "I am worried. I'm worried that she's going to go after you. And she will."
Stefan: "No, no. She won't have the chance. I should have that witness we need very soon. Laura is searching for Lucky again. I'm having her followed."
Alexis: "Oh, that's great. That will really endear you to the woman you love."
Stefan: "Pleasing Laura is no longer a priority."
Alexis: "Really? You're over her just like that? After everything that you've been through with her, for her?"
Stefan: "Yes. I thought you'd be pleased. You've wanted me to cut ties with Laura for years. Now I have."

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