GH: Spinelli & Ellie Move to Portland

This week marked Bradford Anderson and Emily Wilson's last appearance (for now) on General Hospital as their characters Spinelli and Ellie moved to Portland, Oregon. Below are my thoughts on their departure.

Ellie got a job offer she couldn't refuse, and Spinelli as a doting boyfriend decided to go along with her to the west coast leaving Port Charles behind them. While it was nice to see characters leave town alive, I felt that their reunion wasn't earned. Ellie lied to Spinelli for months about how he was the biological father to Maxie's (Kirsten Storms) baby and only told him when the child was born. It would have been different if Spinelli actually remembered having sex, but he couldn't even recall that so he had no idea he could be a father. Since other than Spinelli, Ellie never made any strong friendships, so she had no one to say goodbye to in Port Charles. Spinelli spoke to his detective agency partner Sam (Kelly Monaco), as they were living together with their kids.

On the way out of town, Spinelli defied the court order keeping Maxie away from their daughter. He brought the little girl to her apartment to say goodbye. While they were speaking, Spinelli told Maxie that he decided to change the girl's name from Connie to Georgie. This was appropriate as Georgie is Maxie's late sister, and if it hadn't been for her death Maxie and Spinelli would have never become close. GH even gave them a flashback montage. If things had been different, Maxie and Spinelli could have been happy together, but even so they still cared about each other. Maxie gave Spinelli a gift from her childhood, and she cried holding the pair of booties that she kept.

For what it was, I liked how Spinelli and Maxie said goodbye. (For example, I wish that there had been a line where Spinelli told Maxie that he would send pictures, and that before they left town that Maxie's Mom got to meet her grandchild. I would have paced things slightly differently so the scenes with Felicia and Mac dovetailed with Spinelli coming to the apartment.) The departure was open-ended, so it isn't out of the question that Spinelli or Ellie could visit Port Charles in the future. I hope we get more goodbyes like this as while I wasn't exactly thrilled about Spinelli and Ellie getting back together, I like seeing characters leave by saying goodbye.