General Hospital
A Friz Holiday Miracle On GH?
ABC and General Hospital released a promo for the week of December 9th which features Franco (Roger Howarth) undergoing the mind-mapping reversal procedure that would restore his memory from that of Drew Cain’s back to Franco Baldwin.
But, as viewers saw on last Friday’s cliffhanger, Peter (Wes Ramsey) is trying to stop Dr. Maddox (Anthony Montgomery) from performing the procedure on Franco by ordering a hit on him.
In the promo, Elizabeth (Rebecca Hersbt) waits by her husband’s side hoping he will return to her and remember the love they share. As well, Cameron (William Lipton) prays with her that Franco will come back to them so they can be a family again in time for the holiday season.
Watch the teaser below.
Then, let us know if you are hoping Franco returns and that he is no longer Drew Cain in the comment section, or are you hoping for a different procedural outcome when he wakes up?
I am SO ready for Franco to be back. Franco is a unique character on GH and the show is missing his humour and emotionality in a land of macho, subdued men.
Beyond that, the Franco/Elizabeth relationship and their dysfunctional but loving little family has been painstakingly built over the years. I can’t wait for the romantic pay off to Franco’s sacrifice and Elizabeth’s unshakeable faith. I also hope that Franco and Cam can become true family now that Franco has proven himself to Cam through a father’s love & sacrifice. Finally, Scotty has emerged as the curmudgeonly patriarch of the legacy Webber-Baldwin clan. I hope to see this family unit root the stories on GH for years to come!
I agree with everything Shan B. said. Franco is a very unique character who has been completely transformed with credit to the writers, Roger Howarth, and his costars. Franco has become a wonderful man and amazing stepfather. He was protective of his loved ones when he was young and he still is. His true character has been shown to be self-sacrificial. I would love for Cameron to ask Franco to adopt him.
I also hope that Franco has no memories of his time as Drew. We need to see HIS reaction to the apparent loss of Drew. They chose to be brothers and it was a beautiful story. We need to see Franco’s reaction to the sexual encounter with Kim where he had no autonomy over his body or what was done. Not one character got to call Kim out as the sexual predator she was. It was vastly disturbing to see her behavior consistently excused as grieving. It has been very underwhelming that what should have been a Franco/Elizabeth story was primarily a Kim story—and a repulsive one at that.
Ditto Shan!
No, it was no ‘miracle’..
99% of fans knew Franco would revert to Franco from day one of the lacklustre story..
‘good’ writers would have written this story very intriguing and suspenseful, but it wasn’t written by good writers so be got a lot of Blah..
GH needs to clean house and bring in talented writers.
It’s sad to see GH fall from it’s once glory..
The writers of long past were great soap writers, an abundance of talent.
These writers should be writing for Hallmark Cards..
An interesting twist would be for Franco to come back as the old evil Franco and have Elizabeth wishing she had left well enough alone.
well, don’t put THAT out into the universe!
That would be the best thing that could happen to GH.
give us suspense and chills and thrills !!
At the least for a couple of months
(wouldn’t expect any more from the writers than 3 months of an exciting story)
So happy Franco is coming back!
I suppose it will be a slight improvement to be done with the stupid Drodd brain mapped dragonshit, but unfortunately he’ll still be Frodd again.
Can we hope for “Option 4” where he becomes a complete vegetable? Which also means his soul will be trapped in his body and NOT here in Hell!
But, as viewers saw on last Friday’s cliffhanger, Peter (Wes Ramsey) is trying to stop Dr. Maddox (Anthony Montgomery) from performing the procedure on Franco by ordering a hit on him.
WHY, is Peter involved in nearly EVERY storyline? The propping of this flop is NOT working.
Yes, please return Franco and end this super bad storyline already.
I hope he comes out of the surgery as franco
Becky always propping somebody sorry RH a joke always has been a joke he is laying there a smirk on his face like the story is a joke which it is !! When do you give it up ???
Frankly… how about a merge between both Drew and Franco ? Let him come back with full memories of both intact.
Want the Franco that he was before the mind transfer
Better yet GH – bring back the real Drew Cain
Billy Miller !
Amen Kim!
So what if he wakes up and remembers his actual life as…..
….Todd Manning.
I’d rather see him wake up as Paul Ryan.
I am hoping that Franco comes back. I want to see Franco deal with Drew’s death. I love Franco and Elizabeth’s relationship and the whole Baldwin-Webber family. I am looking forward to Cam and Franco’s first conversation after he wakes up and want an adoption of Cam for the holidays
I love Franco, I’m so ready for him to be back to Elizabeth and their boys. They are just the best couple in daytime. Franco has turned into such a humorous and loveable character. I have missed him on my screen for the last four months.
Can’t wait until Franco is back! Roger, Becky & Will are going to slay it!
I can’t wait for Franco to be back! What started out as a promising story went sideways really fast and turned disgusting. #Friz are absolute magic and I have missed Franco so much!! Hurry on back Franco!!
