Laura Spencer returns to General Hospital this week and it’s an event worth mentioning. More than 20 million viewers watched the wedding of Luke and Laura Spencer and for the last four years, Luke has been flying solo on the soap opera while ‘wife’ Laura languishes in a catatonic state off-screen. The absence of Laura is something many fans have been feeling over the last few years as Laura’s children have gone through their ups and downs and Luke has suddenly become this deadbeat dad (something he never was when Laura was up and about.)
In Laura’s absence, her eldest son Nikolas became a single father, her oldest son with Luke is in rehab for an addiction to pain pills, his marriage is on the rocks, his wife may be pregnant with another man’s child and his mistress is claiming she is pregnant with his and finally, her youngest, daughter Lulu has aged to a wild teen with a lot of issues.
Great Love Stories
Daytime soaps have changed radically in the last two decades and some say that since the OJ Simpson trial, soaps have never been the same. The late 70s and the 80s were the age of the super couples – couples that you knew were deeply in love but faced great trials and tribulations to be together. So whether they were on the run or married to others or torn apart by misunderstanding and anger – you knew these people loved each other unabashedly and no other love could compare to it.
This was the love of Luke and Laura Spencer. The modern soaps boast no super couples, save those that are now called legacy couples from the heyday of soaps. The return of Laura Spencer is hotly anticipated by General Hospital fans everywhere – but this is a bittersweet reunion, because Genie Frances is only returning for 4 weeks and the soap that once glorified secret agents, police detectives and commissioners with clear lines between good and evil is now a show that says the bad guys are the heroes and the good guys like the cops and the government are either stupid, wrong or a combination of both.
Yes, the return of Laura is bittersweet – but I can’t help but be thrilled at seeing the inexhaustible talents of Tony Geary and Genie Francis reunited onscreen in a love story that has never died, never grown old and never grown stale. Welcome home Laura Spencer, you have no idea how much we’ve missed you. All I can do is hope that her return will inspire the writers to remember that love stories are why we watch the soaps in the first place.
Did you watch Luke and Laura wed 25 years ago?
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