According to General Hospital (GH) spoilers, the show mysteriously changed Franco Baldwin, one of its most talked-about characters, with Austin Gatlin-Holt, one of its least talked-about characters. Both characters were portrayed by Roger Howarth. Maybe someone with a pen will have an idea for Howarth’s lost ability and Austin’s lifeless parody of a hillbilly doctor who delivers babies on the side of the road one day and hides’murder’ victims the next during the writer’s strike.
I can’t decide if the character’s lack of definition is a blessing or a curse—if they can give him a compelling identity and USE him, it’s the former, otherwise might as well have him trot off back to Pautauk and whatever heroic/shady dealings he was getting up to. Because right now does anyone care about a pale rider seen sporadically, Howarth and the fans deserve better than this.
Roger Howarth Deserves A Storyline
General Hospital spoilers show Austin and Ava Jerome (Maura West) are background noise, every so often menaced by creepy Cousin Mason (Nathanyael Grey) who also has been spinning his wheels for exactly one year now. He debuted on June 15, 2022 and all we know is he’s good at threatening little kids and likes lollipops. ABC must have a lot of money to spend (waste) keeping characters floating in the background while they decide what to do with them.
Inscrutably, Mason has the power to force a GH doctor to treat “special” patients while no one in authority notices the side biz Austin is running. Maybe now that Liz Webber (Rebecca Herbst) is Head Nurse she will bust this storyline wide open, but sadly it’s more likely to be put back on life support once the current hiccup between Ava/Austin/Mason goes away.
Austin Gatlin-Holt And Ava Jerome Need Juice
Basically the whole plot has done a 180 and it took a year to get here. Last year Mason threatened Maxie Jones’ (Kirsten Storms) kid Georgie if Austin didn’t play nice, now he’s threatening Ava’s kid Avery if she and Austin don’t play nice. We still don’t who the puppet master is, but we do know they want dirt on Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard).
Soooooo, it looks like Sonny is about to be betrayed by yet another loved one. Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see, this could be another false start to a storyline involving Austin, Mason, and their boss, and next year at this time we’ll be talking about Mason threatening Donna unless Austin plays nice. By the way, last week Austin went high school crush on Ava and mumbled something about liking her, which could mean a romance blossoms between them.
Raise your hand if you care, raise both hands if you want traction on Austin, stat.