Another one for the “be careful what you wish for” files.

You know what? I wanted to like the big Spinelli/Maxie break up today. Because, first of all, hello! I’ve been waiting for these two to move out of each other’s orbits for, um, forever? And God knows they are both fairly terrible and both deserve a good telling off, and there were some great lines in there that have needed saying for a very long time.

Except I don’t think the show quite realizes that Spinelli is not actually a hapless victim of her evil, feminine wiles? And it is really starting to piss me off.

SPINELLI: I said how about thank you?
MAXIE: For what?
SPINELLI: Getting you out of prison.
MAXIE: Are you for real?
SPINELLI: Or–or! And these are in no particular order, Maxie: saving you from a kidnapping drug ring? Falling through a ceiling and then taking a bullet for you? Years–years! Of patience and understanding. Kindness, encouragement, support… Sustaining belief, the kind which only I can provide.

WHERE TO BEGIN? I mean, Maxie has historically been a fairly terrible friend to him, but there are some really notable exceptions, and one of the biggest is that time she spent MONTHS single-handedly babysitting and nursing him back to mental health after he was shot, when literally no one else in town cared enough to even try and get him help. So, you know, fuck you very much for bringing that up, Spinelli.

Or how about his oft-repeated certainty that he is the only one who could possibly love/understand/support her and therefore how dare she not be with him? Which really puts the cherry on top of the Nice Guy(TM) ice cream sunday of entitlement.

I mean, he spent all those years hanging around encouraging and supporting her, you guys! (Purely out of the goodness of his heart and not because he expected any compensation in the form of her eventually dating him again, OBVIOUSLY.) He hung on for years, despite the fact that she told him repeatedly that they were over and she had moved onto someone else! All that time passive aggressively trash talking her new boyfriend, sometimes kidnapping her to keep her away from him — hasn’t Spinelli earned her coming back to him yet?

MAXIE: So it won’t bother you if I stay married to Matt?
SPINELLI: No, go, on waste your life. But for the record, I’m done wasting mine.
MAXIE: Being my friend was a waste?
MAXIE: Friendship, Maxie, is not defined by one party blatantly taking advantage of the other. Or treating said friend like dirt just because you can. Look, I know that my love has no meaning to you. Has no value. That it’s simply a tool for your convenience. But I am done. With this? Done with you.

If the Spinelli who spoke all those things had just stepped out of a time machine from three years ago, then I would be clapping and jumping up and down in my seat! Because, dude. There was a time when all I wanted in life was for him to tell Maxie off for being an insensitive, self-absorbed user. Except it’s hard to applaud the sentiment when I know that what he’s really mad about is the fact that her definition of “friendship” doesn’t include paying him back for all those “nice” things he’s done by sleeping with him again.

Dear Spinelli: You’ve been broken up for over a year. No one has been forcing you to follow her around town like a little lost puppy. No one forced you to put her up on a pedestal or live in this dream world where you knew what she wanted better than she did. And you do not get to whine at her about taking advantage of you when you’ve been basically stalking her and refusing to accept that she’s dating someone else.

Backpfeifengesicht!

Of course, Maxie is also a pretty incredible asshole these days, and as much Spinelli-rage as I harbor, it is impossible not to enjoy anyone calling her on her part in the First Mate’s murder:

SPINELLI: Yeah, why would you turn to me when you could turn to Anthony Zacchara, whose kind of help is killing an innocent woman?
MAXIE: I didn’t know he was going to do that.
SPINELLI: What did you think an unbalanced, homicidal gangster was going to do?

Seriously, Maxie. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT WOULD BE THE OUTCOME OF THAT DEAL? She is the worst.

The silver lining to all this is that if Spinelli actually sticks to his guns this time time and stays away from her, each of them will instantly become at least 98% more likeable. Case in point: Maxie’s moving in with Patrick and Emma!

Please turn your brain off and disregard the fact that in order to justify this turn of events, she apparently just gave away her apartment and everything she owned without even signing over the lease or handing over a pair of keys. You know what? I don’t care! I love families coming together, and if Matt can’t be around, then I want Emma to at least have her aunt. Plus, it was nice to see Patrick smiling again.

Also nice?

MAC AND FELICIA, SITTING IN A TREE!

