Welcome back to another edition of Critical Diagnosis, fellow General Hospital viewers! We've closed the book on another busy week in Port Charles, and as ever, it's my pleasure to take a look back on all the highs and lows with you. Let's dig in together, shall we?
Victor's Teenage Minion
The first couple days of the week followed up on the previous week's reveal that it was Charlotte who trashed Anna and Valentin's Metro Court suite, and although these episodes offered few surprises, the storyline still seems to be coming together in largely satisfying fashion. It's moving pretty quickly all of a sudden, too — on Monday, Charlotte woke up at Nina's place from a nightmare about Anna stealing her papa from her, and mere moments later, Valentin was on the scene to whisk her off and surprise her with their brand new house. It was there that we were treated to a flashback of Charlotte receiving her tarot cards in the mail while she was at Victor's boarding school — a flashback interrupted by Valentin, who asked a distracted-looking Charlotte if everything was all right. "Everything is going to be perfect," she replied with a creepy-ass smile on her face.
Quelle Cassadine! I think I might love it.
We got another Charlotte tarot flashback the following day, showing her reading the letter that came with the cards… which was read via voiceover by Charles Shaugnessy, proving (to no one's surprise) that it was Victor who sent them to her. This flashback happened after Charlotte asked Valentin if it'd make him happy for Anna to move in with them — information she said she needed for "the reading" and then took out the deck, much to Valentin's visible horror. Of course, when he asked her where she got the cards, she lied through her teeth and said they came from a girl at camp. Again: very Cassadine! I'm ready to see where this will lead.
Less satisfying was the half-hearted fakeout that came via Jake showing up at GH and telling Elizabeth that he needed to talk about Charlotte, who he was with the night she let herself into the hotel room. Turns out he just wanted to give his mom the type of conscience-stricken confession that only happens on TV and tell her he was with Charlotte instead of his buddy Angus, explaining that he lied because it's somehow embarrassing that he was with a girl. There's a lot of potential bundled into Jake's involvement in this story — I hope it's actually leveraged as we get deeper in.
Anna, meanwhile, has taken to moving around with protection, which we saw when she showed up at GH for a phlebotomy treatment on Monday and bumped into Portia, who made a point of apologizing for the shitty way she treated her when Anna went to the Ashford home to see Curtis. Again, I know a lot of you have issues with Portia as she's currently being written, and I myself have called for the character to be less teary-eyed and apologetic, but I didn't mind this interaction; it seems pretty clear at this point that Portia is going to be mean and gross and meddlesome at points, but the show still wants to remind us that she hasn't lost her ability to reflect or feel empathy. And anyway, the main takeaway from those scenes really had nothing to do with Portia — it was all about Anna flashing back on some conversations with Valentin and making it clear that she suspects he's lying about the Metro Court security footage being wiped by some sort of high-tech perpetrator.
From there, Anna went to the hospital chapel, where her reverie was interrupted by Sonny. Monday's episode ended with him telling her that he's starting to question whether his lifestyle is worth it… but of course that ended up being nothing more than a cheap hook for the next episode, during which he emphatically stated that he'd never give up no matter what. Blah blah blah.
Across the Drewniverse
Of course, Sonny was at the hospital in the first place because that's where Drew ended up after being jumped in the shower at Pentonville in apparent retaliation for the offensively lame job he did of trying to dig up information on Austin's visit to Cyrus. Monday's episode found Carly starting a dayslong rampage at GH, starting with demanding information from Elizabeth and threatening to go to Monica (who's apparently at a conference in Berlin) if she didn't get it. The following day, she blamed Ava for Drew's condition, accusing her of tipping Austin off to Drew's bungled investigation; it took the doctor coming out and telling her that Drew made it through surgery and is expected to make a full recovery for Carly to do the human thing and actually apologize for once.
Later in the week, Carly was at Drew's bedside when he regained consciousness just in time for a visit from Jordan and the warden, both of whom pledged to do whatever possible to either get Drew transferred out of Pentonville or have his sentence commuted entirely. Due to the length and severity of Drew's beating, Jordan suspects coordination between the prisoners and the guards — and based on the way the warden responded to that theory, Jordan now appears to suspect the warden too.
After leaving Drew, Carly visited Michael, who of course reiterated his fervent belief that the real criminal in all this is whoever tipped off the SEC. The fi-core writers have been an improvement in a lot of ways, but this kind of crap is vintage regular latter-day GH. If they really want us to side with Carly, then they need to do a better job of writing her as a genuine protagonist instead of a barking, self-righteous pain in the ass; using Motherboy to tell the audience how we're supposed to feel about her self-serving actions doesn't help one bit. ANYWAY, they had a long talk about getting Drew out of prison and how maybe if they hit up Alexis for a story about the judge who handed down his sentence, maybe that'll put enough pressure on key players to make it happen. Michael also mentioned that he might have a lead on the identity of the person who tipped off the SEC, which I assume is bound to lead nowhere and was only mentioned to try and make us think Nina's inevitable exposure will happen at the hands of the least qualified CEO this side of Elon Musk.
On the furthest side of last week's Drewniverse we have Willow, who visited Drew at GH in order to thank him for saving her life or whatever. It was a deeply meaningless conversation which only merits mention because after it ended, Willow took an unplanned nap in the waiting room and dreamed of Harmony, who offered her some sort of soundless warning about not trusting someone or other. Any sane show would make this an interesting development; this show, I fear, will make it about Nina, and have Willow's deceased garbage person of an adoptive mother offer her a bullshit warning about her biological mom, motivated by the fact that said bio-mom reported an actual crime and is somehow the villain of the story because of it. We shall see! Maybe this is the start of us finding out that Drew or Finn or Cyrus or Austin is really Willow's father. If I get a vote, I vote for that instead, please.
