Hello again, fellow General Hospital viewers! It remains a season of change in Port Charles, and it feels like the new writers are still either resituating the canvas to get things where they want them or they have no real plan and they're tossing a bunch of things at the wall to see what sticks. Either way, there's an air of unpredictability on the show these days, and I often find it refreshing.
Last week was a somewhat lumpy blend of character-building, wheel-spinning, and action, but what it lacked in consistency, I thought it made up with overall quality. As is par for the course with these shows, there were some scenes that didn't do much besides restate information we already had, but we're also seeing characters move around a lot, sometimes from scene to scene. The net effect is a looser show, which has an invigorating effect on scenes even when nothing terribly important is happening. Will it last? Probably not. For now, though, it's something like spring cleaning on GH, and I'll enjoy it until the next phase begins.
He's Dead to Me!
There are certain things Sonny has to do every so often or he'll die. It's a short, deeply familiar list that includes screaming "Son of a bitch," snapping "I tell you what," throwing barware, and growling that some person or other is dead to him. I'm sure we'll get to see all of these before the storyline surrounding Jason's latest return from the dead is over, but we can already check one off — when Sonny visited Dante in the hospital on Monday, he explained that Jason was "working for the feds," which of course means that his longtime business partner/personal assassin is now dead to him.
Why the supposedly smart Sonny would say this out loud to his son the cop is anyone's guess. More interesting to me is the conversation that happened after Sonny left the room and Jason paid Dante a visit, fielding a series of questions from him that included one Sonny should be asking himself: Jason's been offered a lot of deals over the years and he's never flipped for the feds before, so why now?
Jason, rarely loquacious even when he isn't bound by confidentiality agreements, didn't give Dante many direct answers to his questions, but he did stress that he didn't inform on Sonny; in fact, he went so far as to say that the situation has nothing to do with Sonny. He left the room with a pair of parting promises: Sonny is safe, and Jason will make sure he stays that way. (These are promises it might have been helpful to make while Sonny was losing his shit in the penthouse, but I guess hindsight is 20/20 even when you blink as often as Jason Morgan does.)
Of course, as we all know, not speaking when saying almost anything would be more helpful than just standing around like a sentient catcher's mitt is sort of Jason's specialty, and he reminded us that he's still the best at it when he stopped by for a visit at Elizabeth's house. When Aiden answered the door, Jason hilariously showed his whole ignorant ass by greeting him with "It's… Aiden, right?"; things only went downhill from there when Jake came downstairs, found his not dead but still deadbeat dad standing awkwardly in the living room, and ripped him a new one.
I'm making fun of Jason a lot because it's my column and it amuses me to do so, but I have to say I'm pretty happy about the way GH is taking pains to illustrate the ripple effect that Jason's return has had on his friends, family, and loved ones — especially the kids, and especially the stuff that's painful and awkward. The show has done a decent job of threading Jake back into the narrative since his return from the dead, to the point that we know enough about him to not only understand but feel his confusion and anger. It makes complete sense that Jake would lash out at Jason right now — something Jason seemed to instinctively understand when he stood there like a lummox for a few minutes before announcing that it'd be best if he left.
And then after Jason took off, we got to see Jake unburdening himself to Elizabeth, saying it was easier to have a dead father than one who's alive and only comes around to commit crimes, and who has nothing to say to his family either way. Watch soaps long enough, and you come to understand that any given show's commitment to fleshing out its teen characters tends to come and go; as a longtime viewer who firmly believes a soap's formula for success rests on building up intergenerational connections, I'm very happy that the writers are in the mood to spend some time with the younger set right now. This aspect of the Jason storyline is the only one that's truly compelling and/or poised to deliver long-term dividends.
While Jake was wondering why he got stuck with Jason for a father, Sonny was in Anna's office, acknowledging that Jason didn't shoot Dante but asking her what she planned to charge Jason with anyway. Anna did not take kindly to this, suggesting that if Sonny really wanted to see someone charged with something, she could always circle back to the beating he gave Cyrus; eventually, she just up and tossed him out of her office.
A lot of viewers have a lot of feelings about this, and I feel like that's primarily due to the fact that Finola Hughes and Maurice Benard are talented actors who tend to have chemistry with anyone. It's always a treat to watch Anna work alongside pretty much any character, and she's one of the few characters who has zero fear of Sonny, which I think has added an appealing element to their friendship. That being said, it never made any kind of sense for Anna and Sonny to be any kind of friends, and the fact that they ever were is just another manifestation of the moral rot that's been allowed to fester at the heart of this show for the last 20 years. I still remember being irritated during the monkey virus storyline — for all kinds of reasons, really, but right now I'm talking about the way an entire roomful of people yelled at Robert when he insisted that Sonny, a criminal, didn't deserve to have access to the very limited stock of the antidote. That's the basic attitude the show's taken toward Sonny in virtually every situation, and what's happening right now — for as long as it lasts — is such an overdue correction that I really don't care whether it represents an abrupt about-face for Anna or whether Sonny's feelings were hurt when she called him a son of a bitch and told him to get out of her office.
