Click here to read Tamilu's take on 2014 in part one of The Best and Worst of General Hospital 2014.
Happy New Year, my dear readers! I pray that this new year will bring you fulfilled dreams and no sorrow. You have a blank set of pages upon which you can write the most remarkable story! Choose the story carefully, because at next year this time, it will be part of your life's history, and life is about having good stories to tell.
Just like our fictional friends in Port Charles, we have most likely experienced both love and loss, made choices that were both good and bad, and maybe even kissed people that we shouldn't have kissed.
The lips of Port Charles were very busy on New Year's Eve, and some of the kisses were impulsive, while others were long-anticipated liplocks. Since General Hospital had a short week with only three new episodes airing, I have decided to focus on the most prevalent thing that happened over those three episodes: kissing!
As you reflect on life, have you ever had a "perfect kiss" moment? Here's one of mine. I was 19 years old, and I had grown up in a small town in Ohio and was tragically unpopular in school. I was as awkward as Sue Heck and just as clueless about my own lack of coolness.
And then one year, I joined a touring theater group. I went to L.A., and no one there knew that I was unpopular in Ohio, and the exact things that made me a total nerd in high school actually made me popular in this new, artsy, creative environment.
I walked in the very first day to a sea of theater geeks such as myself and saw a beautiful boy across the room and found myself walking right over to him as if a magnet were pulling me. He looked at the notebook in my hand and said, "Do you write poetry?" I nodded yes. He took my hand and said, "Let's get out of here." I went without a thought. We hopped into a van and started driving up into the Hollywood Hills.
He stopped at a store, bought some wine and cheese, and too me to a beautiful park in the hills of California. We swapped notebooks, read each other's journals, and discovered that we had written a few nearly identical entries. That "recognition of a kindred spirit" thing happened. We wrote a poem together. We lay on a blanket, staring at each other, woozy from the wine, with sunshine and mountains as our backdrop. And then he leaned in and kissed me. It was one of those perfect moments in life you store away in your memory and pull out when things are sad to remind you of life's goodness.
Looking back, I should not have gotten into a van with a total stranger whose name I didn't even know. I should not have let him ply me with liquor. I should not have given him the journal filled with my innermost thoughts. But as soon as we met, we connected, and I was 19 and had no fear and no idea that people can break your heart into a million pieces.
How does this tie in to GH, you ask? Last New Year's Eve, Nathan showed up at Maxie's door, and they, too, had that instant recognition of a kindred spirit. If I had been Maxie, I would have canceled my trip and stayed. We, the viewers, felt the chemistry the minute they met, but knowing that Maxie was heading out of town the same time Nathan was heading into town, we understood that this was not to be a quick love story.
Maxie went on her "Eat, Pray, Love" journey and met a creep named Levi. Side note: me hating Levi doesn't mean I dislike Zachery Garred; he's delightful!
Once Maxie returned to Port Charles with Levi, it took a very long time for her to untangle herself from that relationship in order to make her way to her future and to the perfect kiss she had on New Year's Eve.
Readers and viewers sometimes love meanders. The answer isn't always found on the straightest path. There are complications and obstacles and moments when you think it's never going to work. In 2014, we saw Maxie and Nathan come close at least 50 times, only to have a new obstacle present itself to keep them apart. On New Year's Eve alone, they had about seven obstacles to overcome -- to the point where I was shouting obscenities at my television.
But just when they (and us as viewers) had almost given up hope, the door opened, Nathan was there, and it all worked out the way it should have worked out a year ago. And it was absolutely worth the wait!
Maxie and Nathan are in each other's arms, starting a new journey of love together. I'm so excited to see where it takes them!
On the other hand, some of our other couples had wonderful kisses at midnight but obstacles to happiness that we know about -- but they don't.
Let's begin with Sam and Patrick. They have shared a few kisses, but Sam doesn't know her presumed-dead husband is alive, and Patrick doesn't know that Helena is holding Robin captive. Jake doesn't know that Sam, the woman who is accusing him of taking her hostage, is his wife, or that Elizabeth was his baby mama or that Carly is his best friend.
Carly doesn't know that the new bartender she is kissing is Jason, her BFF, and of course, she's still in love with Sonny, who is in prison, kissing no one. Alexis is kissing Ned but wishing she were kissing Julian. Julian is kissing Olivia but wishing he were kissing Alexis. Olivia is kissing Julian but daydreaming of Ned. Duke is kissing Lucy but is still in love with Anna, and Anna is kissing Agent Sloane, who is actively investigating her, but of course, Anna is still in love with Duke but objects to his life as a mobster. Nikolas was kissing a bimbo he met in the elevator who ditched her date to wander off with a stranger, but Nikolas is a prince, so I get that.
