General Hospital Explainer: Sasha's First Tragic Home & Heart Appearance
"General Hospital" fans have been irritated by the seemingly unrelenting torture of Sasha Gilmore (Sofia Mattsson). She first arrived in Port Charles in 2018, when Sasha agreed to partake in a scam with Valentin Cassadine (James Patrick Stuart) to pretend to be the long-lost daughter of Nina Reeves (then Michelle Stafford, now Cynthia Watros). That scheme went south when the truth came out, but Nina and Sasha ended up becoming friends based on the mother/daughter relationship they had initially bonded over.
Sasha has always had good intentions, though. She felt guilty for pretending to be Nina's daughter and later sacrificed her relationship with Michael Corinthos (Chad Duell) so that he could marry Willow Tait (Katelyn MacMullen) in order to secure custody of his son. Harrison Chase (Josh Swickard) had been dating Willow while Michael was with Sasha, but the two pretended to have an affair in order to drive Willow and Michael together.
That plan worked successfully but since then, Sasha has had nothing but bad luck and Soap Hub even declared that her current storyline involving mental illness is being handled poorly. Sasha had been using drugs because of the high stress of her job as a model for Deception Cosmetics and currently has a conservator in the form of her mother-in-law, Gladys Corbin (Bonnie Burroughs), because of several public incidents.
Sasha turned back to drugs after her baby died
After getting pregnant from a one-night stand with Brando Corbin (Johnny Wactor), he and Sasha Gilmore fell in love. But then, Brando's meddling mother, Gladys, decided to move to town. When Sasha eventually went into labor, she needed to have an emergency C-section, and sadly the baby was born brain-dead due to oxygen deprivation. They named the child Liam but ultimately had to make the sad and gut-wrenching decision to have his life support shut off.
Taking a mental break, the two ended up eloping to Niagara Falls, with Brando unaware that Sasha had started using drugs again to numb her anguish. Later, a photographer, Paparazzo Felty (Brian Norris), was creeping around and snapped photos of Sasha using drugs. When she and Gladys pursued him, Sasha accidentally ran over Harmony Miller (Inga Caqdranel), who was fleeing her own drama and later died, leaving Sasha feeling incredibly guilty.
Lucy Coe (Lynn Herring) and Maxie Jones (Kirsten Storms) worked with a TV shopping show called "Home & Heart" to have Sasha represent Deception and sell its products live on the air. When the program's host, Haven de Havilland (Morgan Fairchild), arrived, Felty was also there taking photos and making Sasha nervous — so she secretly took more pills. During the show, Sasha faltered for a moment, but Gladys called into the program posing as a potential customer and got Sasha to snap out of it and sell some products.
Sasha suffered a major break from reality
Haven de Havilland then brought another seller onto the show, Flora Gardens (Susan Batten), whose products included a papoose for babies. Brando had been in the studio, watching the show from the sidelines, and when Flora asked Sasha to help her demonstrate the item, he tried in vain to get Maxie to pull Sasha out, but because it was live, they couldn't do anything. A baby doll was put in the papoose and placed on Sasha to model it. She suddenly had a break from reality, thinking the doll was alive and was Liam.
Lucy stopped Felty from taking pictures while Brando rushed to Sasha's side on the set. She started to cry upon realizing that it wasn't really her son. In the ensuing chaos, Flora felt extremely guilty as she had no idea Sasha had recently lost her baby. Haven, meanwhile, got angry that they had to cut the live feed and potentially lose customers, threatening to sue Lucy and Deception.
However, mobster Selina Wu (Lydia Look), who had a vested interest in the cosmetics company, stepped in and demanded that Haven apologize to Sasha or the legal ramifications would be dire for "Home & Heart." At the hospital, Dr. Kevin Collins (Jon Lindstrom) found the drugs in Sasha's purse, and she was admitted for observation, despite her protests. Sadly, this was just the beginning of a long, arduous road that Sasha is still trying to navigate.