The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, GENERAL HOSPITAL

G H ushered in June with a series of explosive climaxes that featured the takedowns of the show’s chief villains, brought to rich life by gold-standard performances.

While the show’s last mom-gives-birth-in-the woods-and-gives-her-child away-to-keep-it-from-its father storyline (the baby Wiley saga) wrapped up just last year, GH ushered in its latest variation on the theme in inventive fashion. Maxie was determined to go through with her wild “pass Lou off as Brook Lynn and Valentin’s baby” scheme, convinced she had no other way to safeguard her newborn from Peter. So, after giving birth (with an assist from Roger Howarth’s new persona, Austin) and slipping through psycho “Chloe’s” grasp (with an assist from the mine shaft she tumbled into), Maxie summoned Brook Lynn to Pautuck, gave her a quick recap of how horribly her birth plan had gone awry, and handed Louise over to her pregnancy padding wearing co-conspirator, then broke down in sobs.

Back at the hospital, multiple stories were coming to a head. Gladys emerged from post-shooting surgery with an urgent need to do the right thing and exonerate Jason by retracting her false eyewitness testimony and pinning Franco’s murder on the true culprit: Peter. And as a poisoned-by-Peter Chase’s condition grew direr, Finn became more desperate for another dose of the antidote Peter was doling out at his smirking leisure, so Anna went by The Invader office in search of a vial. (If this really was the last face-to-face between Anna and her rotten nephew, we must admit that we’d hoped for something a little more ... Anna killing him; however, her perhaps unintentionally devastating line “I really did try to love you” isn’t a half-bad consolation prize.)