On the up side -- Shawn is kissing Jordan and actually wants to be with Jordan. Now that they are on the same side of the mob war, they can cavort more freely. In addition, Ric is kissing Elizabeth, and they absolutely want to be in each other's arms and even discussed getting married for a third time!
In one of the week's highlights for me, Jake instantly detested Ric, and although Jake doesn't remember that he's Jason, apparently his subconscious remembers that he hates Ric. Of course Carly did bring up being locked in the panic room, so that may have colored his opinion a bit. That storyline made me mental. For weeks Elizabeth was moving books around in a bookcase where the button to the panic room door was lodged, and she kept staring at the button, wondering what it was for, and I was screaming at my TV screen every day for weeks, "Push the button you moron!"
Even now, thinking about it, I want to scream at her again. But I love Elizabeth, and I am glad she and Ric found their way back together because even though he's a messed-up human being, she was able to forgive him and allow him to grow into a better human being. Does he still have dark impulses? That remains to be seen, but since he's from the same gene pool as Sonny, I imagine that he will still wrestle with the dark side.
Jake moved out of Liz's house and is now residing in Carly's hotel, which gives Carly full access to him, and I know many of you will vehemently disagree with me, but I hope the writers explore the Jason/Carly angle for a while. Carly is very fertile, and I think it would be hilarious for her to become impregnated by Jake and for him to be a dad to a child of Carly's that actually belonged to him.
The thing with Billy Miller is that he has chemistry with everyone -- so he works with Liz, with Carly, or even with Sam, although she hates him right now. What will happen when she discovers he is actually a brainwashed, face-changed Jason? Readers, I hate to say this, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. I fear this will be dragged out until May Sweeps. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see the wheels here turning any faster than with the Fluke storyline.
This week, someone suggested that Fluke was Jax, and I can't disagree enough. Sure, Jax hates Sonny, but unless he's gone full Jerry on us, he's not a murderer.
In another of this week's top scenes, I loved the meeting of Spinelli and Nathan. Because we were all so invested in Spinelli and Maxie's coupling, it made me feel better to have Spinelli meet Nathan and give that relationship the Jackal Seal of Approval somehow. I hope that this won't be Maxie's only visit with Georgie now that she has visitation rights and that we will see more of Spinelli and Georgie in 2015. When Jake emerges as Jason, he's going to need his tech support again. I honestly can't imagine Spinelli not coming back if he knows Stone Cold is alive, can you?
My husband, who pretends he doesn't watch GH, said that he wished when "Jake" kissed Carly, his memory had come back in a flash. He also observed when Olivia was getting into bed with Julian that this would make her perfect trifecta of mob bosses, since she had already slept with Sonny and Johnny Z. He seems to know a lot about GH for someone who doesn't watch. He always picks up a book when it comes on, but if I glance over at him, the eyes are over the book, glaring at it as intently as mine. But he'd never admit it!
Back to New Year's Eve. One of the sweetest things to me, was help from the only happy, stable couple in town, Lulu and Dante, who helped Nathan set up a perfect night for Maxie and Nathan. I love them, and their relationship is the sort of marriage we all pray to have -- they support one another, look out for one another, and even jointly decide to postpone their own New Year's celebration to help two friends fall in love. Sweetness.
Many people in Port Charles were missing -- not a sign of Lucas, Brad, Felix, Bobbie, Scotty, Dr. O, or Epiphany and Milo, and frankly, I was really looking forward to seeing them kiss at midnight!
But here's the thing about perfect but impulsive first kisses -- they don't always lead anywhere. That beautiful boy who kissed me when I was 19? We had a quick summer romance and then nothing -- no idea where he is, what happened to him, or if he's even alive anymore. On the other hand, I have been married for 26 years to a beautiful man who started out as my friend, and it took us a long, slow time to get to our first kiss.
So, in 2015, I think Maxie and Nathan have a shot at long-lasting happiness because they took time to get to know one another, to build a foundation upon which to build a relationship. Whereas, in the case of Olivia and Julian, who shared an impulsive midnight kiss to make others jealous? Not so much.
What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Franco get in to kiss Nina in Miscavige? Will Faison be under the Agent Sloane mask? Will Dr. O tell Nathan who his dad is in 2015, and if so, will Alexis stop offering the free legal counsel when she discovers he isn't really a Cassadine? Will Helena make Jake kidnap Spencer for her to groom into her protégé? Will Nikolas learn the name of the chick he randomly picked up in the elevator? Will Alexis just give up and admit she's an all-time gangster's moll? Will the new dark Sabrina embrace her role as Carlos' mob honey? Will Nina ever get to dress cute again?
Only tomorrow knows, dear readers, and I will tune in tomorrow as long as there are tomorrows.
What are your thoughts on General Hospital? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
