General Hospital viewers may want to prepare themselves for some serious waterworks, because this week on the ABC soap opera will be an incredibly emotional one.
The first tear-jerker moment will be the vow renewal ceremony between Ned (Wally Kurth) and Olivia (Lisa LoCicero), which will begin on Tuesday, February 1, when friends and family of the couple gather for the romantic event.
The happy tears will quickly be followed by tears of devastation, however, when Jane Elliot's run as Ned's mother, Tracy, comes to a close.
In an interview with Soap Opera Digest, Kurth shares that this particular goodbye was extremely difficult because the mother and son pair have "gotten closer" than ever before. "It's the two characters saying goodbye to one another once again -- and there was probably a little bit of Wally and Jane in there, too," he reveals, adding that it's always tough for him to bid adieu to Elliot because of their years of on-screen history together, which includes their decades-long GH runs as well as playing lovers Justin Kiriakis and Anjelica Deveraux on Days of our Lives in the late 80s.
"Whenever we say goodbye to each other, we are genuinely sad to see each other go," Kurth shares, adding that for Ned and Tracy, "It's a pretty strong and profound goodbye, because they don't know when they're going to see each other again."
How Tracy will leave the canvas has yet to be announced, but an official show teaser reveals that on Wednesday, February 3, "things aren't looking good" for Ned's mom...
Elliot has been playing the role of GH's Tracy since 1978, but she has only appeared sporadically since retiring from the soap in 2017. Some of the occasions that have brought Tracy back include a holiday visit in 2019, a 2020 storyline in which Tracy framed Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn) for driving under the influence as a way to stop her from telling Olivia about Alexis and Ned's one-night stand, and the recent visit that started in early January, when Tracy broke the news that Luke (Anthony Geary) had died in an accident in Austria.
How do you feel about Jane Elliot's recent run as Tracy coming to a close? How did you feel about the story that brought her back to Port Charles this time around? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
