‘General Hospital’ Poll: Nina Clay Going Crazy for Real, Can Franco Save Her?

If anyone in Port Charles deserves a measure of sympathy, it’s Nina Clay [Michelle Stafford]. Poor girl was put into a coma by her mom Madeline Reeves [Donna Mills] for 20 years and that was after she found out her husband Silas Clay [Michael Easton] had cheated on her. Factor into it that Nina miscarried the baby she was carrying when she went into the coma (that kid may yet turn up) and you have a recipe for instability.

Out of the coma, she finds that Silas has taken up with hottie Sam Morgan [Kelly Monaco] and she has no role in this new world. Mentally, Nina is still like a teenager – falling in love, out of love, acting impetuously and just aching for someone to love her. And you even understood why she stole Ava Jerome’s [Maura West] baby since Ava had a baby with Silas that Nina felt should have been hers. So no matter that Nina sometimes acts the villain, she’s just a lost little girl.

And that’s what makes it so despicable that her hubby she married off the cuff, the revolting Ric Lansing [Rick Hearst], is gaslighting Nina with the help of her mom Maddy. Not only are they trying to drive Nina mad, they’re cheating behind her back. And the nature of the gaslighting is horrific. Both Madeline and Ric know that Nina’s deepest wish in this world is to have a baby, yet they’re using baby sounds to torment her. Plus there’s the fake Avery blanket and the crib that disappeared.

Nina has become convinced that she’s crazy, so much so that she voluntarily committed herself to Shadybrook. But then along comes her hero Franco [Roger Howarth] who does truly love her and offers her the much-needed truth that it was Silas that kidnapped baby Avery. Silas’ confession would have exonerated Nina with the cops and given her peace of mind, but his murder short-circuited that. And Nina finding Silas’ bloody corpse does not help her mental presence at all.

Who didn’t tear up watching Nina give that passionate and so sad goodbye to dead Silas? Now Nina has to worry that the police will still be looking at her for the kidnapping since Silas isn’t around to confess. Then when Nina saw that Franco had been arrested for Silas’ murder, she almost had a mental break right then. And if Franco lets it slip that Nina was at Silas’ place the night of his murder, the cops will be breathing down her neck for both murder and kidnapping.

Will all of these pressures, plus the potential loss of Franco, plus Maddy and Ric putting increasing pressure on her, will Nina crack? We’ve seen Nina as completely crazy and seen her faking crazy. The bottom line is that Nina is, at her best, always a hairs breadth away from full blow nuttiness. She only seems truly sane around the other lunatic – Franco.

It could be that lotsa crazy Nina plus lotsa crazy Franco = kind of sane Franina (or as some fan boards are calling them 2 Crazy). Let’s just hope that Franco, maybe with an assist from Nina’s baby brother Nathan West (Ryan Paevey), can save Nina from a complete and total mental breakdown.

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