For better or for worse, General Hospital feels like a significantly different show than the one we were getting six months ago. As with anything geared toward a large fanbase, new complaints inevitably arise as old ones are addressed, and I'm still not fully convinced there's a long-term plan behind what we're seeing. On the other hand, I can't remember the last time GH played this fast and loose for this long; if and when this writing team crashes and burns, they'll always be able to say they raised some eyebrows and pulled a few interesting stunts along the way.
Last week was more or less one that was safe to skip, with a couple of notable exceptions. With an abbreviated four-episode schedule due to the eclipse (ABC will use any excuse to preempt this show), GH did a lot of jogging in place, with characters having a number of conversations they've already had in places they often tend to be. But if it was largely skippable, it also wasn't unentertaining; while there were definitely some filler bits, there were also some satisfying exchanges… which, all in all, makes it just another week in Port Charles, right?
Let's dive in.
A Man Lets a Lady Say No
Might as well rip the Band-Aid off and get the week's most revoltin' development out of the way first. As you have no doubt already seen or at least heard, Drew and Nina did the deed last week, making the beast with two backs on the floor of his office after having yet another heated argument — this one concluding with Nina preposterously ripping Drew's shirt wide open when she grabbed him to try and stop him from walking away. There are probably Red Shoe Diaries episodes that unfolded more subtly than this.
Like a true soap vixen, Nina went from furious to horny as soon as she got a look at Drew's pecs, prompting the following ridiculous exchange:
"Did Carly ever tell you that you have a nice body?"
"You've only seen half of it."
If you haven't seen these scenes — and I am absolutely not recommending that you watch them — those lines pretty much set the tone for everything. As many viewers have noted, one of the major issues with Drew and Nina hooking up is how aggressively awful he's treated her, up to and including lamenting not being able to punch her lights out because she's a woman. This is a soap, so there's really no narrative obstacle too tall to climb if the show wants a character to do a thing — but that doesn't mean the rules of solid storytelling can be ignored. In order for this pairing to really pay off, there needed to be a lot more buildup, and numerous opportunities for Drew and Nina's hostility to gradually thaw. Either that, or there needed to be a genuine instigating moment that would have prompted them to have hate sex. Instead, Nina just made googly eyes at Drew's naked chest, started unbuttoning her blouse, and — scene.
As soon as they were finished, they went right back to sniping at each other, with Nina once again assuming the supplicating position. You see, she went to Drew's office in the first place because Willow and Michael were shitty to her when she interrupted their anniversary dinner at the Metro Court with champagne and promises of a free dinner; desperate for a way back into their good graces, she barged in on Drew and demanded that he put her on Aurora's board so Michael would have no choice but to interact with her. She renewed her push for board appointment as she and Drew were putting their clothes back on, and when Drew raspily snarked that it'd take "more than a couple of rug burns" for him to help her in any way, she basically started pleading for him to do something, anything to advocate for her with the mayonnaise marrieds.
I've never been able to understand this show's zeal for writing certain characters as punching bags for the entire town, and that list definitely includes Nina. Like Ric Lansing with breasts, she's never allowed to emerge victorious from a confrontation, nor is she ever allowed to forget any of the shitty things she's done despite living in a ZIP code where you can't graduate from high school without committing your first murder. It's just dumb for a number of reasons, arguably the most important of which is that it knocks the legs out from under stories that really do have potential. Drew and Nina are a good example — as Sonny and Ava proved when they sexed it up in the Quartermaine crypt, turning sworn enemies into hump buddies can pay genuine long-term dividends. But when one character's always on their knees regardless of whether anything's happening in the bedroom, it just makes the whole thing queasily unappealing.
Let me put this another way: Nina has no leverage over Drew in this situation. She depends on him for her job at Crimson; she depends on him to help her restore her relationship with Willow. The only thing she has to offer is sex, which is a deeply gross position to put any character in, but the things it's tacitly saying about a smart and successful woman like Nina are fairly offensive. There isn't a lot of narrative road here, but who knows if that's even a problem for these writers? They've repeatedly shown their willingness to drop stuff on a dime, and I can easily see the show pivoting to Drew hooking up with Jordan while Nina ends up in a triangle with Carly and Jagger by next Friday.
