Hello and welcome to another edition of Critical Diagnosis, fellow General Hospital viewers! Let's look back at the stuff that went down in Port Charles last week, and spend a few words (ha ha) getting into what worked and what didn't. Away we go!
Charlotte, What Have You Done?
I still can't tell whether the fi-core writers have any kind of long-term plan for this "Anna under attack" storyline or if they're just chucking twists and turns at the screen as they go along, but on balance, I think much of what they've come up with has been pretty entertaining — up to and including the reveal that it was Charlotte who tossed Anna and Valentin's Metro Court suite, ruining Anna's new duds and leaving a threatening message on the bathroom mirror. It didn't take Valentin long to figure this out, thanks to his long-forgotten personal connection with Nina; after seeing the damage, he made a beeline for her office and asked her if they could view the hotel security footage together, and she obliged, ushering him into Olivia's office and using her computer to catch Charlotte red-handed.
Valentin, naturally, assumes that this is a cry for help from a teenager who feels neglected by her oft-absent Papa, and as a result, he reacted to this news the way he reacts to most unpleasant things — by hiding it from anyone who could or should do anything about it. Quickly fobbing his daughter off on Nina for a surprise sleepover, he hissed "get it off the server" before hustling back to the room and telling Anna the footage of the time around the break-in had been mysteriously erased from the Metro Court server. Next stop: catching Dante at the PCPD, where he told Dante he'd be making a new, permanent home in Port Charles where he and Charlotte could live together full-time.
Valentin's sensible assumption regarding Charlotte's motives is troubling enough — as he later told Nina, he's keeping quiet until he can figure out whether Charlotte is also responsible for the fire at Anna's house — but the real reason appears to be much darker and super duper Cassadine. At the end of Wednesday's episode, after Valentin tucked her in and said goodnight, she eagerly took out a deck of tarot cards and started laying them out on her bed, strongly suggesting that she has somehow been given an old-fashioned, Drew Cain-style brainwashing. It seems likely that Victor was behind this, having it done when he had Charlotte squirreled away at that private school for weeks on end, and perhaps had one of his remaining lackeys activate the programming so he could torment Anna from beyond the grave. And then there's her budding relationship with Jake, who we already know is walking around with a head full of Cassadine tampering — one never knows whether the writers, whoever they'll be by the time this storyline gets where it's going, will be willing to fully embrace the weird potential of what they've unleashed here, but this could be cool. I would very much like for it to be.
Anyway, while all that went on, Anna sort of wafted around Port Charles in a daze, which was upsetting to see — woe be unto the GH viewer who enjoys Ms. Devane in this state — but it did lead to a couple of noteworthy moments. On Wednesday, she showed up at Sonny's perpetually vacant restaurant to talk about all this madness, accept his latest offer of protection, and also share her new theory that the Metro Court shooting was aimed at him, not her. Again, I have no idea whether this was the plan all along, but it feels like order is slowly being drawn out of chaos; if nothing else, I'll be happy to see Anna's story split off from Sonny's. Of course, that may not happen at all — Sonny, always annoyingly written as the smartest guy in every room, was immediately suspicious when Anna told him that the security footage had been wiped, so don't be surprised if he's the one who figures out that Valentin pressured Nina into getting rid of it. (Nina is also suspicious of Charlotte's relationship with Jake, but I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out.)
The second Anna-around-town moment occurred when Robert left Diane mid-conversation in order to join Anna at her Metro Court table and give her a gift he'd arranged with help from friends and family: a digital photo frame containing copies of many of the pictures she'd lost in the fire, starting with the 1991 wedding photo featuring Anna and a resplendently mulleted Robert. A very sweet exchange, and a satisfying counterweight to the continual bickering that several scores of GH writers have fallen back on whenever these two share a scene. It was rather lame that this was also used as an excuse to show Diane getting jealous, but whatever — Robert belongs front and center in Anna's current storyline. Let's keep this going.
