This week on General Hospital the truth came out on all fronts; as Olivia (Lisa LoCicero) put two and two together and realized Ned (Wally Kurth) cheated on her with Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn). Meanwhile, Alexis figured out Tracy (Jane Elliot) framed her to make it look like she passed out drunk behind the wheel.
Throughout, there were great performances from Wally Kurth, Jane Elliot and Nancy Lee Grahn, but it was soap vet, Lisa LoCicero, who for us was given the material and stole the show with her heartbreaking performances as a woman scorned.
LoCicero plays Olivia Falconeri from Bensonhurst, so believably, that viewers understand her every woman, who married into the well-to-do Quatermaines, and who has a much higher moral and ethical standard then the Q’s.
In key scenes at the Quartermaine mansion, Olivia confronts Ned about the night he never came home, and she wants the truth. She also rightly accuses Tracy on being part of the cover-up. A caught Ned confesses. He tells Olivia he was in a terrible place, and jumped to the wrong conclusion about her and Robert (Tristan Rogers), and began drinking, which Sam (Kelly Monaco) overhears and can’t believe he was drinking with an alcoholic. Olivia says that Ned is incapable of being trustworthy after spending his entire life amongst a house full of liars and cheats. Meanwhile, Alexis shows up in the middle of all this to confront Tracy on her machinations setting the stage for a showdown between Olivia and Alexis.
When Alexis and Olivia talk in private, the former legal eagle apologizes to her friend for sleeping with her husband; saying they both knew it was wrong right after it happened, but Olivia quickly points out that they didn’t seem to stop themselves or think it was wrong, while he was unbuttoning his pants or she was taking off her blouse!
Olivia stands her ground through her devastation and is appalled that Alexis calls her a “friend” and how she is only showing remorse because she has been caught!

Courtesy/ABC
When Ned tries to talk to Olivia and professes how much he loves her and how sorry he is for having sex in a drunken stupor with Alexis, Olivia is gut-punched. Ned continually says he thought Olivia and Robert hooked-up thanks to Brook Lynn deleting messages meant for Ned. The fact that he would assume the worst of her, only made things worse for Ned, and then to go as far as having revenge sex with Alexis, made Olivia feel her husband had sunk to new lows.
It is then Olivia has a moment of reckoning; wondering what is her role in the Quartermaine family anyway, and how she doesn’t really fit in. Ned promises to wait for her and begs her not to give up on them. When he leaves, Liv breaks down … her marriage in pieces and betrayed by all those she thought she could trust.
Each of the aforementioned moments were played to perfection by LoCicero, leaving the audience wondering just what will Olivia do next and how will she bounce back from this betrayal. That is why Michael Fairman TV names Lisa our pick for The Power Performance of the Week. And, if it’s one thing we know about Olivia, she is a scrappy fighter, a survivor, and in the capable hands of this actress, we will be rooting for her all along the way.
So, what did you think of the performance of Lisa LoCicero? Do you hope Olivia and Ned work things out and they stay together, or do you want to see if she and Robert Scorpio might have a new romance? Comment below.
This lady is going to pull the plug on General hospital. Is she related to Brian Frons? I hope not. Or she will be the most hated soap killer.
Why would she be related to Brian Frons?
Looks like abc is going to get even worse
Yes, looks that way. Boy, are they changing gears frantically. Trouble ahead!
I know noting about the woman..
She may like and respect the soap opera genre and she might not give two hoots about a 50yr old soap..
It is IMPOSSIBLE to have an opinion, as she has not shown us her hand, yet..
To say this or that about her at this point in time is rather ridiculous … LOL
She’ll probably cast herself in a gh role lol
The woman manages TV stations. She’s a salesman. Now she is in charge of daytime programming? Makes a lot of sense.
Is it too much to ask that Ms. Campbell acknowledge the terrible mistake Frons and Sweeney made in canceling AMC & OLTL and promise GH will not be cancelled?
Maybe she will be smart enough to bring back one life to live and all my children. It’s been almost 5 years since the worst decision made by this network ever. Get it right and bring back our soaps.
The only way AMC & OLTL will return is to cancel The Chew and I don’t see that happening because the show is cheat to produce.
Very well said Jp.
I guess Rebecca’s “deep daytime experience” for local programming in Philly doesn’t leave me with a lot of confidence for how she will handle GH. On the other hand it’s not fair to judge at this stage. So let’s hope for the best.
I get the feeling that over the next few months GH is really going to need to show Ms. Campbell that they have what it takes to maintain their audience while building their numbers. With the current writing team and the show’s return to a Sonny-centric focus I don’t think things look too promising…
I agree, I don’t know what possessed them to hire Jean and Shelly as co-head writers, you only have to watch a few episodes of their tenure at Y&R to see how boring and untalented they are.
Not promising at all. Who PROGRAMMED (pun intented) the writers to write only mob stories..a real “dead” (pun also intended) end.
I think GH, with it’s renewed focus on Sonny, is nailing it’s own coffin.