Sasha's Short-Lived Escape
When the writers' strike started, I had grand visions of the same type of clean sweep I've seen take place after countless other regime changes at various soaps, but those of you who entertain conspiracy theories regarding Frank Valentini shadow-writing the show might be correct — if ever there was a storyline deserving of the abrupt "lady in white" farewell treatment, it's this soggy turd, and yet based on the events of last week, I can only assume that whoever the hell is at the wheel right now remains committed to dragging it out a while longer.
As we discussed in my previous column, the week before last brought us the deeply satisfying sight of Sasha being rescued from Ferncliff and Dr. Montague having his ass soundly beaten by Cody Bell in the bargain. Last week, GH teased us with the possibility that Sasha's escape would lead to a good old-fashioned sting that ended with Montague and Gladys being drummed out of town in short order — but daytime being daytime, a lot of that seemed to be walked back this week. I remain hopeful that last week was a fakeout and we're still about to witness some honest-to-goodness comeuppance, but here's what went down.
On Tuesday, Cody turned himself in to the PCPD, but after he was arrested by Chase, Dante squirreled him away in the interrogation room — just as Gladys burst in demanding to know Sasha's whereabouts. After Chase futilely tried to calm Gladys down, Sam phoned her, using the world's cheesiest voice-disguising software and pretending to be someone from the bank making a courtesy call to let her know that Sasha's account records were being subpoenaed. Exit Gladys and enter Sam, who was ushered into the interrogation room by Chase just in time to catch Dante and Cody debating the merits of college vs. professional football.
After expressing his understandable annoyance, Chase was finally looped in by Dante, Sam, and Cody, who told him all about Gladys' shady activities. Gladys, meanwhile, was back at her and Sasha's apartment, frantically packing to try and get the hell out of town — only to be interrupted by a knock at the door from Sasha, who tore into her and said she knew all about Gladys' gambling debts and dealings with Doctor Montague. After Gladys apologized and insisted she never wanted any of it to happen, Sasha demanded that she prove it by going to the police, confessing, and testifying against Montague. Gladys agreed — and then, true to form, called the cops as soon as she exited the apartment, saying she had information about an escaped fugitive.
Back at the PCPD, Cody's "interrogation" was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Scott, who had no real purpose for being there other than Kin Shriner's availability; that being said, I'll never complain about a Scott scene, and these were no exception. What I will complain about is the fact that right after Gladys called, the cops showed up to drag Sasha back to Ferncliff, which they did after marching her into the PCPD so she could scream and wail while Cody vowed to break her out again. Her portion of the week ended with her strapped to a bed in the asylum, screaming while Montague leered at her from the other side of the door.
I suppose it should be mentioned that prior to his return to Ferncliff, Montague was brought into the PCPD by Dante, who asked him to give a statement regarding his assault as well as the pills Cody found in his pocket. Naturally, he claimed he'd never seen the pills before and accused Cody of being Sasha's dealer — and was then assaulted by Cody after being led out of the interrogation room. Like I said, I remain hopeful that the worst of what we saw last week was a lie, but for now, this is what we've got: Sasha strapped to a Ferncliff bed, at Montague's mercy, while Cody's booked for kidnapping and assault.
The one saving grace — and it pains me to say this — is that Nina finally told Sonny what his dirtbag cousin has been up to, prompting his millionth utterance of "son of a bitch" since Maurice Benard took the role. Of course, it quickly led to nothing; Sonny decided to deal with the problem some other time, instead telling Nina they should elope and offering to take her to his private island so they could get married the following day. Based on what little I know about what comes next, it sounds like things will only get more frustrating and ridiculous, but I continue to reserve judgment and hold stubbornly to the hope that this dumb storyline is still destined to die a quick death in the not-too-distant future.
Sprina Needs a Cigarette
Look, folks: Not much happened here last week, at least in terms of A + B + C plot movement. It basically boils down to Spencer and Trina planning their NYC getaway, Esme briefly threatening to derail the whole thing by saying Ace could have chickenpox, and then the trip happening anyway, complete with a flashback montage and a musical montage and evidently epic sex. There isn't a whole lot to discuss, in other words, but it's a momentous event regardless, so it deserves its own space here. I am preemptively sad that we're undoubtedly reaching the end of Nicholas Alexander Chavez's (first) stint on GH, but happy that these two finally ended up in the sack. It's about goddamn time!
That's basically that with the major plot points from last week. Here are your bullet points for the rest:
Brook Lynn signed on as Blaze's manager, and Blaze still seems very interested in finding out more about Kristina's whole vibe
Molly and TJ's surrogate is pregnant
Finn and Liz had disconcerting almost-sex in the hospital's co-ed shower
Eddie played an Idle Rich song at the Savoy
Cyrus ordered Mason to make Ava pay, despite Nikolas' orders that she not be harmed
Laura and Kevin went to Geneva to meet with a Cassadine family banker named Hans, who told them that some substantial withdrawals had been made from Nikolas' accounts since his disappearance
Mason showed up at Wyndemere and possibly abducted Ava — either that or Ava knocked his lollipop-sucking ass out and shoved it into the Spoon Island catacombs
After Laura and Kevin left Hans' office, Nikolas walked in; after Hans told him to "be a good son and do the right thing," Nikolas grinned and said "I intend to"
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