You guys, I still can't figure out how I feel about this writing regime. Under their direction, the show has become a lumpy but not altogether unpleasant blend of character-driven moments, strange wheel-spinning, and extremely abrupt plot developments — and while General Hospital has certainly incorporated all of those ingredients in the past, it seems like they're cycling through the onscreen product faster and/or more unpredictably than before. It's a show that seems to feel unsure of what it wants to be, and I don't know if that's a byproduct of resetting various things that weren't working, or an actual long-term plan, or some combination of the two. Like I said, it isn't entirely unpleasant — if you've been watching this show for any real length of time, I'm sure you can remember stretches that were far worse — but at the same time, it often feels like these people are sort of making stuff up as they go along, which is not how I want to feel when I'm watching GH.
I Like Us the Way We Are
In the midst of the scrambled eggs and spumoni the show served up last week, we can pick out a few major developments, the earliest of which is what appears to be a major sign that these writers are fully not interested in having Jason and Carly pick up where they left off before Sonny returned from Nixon Falls. This comes as a huge relief to me, and I'm not even invested in either of these characters or their respective pairings — I just never believed in "Jarly" as a thing, and the writing didn't help, nor did the senseless sacrifice of the actually fun Jason/Britt connection. Freeing these two up to do whatever they're going to do with other people is the only correct decision, and the proof lies in the extremely simple way the writers let the viewers know which way things were heading: Jason telling Carly "I like us the way we are" and Carly saying "I do too."
But if you're still pining for this weird couple's brief moment in the sun, don't worry, because their ten-minute marriage is still being litigated — specifically by Sonny, who keeps harping on it as proof that things changed irrevocably while he was in Nixon Falls and one of the reasons he can't trust either of them anymore. Of course, the viewers know that at least part of Sonny's paranoia stems from the fact that Valentin is messing with his meds, but even at his fully medicated best, it's extremely easy to believe that he'd cling to something like that and throw it in their faces at every opportunity.
I'm normally not in favor of characters pawing at the same patch of dirt for years, but in this case, I think it adds some interesting stakes to the action happening around Sonny, Carly, Jason, and Nina — specifically Nina's sale of her stake in the Metro Court to Jason, a sale she agreed to at least partly because Ava let her believe Sonny would be "moved" if she did, only to watch Sonny confront Carly in the hotel and brand all three of them liars and traitors who deserve each other.
I have no idea where the show's going with this, but any soap worth its stones would put Nina in the middle of a triangle with Drew and Jason. Carly would clearly be pissed, but Carly has hated every woman Jason's ever been with. Nina's gross situation with Drew isn't going anywhere, and Jason is clearly a third rail for him, so why not contrive to toss those three together before Drew makes his way out of town again?
Anyway, moving on to Ava. The most resilient Jerome continued her sphinxlike streak last week, acting half the time like she's Lady Macbeth and the other half like she's Sonny's one true friend. After failing to fall asleep after taking some of Sonny's pills, she had them analyzed and discovered that they were only a quarter of their prescribed strength — but then she didn't go to Sonny with that information. On the other hand, she earnestly urged him against shutting out the various people he's declared dead to him over the past few weeks, reminding him that betrayal from a family member can be a "tricky thing" — and sometimes family's all we've really got.
So what the hell is she up to? Friends, I do not know. It really feels like the writers are trying to play it both ways here while they try to figure out who's good and who's bad in this storyline, which would be twice as annoying if Maura West wasn't so goddamn great at everything she does onscreen. It'd be great if her actions made sense, and I'm sure this will lose its charm before long, but in the meantime, I remain steadfastly of the opinion that any scene with Ava in it is better for her presence.
While Ava continues wrapping Sonny around her finger and Nina pines for him obliviously in the wings, Carly is clearly getting ready for a roll in the hay with Jagger — who briefly accused her of being behind his beating before hilariously giving her his phone number, like two days after telling her they couldn't even be friends since they're on opposite sides of the Pikeman investigation. As we learned last week, it's really Sonny who had Jagger pulverized; he directed Brick to do it, and then wondered if Jagger and Jason are in cahoots after learning that Jagger wasn't far from the Corinthos Coffee warehouse when Brick's men roughed him up.
Adding even further to Sonny's woes is the news that Dex has applied to the PCPD and is well on his way to becoming a cop. After affirming to Brick that Dex is (sigh) dead to him, he had to hear from Ava (via Trina) that his former enforcer had turned to law enforcement, which prompted the traditional shout of "son of a bitch," followed by threats and vows to "stop him cold." This is exactly the type of reaction Joss is worried about, by the way, as we saw when she stormed into Anna's office, dismissed Anna's argument that becoming a cop is Dex's best protection from Sonny, and tearfully insisted that Anna not hand her the flag from Dex's coffin after she foolishly allows him to join the force and Sonny has him killed.
