Finally, after many preemptions, General Hospital’s 15,000the episode aired on Wednesday. In it and front and center in the standalone episode was GH icon, Genie Francis (Laura).

In story, after a scathing op-ed is run in The Invader from a group of citizens called “The Friend of Port Charles”, they take aim at Mayor Laura Collins and want a recall to replace her. When trying to figure out who was behind the story, Laura’s friends and the citizens of the town, band together to keep her from being ousted and to figure out who would attack her in the press like this.

That sets up a few sentimental flashback clips featuring the three current longest-running members of the cast, Genie, Kin Shriner (Scott) and Jackie Zeman (Bobbie).  Viewers get a glimpse of Scotty and Laura’s wedding, and then Bobbie’s contentious and duplicitous side when she fought for the love of Scotty against a teenaged Laura.

As Laura tries to determine who is behind the op-ed, Curtis (Donnell Turner) gets a lead from Ms. Wu (Lydia Look) that Laura’s half-brother, Cyrus Renault (Jeff Kober) is behind it.  Laura then heads to Pentonville to confront Cyrus.  She asks if he’s the brains behind “The Friends of Port Charles”.

Cyrus insists he is only an advisor. He goes on to say that this is a group of people who are disillusioned by the way she is running the town.  Cyrus gets angry and vengeful, and emotional, when saying the police department is corrupt and how ELQ and Cassadine Industries gets tax breaks at the expense of less fortunate people, etc.  Laura can’t figure out if these people in the ‘friends’ group have such high moral value why would they hire a criminal, like him, as an advisor?

Renault goes on to say that it’s up to God and preaches she needs to be less self-righteous.  Laura throws back to Cyrus that where was God in that scathing op-ed, that he did filled with such hate?  Laura then forgives him and walks out, which stuns Cyrus.

Photo: ABC

Later, Scotty in front of Laura, Bobbie, Anna (Finola Hughes), Felicia (Kristina Wagner) and Lucy (Lynn Herring), proposes to Liesl (Kathleen Gati), but she turns down his marriage proposal.  Liesl feels they have a good thing going , so why mess it up with a marriage at this point. The two kiss.

In addition, Laura meets up with Maxie (Kirsten Storms), who are visiting an institutionalized Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst).  Maxie brings her some cosmetics from Deception because of the bad lighting in the facility.

The softball game was the throughline of the episode, and at the end, we saw the payoff, when all the characters converged on Charlie’s giving their support to Laura, who says she is ready to write her rebuttal.

Then in a voice-over from Laura, she speaks to the essence of Port Charles and its residents which included: that they have a strong community that she is proud to be a part of it and she speaks to her legacy over generations.  Kevin (Jon Lindstrom) proposes a toast to Laura, as she notes that if she loses the recall then so be it, adding that if the person who replaces her is a Port Charles lifer, like she is, then the town will continue to prosper.

So, what did you think of the 15,000 episode milestone episode? Did you enjoy the performance of Genie Francis? Did you like the way much of the cast was utilized, or did you feel otherwise? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Gotta love two creepy mothers toiling over their near-dead son as they try to bring him back to life! That’s the scenario on The Bold and the Beautiful and the words, “Oh, mother!” were taken to a new heights on Friday’s cliffhanger of the CBS daytime drama series.

In story, now that Sheila (Kimberlin Brown) has stumbled upon the truth at Li’s (Naomi Matsuda) place – that Li has been keeping a very much alive Finn (Tanner Novlan) all to herself and caring for his health – bio-mom, nasty nurse Sheila, is not too happy about Li’s secret, although overjoyed that her son is alive and that she did not actually kill him after she fired a bullet meant for Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood).

Photo: JPI

Now, with Sheila escaped from prison, and Finn starting to regain consciousness, in Sheila’s mind there should only be one mother tending to him, and she wants to be the first person he sees when he wakes up and that’s her.   So, as only Sheila does, she knocks Li out and unconscious on the floor.  Sheila then tells Finn, “Mama’s right here, baby.”

Suddenly, Finn seems to slip back into a coma and is no longer able to open his eyes.  A panicked Sheila shouts to Li, “Get up. He needs your help.” After waking up from the hit to the hit, Li seems to find common ground with Sheila.  She goes so far as to say to Sheila, “If not for you. I never would have had him, and for that, I have to be grateful.”

