General Hospital: The Best And Worst Of 2024

It had been eight long years since Ric Lansing — the hated half brother of Sonny Corinthos, ex-husband of Alexis, Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst) and Nina, dad to Molly and one-time kidnapper of Carly — had shown his face in Port Charles. But when Ric returned in August to support Molly after the death of her baby, it was like no time had passed. GH had several other high-profile returns this year that got off to far rockier starts, but the show played this comeback flawlessly, having him immediately interact with foes and former lovers and injecting him into multiple stories. Three-time Daytime Emmy-winning portrayer Rick Hearst is simply terrific in the role, whether flirting with Liz, clashing with Alexis, or stepping up to be the father Molly needed. A top criminal attorney, Ric also picked up several new clients, most notably Ava — and while in the process of helping her beat an attempted murder rap, sparks began to fly. (Keep the "Rava" coming, please!) Combine Ric’s killer instinct in the courtroom with his checkered history in the bedroom and you’ve got a flawed leading man capable of anything — which is exactly what PC needed.

Spencer Cassadine and Trina Robinson were lightning in a bottle, and we get that the abrupt exit of Spencer’s portrayer, Nicholas Chavez, put GH in a storytelling bind, but there was no excuse not to eventually showcase all seven stages of Trina’s grief after her beloved was presumed dead at sea trying to save her from Esme's vengeance. After all, it’s not only Spencer and “Sprina” that fans were invested in — they care deeply about Trina, too, and were hungry to see Tabyana Ali navigate her character’s heartbreak and devastation. Viewers were ready to go on that journey with her, but instead, Trina was back-burnered for most of the year, her anguish treated more like an afterthought than rich emotional territory to mine. (We’re not saying we would have wanted a repeat of Josslyn’s months-long sobfest following Oscar’s demise, but surely there was some happy medium to be found — particularly given how much more important to the canvas and to fans Spencer was compared to Oscar. Spencer didn’t even get a garden!) Bottom line: while we’re glad GH has signaled its commitment to Trina’s future by bringing on a handsome new love interest for her, she deserved to visibly mourn her great love, and fans deserved to see it.

We first met the smooth-talking Australian as a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit in cahoots with crooked Valentin. Later we learned Brennan was actually a WSB honcho working undercover to stop the flow of arms through Port Charles via Pikeman. The Pikeman yarn was convoluted, but at least it led to giving Brennan — and his charismatic portrayer, Charles Mesure — a reason to stick around. Once his WSB ties were established, GH started playing him with A-listers Anna (Finola Hughes) and Carly, cranking up oodles of chemistry with both women. Carly, in particular, caused Brennan to start playing white knight: He disappeared the RICO charges hanging over her and Jason’s heads, orchestrated an explosion at Sidwell’s camp to save Lucky, Anna and Jason, and teamed up with Jason to rescue Sasha from Sidwell. He even arranged a plane to Lisbon for Holly and Robert to protect her from the crime syndicate after her, proving he has a romantic streak. Nothing seems to rattle this guy, which is helpful since he’s been assigned to a city that “seems to attract a criminal enterprise,” as he put it in his typically dry and understated way. Brennan has wit, sex appeal and a complex morality, all terrific assets. Now the show just needs to give him a story purpose that capitalizes on all this promise.

GH brought in a high-caliber, popular actress (Eva LaRue, who played Dr. Maria Santos Grey on All My Children) and fumbled the ball from the get-go by giving her a story that guaranteed her character would be universally disliked — unfortunately, not in a "love to hate" kind of way. Despite Natalia having a gay daughter in a happy relationship with Kristina, Natalia urged Blaze to stay in the closet and then unloaded her negative opinions about homosexuality on Ava, who recorded them and leaked them to a tabloid. (And for this, Ava somehow incurred more on-air wrath than Natalia did, but we digress.) Now we've got Sonny (Maurice Benard) romantically pursuing Natalia, the woman who caused such pain for his daughter! It’s clear GH is trying to undo Natalia’s bigoted entry by having her work at Deception, lie on the witness stand to protect Kristina (saying Krissy didn’t cause their near car accident) and apologize up and down for her hurtful words, but it doesn’t fly. Natalia keeps insisting that she isn't that person anymore, but why should we believe it? (The show deciding to pair her with Sonny is not a reason.) GH can’t convincingly retcon Natalia’s homophobia without showing us at least one inciting incident that challenged her prejudices. Natalia didn’t learn a lesson, she got caught — and that’s not enough to get fans on her side.