But hey, don't be too upset with Anna. Dex took the PCPD physical test last week via one hilariously low-budget montage, and Detective Bennett begrudgingly told her that their new applicant is in the 98th percentile of everyone who's ever taken the test in the history of the department — which goes a long way toward explaining why Sonny's been able to get away with running a criminal empire under their noses since the '90s.
Standing in the Way of Justice
Speaking of Sonny's absurd reign, we heard a lot more about Anna and Laura's recent change of heart where Corinthos is concerned last week — starting with a conversation between the two of them during which Laura let Anna know in no uncertain terms that if she'd ever held back on prosecuting Sonny because she wanted to respect Laura's friendship with him, she should stop immediately. On one hand, this stuff is chewed gum by now; we more than understand that at this moment, the show is interested in being honest about Sonny's true place in Port Charles, and that Anna and Laura are supposed to be leading the charge. On the other hand, after years of everyone kissing his ass, I'm still quite ready for scenes full of people calling him a homicidal crook — and these were fairly well written at that, with Anna at one point making the semi-poetic observation that while Sonny is certainly charming, "charm has no moral weight." It's very silly that these characters are only now reckoning with the implications of their friendships with a mob boss, and it's even sillier that Sonny's assault on Cyrus is the operative factor in all this, but better late than never. The only thing that's tempering my enthusiasm is the knowledge that all will likely be forgiven once everyone finds out Sonny's meds are being tampered with.
For now, though, it's full steam ahead toward Anna charging Sonny with assault or attempted murder or whatever. After Laura encouraged Cyrus to make a statement to the police, he confessed to her that he'd goaded Sonny into attacking him — and that even as it was happening, he felt like he'd won by successfully provoking his enemy. Although Cyrus went on to claim he's now disgusted by his previous actions and he can no longer remember what he even wanted out of his vendetta against him anyway, he was still swayed by Laura when she insisted that he didn't deserve to be physically beaten. Before the week was out, he'd gone to Anna's office and made a statement — which he could do because he's apparently already walked away from the radio show he brokered as part of the deal with Nina in which he agreed not to press charges.
On his way out of the PCPD, Cyrus crossed paths with Dex — a meeting that started out tense, but eventually morphed into a meeting of the minds of sorts, with both of them speaking in generalities about where they'd been when they last met and where they are now. Meanwhile, Anna summoned Molly to her office and tried to strongarm her into prosecuting Sonny.
This was a… deeply weird conversation. Anna's stated rationale for not handing the Cyrus/Sonny file over to Robert was that he'd be too excited to take the case, and it'd be too personal for him to prosecute — which makes absolutely no sense, given that Robert very recently fobbed Jason's case off on Molly because he was afraid of angering Robin. It also makes no sense because as Molly pointed out, she has a massive conflict of interest, given how tangled she is in Sonny's family. This prompted a lot of gibberish from Anna, very little of which meant anything, but the upshot ended up being that Anna really wants Molly to prosecute the case against Sonny and she's prepared to do whatever she can to make that happen.
It's pretty clear that the writers think this is a great way to engender further conflict between Molly and Kristina, which is soapy enough I suppose, but I remain befuddled by the show's perpetual excitement regarding arguments between the "Davis girls." If this is the path they go down, then we can all see subsequent developments from a mile away — Kristina will be furious, she and Molly will argue, she'll end up in the hospital with the baby's life in the balance, blah blah blah. The case will be dropped because Sonny's meds were tampered with, Molly will apologize to Kristina and the entire town will apologize to Sonny, the end.
I think that'll just about do it for this column. I glossed over a few things — including Carly finally seeing/asking about Jason's tattoos and the 30 seconds she spent pushing back against Jason giving her back her half of the Metro Court — but it's late and I'm tired and I think we hit the big stuff. I'll see you back here next week; in the meantime, here are your customary bullet points:
Lucy decided to make herself the spokesmodel for Deception's latest Home & Heart taping and completely tanked it, leaving Brook Lynn to beg Sasha to rush over from the stables and save the segment in her overalls
Gregory told Tracy that Alexis won't be his plus one to Brook Lynn and Chase's wedding
Finn enlisted Dante's help with Chase's bachelor party
Dante returned to desk duty at the PCPD
Maxie and Felicia talked about Maxie's relationship with Spinelli
Carly labored under the delusion that Michael knows how to fix appliances
Jordan whined about sharing her tax return with the city council; later, things got even worse for her when Brick showed up and started hitting on her like it was 1979
Jason caught Danny in his room above Bobbie's
Finn has an air fryer
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