GENERAL HOSPITAL: The highs (and lows) of Robin’s return to Port Charles

Pretending that Robin’s return on General Hospital has been a homerun would be a misnomer.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been some terrific moments. There have also been some head-scratching moments that have left viewers confused and reeling.

How Ron Carlivati managed to pen so many magnificent moments – and then follow them up with flat ones – is beyond me. I think part of it is Carlivati’s desperate need to prop Sabrina – which continues even after Robin’s return – but it’s starting to do a disservice to the character.

Why would Sabrina want a man that forgot she was even at her own wedding – even though he heard her crumple to the floor and sob like a 12-year-old five feet from him? Why would she want a man that kissed another woman instead of her and their "fairy tale" wedding? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Still, since I do love a list, here are the top five moments (so far) of Robin’s return:

5. Nikolas finds Robin: Fans were waiting for someone to lay eyes on Robin – besides her evil

tormenters – for several weeks before it happened. Carlivati was smart when he chose Nikolas. First off, the two characters have a rich history together. Robin and Nikolas have been tight throughout the years, with Nikolas even having a crush on her when they were teenagers. Nikolas was also the one that carried a shot Robin out of the Metro Court when Jerry Jacks tried to blow it up years ago. Nikolas being the one to find Robin – and then stick with her through the tough times – was a great way to ground Robin to her Port Charles reality while still dragging out the reunion.

4. Mac gets itchy feet when he sees Robin: This seems like a little moment, I know. Still, there was something about Mac’s reaction to seeing his beloved Robin that tugged at my heart strings. Mac got a clear reaction shot to Robin at the end of the church, but his attempts to be the first one to go to her were definitely in character. While Robert and Anna will always be Robin’s parents, Mac is the beloved uncle that took care of her when they couldn’t. He’s the one that stood by her when Stone died and she found out she was HIV positive. And, quite frankly, he was one of the ones that mourned her the hardest. Their reunion was very important to me.

3. Robert finds his daughter: I was a little worried that Robert wouldn’t be the one to find Robin –

and I would have been okay if Anna was the one that did. Still, there was something emotionally raw about Robert and Robin first laying eyes on each other. The last time Robin saw her father, he was being injected with a mystery drug by Obrecht and being left for dead. Robin knew her father survived, but she had no idea about his condition. For Robert and Robin, this was a moment (literally) a year in the making. Even after the reunion, when Robert said he wasn’t letting Robin out of his sight, there was a moment of true joy that sang out from my Scorpio-loving heart.

2. Anna turns to see Robin in the doorway: Finola Hughes and Kimberly McCullough are incredibly close in real life. McCullough has stated – repeatedly – that Hughes and Tristan Rogers treated her like their own daughter on the soap when she was young. Through the years, McCullough and Hughes have visited each other and stayed close. So, when Robert tells Anna to turn around and see Robin for herself, when the camera flashes to Anna’s hopeful – and yet scared face – there’s a moment of true emotion that courses through the both of them. As much as Robin wanted to see her daughter, she needed to see her mother first. That was a great soap moment.

1. Emma runs into her mother’s arms: We all knew they kept replaying that scene of a young

Robin running into her mother’s arms during the Asian Quarter storyline. We all though the payoff was Robin rushing (slow motion, of course) into Anna’s arms when they were finally reunited. While that was a great moment (see above), the true brilliance of that moment was overshadowed when Emma broke apart Patrick and Sabrina’s joined hands, called out “mommy” several times and then rushed down the aisle – curls bouncing – to land in Robin’s arms. Robin’s heartfelt “Mommy’s here” only heightened the emotional context of the moment. This was a case of two performers hitting it out of the park.

And, since no list is complete without the worst five moments of the reunion, here you go:

5. Robin not interrupting the ceremony: I get Robin being confused about where Patrick’s loyalties would be. I mean, she had no idea what his true feelings for Sabrina were. She had no idea that Patrick had to be goaded into taking his wedding ring off – only weeks before. She had no idea that Sam, Liz and Ephiphany pushed Patrick to date Sabrina. She had no idea that Patrick talked more about her than Sabrina when he proposed. Or that Patrick was looking for her an hour before his wedding. She did know her daughter was in the church, though. She also knew that she was making Patrick an accidental bigamist by sitting there like an idiot. Why, exactly, wouldn’t Robin make her presence known?

4. Robin is running around town – and yet no one sees her: There were a few issues with the

Robin being stuck in Port Charles and not being able to tell anyone plot. First off, why couldn’t Robin just make herself known to Patrick and ask him to keep it a secret? Or show herself to Liz, for that matter, and ask her for help? Why didn’t she go to Maxie and let Maxie submarine Sabrina while she dealt with things? Why not go to Sonny, tell him what was going on, and let him send a team of thugs to Cassidine Island to free her parents? How about calling Frisco? There were so many plot holes in the story, it became tiresome watching Robin wander around Port Charles with no one ever seeing her. Everyone at the hospital knew who she was, and yet she was never recognized?

3. Duke and Robin reunite: I think they might have piled a few too many reunions in a three-day period. By the time they got to Duke and Robin, it just felt forced. Robin loved her Uncle Duke beyond reason. She thought he was dead for decades. This was kind of a double “come back from the dead” storyline for them. So why was it so weak? I think the writers would have been better off having Robin discover Duke in the catacombs and letting them reunite a few days before Robert and Anna came to save Robin. As it stands, by the time Duke saw Robin, it was just anticlimactic.

2. Luke sees Robin and . . . nothing: When Luke caught sight of Robin, I thought we were going to

get another soapy moment. Luke has known Robin since she was a kid. He was best friends with her father. He spent a lot of time with her when Luke and Laura first came back to town. When Stone was dying, Luke was a constant fixture at the young couple’s side. Heck, when Laura was woken up from her “coma” a few years ago, Robin was the one that did it. So, while I didn’t expect to shed buckets of tears when Luke and Robin reunited, I also didn’t expect to want to reach through the screen and smack Luke upside the head. He didn’t even act like he felt remotely guilty for leaving her on Cassidine Island – and he most certainly didn’t seem excited to see her. Blech.

1. Patrick has to “think”: Listen, I’ve been watching soaps a long time, I know how this goes. Carlivati is just drumming up more angst before Robin and Patrick reunite for a Merry Christmas. Now, I have a feeling (this is a feeling, not a spoiler), that Robin and Patrick are going to ride off into the sunset together – probably on a trip around the world to reconnect – after the holidays. This is really the last gasp for any angst for Patrick and Sabrina. Still, Patrick was shown mourning his wife and longing for her right up until the wedding. Heck, in the wedding it took Patrick almost a minute to actually say “I do” because he wasn’t sure he wanted to marry Sabrina. An hour before the wedding he was looking for Robin in the lab. I get he doesn’t want to hurt Sabrina, but there is absolutely no one – Sabrina fans included – that believe Patrick somehow loves her as much as he loves Robin. There’s drama, and then there’s contrived propping. Stop with the contrived Sabrina propping. That’s why people hate her.

What do you think? What’s worked and what hasn’t in the Robin return?