The death of beloved GH veteran Jacklyn Zeman, who played Bobbie Spencer for over 45 years, was an immense blow to the show and its fans, but GH did right by both actress and character when it came time to say good-bye to Barbara Jean Spencer on screen. The exceptional memorial episodes were a gut-punch of rich and poignant sentiment, a love letter not only to Bobbie and to Zeman but to the entire emotional experience of being a long-time GH viewer. Bobbie’s funeral was pitch-perfect, from touching eulogies and tender character interactions to flashbacks that spanned decades, but the show went even deeper, making the brilliant choice to include Brighton Hertford. (As a child, Hertford played Bobbie’s beloved daughter, B.J., whose 1994 death is one of GH’s landmark storylines.) Hertford returned as an angel version of B.J., who called herself Angela Brighton and interviewed Bobbie’s loved ones for a profile she was supposedly writing on her. Nothing on soaps this year made us sob quite like watching it dawn on Felicia, Maxie and Lucas that the “journalist” they’d been opening up to was actually B.J. in spirit form, and Carly (Laura Wright) changing the name of Kelly’s to Bobbie’s to honor her mom put a beautiful bow on this stirring good-bye.

Later in the year the show made the controversial choice to kill off Sam McCall, played by 21-year veteran Kelly Monaco. Sam went out a hero, having donated part of her liver to save Lulu and gotten engaged to Dante on the last day if her life. Her sudden death — which fans now know was murder at the hands of Cyrus Renault — sparked devastated reactions from Sam’s friends and family, with standout performances of heartbreak by Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis), Steve Burton (Jason), Dominic Zamprogna (Dante, pictured) and the trio of gifted young actors who play Sam's offspring, biological and chosen. Meaningful flashbacks also helped to illustrate the impact Sam had across the canvas and the hole left behind by her abrupt and tragic end. Mob enforcer Jason and police detective Dante joining forces to keep Sam’s kids together will be a living tribute to her legacy from her two great loves, as it should be. Sam deserves to be remembered — and certainly will be by her legions of fans.

We knew drama would come from Kristina (Kate Mansi) carrying her fertility-challenged sister Molly’s baby, but the last thing we were expecting was the jaw-dropping way GH brought this story to a boil, with a very pregnant Kristina taking a tumble through a third-story window. She survived; the baby did not. The pivotal scenes began when Kristina received a subpoena to testify against her father Sonny during his court battle with Ava for custody of Avery, because Kristina had witnessed Sonny assault Dex. Kristina stormed over to Ava’s hotel room and ordered her to rescind the subpoena. Fat chance, retorted Ava. A heated argument ensued, which migrated toward the window where Ava’s latest booty call, Jagger, had stashed his suitcase. Kristina tripped on the bag, grabbed for Ava’s arm, and went flying through the window, landing three stories below in the Metro Court pool while a sea of PC faces looked on in horror. It can be hard to genuinely surprise soap fans, but Kristina's fateful plunge was a twist no one saw coming.

We’re all for a soapy, messy quad, but this one lost major points on execution. Drew (Cameron Mathison) and Nina’s fling started with misogyny-tinged hate sex on the floor of an office, while the attraction between Drew and Nina’s daughter, the seemingly happily married Willow (Katelyn MacMullen), began with … we’re not sure. Yeah, yeah, he “saved her life” when he helped rescue Liesl Obrecht in Greenland so she could be Willow’s bone marrow donor (though as fans are fond of pointing out online, he was mostly just there). Then Willow went to work at Drew’s non-profit promoting transplants, which put them in the same office where he’d done the dirty with her mother, and with precious little build-up, the two were making googly eyes at each other. As big of a leap as it was from Nina turning Drew in to the SEC to their sudden lust giving them rug burns, prim Willow getting it on with her husband’s uncle in her children’s playroom (while consoling him about the sudden death of his young daughter’s mother, no less!) was an even bigger one. We get that this was all to set up the juicy consequences — Michael caught wind of Willow and Drew’s betrayal and immediately impregnated Sasha, and Tracy accidentally screened the nanny cam-captured video evidence of the affair at the Qs’ Christmas party (ho ho ho!) — but it feels like a bunch of characters were twisted into pretzels to get there. The million dollar question remains: Are we supposed to be rooting for any of these “lovebirds?”

Score another win for Ric Lansing! Unfortunately, the story of Heather Webber (Alley Mills) being released from prison because she got cobalt poisoning from a bad hip replacement was a loser for everyone else. First of all, it defied logic: Heather’s insane criminal activity began in 1976, decades before her supposed hip surgery, and no court would release a woman convicted of killing four people (including a cop!) while also stalking Ava, Josslyn, Diane, Nikolas, Austin, Spencer and Trina (not to mention her past track record of hostage-taking and overdosing victims with LSD) no matter what her blood levels showed. Secondly, Laura is the mayor, charged with protecting the citizens of Port Charles so the notion that she would fight to reopen the case of a serial killer made no sense and did damage to her integrity, especially since Laura’s own son Nikolas is in prison for far less (locking up psycho Esme while Esme was pregnant with his child). Third, playing Portia as somehow unreasonable for wanting the woman who targeted her daughter Trina to stay behind bars was a total head-scratcher (which reminds us, where was Britt’s volatile mother Obrecht when her daughter’s murderer was going free?!). If the goal here was to establish Ric as PCs’s leading attorney, mission accomplished. If it was to tell a remotely believable story, it missed the mark.