Hello again and welcome back to another edition of Critical Diagnosis, fellow General Hospital viewers! Last week was a short one for GH, and aside from a couple of major developments, it was also fairly uneventful — which is nice for me, because I'm currently traveling for work and am quite tired. This feels like it could be a short column; let's see if I'm right.
Sonny's in Custody
After pouring out of the Metro Court elevators and arresting Sonny the Friday before last, the FBI took him to an interrogation room where, true to form, he spent hours saying nothing at all before Diane finally arrived to yell at them and talk about softball with her most lucrative client. This time, however, "Killer Miller" couldn't do much; these are federal charges Sonny's facing, which takes bail off the table — and even Diane is willing to concede that the government wouldn't have moved on Port Charles' favorite coffee importer if they didn't have rock solid evidence behind their case.
Naturally, everyone who knows about the flash drive containing footage of Sonny accepting a Pikeman shipment has quickly assumed that the feds must have obtained a copy — which seems like a stretch, given that Carly stomped the drive to bits, but once Dex pointed out that he stupidly dropped the pieces in a public trash can, all those folks jumped to a new assumption, which is that Dex is the dumbest mob underling who ever lived. Dex thinks so too, which is why he spent half an episode brooding on the docks and telling Joss that Sonny taught him how to be a man [gag] and he'll be really sad if the boss ends up going to prison.
Don't worry, Dex. It's General Hospital. Sonny will be back on the street before you know it. But in the meantime, things are getting real weird for Drew, who was told by Cyrus that he's no longer under Sonny's protection since Sonny spent the week in federal custody. To take the sting out of that bad news, Cyrus gave Drew a chess set he'd made, then lured him into a game under the pretense that you can learn a lot about someone by watching them play — "you don't even have to like them."
You know who didn't much like each other last week? Sonny's kids. Dex's admission regarding the flash drive came in the midst of a drawn-out and very dumb conversation in Carly's kitchen, which started with Michael coming in the day after Sonny's arrest to tell her about it, only to find out that she already knew. The writers can ask us to suspend our disbelief about all sorts of things, but c'mon — no one's going to believe that Michael and Carly wouldn't be on the phone the very instant Sonny got picked up. Anyway, this led to Michael accusing an incredulous Josslyn of turning Sonny in; the next day, Dante barged into Michael's office to accuse Michael of being the one to do it. Family! Loyalty! So very important to all of the Corinthoses.
Elsewhere under the umbrella, Anna spent half the week snooping around behind Valentin's back and trying to find out just how deep he's really in with Pikeman. (She spent another chunk of it on an ill-fated attempt to check in on Curtis, but more on that in a minute.) In a mildly delightful series of scenes, Anna tailed Valentin to a meeting with his connection, then dashed back to the hotel room just in time to pretend she'd just come out of a hot shower — a lie Valentin saw through thanks to a desk clerk who told him there was a problem with the water heaters on their floor.
Finally, the writers devoted a noticeable portion of last week's runtime to ladling on some very obvious foreshadowing regarding the looming conflict between Sonny and Nina. It's very difficult for her to deal with his business all of a sudden, something that was highlighted when Nina went rushing to Carly at Kelly's to ask her what she planned to do about the threats facing Sonny's family should he go to prison. Carly rightly pointed out that it isn't her problem anymore, but in an abrupt change of character, she also showed Nina a little compassion, telling her that Brick had been in touch to assure her that the business is still solid. She also stressed to Nina that this kind of thing is going to happen as long as she's with Sonny, and she needs to do a better job of dealing with it, at least in public — after which she pointed out that someone must have gone to the feds with information on Sonny, and there'll be hell to pay because he's so big on loyalty. (Cue more Nina hand-wringing about her tipping off the SEC.)
Portia, Portia, Portia
If my Twitter feed is anything to go by, the most unpopular GH scene last week — by a wide, wide margin — was the one in which Portia came home to find Anna there with Curtis, offered to walk her out, then proceeded to blame her for Curtis' paralysis and ask her never to return to their home. When Curtis told Portia he couldn't blame Anna for what happened to him, Portia cheerily replied "I can," thus prompting a series of shots depicting Curtis being Very Sad Indeed.
