General Hospital sees Dante Falconeri (Dominic Zamprogna) having this growing animosity towards Gio Palmieri (Giovanni Mazza) basically out of nowhere. This is his secret son. And so this feels like another redo of the same old plot that GH likes to do where there’s a secret parent and child relationship and they dislike each other right before they find out they’re related.
Do you know how many times GH has done this? It’s a lot. We’re going to talk about it. It’s Belynda from Soap Dirt. And we’re going to look back really quick at how GH always makes people hate each other while building up to a secret paternity or maternity connection. This is, I think, the fifth time at least that they have done it. And now they’re playing it out again with Dante and Gio.
Dante’s Sudden Animosity Towards Gio: Another General Hospital Secret Parent Plot?
So right now, the people who know Dante is Gio’s father are Lois Cerullo (Rena Sofer), her mom Gloria Cerullo (Ellen Travolta), and Martin Gray (Michael E. Knight) the lawyer. I think that’s pretty much it. But Lulu Spencer’s (Alexa Havins Bruening) on the case and it looks like she’s about to figure it out and blow this whole thing wide open.
And this dislike that Dante has for Gio, it’s come out of the blue. It’s very ill-placed, not organic and very awkward. It’s very forced. That’s what I feel watching it, honestly. It feels contrived and out of character for Dante. Obviously, he was scared about what Rocco Falceroni (Finn Frances Carr) did, but Gio clearly did nothing wrong when it came to the college party where Rocco got drunk.
General Hospital: Played Out Plot?
And what’s funny is I was watching Monday’s episode and my husband walked through my office and said, “GH is going to make Dante hate Gio just like they did with Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) and Dante.” I laughed and I was like, “Oh, they wouldn’t do that again.” And then a few minutes later, I was like, “Ah, hubby called it. They are doing it again.”
Everybody thought Gio was a great kid until this alcohol poisoning incident. We haven’t heard an unkind word about him. And then Dante all of a sudden is blaming Gio, who didn’t take him to the party, didn’t know he was there, none of that. And he even threatened criminal charges.
They are making Dante dislike Gio in a very transparent ploy to replay history yet again. This is, as I said, the fifth time this has happened. Maybe more, but five. This is the fifth time I can recall. Do you remember the four other times that they had two characters hate each other before a big parent and child reveal? We’re going to talk about it.
General Hospital’s First Secret Son Story: Sonny and Dante’s Shocking Reveal
So, speaking of Dante, let’s talk about him and Sonny first. If you have been watching General Hospital for a while, you’ll recall that when Dante first came to Port Charles, he had no idea Sonny was his dad, and vice versa. Sonny didn’t know either. Dante’s mother, Olivia Falconeri (Lisa LoCicero), got pregnant as a teen, but she never told Sonny and raised him as a single mom.
And then lo and behold, a couple of decades later, Dante popped up in Port Chuck as an undercover cop using a fake name. He was trying to take Sonny down because he was a mob boss, you know. And Dante got the goods on him, but then he felt guilty for building a case against Sonny because they had gotten close. And when the warrant came in, in the end, Dante was like, “Okay, I have to do my job.”
He went to arrest Sonny and by then Jason Morgan (Steve Burton) and Sonny figured out Dante was a cop. Sonny set a trap and he shot Dante point blank. He almost killed him. Olivia showed up and screamed at Sonny that he had just shot his own son. That’s how Sonny found out about his kid.
Dante almost died. He recovered. He did not rat out Sonny for shooting him. And although they’re close now, Dante and Sonny conflicted over the years because they are on opposing sides of the law. Now, lo and behold, we’re getting a second-generation secret son storyline with Gio and Dante. And although it’s not identical to the Sonny and Dante story, the vibe and intent are very much the same.
Sam and Alexis’ Secret Mother-Daughter Drama: A GH History of Conflict and Connection
Next, you cannot forget about Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco) and Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn). Things got off to a bad start when Sam had gotten pregnant by Sonny at the same time that his and Alexis’ daughter Kristina Corinthos-Davis (Kate Mansi), who was little back then, was sick.
And Alexis wanted Sam to induce labor early so they could use the stem cells from her umbilical cord to save Kristina because they were half-sisters. And Sam was very reluctant. She knew it would be risky, but in the end, she agreed. And then of course sadly baby Lila died.