You know, these two never set my world on fire, but they were solid and occasionally very fun, and I bought them together in a way that I’ve never bought him with many other woman since. The way they got shafted when she got turned into a child-abandoning serial cheater for pretty much no reason has never sat well with me, so if Carlivati wants to snap his fingers and put it right again just as arbitrarily, who am I to complain? Older couples getting love lives for the win!

Meanwhile, speaking of utterly implausible housing drama, is the Port Charles real estate market really so tight that anyone would be desperate enough to live with Trey? Really? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW. (And I mean, who would really want to live in this town anyway? It has exactly two bars and there are regular shoot outs and bombings at both of them! You’d think people would be leaving by the droves.)

But never mind that, because you guys! Michael and NuKristina have finally shared significant scenes! Which means I can now officially rate them on the inappropriate sibling chemistry scale, where:

1 = Steve and Elizabeth, i.e. “Rocks have more sexual chemistry than these two.”
5 = Alexis and Stefan, i.e. “I feel only mildly dirty watching this.”
10 = Johnny and Claudia, i.e. “In every scene, I expect them to spontaneously make out.”

So! If Lexi Ainsworth’s Kristina and Drew Garrett’s Michael were a solid 8, and she and Chad Duell’s Michael were skirting 6.5, I’d put NuKristina and CD’s Michael at… 3? Maybe?

Yes, it seems like Lexi Ainsworth was the culprit all along! Because I don’t feel like NuKristina and her brother are ready to jump each other’s bones in any way. (There. Don’t you feel better now that we’ve determined that? WITH SCIENCE?)

While we’re talking about NuKristina, I am honestly trying to not hate her, but her smug smuggery is really making it hard. I mean, of all the legitimate reasons to hate her father, this is the one she chooses to fixate on? Not, say… that time he nearly blew her up? But no, pulling strings to get her into the college of her choice, for which she was qualified enough to be partially accepted already, is much worse than nearly killing her.

(Because Yale, don’t you know, has never in its entire history let any student in because of bribery or nepotism. Perish the thought! Every one of those students would be SHOCKED and APPALLED at the very idea of a rich and powerful father providing them with any hint of not entirely deserved-on-their-own-academic-merits privilege. I mean, come on. This isn’t Harvard.)

But maybe I could accept it if her plan wasn’t so godawful stupid. Feeling humiliated and exposed to a relatively tiny group of your peers? Why not do the same to yourself to a NATIONAL audience — including all future educational institutions, employers and anyone you might ever date? Makes sense to me! And why not do the same to all of your siblings, too? I’m sure Morgan, who’s been sent out of town and had his last name changed for his own safety, really needs to have his family secrets splashed all over the television! Molly sure doesn’t have enough social awkwardness issues to deal with as it is! Sam definitely doesn’t need a safe, quiet place to deal with her grief!

And Michael might be a mob-apologist to his bones, but Kristina supposedly cares enough about him to maybe not want to publicize all his coma/Claudia-killing/PRISON RAPE trauma. But no! She doesn’t give a crap about protecting his privacy — she cares about protecting him from a grieving mother. Because only Kristina’s allowed to lash out and hurt the people around her when she’s suffering mild embarrassment! Dead kid? Get over it, already!

STARR: Look, I’ve done some things I’m not proud of. Some very crazy things. But all I can say is that I wasn’t myself. Grief makes you act in ways you can’t even imagine.
KRISTINA: [in the least sincere voice imaginable] I’m sorry for your loss, but it doesn’t justify you using Michael.
MICHAEL: Kristina–
KRISTINA: What, she stayed with you then tried to kill our father. If that doesn’t qualify as using, I don’t know what does.

What? This is the same argument Michael made and I didn’t get it then, either. Did the fact that Starr lived with him for a few weeks somehow make it possible for her to go after Sonny? Did getting close to Michael grant her some inside knowledge she could use? Because if not, then how the hell was she using him?

In conclusion: Kristina sucks.

Finally — and brace yourselves, because this does not happen that often — Sonny was really decent today. In fact, I might go so far as to say that as awful as his daughter was? That’s how not awful Sonny was. I know! It was weird for me too.

But aside from an initial unhelpful outburst, he was supportive and compassionate and understanding throughout Kate’s confession. He even recognized that it was his fault! And wouldn’t let her apologize! And didn’t call her a faithless whore even once!

What is the world coming to?