Disney/Christine Bartolucci
Oblivious to the drama unfolding at The Savoy regarding the fateful tip-off Nina made to the SEC, Carly is having a festive end to her 2023. “On New Year’s Eve, Drew surprises Carly by coming home early from Australia and they have this amazing, romantic, fun, sexy celebration,” sets up Laura Wright (Carly). “They’re in the kitchen talking and Drew leaves the room to start a fire.” That’s when Carly’s phone rings with life-altering news.
Reveals Wright, “Carly gets a call from the American embassy in Amsterdam,” where Bobbie has been settling the estate of her late brother, Luke. “They’re calling to tell her that her mom passed away in her sleep. You don’t hear that part, but Drew comes back in the kitchen and Carly is standing there in shock. Drew says, ‘Carly, what’s going on?’ And she says, ‘My mom died.’ Carly is in complete devastation. She’s in the living room staring at a photo of her mom, saying, ‘I don’t understand, I don’t know what happened.’ It’s pretty heartbreaking, and it’s going on at the exact same time as other explosions are happening in Port Charles. So it’s a crazy beginning to 2024.”
Carly doesn’t have much time to sit with the news before an unexpected visitor throws her life further into chaos. “She is handed information that is not at all what she expected she was going to hear,” the actress hints.
Wright says that the weeks ahead will feature intensely emotional material as Carly processes Bobbie’s death. “I have to honestly say that Carly has no idea how to handle what life has just handed to her,” the actress asserts. Losing her mother “is not something she ever wrapped her head around or thought could ever happen. I think just stops her in her tracks. It really pulls out the rug from underneath her and it’s beyond devastating. She’s asking herself, ‘Why didn’t I tell her this, and why did I ever do anything awful to her?’ And then she’s got to tell her kids…. It’s a lot.”
Carly ends up taking refuge at Kelly’s. “She wants to be at Kelly’s because it makes her feel close to her mother,” Wright explains. There, Carly has poignant conversations with Elizabeth and Sonny. Of the scenes she shared with Rebecca Herbst (Elizabeth), Wright notes, “Carly and Elizabeth have a really true, honest moment, because they’re coming together because of something so real.” Their chat about Bobbie gives Carly a new perspective on her mother. “Carly hearing about her mom through Elizabeth and about how much her mom changed Elizabeth’s life is such a gift for Carly.”
Wright says Carly and Sonny’s encounter “ended up being some of my favorite scenes. There is a moment where Carly opens the door and Sonny’s standing there, and then he’s like, ‘I heard about Bobbie.’ I just stare at him and I’m saying nothing and he goes, ‘You know what, I’m gonna leave you alone.’ And then I say, ‘Sonny,’ and he stops and I run into his arms.” The hug wasn’t scripted, but Wright felt that adding it was critical to illustrating the depth of the emotional bond between the characters. “He’s family. He is the deepest family that she has, now that her mother is gone. [On set] I said, ‘Even siblings that hate each other hug at their parents’ funeral.’ I said, ‘I would run into his arms, not like, “Let’s make out,” but like, ‘No one knows me better than you.’ So I just ran into his arms and the pick-up is [them] inside, and what that moment did is it allowed for the walls to be down [between Sonny and Carly]. And the intimacy of the rest of the scene was just incredible. We talked and laughed through our tears.”
Carly is only one of the Port Charles citizens who will receive the heartbreaking news about Bobbie this week, and the community will be left reeling. “The character of Bobbie was loved by so many and even people she had issues with are in shock,” says Wright. “It definitely affects everyone, and everyone was right there — everyone knew the week we had coming up, everybody had a lot of emotional stuff, and everyone shows up ready to really make it amazing.”