Deception Queen (Sasha and Cody's Love on the Run)
Meanwhile, back at the cabin in the woods, Cody and Sasha met up with Sam and Dante so they could all gather 'round the bed I still swear is soaked with several months of Peter August's urine and hatch a plan to take down Gladys and dirty Doctor Montague. Not a lot happened here, unless you count the satisfaction of seeing Sasha, at long last, accept the truth of Gladys' involvement in her gaslighting and abuse, but they weren't unsatisfying scenes. The current writing team seems to be trying hard to depict Sasha as a character with agency, which is something the prior regime had no visible interest in doing, and the villains in this story have been SO cartoonishly awful that it's fun simply watching the good guys stand around and contemplate ways of fighting back.
So here's where things currently stand: Cody found a bottle of pills in the jacket he stole from Montague after kicking his ass and tying him up, which led all involved to believe that Montague came into Sasha's room with every intent of ODing and/or killing her in order to keep her quiet forever. Sam, flashing her PI skills, leveraged her personal connection with a just-back-to-work Willow in order to obtain a photo of the toxicology report that was generated after Sasha's arrest, and she and Dante deduced that Montague had been doping Sasha with an amphetamine that creates hallucinations and paranoia in combination with the antidepressant she'd previously been prescribed.
While Sam and Dante were off detecting, Cody came clean with Sasha, telling her he knew Gladys was in debt because he'd been working for Selina, but he didn't tell her at first because he was afraid of having his kneecaps broken. Sasha, as one does when someone has risked their health and freedom to rescue one from a mental hospital, quickly forgave him, after which Cody pretended to be sleeping soundly on the floor when Sasha tried trading places with him in the middle of the night. Very sweet, you two. Very sweet.
As a rule, I try to keep real-world stuff out of this column, but I have to address John J. York's illness here, because Dante mentioned wanting to involve Mac last week. I'm not crazy enough to bet money on anything the GH writers have cooked up, but that smelled an awful lot like the beginning of an arc in which Mac finds out he's Cody's father; where this all ends up now that York has to take a hiatus from the show, I have no idea. Given that York thinks he's found a match to help him bounce back, I'm very hopeful that we'll see him back very soon — he hasn't been used this much on GH in years, and I would really love to see that continue.
Lucy in the Sky with Gummies
Also everywhere lately: Lucy Coe, who has ended years of only being wheeled out for the Nurses' Ball and is currently an integral part of an honest-to-gosh front-burner storyline. I don't know who I have to thank for this, but I've got a big pile of gold stars and a pony just waiting to be handed over, so feel free to supply me with a name and address at your earliest convenience, ABC. We got a lot of Lucy last week, and all of it was glorious.
On Monday, after Lucy left Martin at their Metro Court restaurant table, Blair sauntered over for a quick and ruthless conversation about her motives for throwing in with Tracy. A lot of people took issue with the idea of Blair being married to Martin at one point, and even more of them seemed outraged by the tossed-off revelation that their marriage ended after Martin hired a PI that caught Blair in bed with David Vickers, but again, I say to all of you: It's been a decade since we saw this character do anything, and all KINDS of things can change between daytime characters in that amount of time.
Anyway. Turns out Blair had been struggling to get a Deceptor-like prototype off the ground for some time, so even though it was Lucy who took it across the finish line, Blair may have a solid case — but what she wants even more than a court victory over intellectual property rights is the ability to stop paying Martin $50,000 a month. To that end, she told him that he either needs to marry Lucy or risk losing everything; even if Blair wins the case, she'll still tell Lucy about Martin's role in all this, which could very well end in Lucy suing Martin.
There are certainly problems with any and all Deception-related stories, including the fact that it seems to be a company that employs maybe five people, but I dunno, haters — I'm really enjoying the way this has been written. Blair and Tracy both have real, sensible personal stakes in this court case, but they've also identified a weakness in the enemy that makes all kinds of sense given who they are as characters. Plus, having Tracy Quartermaine and Blair Cramer on the same side of a conflict? Come on, that's fantastic. If you have a fundamental issue with this storyline, then I have to question what you really want out of daytime in its current impaired state.
