Credit: ABC screenshot (6)

If it’s always darkest before the dawn, then dawn must be awfully close!

Just when it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse for embattled General Hospital heroine Trina, they do. The week of August 1, a confrontation between Ava and Esme “has some deadly consequences,” co-headwriter Dan O’Connor tells Soap Opera Digest. And those consequences won’t just impact Wyndemere’s residents, either; they’ll also affect Trina and her trial. But how?

Could Nikolas’ wife actually — gulp! — kill the scheme queen who seduced him? It wouldn’t be the first bit of blood on Ava’s hands. (Right, Connie?) And with Oz in a coma, Esme is the only person who could clear Trina’s name.

Esme and Nikolas sex GH

We knew there would be fallout — and Esme was actually counting on it.

Credit: ABC screenshot

The Best-Laid Plans

Spencer had hoped that he could bribe his treacherous “girlfriend” into exonerating the young woman that he really loves by dangling her biological mother’s identity like a carrot in front of her. Alas, thanks to Daddy Dearest Ryan, that notion flew out the window and kept right on going. (It also left us with a big question about Esme’s mother. Read all about it here.)

Missing the thought bubble that reads, “Would Esme dying be the worst thing?”

Credit: ABC screenshot

The Moment of Truth?

Maybe there’s still something that Spencer can do to remedy the situation? That appears to be Diane’s hope when she calls both him and Trina back to the stand. “As [the lawyer] tries to get to the heart of the matter,” says O’Connor, “it may force Trina to admit the matter of her heart.”

Which would be swell and all — we’ve been dying for her and Spencer to come clean about their feelings for one another. Not sure how that would get her off the hook for making public Josslyn and Cameron’s tryst, though. So perhaps Trina will finally reveal that she was with Spencer in the cemetery when the video went live?

Revisit the glory days of General Hospital and Love in the Afternoon with the below photo gallery full of rare images and indelible memories.