Unless Maurice Benard has privately announced his intention to retire, I have zero faith that this will last. GH simply has no idea how to reconcile the fact that Sonny is a villain with its need to treat him like a hero, and it's proven over and over and over again that no matter how impactful a storyline might seem, this character will always reset to the status quo. We're already seeing the start of that happening with the reveal that Valentin is running Pikeman and messing with Sonny's meds; the upshot here is that whatever Sonny does, it won't be his fault, because his enemies were playing fast and loose with his mental health. Again, despite my preemptive bitching about the writers eventually chickening out, I'm very, very happy to see various residents of Port Charles suddenly remembering that they've been sharing a ZIP code with a notorious mobster, and the most foolish, naïve part of me is hoping it'll stick; I think it'd be the best thing for the show and the character.
ANYWAY. After Sonny left Anna's office, Jason showed up. Anna told him that she thinks they have common goals, and even though he's been exonerated in Dante's shooting, he's still in some serious legal jeopardy. She pressed him for information about Pikeman, and he told her he couldn't give that up because of Jagger — and then, like clockwork, Jagger showed up. Jason got loudly pissy with Agent Cates, yelling that he unfairly used his knowledge of their shared past — "you knew my mother and you let her think I was dead" — but Jagger gave as good as he got, pointing out that Jason made every decision that led him to his current situation. In fact, Jagger unashamedly — and forcefully — suggested that Jason's only current value to the FBI lay in him staying in Port Charles and acting as bait for the assassins that Pikeman would eventually send after him.
Jason, briefly remembering that he has a family, initially refused, but it didn't take long for him to give in — especially after Jagger dropped the bomb that the RICO charges he used to press Jason into service were not against Jason or Sonny, but instead against Carly.
[pause for deep sigh, followed by screaming]
Of fucking COURSE it's about Carly. Why would it ever be about anyone else?
I have to be totally clear here and admit that I understand and appreciate that, on a fundamental level, this is truly and totally soapy. You're talking about characters who go back a long time, and Jason has a very well-established pattern of doing anything and everything to keep Carly safe no matter how impulsive, hurtful, and ruinous her behavior might be. If Carly had criminal charges hanging over her head and he could do anything to prevent her from going to prison, Jason would make any sacrifice to help her. In that sense, one could make the perfectly sensible argument that this "twist" is character-driven, which is exactly what us longtime viewers always say we want.
On the other hand, Carly has been everywhere on this show for as long as I can remember, and boy would it have been a nice change of pace if the writers had come up with literally anyone else to serve as an anchor for this story. Much as it might make sense, however, Carly has been written as a deeply unappealing character for years, and I feel like it's a wrong and shortsighted move to plug her into this story. I'd rather see Tracy or Ned or Monica or Olivia or Yuri or Comet or just about anyone else in the Quartermaine sphere be the character who's crucial enough to put Jason in this situation, and I am desperately uninterested in witnessing the fallout. But hey, that's for later.
Okay, so Jagger is understandably leery of involving Anna in his investigation, given that she has deep WSB ties and Pikeman is a very WSB-friendly organization. But Anna can be very persuasive when she wants to be, so after the little dustup between Jagger and Jason, she made her way to Pentonville, where she visited with Brennan and immediately accused him of running Pikeman while he was running the Bureau. He played it off, of course, but she reminded him of the failed op they were involved in, and pointed out that the $10 million in missing bribe money could definitely have been used as seed money for Pikeman way back when.
I'm… okay with this. I complained loudly when Anna's file on that busted op was being used as the crux of the "someone's stalking Anna" storyline, but this kinda sorta gives Brennan a reason for being so interested in destroying evidence of his involvement in the op. I'm not convinced the prior writers had any reason for doing what they were doing with that story, so my hat is off to the new ones for connecting the dots like this. Anyway, Brennan insisted he's being framed and called for the guards to end their visit. Meanwhile, Jagger has gotten around to pressing Drew for information about Jason. We'll see where that leads.
