"General Hospital: Night Shift" recaplet: Family Values

While we're still waiting for General Hospital: Dimly Lit Hallways Night Shift's gay doc Kyle Julian (Adam Grimes) to a meet his future boyfriend, this week's installment was pretty gay with a heavy dose of tears added into the mix. The episode saw Kyle taking up the cause of a lesbian being kept away from her dying partner's bedside and a return to the kind of yelling and sniping that's defined Kyle's relationship with his brother Leo (Ethan Rains) since his first day at the hospital.

Tensions arise when Leo dumps his patient Cynthia on Kyle after she is declared brain dead and too weak to survive for long, declaring his time is better spent on patients with a better chance of survival. Really, though, it's clear that Cynthia is just an excuse for another round of "You never apologized for stepping on my favorite model airplane when I was eight" or whatever lingering sibling issue these two have. But in this case, it turns out there's a little more to this particular fight.

Adam Grimes as Dr. Kyle Julian

Once Cynthia's parents arrive, it's quickly revealed that they've been estranged from their daughter for the past nine years ... since she met her partner, Allison. They don't have any idea what Cynthia's wishes would be if she were dependent on life support or if she's made a living will. When Allison announces that she and Cynthia have discussed such a situation, Ma and Pa Homophobe quickly have her kicked out of Cynthia's room as someone who isn't family. After some objection, Leo — who apparently took interest in Cynthia's case long enough to make sure that Kyle wouldn't be in the room in this situation — obliges with the demand.

Find out how our gay doc gets involved, after the break!

It's not long before Kyle is all "How could you, you cold bastard?" with his brother, which turns out to be supertext for "You were a jerk to me after I came out!", which we learn in Kyle's heart-to-heart with Claire (Carrie Southworth, who must have been feeling so liberated to have a scene not involving the lame comedy story about the death-obsessed rocker).

Claire pushes the subtext out of the closet by flat out asking, "So, how is Leo about you being gay?" Kyle explains that it was hard to live in Leo's shadow "when you're a petrified 12-year-old just trying to explain why you're more interested in tapdancing than scoring with some chick under the bleachers," and that Leo's avoided the subject ever since Kyle came out to him.

That tapdancing line sounds really bad on paper but there's something about Grimes and Southworth that makes some of these cliches seem really genuine. It's not like I ever expected to be entertained by a gay man and a straight woman fighting over the sexual orientation of the cute coffee barista or making marriage pacts.

Friends without benefits: Kyle & Claire

Allison's plot-dense story continues with a revelation that she and Cynthia were planning to have a child, Kyle and the other GH docs plotting a way to extract Cynthia's eggs regardless of the objections of Cynthia's parents (and if anyone thought Night Shift was SOAPnet's videotaped answer to Grey's Anatomy, that should clinch it), Leo stepping up to his brother's defense when Ma and Pa homophobe call him a "homo" pushing his "immoral agenda" and, of course, Kyle and Leo having a reconciliary heart-to-heart.

I'd love to break it down in further detail but that'll have to wait for the novelization. If I went into more detail I'd end up soaking my laptop with tears, anyway.

General Hospital: Night Shift hasn't broken any new ground with gay characters, but they've really managed to keep Kyle in a prominent role and this was one episode that mixed a solid understanding of gay issues with some solid melodrama. I guess what I'm saying here is ... does anyone remember the time a gay teacher came to Pine Valley on All My Children and all the old people were all "Get the torches and pitchforks!" while all the young people were like "Aren't you usually yelling at a cloud this hour?" This was so much better.

Also, can we get executive producer Lisa de Cazotte and head writer Sri Rao working on the next season of Night Shift right away?