GENERAL HOSPITAL: Revisiting the Nurse’s Ball

It’s been a pretty busy month on ‘General Hospital.’

We said goodbye to John McBain, Todd Manning and Starr Manning (but all three actors will return as new characters – more on that in the future).

We said hello to Brenda, Jax, Bobbie, Nikolas, Audrey and Noah.

We said hello (and goodbye) to Ethan and Helena. And I'm guessing the mastermind Cassidine behind Lulu's disappearance is another Cassidine -- either Stavros or Stefan, frankly.

And we welcomed back the ever popular Nurses Ball.

Now, I understand that we’ve only seen one day of the Nurses Ball – but some things jumped out at me right away.

First off, the fact that the Nurses Ball – which is meant as a remembrance to the beloved Robin Scorpio – is being used as a backdrop for her “widower” Patrick to romance a middle-schooler is not lost on me.

I do not care what the writers do, how they frame it, I’m never going to get behind Patrick and Sabrina. She’s far too immature to be with Patrick – and he looks like a creepy predator next to her.

GH had a shot to make the Sabrina character less annoying by pairing her with Milo – but now he’s

propping Patrick and Sabrina as a couple out of nowhere.

Sabrina is the most propped character since Jason Morgan himself. I fully expect her to jump in a boat and race out to Spoon Island to stop a serial killer in the upcoming months. Quite frankly, I’m surprised she wasn’t in on the Lulu rescue mission and that Jax didn’t take one look at her and throw Brenda and Carly over for her.

Yeah, the propping has been that bad.

Once I realized I would have to fast-forward through all of the Patrick and Sabrina crap, the Nurse’s Ball itself was pretty good (for the most part).

I absolutely loved all of the women getting ready together – until that became a prop for unveiling Sabrina in her new dress. By the way, Sabrina looked better before her makeover. She’s completely generic looking now – and Spinelli still has more female sex appeal than she does. Yeah, I said it.

As for the performances, the opening number was cute and Spinelli and Ellie’s number was actually extremely entertaining (and I hate Spinelli) – that’s what the old numbers at the Nurses Ball used to be about.

While Kelly Monaco is a great dancer, her number smacked of cross promotion to me – like ‘Dancing With the D-Listers’ needs anymore promotion. I know the Nurses Ball is all about cheese – but that was too cheesy for me. And sorry, the dude is a great dancer but a terrible actor.

That brings us to Mac and Frisco.

Why, exactly, are they sacrificing Mac yet again? His Mr. Marbles routine was mean-spirited. He

would not do that at a benefit for his beloved Robin. It made him massively immature – and he should be above that.

Jack Wagner’s performance was amazing, though, and it was a nice nod to the past. They couldn’t have handled that better, quite frankly.

Which brings us to the food fight between Carly and Brenda. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about it – saying that Brenda was immature and Carly was somehow right because she didn’t want her daughter around a liar.

Really? Carly tells more lies in a day than Brenda does in a year. Plus, Carly has no problem letting her child hang around a bunch of killers (Jason, Johnny, Todd, Michael, Sonny), a rapist (Todd) and a sociopath (Jerry). Let’s let Carly admit that she’s jealous – and move forward from there. Brenda should have told the truth, but Carly should have minded her own business.

On the flip side, Brenda throwing the roll was immature. It was also hilarious. It was nice to see Brenda get her backbone back. She’s laid down and let Carly walk all over her for too long. And, while people say this was a tribute to Robin, so she should have behaved: Robin hated Carly. She would have applauded Brenda’s actions.

So, essentially, I’m happy with the Nurses Ball so far (as long as I fast-forward through Sabrina). Plus, the laugh-out-loud moment came when they were doing the red carpet introductions and introduced Sonny as a “World Famous . . . Coffee Importer.” I about choked I was laughing so hard.

 

This week, things only look to be getting better. Rick Springfield is singing, it looks like Ellie is going to overhear about Maxie being pregnant with Spinelli's child, Anna and Duke are going to dance, Robin is going to be honored  -- and the Cassidines and Spencers are going to come to a head.

Oh, and I know this isn't going to happen, but I'm still hopeful Robin is going to return and blow Sabrina out of the water.

What? A girl can dream, can't she?

Keep it up GH, you’re doing a great job of recapturing the magic that made you destination television for decades. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re markedly better.

What do you think? Do you like the Nurse’s Ball so far?