From becoming lovers on the run to saving the world, Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura Spencer (Genie Francis) set the bar extremely high for soap opera pairings on “General Hospital,” creating the supercouple phenomenon. Through the decades, there have been many romantic unions that have also been considered supercouples including Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) and Holly Sutton (Emma Samms); Frisco (Jack Wagner) and Felicia Jones (Kristina Wagner); and Anna Devane (Finola Hughes) and Duke Lavery (Ian Buchanan), just to name a few. Spencer Cassadine (Nicholas Chavez) and Trina Robinson (Tabyana Ali) have been compared to Luke and Laura, and while they have a long way to go to achieve that status, they’re certainly well on their way.
Although Alan (Stuart Damon) and Monica Quartermaine (Leslie Charleson) had been married and divorced over the years, even trying to kill each other at times, they were at least interesting and held our attention. Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy) and Dex Heller (Evan Hofer), through their first chance encounters, intrigued us as their chemistry was through the roof. But once they finally hooked up, their lives consisted of sleeping together while talking about his boss, Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard). Joss hates that he’s in the mafia, but Dex doesn’t care, and neither do we. Couples with no chemistry can lose an audience and kill a pairing almost immediately, and these five General Hospital couples take the cake for being the worst ever.
Patrick Drake and Sam McCall
Could anyone get any drippier than Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco)? Unless she’s embroiled in a mystery with an element of danger and action, she’s supremely boring. Electricity coursed through the relationship of Dr. Patrick Drake (Jason Thompson) and Dr. Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough), but when he thought she was dead, he became a wayward soul and hooked up with Sam. The problem with these two is that, while they did have some chemistry, Patrick became far less interesting when he renounced his playboy ways for Robin, becoming incredibly vanilla. Sam was only really interesting when she was with Jason Morgan (Steve Burton), as their action-packed lives kept us enthralled.
But by the time she and Patrick got engaged in 2015, they were so inundated with the drama that they lost sight of who they were as a couple. Add to that the dead-again, alive-again status of their former partners, and it wasn’t long before they broke up, particularly because Sam was still hung up on Jason. Throughout the course of their relationship, we could only see them with Robin and Jason, so it was hard to envision Patrick and Sam together. Some fans felt they had chemistry and were excited when they finally had sex, but come on, we all knew it wouldn’t last. Those are the worst kinds of stories, because why pair up a couple when we knew they were wrong for each other from the start?
Peter August and Maxie Jones
Maxie Jones (Kirsten Storms) has been a human dynamo for decades on “General Hospital,” and her romance with detective Nathan West (Ryan Paevey) was one for the books. But alas, Paevey decided making Hallmark Christmas movies was a better career decision, so Nathan was killed off. Maxie is the daughter of supercouple Frisco and Felicia Jones. You would think the show would be able to pair this legacy character up with someone else that she has amazing chemistry with, but sadly, it seems that Nathan was the one and only for her. In the blink of an eye, she rebounded with his brother, Peter August (Wes Ramsey). It turned out that super criminal Cesar Faison (Anders Hove) was the father of the two men, with Nathan being good and the dastardly Peter, aka Henrik Faison, evil, which he kept secret for a long time.
So long that Maxie ended up pregnant with his child, and she went to great lengths to keep that a secret from him. However, Peter relentlessly pursued her once he learned of the child’s existence. His crimes pushed him far beyond any potential redemption that he may have sought. Fortunately, he met his end when Felicia killed him by whacking him over the head. This couple had zero chemistry and it was far too soon for Maxie to move on from Nathan. As the layers of Peter’s dark past were uncovered, it was clear that their relationship would end tragically.
Carly Corinthos and Franco Baldwin
When Carly Corinthos (Laura Wright) and reformed serial killer Franco Baldwin (Roger Howarth) entered into a relationship, it seemed as if we were watching the Bizarro World version of Port Charles. When Franco was originally played by famed actor James Franco, the character not only terrorized Jason Morgan and Sam McCall, but he was also instrumental in having Carly’s son Michael Corinthos raped in prison. Yet, Carly fell in love with the Howarth version of Franco and even though everyone in town thought she was out of her mind, she set her sights on marrying him. We found this rather peculiar right from the start. There were more sparks created when you put a butter knife in the toaster than between these two characters.
When Franco’s mother, the evil Heather Webber (then Robin Mattson), decided Carly was not the woman he should be with (go figure!), she skillfully escaped from the Ferncliff sanitarium and tried to kill her. Sure, Franco saved Carly and in so doing stabbed his mom and buried her alive, but Carly’s ex Sonny Corinthos was the one to save her from all the insanity, and we knew that was going to happen right from the start. Carly and Franco’s pairing was obviously a plot device to get her back with Sonny, and it was so painfully obvious that we groaned through their entire relationship.
Sonny Corinthos and Emily Quartermaine
Speaking of bizarro relationships, nothing was stranger than the romance of volatile mobster Sonny Corinthos with the sweet Emily Quartermaine (Natalia Livingston). Talk about exact opposites! Because Emily’s brother, Jason Morgan, worked with and was close friends with Sonny, he was a presence in her life. After Connor Bishop (Tyler Christopher) brutally raped her, it took a long time for Emily to recover, and Sonny was there to lend a helping hand. Amidst the encephalitis breakout in Port Charles in 2006, causing Sonny to almost die, they unsurprisingly fell in love. But the two knew their family and friends wouldn’t approve, so they kept their relationship a secret. Emily saw Sonny’s good side, but soon his dark half emerged.
She realized he needed help, and it was discovered that he had bipolar disorder. He eventually decided that his life was too violent for her, and the two broke things off amicably. Let’s not forget the significant age gap between the two which gave us horrific flashbacks from when Sonny had underage Karen Wexler (Cari Shayne) work as a stripper and supplied her with drugs. Sonny and Emily clearly weren’t a good match. Since Benard had opened up about his bipolar disorder, allowing it to be written into his character, it almost seemed as if the reason Sonny and Emily were brought together was an excuse to introduce that into the story. We can’t really find any other rational explanation for it.
Michael Corinthos and Willow Tait
If you’re struggling with insomnia, look to the insufferable romance of Michael Corinthos (Chad Duell) and Willow Tait (Katelyn MacMullen) for a cure. When they were each dating Sasha Gilmore (Sofia Mattsson) and Harrison Chase (Josh Swickard) respectively, it was kind of interesting when their two partners pretended to have an affair so that Michael and Willow would be thrust together as a couple in order to gain custody of baby Wiley from the evil Nelle Benson (Chloe Lanier). But then things took a detour when the two fell for each other for real, and that’s when they became supremely boring. Michael ended up harboring tons of anger when he feuded with his father, Sonny Corinthos, and Willow was embittered with her long-lost mother, Nina Reeves (Cynthia Watros).
On top of that, when Willow got pregnant, she hid her leukemia diagnosis from Michael, even delaying treatment until she knew it would be safe for the baby. While Chase and Willow and Michael and Sasha each had great chemistry as couples, when Willow and Michael got together, any sparks they had fizzled out, and we were left with angry people that caused us to pull our hair out. Every time they’re on screen together, it’s an effort for us not to hit the fast-forward button on the remote, and everything that they do is a big “who cares?” moment. “General Hospital” should just have these two move away to save us from boredom.