Sheila apologizes for having hitting her (Is she really sorry? Please!) and admits she thought Li would turn her back into the police. Li says, “We’re both Finn’s mothers!”  Next, the two hug it out, of sorts, although Li looks petrified.

Li tells Sheila that since Sheila is a nurse, she needs supplies and needs her help to keep Finn alive.  Li promises Sheila that she won’t call the police, admitting that she also has so much to lose including: her medical career, her son, etc, because she faked Finn’s death certificate, smuggled him out of the hospital, and more!

Now, Finn starts to move.  Li says to her son, “Both of your mothers are here!”  Then, Finn starts to open his eyes.  We fade to black.

With all the bashing (literally), contentiousness, and high stakes; that both mothers would have to go to the slammer for a longtime, will they reunite and work together to keep the secret that Finn is alive and get him back to a full recovery … or will they turn on each other?  Will Sheila knock out Li again and have her locked up, so she can be Finn’s only mom in her twisted mind? Share your theories via the comment section, but first, check out two clips from Friday’s B&B featuring the on-going great work of Kimberlin Brown and Naomi Matsuda in this storyline.

It’s the end of Chabby! Friday’s episode of Days of our Lives brought with it the beginning of a murder mystery on the long-running NBC soap opera.

In story, with several people wanting Abigail Deveraux DiMera dead, it looks like someone stabbed her from the final moments of the episode, when Chad (Billy Flynn) comes upon his wife, when he returns home from a movie with their kids.  Chad finds Abby in their bed, bleeding and non-responsive. DAYS has teased the death of character for a few months now, and everyone learned it is Abigail, played by Lead Actress Daytime Emmy-nominee, Marci Miller, who has exited the series.

Now, the mystery begins … whodunit? Is it a vengefulLeo (Greg Rikaart), who was brandishing a knife after his call with Gwen (Emily O’Brien)? Could it be Gwen herself who called “someone” while the prison guard nodded off for a nap?  Somehow, made it out of prison and back in time and covered her tracks.  Could it be a drunken Lucas (Bryan Dattilo), who ruined his sobriety overcome with the knowledge that Chad told Abby, that he was the one who kidnapped Sami – a secret he doesn’t want to come out. Could it possibly be Kate (Lauren Koslow), who wanted to protect her son, Lucas’ secret, and went to shut Abby up … or could it be someone else?

DAYS head writer, Ron Carlivati spoke to Soap Opera Digest on their latest issue on newsstands now, about the decision to kill-off the character of Abigail, expressing: “It was mostly for a practical reason because Marci was not going to be available to us full-time on contract and it made it challenging to tell story for Chad and Abigail.  So we didn’t really have the option to have Abigail around, and then that always becomes a problem when one-half of a couple is not going to be available to you. What’s the solution at that point?”

In addition, it appears that bringing back Kate Mansi to the role, was not going to solve the issue the show was faced with.  Carlivati explained: “Kate has been willing to come back, but may not necessarily want to come back on contract, so you risk being in the exact same position that then Kate leaves and what do we do? Then the option would be to recast yet again with someone who maybe is willing to be here on a more permanent basis, but then you’re dealing with a new face. We’ve been very lucky in recasting Abigail, but you don’t always know if that’s going to work. So ultimately, we decided to kill the character.”

But as Days of our Lives fans know, does anyone really stay “dead” dead in Salem?  The head scribe shared on that point: “We decided to do it (kill Abigail) knowing that we’re not saying it’s not a permanent death, but there is always that possibility that death is not permanent, especially on a soap opera and especially in Salem, so you feel that maybe you’re not closing off the future of that character forever. That said, this is not going to be an instance of the car going off the cliff and you don’t see the person again. This is going to feel permanent and we wrote it as permanent.”

So, who do you think will wind up being the culprit who murdered Abigail? What do you think about the decision to take the character off the canvas, with what looks like for good? Share your thoughts and theories via the comment section below. But first, check out the promo for next week’s episodes of DAYS and the returns of Cady McClain and Matthew Ashford as Jennifer and Jack who will grieve the loss of their daughter.