I think Jean and Shelly have done a pretty good so far trying to clean up the mess of a show Ron Carlivati left them. This past week was one of the best weeks GH has had quite a while, in my opinion. It had drama (including the hospital drama that everyone always says they want to see), action, great acting, what more could you want? The ratings are up approx 500,000 viewers from where it was when RC got canned. I’d say the show is in fine shape at the moment. I’m curious, everyone complained about Bob Guza at… Read more »
Everyone blames Ron for the state of the show but needs to consider that the head writer does not have total autonomy — everything that was on screen had to be run past Frank Valentini and ABC Daytime (and according to reports, some of the actors) before it was ever scripted. It’s easy to say Ron was the problem but the current state of the show tends to suggest the problems run much deeper than the headwriter. I think Ron Carlivati should still be writing the show with perhaps Jean Passanante as a co-head writer to help balance things. Ron… Read more »
I can acknowledge the fact that Ron was frustrated by the direction he was getting from higher ups for stuff such as “having a wedding”, “upping the mob conflict”, etc. The problem was he responded with over the top ridiculousness such as having Nina marry Rick. When Tony Geary didn’t want his swan song to be Luke and Laura (which was disappointing to many of us, but that is another story) Ron responded with the campy and foolish story about Frank Smith rising from the dead at 100 years old and the stupid nonsense about being blackmailed to sleep with… Read more »
Thanks ben sherwood for making a change to ABC Daytime
She prolly will bring Katie Couric back
Lawd. Katie was a very expensive mistake that ABC can not afford, again!
Campbell may be GH’s direct “boss.” But, if you read the article, all of ABC’s executives above her have changed, too. That means it’s nearly impossible to tell what will happen in the immediate future for any of ABC’s daytime shows. Also, the article doesn’t mention where Nathan Varni or Vickie Dummer are in all of this.
Not much left to manage!
With so many long running daytime staples now gone from its lineup (Oprah, longtime View co-hosts, AMC & OLTL, et al), and with so many recent brand new show failures that followed, it seems a no-brainer to keep and fortify a more than half-century old television institution like GH. Of course, that all depends on how much brainpower now exists at ABC Daytime.
Here’s a video of Campbell speaking at great length about ABC, in particular her experience in local programming and news. It sounds like to me some more programming real estate could be handed over to local affiliates (expanding local news time/hours, making the daytime lineup more news oriented, etc). I’m not convinced by this that fictional programming such as soap operas is her forte or of any real interest vis-a-vis her future planning. The only thing I imagine her doing to try to save GH is to syndicate it throughout local markets rather than have it be a part of… Read more »
thanks for the vid..
ABC news is a big money maker so can see her focus on it..
Interesting. That sounds right. ESPN is dragging down Disney Stock and ABC isn’t tearing up the balance sheet either. These are corporate decisions. If a daytime show can deliver profit without being linked to ratings (ie sold to the highest bidder) that may be what transpires.
It’s really hard to have an informed opinion based on so little information. I can only hope that she will recognize that only by promoting GH, the once great daytime network will retain any loyal viewers. ABC’s insipid replacement shows of AMC and OLTL have all tanked. And despite the lower-than-wanted-numbers for GH, it generates more buzz and viewers than the majority of anything else they shove at us. This woman would be wise to keep GH on the air and build it up rather than ignore it or, worse yet, get rid of it. That grave error would only… Read more »
it’s too soon to tell how she’ll do. i hope this means the end of Varni at GH
Thank goodness they cancelled Fablife. Horrible show. Bring back Rachel Ray
bring back amc and oltl
If she really wants to get some attention for ABC Daytime, she’d bring back AMC and OLTL at least as 1/2 hour programs. I would think that would at least get more headlines than ______ (fill in the blank/yawn) to get a talk show on ABC.
They should bring back One Life to Live or All My Children and combine them into one show and call it LANDVIEW – and introduce it as a 1/2 hour lead-in to General Hospital and I bet ANYTHING it does better than some of the crap they have on now.
But, not to worry, I don’t really see this happening but it should.
I would love to see GH cleaned up. It’s too focused on mob stories again and is overdoing it with the Corinthos and Jerome families. Balance is necessary and focus on vets and core families is necessary. I would love to see the show be strong again, but it’s flailing story wise and is bringing on too many new characters. Who knows what this change in ABC daytime oversight means.
Very recently, a tribute event was held for Lionel Richie. When it was Lionel’s turn to make a speech, he said he began his career during a time when artists were creative, not created. That can be said for much of entertainment these days. I miss the early days of soap when there was less corporate involvement. I miss the days when they were allowed to hire character actors and they didn’t have to look like models. But even with some of the soap trends of the last 15 years, I still say soaps need to hold their place in… Read more »
Hey…as long as this Rebecca Campbell woman doesn’t turn out to be ‘another’ Brian Frons…then I’m good.
GH died a long time ago – I’d say about a year ago or so during the height of the Fluke story that did no one any favors. Sure, the show hadn’t been quite right for some time, but I think we’ll look back and say that it was Fluke that sealed the shows fate. Too many of us left and have not returned. Yes, from what I can tell by just occasionally reading the boards, Sonny’s taking over the show (AGAIN) isn’t helping any and, to me, looks like the new writers going for the easiest fix rather than… Read more »
Until she makes a comment, this is all speculation.
If I were on Twitter I would say this (but I am not…) Dear Ms. Campbell: As a first mandate, please convene the GH writing team and tell them they have a weekend assignment to watch four hours of shows from the 80’s and four hours of shows from the 90’s. Then meet with them on Monday morning for a robust discussion on what it is that made the writing so compelling then versus it’s lackluster and sporadic style of today. Yes, the budget is a fraction of what it was in the glory days… but the writing is like… Read more »
Rebecca Campbell is the queen of secrets and lies. Having first hand experience working with her I can see here fingerprints all over the Kelly/Strahan debacle.
As long as she gets rid off the Fablife and DO NOT TOUCH GENERAL HOSPITAL.