Kids Today, General Hospital

The emotional scars of childhood (specifically, those of Franco, Drew, Sonny and Henrik) were the throughline of three disparate plots that made for a standout week of GH drama.

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The Mystery Of The Staircase Push wasn’t the most suspenseful yarn GH has ever presented, but undergirded by masterful work from Billy Miller (Drew, struggling to process a tragic history his character can’t even remember), Greg Evigan (doomed sleazebag Jim), Jon Lindstrom (Kevin, the stalwart shrink charged with helping Franco pick up the pieces), and especially, Roger Howarth (Franco, delivering perhaps the finest performance of his Port Charles career), its final chapter was both intense and compelling. At his art studio, Franco forced Harvey to acknowledge that he had molested him, over and over, when he was a child (“when my mom was at work; late at night, when my mom was sleeping....”). Turns out, Little Bobby had pushed Little Andy down the stairs to shield him from Harvey’s advances, and now it was Andy’s turn to play hero: Drew arrived just in time to stop Harvey from strangling Franco (by shooting him dead). It is a testament to the talent of both actors, and how convincingly they have navigated the shifting dynamic between their characters, that a