Maybe We Can Work Together After All
It wasn't all about Jason last week. We also caught a couple brief glimpses of life at the Invader, Deception, and Crimson, all of which I guess I'll wad together right here. To start with, we learned that Nina made gossip columnist Adrian DeWitt the "associate publisher" of the Invader, thus empowering him to stride into Alexis' office whenever he wants and announce whatever changes he's contemplating — including turning his column into a daily affair. This character is cartoonishly insufferable, all the better to make Alexis quickly reconsider her brief waffling over whether she really wants Diane to pursue an appeal of her disbarment.
Oh yes, the disbarment. According to Diane, they're "half a step closer" to appealing, and their case is apparently stronger because — please try hard to follow along here — Neil Byrne had another brother, named Fergus, who just so happened to be on the committee that disbarred Alexis. Fergus recused himself, but he was replaced by his own law partner, so Diane thinks there's room for a reversal of their ruling.
This is all very silly. Yes, Alexis should be a lawyer, and I think a lot of viewers are more than ready to see her trying cases in a courtroom again — so let's just make it happen, huh? There's no need for all this nonsense about Fergus Byrne or whatever. Let the inevitably successful appeal happen offscreen, chalk it up to yet another victory for Killer Miller, and get on with the business of putting Alexis and Diane at the same firm. It should have happened a long time ago, and I say this as someone who cannot remember ever being excited to see Diane onscreen.
While Alexis traded barbs with Adrian and gave Diane the green light to appeal, Nina was back in her rightful place at Crimson, where Drew blew past her new assistant and barged into her office so they could have another of the openly hostile conversations that the GH writers seem to think we can't get enough of. A couple of weeks ago, I said Drew has more chemistry with Nina than he ever did with Carly, and I meant it — but please don't take that to mean I actually want to see these two get together. I suspect some hate sex is inevitable, especially after Nina does what we all know she's going to do and catches Sonny and Ava hooking up, but let's leave it at that.
Anyway, Drew made fun of Nina's romantic history, Nina softly and seductively asked him what he'd do if there was a button he could push to make Jason go away, and they both parted with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, wondering whether they might make halfway decent business partners after all.
Not content to chem-test Drew with one character, the writers also seem to be trying to figure out how they feel about a Drew-Jordan pairing. She popped by the Aurora offices late in the week so she and Drew could discuss some sort of plan for Aurora to use its media properties to spread the good word about Port Charles; unfortunately for Drew, their meeting was interrupted by Jagger, who showed up to question him about his dealings with Jason. Drew insisted he hasn't spoken with Jason since his return, but Jagger wasn't convinced.
Meanwhile, over at Deception, Blaze was officially offered a contract to become the face of the company, and she was all set to sign before Natalia showed up and ran her managerial red pen through a list of line items — including any obligation for Blaze to hawk the company's products on Home & Heart or anywhere else. Lucy pushed back, but ultimately agreed to a scenario in which the company has two "faces," one of whom is assigned all the dirty work of making personal appearances; she also agreed to Natalia's demand that Blaze's personal life remain completely private.
This is obviously intended to be a wedge between Blaze and Kristina, which is lame, but also reflective of the writers' mad scrabble to invent any kind of issue with the characters' relationship. This also manifested later in the week when Kristina came by the Crimson offices to once again offer Nina some grace and encourage her to reach out to Sonny; while she was there, Maxie came by with Blaze, introducing her as the new face of Deception. Kristina was all kinds of miffed that she had to find out about it that way, and it led to a whole-ass heart to heart between her and Blaze. These actors play well together and I think it's a pairing that could go to some interesting places, but this ain't it — Blaze and Kristina are both adults, and although I can see Kristina being surprised about the Deception deal, it makes no sense that she'd actually be upset.
What wasn't silly was the conversation that took place between Maxie and Nina after Blaze and Kristina were gone. Chiding Nina for seeming desperate, she argued that a person you have to scheme to keep isn't someone worth having in the first place, and then she came right out and said she didn't like who Nina became when she was with Sonny. "The Nina I know was erased by Mrs. Corinthos," she explained. "I miss my Nina." If Joss is getting the shit end of the new writing regime, Maxie might be benefiting the most — she hasn't seemed this vibrant in a long time.
Speaking of Joss and this section's overall emphasis on characters' jobs, I guess we ought to take a paragraph or two to talk about Dex applying to work at the PCPD. He had a not-entirely-friendly sitdown with Detective Bennett last week, facing a barrage of questions about his work history that included the inevitable confrontation about his time at Corinthos Coffee. Whether Dex needs to be on the canvas or not is still a very open question as far as I'm concerned, but I didn't mind the way these scenes were written or played; I may not be able to believe in this guy as a mob enforcer, but I can definitely believe in him as a semi-shiftless twentysomething who's trying to figure out what to do with his life and hoping to become a part of something bigger than himself.