Anna Devane and Finola Hughes are GH royalty and completely beyond reproach, so it's understandable that a number of viewers were waiting to jump to Anna's defense. I can also understand the growing wave of antipathy toward Portia and her hypocritical, meddlesome ways — but as I've said before, I find her behavior deeply soapy, and if the writers will stop asking her to cry all the time, I think we could all have some fun with a Villain Era version of the character who makes no apologies for doing what she thinks she has to in order to protect her family.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we're going to get that. Spencer and Trina have been neutered as the show's hot young couple, thereby rendering Portia's meddling irrelevant, and I'm pretty sure Portia's treatment of Anna won't lead to much of anything between Portia and Curtis; if anything, I'm expecting a little bit of back and forth that'll go down like plain, lukewarm oatmeal. Like a number of things regarding the Ashford clan, it's a bit sad.
The Cassadine Cuckold
Now that Ava has done everything Mason blackmailed her into doing, she's starting to get antsy about the timing of her payment — namely, delivery of Nikolas' corpse. What Mason knows but Ava doesn't is that Nikolas is actually quite alive; in fact, he was saved by her friend with benefits Austin, who's currently housing the not-dead prince. There's a certain amount of messy potential here, even if I don't quite buy Austin and Ava as a couple; I got a bit of a kick out of last week's Austin/Nikolas scenes, which saw Austin defending Ava to Nikolas, Nikolas pointing out that he had no idea Austin and Ava were close, and Austin flashing back to one of his trysts with Ava. Mr. Cassadine will doubtless be irate when he finds out Austin and Ava have been sleeping together — and Ava will be a seething inferno of volcanic rage when she realizes she went to bed with a guy who let her torture herself with months of grief and panic over a murder she didn't even commit. This could be fun to watch.
Another complicating factor: Ava not only wants to sell Wyndemere and Spoon Island as a whole, she's interested in selling it to Sonny and Nina. Whenever he gets around to making his return to Port Charles, Nikolas will be walking into one hell of a mess. Like I said: Could be fun to watch.
Cody to the Rescue
I saved the best for last, folks. You've no doubt already heard and/or contributed to the shouts for joy, but last week's GH ended with Cody busting Sasha out of Ferncliff and into a car Sam had left parked right outside — a daring escape conducted after he socked Doctor Montague in the melon, stripped him down to his boxers, and left him tied up and gagged in Sasha's room.
Will the escape stick? I'm honestly unsure. During whatever passes for normal times on the daytime dial these days, I'd be strongly suspicious — there wasn't a ton of lead-up to this rescue, and there are also a number of loose ends to tie up, so ordinarily I'd suspect a fakeout followed by a quick capture. But this is one hugely unpopular storyline, and the fi-core writers may not be beholden to the official regime's outline, so I feel like there's a solid chance that they're really about to make us all happy by sending Cody and Sasha on the run.
If they are caught, I might need to start fast-forwarding through Ferncliff scenes, because this damn thing just keeps getting worse. From Josh Kelly flop-sweating his way through Cody's desperate attempts to seem WILD AND CRAZY to Sasha screaming in terror and frustration while being injected against her will yet again, last week might have given us the worst this storyline's had to offer (so far). At the moment, however, all is forgiven. Hop in that car and drive forever, you crazy kids — you've earned a long period of boring, unmedicated bliss.
That's just about everything! Here's your weekly assortment of brief bullet points to take us the rest of the way home:
Lucy is convinced that Tracy is suing Deception for purely personal reasons
Sam and Doctor Montague saw each other at Ferncliff, which led to more flirting. Will he discover her role in Sasha's escape and go after her?
Sam told Dante that she helped Cody get into Ferncliff and he was briefly upset about her keeping it from him, but they kissed and made up
Molly sure loves her stuffed horse
Joss and Trina talked about Trina's frustrations with the Spencer/Esme situation
Gregory went to Chase's apartment to tell him about his ALS diagnosis, only to be interrupted by a freshly moved in Brook Lynn
Eddie, Olivia, and Leo visited a recording studio as a gift from Sonny
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