Soaps make me laugh, they make me cry. Seldom does one make me so angry I’m actually shaking. Yep, I’m talking GENERAL HOSPITAL, which used the 1998 story of Elizabeth’s rape to garner sympathy for the character while she’s sleeping with her fiancé’s brother.

Look, there is no doubt that Rebecca Herbst and Jonathan Jackson sold the scene at Jake’s, in which Liz and Lucky told a horrified Rebecca about the brutal crime. I am not questioning their skill as actors. This is a question of why the-powers-that-be chose to use the most horrific event of Liz’s life to convince Rebecca to stay silent about Liz and Nikolas’ affair. You know, because the Four Musketeers’ friendship stemmed from that awful period and Becks shouldn’t torpedo that bond. Or whatever the rationale was. I don’t know, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it. Not to mention that Liz and Nikolas have already done a pretty good job of undermining all that historic friendship by christening every flat surface at Wyndemere while Lucky makes wedding plans.

What it boils down to for me is that Elizabeth’s rape should not be used like this — randomly thrown in to remind us that she was once an innocent victim…especially not with flashbacks. Oh, my God. It’s cheap, it’s demeaning and it’s emotionally manipulative. And it doesn’t make her any less of a cheating trollop in the now.

Plus, playing the rape victim card at this point in time runs roughshod over several years of history.

If Elizabeth really believes so wholeheartedly that Lucky healed her and she loves him like no other because of it, what were the years in between 1998 and now? She pursued Jason. She married Ric. And what about Zander? As for Nikolas…

“My first experience was so brutal that it shut something down inside of me,” Liz claimed on Dec. 3. “And obviously I’ve been with other guys, and it’s been fine, and I’ve enjoyed it, but there’s a part of me that has always been unavailable, and I rarely initiate sex. And, honestly, I would be more than happy to never have it again. Until now. Nikolas awakened that part of me, and he brought it to life.”

Wait, so Lucky didn’t heal her after the rape? I’m confused!

Especially since today, just a few weeks after that confession to Robin, Liz acted like Nikolas is of no consequence. We’re suddenly seeing Liz tearfully look at Lucky like he’s the only man in the world for her because he found her in the park one awful night 11 years ago. You can’t do that, GH. You can’t change your minds on a dime! Okay, fine, so you can do that, but we’ll call you on it.

God knows I love LL2, but their “permanent lock” done broke, thanks to Nikolas. No attempt to stroll down Memory Lane revisiting Liz’s rape is going to fix it.

I know that GH would like us to pretend that no other actor ever played Lucky, but Jacob Young and Greg Vaughan both did, and both Lucky and Elizabeth’s lives grew and changed during that time. No amount of flashbacks to the good ol’ days and Photoshopping Natalia Livingston in where Amber Tamblyn‘s Emily used to be is going to turn 11 years into just yesterday. Too much time has passed.

This story is all over the map, and in the midst of all the mixed messages, GH is being outright distasteful, and disrespectful to one of its most wrenching stories of the ’90s.

The infamous “Not a word” warning uttered by Liz’s rapist, Tom, is advice that GH should’ve taken when it came to this tale.

originally posted on soapoperaweekly.com