So, there was a lot of resentment from Sam aimed at Alexis. And then things got even worse between them when her brother Danny Morgan was dying of encephalitis. Alexis also had it and got the life-saving serum while Danny did not. And then he died. And of course, Sam named her son Danny (Asher Jared Antonyzyn) after her brother Danny.
General Hospital: Family Fallout from Secret Children
Right before he died, Danny told Sam that she was adopted. And that happened at the same time that her dislike of Alexis was intensifying. And of course, later when Sam found out Alexis was her mom, she wasn’t thrilled. Things got even messier between Sam and Alexis when Sam slept with Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst) while he was married to Alexis.
Even worse, when Sam and Ric were doing the deed on the living room rug, Alexis actually saw them going at it through the window. I remember that so vividly. And eventually Sam and Alexis grew into this wonderful mother-daughter relationship. And then of course she tragically lost Sam when Cyrus Renault (Jeff Kober) murdered her last year. This was yet another storyline contrived to make a secret parent and child hate each other before the big reveal.
Nina and Willow’s Difficult Path: Uncovering a Secret Mother-Daughter Relationship on GH
Next, got to talk about Nina Reeves (Cynthia Watros) and Willow Tait (Katelyn MacMullen), right? They disliked each other from the jump. That was back when Michelle Stafford was playing the role of Nina. And at the time, Willow was Charlotte Cassadine’s (Scarlett Fernandez) teacher, and Nina was her devoted stepmother. That was when she was with Valentin Cassadine (James Patrick Stuart).
So, Nina hassled Willow. She accused her of being unfair and unkind to Charlotte. And as it turned out, Willow was in the right. Charlotte was in the wrong because the kid was a school bully. And Nina tried to get Willow fired.
And Nina probably would have made it happen if not for a petition signed by a lot of other parents saved Willow’s job. Meanwhile, Nina was on a mission to find her long-lost daughter she gave birth to during that 20-year-long coma. And it turns out that her daughter was Nelle Benson (Chloe Lanier).
General Hospital: Twin Twist Fails?
But there was more to come because Harmony Miller (Inga Cadranel) turned out not to be Willow’s bio mom and Nina was. So they were doing a whole bunch of recon stuff on top of this. Turns out Nina had twin girls while in a coma and her awful mom Madeline Reeves (Donna Mills) wanted the kids out of Nina’s life because she hated Silas Clay (Michael Easton), the twins’ father.
So Nelle died in the interim and Nina thought she’d never be a mom and then the twin twist. And immediately Nina wanted to put their past behind them so she could be a mom to Willow, but she rejected her and it was just a whole lot of back and forth. They’re in a good spot now, of course, but it seems doomed because of Nina plotting against Drew Cain Quartermaine (Cameron Mathison). I feel like Willow and Nina’s relationship is on borrowed time.
The Original GH Secret Parent Hate Story: Bobbie and Carly’s Volatile Beginnings
And last, but by no means least, we’re going to go back in time to the very first of these storylines that I can recall on GH, which is Bobbie Spencer (Jacklyn Zeman) and Carly Corinthos Spencer (Laura Wright). Things with them were particularly volatile because Carly came to Port Charles hellbent on destroying her biological mom, Bobbie.
So, this first story was slightly different because Carly knew Bobbie was her mom when she came to town, unlike the other reveals where both the child and the parent were in the dark. So, that’s kind of why I saved this one for last, but it was really the genesis of all of this that they keep repeating and repeating and repeating, every 10 years or so. Carly did not have the best childhood, and she resented Bobbie. She thought that her mom had this charmed life in Port Charles and had just kicked her aside.
Of course, Carly had no idea about Bobbie’s rough and tragic upbringing, living at a brothel as a teen, working as a prostitute for years. All Carly saw was this nice cushy life Bobbie had worked very hard for and she wanted to destroy it. So, Carly seduced Bobbie’s husband, Tony Jones (Brad Maule) and destroyed their marriage.
That was a whopper of an obstacle for them to overcome but they eventually did and had a loving mother-daughter relationship right up until Bobbie’s sad passing in May of 2023. So, this is certainly a pattern for General Hospital, and it looks like they’re going to follow suit with Dante and Gio. Hopefully, they don’t make Gio and Dante completely hate each other before it’s revealed that they are father and son and hopefully that bombshell drops sooner rather than later. We’ll have to wait and see.
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