Also delightful: Game night at Maxie's new place, which got rolling when Lucy showed up with Scott in tow to interrupt Felicia's study session and send James angrily off to bed. As with the Peter August Pee Cabin scenes, nothing much really happened here, but it was still delightful to watch these actors trading lines. Lucy, of course, has been entertaining notions of murdering Tracy — notions that Maxie was all too willing to indulge, up to and including spitballing ideas for the best ways to get rid of her, much to Mac's horror. But Maxie and Lucy's daydreams were cut short when Maxie discovered that Lucy rejected Tracy's offer of a settlement that would have meant giving up her ELQ voting stock; meanwhile, Scott was being Scott. It was perfect. These shows need to move story all the time at all costs, but if I had to pick one thing I've really enjoyed the most during GH's 2023 fi-core era, it'd be the anonymous writers' willingness to slow things down once in a while and focus on interpersonal relationships. I used to joke that I really wanted a GH spinoff that was basically nothing but watching Audrey, Lesley, Gail, and Monica playing bridge and talking shit about everyone else in town; these scenes are surely as close as we'll ever get.
(Side note: I'm all for Felicia becoming a patient advocate at GH. Here's hoping the writers make a little nod to history by stuffing her in the same closet-sized office she occupied there nearly 40 years ago when she was working for Alan and Grant on their medical ship venture.)
Beaten Black and Drew
As expected, Drew's attempt to play spy for Sonny within the walls of Pentonville ended in a fashion that was as unintentionally hilarious as it was abrupt. Dangling the offer of an Aurora internship for a guard's kid didn't go as far as ol' Drewfus thought it might — instead, Cyrus easily paid off the guard to give Drew bad information to funnel back to Sonny. But before Drew could even do that, he was jumped in the shower by a couple of inmates who beat him so badly that he needed to be taken to GH.
Carly is horrified! Diane is pissed! Drew is a dope!
There are some good actors doing good work in here — Jeff Kober in particular is always fantastic — but it's all in service of a story that's been teeth-grindingly dumb from the drop, and it isn't getting any better. The religious angle with Cyrus still makes no apparent sense, nor does his evident beef with Pikeman; for that matter, it's kind of hard to understand why he'd be going to all this trouble to take down Sonny. A lot of things have happened during this story, and too few of them are rooted in anything the viewer can understand. There's often enough excitement (or incident disguised as excitement) to paper over that in the short term, but the longer this goes on, the less faith I have in the writers' ability to stick the landing — it feels like we're heading toward something frustratingly anticlimactic.
Well, in the meantime, Diane is working hard on Carly's behalf to get Drew out of prison, and using her relationship with Robert to try and dig up dirt on the judge who sentenced him. According to Robert, said judge is "angling for a promotion" to a different circuit, and since Drew is connected to Carly who's connected to Sonny, there's some possibility that Drew's sentence might have been a careerist move and/or a potential gateway to the Department of Justice trying to get Carly to flip on Sonny.
(Writing that paragraph pained me. Soaps don't need to be this complicated, at least in the short term.)
Anyway, it seems likely that we'll see a bruised Drew reclining in a GH hospital bed this week, and I suppose he'll end up giving Sonny and/or Carly the bad information that Cyrus' guard fed him. It's a mildly interesting case of tit for tat after Sonny unwittingly gave Cyrus the false data that led to the FBI's busted bust, but beyond that, I'm not sure I really understand the point. Drew really needs to be peeled away from this story — he's absolutely the weakest link. If you've been reading this column for any length of time, you know I'm very much not a Sonny fan, but if I must watch another showdown between Sonny and Cyrus, I'd really rather not have to suffer through the additional involvement of a complete moron who can't do anything right. I mean, we already have Dex.