Franco needs to return to his family and to us viewers. I miss his humor and the sweet family him and Elizabeth have made. One brain damaged emotionless male lead is enough for one show, I can’t wait for Franco to come back.
Love Franco and Elizabeth. Can’t wait for Franco to finally be back with his family.
GH ha finally hit gold with the Franco & Elizabeth pairing. It comes around rarely that you connect a couple with longevity. This couple with it’s diverse histories and the opportunity for quirky and wonderful stories connected to so many other characters on the canvas makes them a joy to watch. It’s been a long time since I’ve rushed home to see a show or stayed up late to watch online because I missed it. This is the pair that’s making me do those things and I don’t want it to end and am looking forward to them for a long time to come.
I love Franco and I love Franco & Elizabeth. Can’t to have Franco back.
The only reason I cared at all about this story was the 2 characters that it SHOULD’VE been about..Fans have invested nearly 4 years into seeing Franco and Elizabeth establish a family and bond worthy of their legacy status..To make this storyline nearly completely about a character that a lot of fans felt no connection to or was largely unliked to begin with, completely excusing her predatory behavior on grief, was gross. I’m happy my faves got to play something completely different from their norm, but I’m also ecstatic that this mess of a story is coming to an end. Can’t wait to watch my faves shine as they forge into the future of rebuilding and solidifying their family, hopefully with the adoption of Cameron on the way..
So ready to have Franco back. His quirky personality, combined with his proven readiness to do whatever is needed, include sacrifice himself body and soul, to protect the ones he loves has been sorely missed.
I haven’t watched in months. I decided to watch an episode this weekend. Hard to find an episode that doesn’t prop-up The Permed Parking Lot Poet, or mention Moron Morgan. NuNik is awful. Who is in charge of casting? Yikes.
DMRR, I do not like the new Nickolas either. He’s kind of smarmy, no?
A totally ridiculous story. How many times are the writers going to create new characters for Roger Howarth? Todd…Franco….Drew and now back to Franco again? I can’t keep up. This whole “Drew’s memories” storyline should have gone to the real Drew, Billy Miller a long time ago. Why the writers didn’t do this I will never know….
I think it’s a shame they’re bringing Franco back. I’d take Roger Howarth’s Drew over tired Franco any day. This arc gave a great actor something interesting to work with. Also I didn’t think they could find a convincing Nikolas, but I love how he’s a little smarmy. The sudden shift to bad guy just before TC left made no sense, but this version of Nik does. Since they bothered to bring him back, the dark side of the prince will be more fun to explore than same old Nik pining over annoying, one-dimensional Elizabeth.
The latest ratings are out for the week of October 26-30, 2026 and the big takeaways include: that CBS daytime’s Beyond the Gates was separated by only 23,000 viewers behind third place (of the soaps) General Hospital! For the last several weeks, Beyond the Gates has been closing the gap on this year’s winner for Outstanding Daytime Drama Series, and continuing to best GH in the key demos.
According to the latest Nielsen ratings breakdown from Soap Opera Network, the final week of October brought Beyond the Gates 1.790 million on average tuning-in and the show set a season high in total viewers. Meanwhile, General Hospital hit a new season low! The long-running ABC soap had 1.813 million for the week, and once again the series did not go over the 2 million mark.
Meanwhile, in the key Women 18-49 demo, Beyond the Gates was firmly ahead of GH with a rating share of 0.21, while General Hospital had 0.17 rating share.Then, in the key Women 25-54 demo, Beyond the Gates was once again ahead of the ABC soap with a ratings share for that demo at 0.30 while GH came in with 0.26.
Photo: CBS
MORE BY THE NUMBERS
In addition and comparatively, Beyond the Gates +22,000 viewers week-to-week, and had the largest gains in viewership year-to-year in daytime TV with +267,000 from this in 2025.. However, General Hospital seems to be going in reverse. The show was down -56,000 viewers week-over-week and down -22,000 year-over-year .
BEYOND THE GATES
Let’s take a look at some of the storylines that had people tuning-in to Beyond the Gates during the ratings week:
Hayley (Marquita Goings) attempted a massive shocker regarding her pregnancy and tried to use it to extract money from Bill Hamilton (Timon Kyle Durrett). Although, Bill saw right through her game, he demanded a paternity test, and made it clear he has no intention of raising the child—planning instead to pay her off to take the baby and leave. Meanwhile, Hayley confided her plan to her cousin Randy (Maurice P. Kerry).
Jacob Hawthorne (Jibre Hordges) and Naomi Hamilton (Arielle Prepetit) clashed over Jacob’s ongoing investigation into The Impaler, causing significant strain in their marriage. At the same time, Smitty (Mike Manning) considered taking matters into his own hands—including potentially heading to Mexico for evidence—while Martin Richardson (Brandon Claybon) worried about what comes next.
