TOP 10 SOAP OPERA TINY TERRORS

Let’s cut General Hospital’s tiny terror Jake some slack. It’s not easy coming back from the dead. Especially when you “died” a cherubic preschooler and are now an angsty tween. Who was held prisoner for years by a psychotic (though well-dressed) villainess known for her tendency to brainwash. And the guy who rescued you, the one you thought was your dad, takes off with some vague excuse about “keeping the darkness at bay” and whatnot. Then you find out another guy, the one who once shared your name, prompting everyone to call you Little Jake (how demeaning!) is really your dad. Except he and your mom aren’t together anymore, and he’s inching closer to his ex, the mother of his other son. The one who’s still a cherubic preschooler.

Anyone would go a little batty after all that. So if Jake is the one making it look their family is being stalked in order to push his mom and dad back together, who would blame him? The kid definitively needs some therapy. (Though it’s questionable whether ex-serial-killer-turned-art-therapist Franco, the one who was once obsessed with Jake’s mob enforcer dad, is exactly the right person for the job.)

Alas, poor, traumatized Jake isn’t the only tiny terror currently living in Port Charles. There’s also Spencer who, save a kidnapping or two, up until his recent Phantom of the Opera style face-burning incident, had led a pretty charmed life. (So, okay, his mom died when he was an infant – and didn’t come back from the dead. But in the grand scheme of soap-opera kid tragedies, that one barely rates.) Nonetheless, in addition to his precocious vocabulary, Spencer also boasts a precocious rap sheet. At only 10 years old, he’s already tampered with a local election by stealing a ballot box, broke into his father’s safe to snag a family heirloom ring, and dropped sand-bags onto the stage where his (also 10 year old) “romantic rival” was performing a tango with the girl Spencer wanted for himself.

But lest your think Port Charles is exclusively popular by bad boys, meet Josslyn. Cancer that led to a kidney transplant as a tot is no excuse for such later acts as locking her babysitter in the attic, trying to smash a man’s brains in with a crowbar, general scheming with Spencer, and lots of standing around, looking very Bad Seed-ish. On the other hand, Joss seems to be one of the few people in town who realizes that her mother’s on-again/off-again husband, Sonny the mobster, is a horrible person. Takes one to know one?

Meanwhile, over on The Young & the Restless, there’s a budding tiny terror in the making as Max blames stepmother Abby for his mother’s recent death. As opposed to blaming his mother for driving and talking on her phone at the same time (let this be your PSA, kids!). Abby thinks she can smooth over the situation by getting Max a sneak preview of a new video-game. Abby is wrong.

Will Max eventually stop sulking, or will his whining escalate into GH kids’ territory? Let’s check out the trajectories of some previous soap-opera tiny terrors, in ascending order of sociopath, to see if they might offer a clue at Entertainment Weekly!