You know who can't believe it? Joss, who couldn't even handle waiting on him when he came by Bobbie's for a grilled cheese sandwich (which she burned). Maybe ten minutes after whining about how sad she is about the end of their relationship, she treats the guy like they're enemies — and she wasn't even happy about him applying to the PCPD. She's mad when he's a mobster, mad when he wants to be a cop, mad when he asks for a sandwich. She's also apparently rethinking her plan to become a doctor, which is great; I'd much rather see the show turn her into the insta-CEO of Jax's company after he dies offscreen. She'd be a much more believable executive than Michael, and that role would take full advantage of her biggest gifts, which are being rude and fickle.
I don't necessarily mean that as an insult, either. When Joss went whining to Carly about Dex's PCPD plans, she admitted that she still loves and misses him, but she's afraid Sonny will have him killed if he becomes a cop. Kristina happened to overhear Joss talking shit about Sonny and she butted in, accusing Joss of being ungrateful and talking behind his back; Joss pushed back, pointing out that she's said as much to Sonny's face and would be happy to do it again. The conflict between Joss and Kristina that's been bubbling on the back burner since late last year finally erupted, and while I might resent the show making Joss the voice of reason in this argument by calling Sonny a thug and a murderer, there isn't much else to complain about. Here we have a pair of quasi-related characters with intractable positions that put them vehemently, fundamentally at odds; friends, this is the stuff that soaps are made of. I don't know how badly Joss and Kristina can screw with each other, but I'm absolutely here to find out.
For Sale: One Wheelchair, Lightly Used
Curtis graduated from a wheelchair to a cane last week, but only because he happened to be up and out of his chair when Stella took a break from making Trina a coconut cake (it's her favorite!) and caught him standing. Because it's her job to dispense advice wherever she goes, Stella urged Curtis to abandon his plan to keep it a secret until he's further along in his recovery, and that's pretty much all it took — when Portia came home, he walked to her, and a couple of days later, he and Trina walked into Bobbie's together to thunderous applause.
Trina and Curtis were out for a chat so he could offer her some fatherly wisdom regarding her indecision over whether she should return to PCU, return to the Sorbonne, or do something else completely — a fine conversation, albeit one we've seen before between these two. What would be truly wild is if GH remembered Trina's relationship with Taggert, the dad who raised her, and the character who was last seen day-drinking his sadness away after learning he isn't Trina's father after all. Given how steadfastly this show clings to certain characters who have no visible utility, I remain baffled by its treatment of Taggert, who has a lot of history with a lot of people in Port Charles, as well as a skillset that could slot him into any number of storylines. The idea that they're going to make dopey Dex a cop but leave Taggert sleeping in an alley somewhere is offensive. The new writers seem to be trying to right some wrongs; I hope Taggert is on their list.
It was a week of major highs and lows for Portia, who went from being giddy over Curtis' progress to becoming enraged over the idea that Laura is advocating for Heather's release from prison with support from Kevin and Alexis. Overhearing Kevin asking Alexis if there's any legal precedent for the exoneration of a prisoner with Heather's condition, Portia confronted them on the GH floor, and when Laura showed up wondering what was going on, Portia lit into her too. We probably do need a voice of reason in the "Heather inexplicably goes free" storyline, and it makes sense that it'd be Portia; I only hope that Portia's hatred of Heather actually ends up going someplace interesting. It seems like the writers have no plan for Portia right now, and having her violate some oaths as a doctor/hospital official might not be a bad way to turn that around.
Stella, meanwhile, had a coffee date with Tracy, which was fucking delightful. I don't care if all they do is play backgammon; I want to see at least one scene between these characters every week.
Michael told Carly that Jason hid out at the boathouse and was patched up by Willow; Carly told Michael that Jason is working for the FBI
Dante and Kristina talked about how Ava is living at Sonny's penthouse, which they both think is weird
Chase asked Dante to be a groomsman at the wedding
Gregory asked his doctor if he'd be healthy enough to officiate Chase and Brook Lynn's wedding in a month, and got a "probably"
Liz told Finn she was settling with Jason and she's glad she got it right this time, prompting blood-curdling screams from Liason fans across the country
Sasha scooped up horse poop in red overalls
Tracy a post-wellness check meeting with Terry, who gently suggested that she either seek therapy or get out more; later, she went to Cody and told him she wanted to start riding again
It was Tracy's birthday and Sasha made shepherd's pie
Chase seems like he has a secret plan for the honeymoon
Lila's dress is too old to be altered
Brook Lynn warned Natalia that Sonny won't like her efforts to hide Blaze's relationship with Kristina from the public
Dante was released from the hospital and came home just in time to caution Sam that it might not be a good idea to try and stop Danny from seeing Jason
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