- General Hospital
- News
Mala Bhattacharjee
Thursday, June 1st, 2023
Credit: ABC screenshot
General Hospital’s Willow has finally gone under the knife for her bone marrow transplant, but will she escape the Grim Reaper’s scythe?
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Port Charles’s beloved weepy waif has been kept hanging on like the Supremes song, with the lightest possible case of Stage 4 leukemia, after months of delaying treatment and even getting married to Michael in a touching all-hands-on-deck family wedding. But now she finally has Auntie Liesl’s healthy bone marrow spreading fresh cells through her system. Can she — and we — breathe a sigh of relief?
“The transplant itself isn’t that different than a blood transfusion,” assured sudden cancer specialist TJ. “So all you need to do is sit back and relax.” (Relax? TJ, this isn’t like hanging out in your sweats at the gatehouse!)
If it’s really that easy, why wasn’t it done months ago? When she had, like, two weeks to live? We take soap operas with massive grains of salt, and enough suspension of disbelief to hold up several bridges, but Willow’s cancer arc has strained even our elastic credulity. Especially given her grandmother-in-law Monica’s 1995 breast cancer arc, which viewers still laud today as a heartfelt and realistic portrayal of the disease.
More: Will GH’s Nikolas evade the Reaper, too?
Putting Willow behind glass, having emotional phone conversations with Michael and Sasha, and her adorable moppets Wiley and Amelia, tugs at the heartstrings while also feeling really late in the game. Not since Jenny in 1970’s Love Story has a disease been this drawn out for maximum impact. And is it really going to end with her lifesaving surgery? After all, transplants don’t always take and she can languish in the hospital forever if need be.
Many viewers having been rooting for Willow to “just die already,” but given her placement as General Hospital‘s central ingenue and Michael’s wife, that’s highly unlikely. What’s probably going to happen is what’s happened with her story all along — a recovery wrapped up in neat little bows, ignoring the true impact of cancer on patient and family, while everyone gushes about how brave she’s been.
Whose suffering will end first? Ours or hers? We’ll find out soon enough!
Want to relive every moment of Willow and Michael’s epic love story? We’ve got you covered!
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Image: ABC Screenshot
1/17
<p>Rich boy Michael Corinthos and down-to-earth teacher Willow Tait first crossed paths at a bereavement group. He was mourning the loss of his son Jonah, while she was struggling with having given up her son, Wiley, for adoption. Little did they know just how complex their situations were. Why? Well…</p>
Image: © Howard Wise/jpistudios.com
2/17
<p>See, wicked Nelle Benson — aka the mother of Michael’s son — had swapped their alive child for the dead, adopted son of her best pal Brad Cooper and his none-the-wiser hubby Lucas Jones. (Why? Long, long story!) Which meant that Brad was raising Michael’s son, with Willow completely unaware that her child had passed away.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
3/17
<p>Michael soon found himself drawn to Willow, but she was already dating his pal, cop Harrison Chase. Being the gentlemanly sort, Michael backed off and instead pursued up-and-coming model Sasha Gilmore who, just to keep things interesting, was pretending to be the long-lost daughter of Nina Reeves… when not dressing up as a superhero.</p>
4/17
<p>Sometimes, that’s a question soap children shouldn’t ask. Because it turned out that Willow’s babydaddy was cult leader Hank “Shiloh” Archer. When Michael’s younger sister, Kristina Davis, got involved with his cult, Willow scored big points with him by helping her see that Dawn of Day was a dark, dark place.</p>
Image: © Howard Wise/jpistudios.com
5/17
<p>Eventually, everyone learned that the baby they’d been calling “Wiley” was actually Michael’s son, Jonah. This left Willow to process the devastating news that the child she’d given birth to was long dead. Rather than confuse his son, Michael opted to continue calling the boy “Wiley” and suggested Willow remain in his life as a mother-figure.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
6/17
<p>With Nelle determined to gain custody of Wiley, attorney Diane Miller suggested Michael take a wife, pronto. Sasha? Not so fast, given that she’d been busted for fraud thanks to the whole pretending-to-be-Nina’s-daughter thing. The next obvious choice? Willow! But she declined the offer, what with being in love with Chase and all.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
7/17
<p>Determined to protect Wiley from Nelle, Sasha and Chase pretended to be having an affair, thus freeing a devastated Michael and Willow to enter a marriage of convenience. With friends and family in attendance, they tied the knot at the Quartermaine mansion, home to many a happy couple over the years.</p>
Image: ABC Screenshot
8/17
<p>A graduate of the never-say-die club, Nelle kidnapped Wiley while everyone was distracted by the 2020 Nurses Ball. Michael rode to his son’s rescue, earning in the process his first real kiss from wife Willow. (Fun fact: Thanks to Covid protocols in place at the time, we never actually saw the pair lock lips.) A day later, he suggested she adopt Wiley to secure her place in the boy’s life.</p>
Image: ABC Screenshot
9/17
<p>Painting Wiley’s room turned into something a whole lot more when the couple’s much-discussed annulment papers arrived… and led to them confessing their true feelings and making love for the first time! Everything was going swell for the pair until…</p>
Image: © XJJohnson/jpistudios.com
10/17
<p>The truth (about Sasha and Chase’s non-affair) set Willow free (of her marriage to Michael). Going through with the annulment, the formerly-weds tried reuniting with their former partners. Sasha and Michael quickly realized they were no longer as into one another as they’d once been. As for Chase and Willow…</p>
11/17
<p>Believing Chase was on his deathbed thanks to having been poisoned by bad guy Peter August, Willow agreed to become his bride. After the wedding, it turned out Chase had actually only been on his sickbed. Rather than lose his new wife to her former husband, Chase faked his paralysis a while to keep her from walking out.</p>
Image: ABC
12/17
<p>Having realized that they’d never stopped loving one another, Willow and Michael decided to tell her recovered husband the truth… only to find out that he’d known they were still in love for a while. Soon after, Willow got yet another annulment and moved into the Quartermaine gatehouse with Michael and Wiley.</p>
Image: ABC screenshot
13/17
<p>Nina accidentally discovered that the supposedly-dead Sonny Corinthos was alive and living as memory-addled Mike in a town called Nixon Falls. Ultimately deciding to keep this news to herself, Nina began to fall for the dimpled Don. Once Sonny regained his memory and returned to Port Charles, his feelings for Nina complicated everything, including her desire to have a relationship with Wiley, her grandson via the now-dead (or so they say) Nelle.</p>
Image: ABC Screenshot
14/17
<p>Just before dying, Willow’s supposed mom, former Shiloh acolite Harmony, revealed that she’d actually stolen the girl from her biological mom… Nina! With whom did Harmony share this news? Carly, who had about a zillion reasons to hate Sonny-stealing Nina and opted to keep this information to herself. For Willow’s own good,of course. Or so Carly told herself.</p>
Image: ABC Screenshot
15/17
<p>It was a good news/bad news scenario for Willow, who found out she and Michael would soon be giving little Wiley a brother or sister… but that she also had leukemia! To protect her unborn child, Willow opted to postpone undergoing chemotherapy or telling anyone — including Michael — about the cancer.</p>
Image: ABC Screenshot
16/17
<p>By the time her progressing illness basically forced Willow to fill Michael in, her situation had grown dire. With her health rapidly failing, they began praying for a potential bone marrow donor. Ironically, Carly’s new beau, Drew Cain, spearheaded the search for Willow’s birth mom, his girlfriend blocking his efforts every step of the way!</p>
Image: ABC Screenshot
17/17