Speaking of Dex, when he wasn't having sex with Josslyn in her dorm room last week, he was talking with Sonny at that "restaurant" — and offering his boss some decent advice by telling him to cut ties with Pikeman after Sonny's contact, Hume, showed up with a briefcase full of cash. Sonny, who tossed Hume and his briefcase out of the joint, admitted that he doesn't think he can. Where the hell is all this going? Again, dear reader, I do not know. For the moment, I'm mildly hopeful, but we're still at the stage where a lot of the storyline's important details are clouded in mystery. Getting viewers to contemplate and theorize is pretty easy! Bringing it home is the hard part.
Stompin' at the Savoy
Nothing momentous happened with the Ashford/Robinsons last week, but most of the clan was present and accounted for — with the glaring exception of Taggert, who is presumably still staggering around Port Charles day-drinking without anyone noticing or commenting on it. (I guess his application for PCPD commissioner must have gotten lost in the mail.) I'm goofing on Taggert's absence here, but I'm genuinely pretty pissed about it — I understand that budget and availability is a constant headache for these shows, but come on. At least SAY something about the man. It's been weeks, and he belongs in the middle of the Trina/Curtis paternity story.
Anyway. The week kicked off with Stella talking with Elizabeth about her job as a patient advocate, which was probably just a way of helping the audience understand what Felicia's studying for — and besides, the conversation was quickly interrupted by Marshall, who showed up at the hospital to warn Stella that Curtis is thinking about selling the Savoy. That thread was picked up the following day, when Selina showed up at the club and spent a few minutes sparring with Marshall; apparently, even though the club looks just as lightly occupied as ever, attendance is suddenly way down since Curtis stepped back from running the place. Looking for a lifeline, Marshall latched onto Eddie, offering him a gig that'd be promoted as the premiere of his new song; meanwhile, N'neka texted Portia, who showed up to hear her concerns regarding Marshall's potentially dangerously antagonistic attitude toward Selina.
While all this was going on at the Savoy, Curtis stayed home with Trina, playing video games and talking about her relationship with Spencer. During the course of that conversation, Trina let it slip that she and Spencer are planning a trip to New York City — information that Curtis, the total narc, quickly shared with Portia. Although she tried playing it off like she understands there's no point in trying to control Trina's relationship with Spencer, we all know she's going to meddle anyway — and she made her next move in that direction by cozying up to Esme again, saying "If you need anything, just let me know."
So where is all this going? As some of you no doubt recall, Marshall entered the show as some sort of potential mob-battling badass, so I guess this could be a way of picking that back up again, potentially leading to a Marshall/Selina confrontation that ends in his death and makes Curtis so darn mad that he stands up from his wheelchair. One way or another, GH needs to figure out what it's doing with Selina; she's been a Sonny Lite type of "shady but not too dangerous" mob boss for a number of years now, and I don't know if the town is big enough for two of those. I'd also really love to see the Wu organization in the middle of another big story.
As far as Portia goes… nothing much to add here. I expect to see her in the thick of something that drives Spencer and Trina apart, at least temporarily, and I'm reasonably certain that the something in question will have a lot to do with Esme. I know a lot of you aren't wild about this, but it continues to make me nostalgic for all the meddling moms and dads who ran around fucking up their offspring's romantic endeavors when I was but a wee soap-watching lad. Dorian Lord would approve — she probably just wouldn't be too happy with the way Portia is typically written as a simpering hypocrite. If this is really going to work, that'll need to change, and I think it's high time for this character to stride confidently into her villain era.
Now for your weekly bullet points rounding up the rest of the week!
Elizabeth doesn't think Gregory's doctor is right for him, so Finn went stammering to his dad to tell him
Gregory told Tracy he has ALS
Eddie and Olivia had a Moment after he told her about Marshall's offer to play at the Savoy
Brook Lynn wants to manage Blaze
While waiting on Brook Lynn for their meeting at Charlie's, Blaze chatted up Kristina in a blatant (but not unwelcome) chem test
Molly got a call from Andrea, who came to the courthouse to tell Molly and Alexis that she's pregnant
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