gh esme carly
Credit: ABC (2)

After she got physical with Esme, viewers were left with capital-F Feelings.

The March 14 episode of General Hospital has left everybody talking. That Carly would stand up for daughter Josslyn and see right through Esme’s innocent act made total sense. Of course, the “reformed” scheme queen wouldn’t buy for a second that the junior deceiver wasn’t behind the release of Joss and Cameron’s X-rated debut. Game, after all, recognizes game.

But where the audience became divided was the point at which Carly took the bait Esme laid out, grabbed her by the arm and growled, “You are messing with the wrong people!” We know that it didn’t hurt as much as Esme acted like it did; that was for show, for Nikolas’ benefit (anything to help daddy Ryan). Still, Carly crossed a line by getting physical with her daughter’s tormentor. (Watch below.)

“I barely touched her,” the mama grizzly insisted. Yet, as justdoodirty2 tweeted, “Esme is at the hospital with a sprang wrist… Y’all still think Cujo Carly don’t belong in a mental institution? The woman is a lunatic.”

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Jordan Jackson marveled that there were “so many people are calling for Carly to give Esme what she deserves and to hold her for her actions, but I find that ironic as Carly never gets held responsible for her own. How many times is she gonna look at young women that are just like she was and let them turn out worse?”

ItalianoVV56 added that Carly might have just put herself in harm’s way by roughing up Esme. “Before you go putting your hands on a kid, make sure you know who their parents are” — in this case, serial killer Ryan!

“Carly got away with assaulting Nina and lying to the police twice about being there on the cliff with Nelle,” pointed out Rachel Sutton. “She needs to finally pay for assaulting Esme. I hope Esme presses charges against her so Michael and Josslyn can watch their mom get carted off to jail.”

On the flipside, a whole lotta fans, knowing what Carly can technically only suspect about Esme, were squarely on her side. Never mind that there were options far more effective than going all Beth Dutton on Esme, they were all for Carly opening a can of whup-ass. “I’m sorry,” began rodrigosworld81, “but I’m Team Carly on this. If a bitch messes with my daughter and has the unmitigated gall to post a sex tape involving my daughter without her consent, she’s getting all these hands.”

HotVannaNights was “usually at the head of ‘Why must Carly be inserted into every storyline?’ line. But Carly defending her daughter after she had a sex tape leaked isn’t one of these times. She’s got every right to go off.

“And Esme is a legal adult — Carly’s not attacking a ‘child’ or ‘teen.’”

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What’s your take on the altercation? Weigh in in the comments section, and while you’re here, revisit highlights and lowlights of Carly’s checkered past in the below photo gallery.

Video: YouTube/ghclips