General Hospital Watching General Hospital

[Ray&Donna]

It looks like this entire week will be reruns of the Nurses Ball from six years ago

 

[Daniel Avery]

I never understood how Nelle married Shiloh in the first place?

I recall a scene in Pentonville where Shiloh was in a meeting room (or maybe that place where they visit with people and talk on the little fake phones) and an alarm went off. Nelle was nearby delivering linens (her prison job) so when the guards enacted a lockdown, the guard pushed Nelle into the room with Shiloh and locked it while the guards investigated the source of the alarm. Totally would never happen IRL (convicted rapist locked in a room with young woman with no supervision), but it was done in that period where they sprinkled Nelle's appearances into all the Pentonville shenanigans. They didn't follow up on it immediately, since her scenes were mostly included just to hint at stories that might occur and keep her in the mix without having the actress more frequently. It was a case where the build-up isn't important to the writers, as they are more focused on the fallout (Nelle having a claim to Oscar's ELQ shares).

 

[Ray&Donna]

Nelle having so much freedom in prison seemed more than a little far-fetched at the time. She was a "model" prisoner despite being a sociopath in reality

 

[Daniel Avery]

And I'm no expert on prison, but don't they send women to women's prison? Are co-ed prisons a thing now?

 

[Ray&Donna]

Yeah, that's what Rose told Blanche in the murder mystery episode: they'll put you in a women's prison. But it would seem Pentonville is co-ed. Remember Ava was part of the prison break where Sonny saved the Haunted Star from a bomb?

 

[Daniel Avery]

Yeah, and Madeline would have been along for the ride if she had not refused to go along. Ah, good times.

 

[Ray&Donna]

I still have an unanswered question about Madeleine--did Valentin contribute to her demise?

 

[Daniel Avery]

They left a lot of ambiguities with her, and it frustrated me at the time. I definitely think they wanted us to believe Valentin had something to do with her death, if there even WAS a death. Valentin was pulling out all the stops to win Nina back, and he mentioned at the time how Madeline kept hurting Nina even from behind bars (trying to get Nina and/or Maxie to help her get paroled by pretending to be repentant), only to have news of her death come within the next episode or two. I'm not sure but I think he visited her in prison shortly before that, too. The autopsy said she died of a heart attack, but Liesl swore up and down that her sister was in perfect health and wanted there to be further investigation. There wasn't, obviously--the scenes were more about planting doubts in the viewers' minds than actually advancing a plot. I thought at the time that Valentin could have pulled strings to get her released from prison, faked her death and paid her off to leave the country and never contact Nina again. This would have allowed Donna Mills to return and stir up trouble when/if she wanted. I had to give up that dream when it was stated later on (via ret-con) that Liesl saw Valentin take a DNA sample from Madeline as she laid in the coffin (which...ick), the DNA he used to fake the Nina/Sasha maternity tests. By this point I decided they must have moved on from Madeline (and Mills), so I'm resigned to not seeing her back again. And even if Valentin did have her killed in prison, they've moved on and won't bring it up again. Madeline's last (and only) champion, Liesl, is currently being tried at the Hague (!!) so she's got other things to worry about.

One thing I will continue to hold onto, however, is the box Nina received after Madeline's death that contained the necklace that links Nina to her baby. The letter (supposedly from Madeline) said the baby was given the other half of the necklace, implying the now-adult child would still have the other half. What if someone else was behind that whole thing, and the necklace (now seen in Nelle's possession) is no more a link to the baby than that bogus DNA test? Madeline never struck me as the sentimental type, especially in that period where she poisoned Nina to kill that baby, and framed Silas for the crime. She went to extreme lengths to make sure Silas never knew about the baby and could never find Nina as she languished in that coma. If the family found out Nina had given birth to an heir/heiress, Madeline's claim to the fortune would have been undermined further, so getting rid of (adopting out) the baby and not leaving any path to finding him/her was vital. The idea that such a heinous woman would leave an evidence trail of her crimes via a necklace doesn't stand up to the smell test. I can't pin the "box from Madeline" on Valentin, though, because if he had created the two necklaces, he would have given the other one to Sasha to wave around and reinforce the idea she was the baby.

I'm just desperate to ditch the whole "Nelle is Nina's daughter" plotline, so I'll be glad to make the necklace thing into a hoax by any means necessary.

 

[Ray&Donna]

I saw a few minutes of the Nurses Ball from whenever Sam went with Shiloh. Mike was there with Yvonne, and it occurred to me that the writers forgot about her character after she was supposed to have a feeding tube put in and Gladys went ape sh*t st Turning Woods about it

 

[Daniel Avery]

Maybe they'll bring Yvonne back by recasting her with Daphne Maxwell Reid.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Maybe they'll bring Yvonne back by recasting her with Daphne Maxwell Reid.

Or Shari Belafonte

 

[Ray&Donna]

Remember how Felix had a sister back in the Rafe days? She appeared like three times as two different actresses, long enough to go to the prom with TJ and never be mentioned again

 

[Daniel Avery]

To be fair, Felix almost entered the "never be mentioned again" category himself. Had it not been for the Nurses Ball, I doubt we would have seen him in a few of the last of the pre-pandemic episodes. He and Lucy get pulled out of the Nurses Ball Prop Closet once a year.

I seem to recall Felix's sister giving him grief over not telling their parents he was gay? Memory foggy....

 

[Ray&Donna]

Felix did disappear for a long time, but the show had killed off his best friend, and married off his potential love interests...though he dodged a major bullet with Brad. Now when the show uses him, he is basically a stand-in for Ephiphany. It's interesting that he is not connected to the rest of the African American characters on the show, who all know each other...apparently Curtis was involved with Trina's mother at some point in the distant past, like how Jordan knew Taggart and also Sean before arriving in town to be reunited with her son.

 

[Daniel Avery]

….and unless I miss my guess, Trina will turn out to be Curtis's daughter and not Taggert's. When Aunt Stella sent off her DNA to one of those My 23/ancestry.com type outfits, she was told there was a close DNA match in Port Charles. This was before she mysteriously decided to go on that extended trip to Europe (the actress was on a sitcom), and they have not really mentioned it since--but it would make the most sense. If they only faked Taggert's death and they want to bring him back they might abandon that plot point, but if he stays dead, I could see them tying Trina to current characters since the actress has turned out to be such a find.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Has anyone checked on Wiley in the last few months?

 

[Daniel Avery]

Preview Shocker: Wiley emerges from lockdown as an obnoxious eleven year-old who plays with matches. And lucky for us, Carly starts wearing a lot of synthetics.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Preview Shocker: Wiley emerges from lockdown as an obnoxious eleven year-old who plays with matches. And lucky for us, Carly starts wearing a lot of synthetics.

Isn't that what happened after they found Jake on Cassadine island having those scarecrow nightmares?

 

[Daniel Avery]

Yes, and we see how they shot that whole story down quicker than you can say "Connie Falconeri". I think they had to scuttle the story and pretend it never happened once they had to ret-con Billy Miller not being Jason after all, since Jake had seen "Drew" chained to a wall on Cassadine Island (despite Drew's un-Jasonlike face being the product of a Port Charles plastic surgeon years later). They had to do a lot of handwaving to accommodate Steve Burton's return, including forgetting that the poor kid had been held captive for most of his life and yet has no residual problems.

 

[Ray&Donna]

They dropped the plot and recast the kid with someone more chipper and Jason was like, Franco can't give my son who I never cared about a puppy!