Photo: ABC
GENERAL HOSPITAL
Over at General Hospital for the ratings period, the story served up included:
Carly (Laura Wright) and Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) teamed up to investigate what really happened to Jack Brennan (Chris McKenna). Later, Danny (Asher Antonyzyn) leads them to Jack’s dead body.
Jude (Wil Traval) dropped a bombshell claim to Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn); that he is Phoebe’s father, while Brook Lynn (Amanda Setton) and Chase (Josh Swickard) signed their divorce papers.
Then, Danny caught Rocco (Finn Carr) and Scout (Kayden Brenna Tokarski) sharing a kiss, plus the shocking return of Heather Webber (Alley Mills) capped the week.
Now the questions become; without having much promotional synergy in the ABC day-part to draw more eyeballs it is not helping but hurting General Hospital. It seems Beyond the Gates is also a benefactor of a one-two-three punch of CBS soaps (Y&R, B&B and BTG) and promotion.
However, that still doesn’t take away the fact that Beyond the Gates is close to besting GH in all ratings category as they go head-to-head in some markets across the country.
So, are you excited to see Beyond the Gates climb in the ratings? Are you concerned for General Hospital? Do you think they can stave off Beyond the Gates in total viewers or will the upstart soap overtake them in the next ratings report? Share your thoughts in the comment section.
Antonio Sabáto Jr., the former Jagger Cates of General Hospital and GH: Night Shift, and the former Dante Damiano of The Bold and the Beautiful has issued his first public statement since the incident involving his son, Jack’s arrest in Alaska for a fatal hit-and-run.
Jack is the son of Sabáto Jr. and Oscar-nominated actress Virginia Madsen, and according to court documents obtained by KTUU Jack, was allegedly driving a white Chevy Tahoe when he hit and killed Carl Simmonds, 42, near an intersection in Anchorage around 5:35 a.m. on Monday, November 9.
The reports indicated that Jack fled the scene — but later decided to called the cops to say he hit “something” that “suddenly appeared in the road” while he was “doing late-night DoorDashing.”
Photo: NBC
Now, Antonio has taken to his Instagram breaking his silence on the situation, sharing, “At this time, my family and I are navigating an extremely sensitive and deeply personal matter.”
He added, “As a father, my love for my children remains unconditional, and my priority is the well-being of my family. We ask that the public and members of the media honor our privacy during this difficult time and keep us all in your thoughts and prayers.”
The soap alum concluded, “I also wish to extend my heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones of the gentleman who tragically lost his life. My thoughts and prayers are with them as well. We sincerely appreciate your compassion, understanding, and respect for the privacy of everyone affected.”
Jack Sabáto was arraigned in court on Tuesday, November 10 with bail set at $5,000, and a no-driving order and the potential of $5,000 penalty fees if he fails to attend future court appearances.
Antonio is the father to Jack, 34, daughter, Mina Sabato, 24 and son, Antonio Sabáto III, 15.
This is a developing story. You can check out Antonio’s official statement below.
So, let us know your thoughts on this tragic hit-and-run, which claimed the life of another man, and Antonio’s statement, via the comment section below.
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Sonny (Maurice Benard) and Ava’s (Maura West) daughter Avery looks quite different, starting on today’s November 9 episode of General Hospital. That’s because GH has made Avery into a full-blown teenager and the role is now being played by actress Alya Bullington.
In her debut, the Tennessee native was thrown into the deep soap waters with Daytime Emmy winners, Maurice Benard and Eden McCoy (Josslyn). Bullington weighed-in to TV Insider about her first scene which featured Avery overhearing a fight between Sonny and Josslyn.
She explained “It was something I have never done before, I did not have a lot of experience with the screaming and the crying stuff, but I got my first script, and I was like, ‘OK, this is a huge opportunity to learn so much about how that stuff works and to become this character that I have never even tried playing before.’”
Photo: ABC
THE TEENAGED VERSION OF AVERY WILL HAVE A LOT TO CONTEND WITH
Speaking of working with McCoy, Bullington shared, “She’s incredible. I remember her just laughing and making jokes on set, and then the minute that they started taping, she just locked in and she cried immediately, and my first thought was, ‘I want to be able to do that.’
The soap opera newcomer added, “I think she just inspired me so much because she is so great and she can just lock into whatever character she wants to in the moment.”
The character of Avery was born back in 2014, but as recently as the October 8 episode of General Hospital, the character was suddenly referred to as a teenager. This is the second young female character in recent months to be aged up following the casting of Kayden Brenna Tokarski as Scout Cain.
As for her take on Avery and what’s ahead, Alya said,“She’s emotional, and she’s curious, and she’s a really fun person to play because so much stuff is happening in her life. I think she’s kind of confused about what’s happening and what to believe.”
So, what do you think about General Hospital making Avery a teenager? Are you excited to see the conflict between Sonny, Ava and Avery now that they have aged up the character? Share your thoughts and welcome Alya to GH via the comment section below.
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