I Did Something You're Not Gonna Like
Okay, so. Carly and Jagger. A lot of us have basically just been waiting for the show to go there since these two started bantering at Bobbie's, but I don't know how many people had "Carly spends the night sleeping in a chair in Jagger's hotel room after randomly rescuing him from a beating in an alley" on their bingo cards.
Here's how it went down. Carly was at Bobbie's when Diane's assistant came by with some papers she was supposed to drop off during a meeting between Diane and Jason, and Carly — never one to pass up an opportunity to insert herself into anything involving Jason — offered to take them by the Corinthos Coffee warehouse. On her way there, she just so happened to see Jagger getting his ass kicked in an alley, so she stopped her car, opened the door, and yelled at Jagger's assailants, who made like Brave Sir Robin and ran away.
After helping Jagger to his feet, Carly took him back to the Metro Court (where, once again, the FBI would absolutely never pay for an agent's long-term housing), insisting that she stay with him overnight so she could wake him every couple of hours and check for concussion symptoms. In the morning, she ordered breakfast while he showered; by the time he came out in a towel, she was already on the phone yelling at room service for being late, although it turned out that their meal had just been left outside the door. Slamming down the phone, Carly went in the hall to get the food, just in time for Nina to pass by while making her rounds and get an eyeful of half-naked Agent Cates.
This naturally led Carly to pull the door closed and engage in some more tired bickering with Nina. After Nina left, Carly simply pulled the handle on the door to the room and opened it without using a key, suggesting that the Metro Court has far bigger problems than cold eggs in the hall — but I digress, because the real reason for all this was so Nina could barge into Drew's office, right in the middle of a meeting with Michael and Curtis, and blab to everyone that Carly and Jagger slept together.
Well, that was the main reason. The other purpose it seemed to serve was giving Carly a reason to continue bitching about the Metro Court supposedly going downhill fast since Nina took over, which was a recurring theme throughout the week. And the reason that happened was to lay down some carpet for the question Jason asked Diane on Friday: "Do I have enough money to buy back Carly's half of the Metro Court?"
Friends, you knew this was coming. You may not have guessed it'd be like Jason's third order of business after being cleared of Dante's shooting, but you knew it was coming. Diane pointed out that others — including Nina — had offered to hand Carly her half of the hotel, but she'd always turned them down because she wanted to "do it herself"; Jason shrugged this off, saying he'd handle Carly and telling Diane just to get it done. (She opened negotiations on Friday, offering Nina three percent over market value; Nina countered with 15 over, Diane offered four, and they finally settled on nine — although Nina said she had to think about it, and if Jason wanted the hotel so badly, he could wait.)
As this conversation was winding down, Carly finally arrived with the papers she was supposed to deliver the night before, and after Diane left, Carly filled Jason in on what happened with Jagger — the beating, the night in his room, and Nina wasting no time in tattling. As Carly pointed out, it wouldn't take long for Sonny to get word of the situation and assume she and Jagger had sex, which would be even more of an issue because she suspects that Sonny's the one behind Jagger's assault.
I said Jason's third order of business was dispatching Diane to buy half of the Metro Court from Nina. His second order was reclaiming the Corinthos Coffee warehouse and telling Diane to inform Sonny that he'd be taking back his half of the company. As it turns out, Jason's estate stayed in probate the entire time he was "dead," conveniently sparing him the effort of trying to reclaim his laundered assets from his beneficiaries. (Like I keep saying with these characters: Everything always reverts to the status quo. Always.)
Anyway, Sonny was predictably unhappy about this turn of events, and it wasn't long before he showed up at the warehouse making belligerent threats to have Jason murdered if he didn't stay out of his way. Jason rebuffed Sonny's demands that he tell him everything about what he's been up to for the last couple of years, but he did say he wasn't responsible for any of the attempts on Sonny's life, pointing out that if he'd taken those shots, he wouldn't have missed. He also straight up asked Sonny if he was taking his meds, which basically led to Sonny telling Jason he could keep the warehouse and rot in it.
Getting back to Carly and Jagger, if I had to guess, I'd put my money on Valentin as the person behind that beating in the alley. Pikeman is the target of Jagger's investigation, and having him roughed up while he was tailing Diane in order to get to Jason (because Jason is "too hard to follow," as Carly boasted to Michael) would be a smart way to offer some physical deterrence while placing another cloud of suspicion over Sonny's head. Valentin was only seen once last week, lying through his teeth to a clearly suspicious Anna when she came to him for help with the Pikeman case, so it'll be extremely easy for the writers to retroactively put him in contact with Jagger's assailants. For now, I guess we're supposed to be focused on the relationship between Carly and Jagger — or the lack of one, given that as she was leaving, he lamented that they couldn't really be friends, given their respective positions in the Pikeman case. (We'll see how long that holds.)
The last thing to mention here is that while Sonny was out yelling at Jason, Ava was back at the penthouse, suffering from insomnia; looking for something to help her sleep, she went rooting through Sonny's bathroom cabinet, finally settling on some pills that warned they could cause drowsiness. They did nothing for her, leading her to question "What do those stupid pills do?"
Clearly, Ava isn't in cahoots with Valentin when it comes to tampering with Sonny's meds, which eliminates the most popular fan theories surrounding her suddenly shady behavior. If anything, it seems like this incident could lead to Ava figuring out — or helping Sonny figure out — that his prescription has been altered, which would only draw her further inside his shrinking circle of trust. I don't know what the endgame is here, but I can tell you what I'd like to see: Ava continuing to subtly indulge Sonny's darker impulses throughout the rest of the Pikeman story, cementing their new bond despite Dante and Kristina's suspicions. Then, after Pikeman has been cleared off the board, we find out that Ava's in cahoots with Selina, who's been building power and poisoning the well for Sonny while he's been distracted with everything else. I'm sure dumb Jason would just end up being the hero in the end and everything would go back to the way it was, but seeing those two put their heads together sure would be fun as long as it lasted.
SuperCurtis
Most of last week's events can be covered in our customary parting bullet points, but I do want to spend a couple of paragraphs on Curtis — specifically, how clearly the show has no idea what it's doing with this character or the rest of his extended family. My first objection stems from the meeting he had in Drew's office, where Drew and Michael used a bunch of lame (and sadly almost accurate) corporate gibberish to enthuse about the booming "health and wellness sector," eventually suggesting that since Curtis can walk again, he'd be the perfect person to head up a new Aurora initiative in this area. They then put him on the spot by asking him what he'd do, and he quickly busted out with a whole multi-point plan involving buying out independent gyms and rebranding them as Aurora fitness centers.
This makes me want to close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose for six days, but I refuse to do it because that's what Jason Morgan does in every other scene. Instead, I will once again point out how horribly offensive it is to write a story in which a character is left partly paralyzed by a would-be assassin's bullet, then regains feeling in his limbs thanks to a miracle cure. When Drew told Curtis he's proof that if "you do the work, you can achieve anything," I wanted to make him eat a wheelchair. (To be fair, I often feel this way. But still.)
My second objection stems from what happened after Nina dropped the Jaggerbomb on their meeting — specifically, stick around to have a long talk with Drew about his breakup with Carly. I don't know if you've noticed this, but it's become a rule that if virtually any Ashford is in any scene, they will eventually end up giving someone a heaping helping of magically marvelous advice. (The sole exceptions are Portia, who's too busy hating Heather, and TJ, who is virtually invisible when he isn't getting advice from Curtis or Marshall.) Over the last few years, we've seen Curtis go from PI to club owner to temporary paraplegic, and he's been melancholy about all those things; we've also seen him field job offers from the WSB and, now, Aurora. The only consistent aspect of the character is the wisdom he dispenses like gumdrops wherever he goes. If I were Donnell Turner, I'd be bored out of my mind. He's capable of more and he deserves better than this. So does the audience.
Okay, I've gone on long enough for one column. Bullet points ahoy!
Willow questioned whether she still wants to be a nurse since it takes her away from the children; Michael suggested that she sit on the boards of charities affiliated with the Quartermaines
Kevin told Laura there's a part of him that would like to see Heather redeemed, stemming partly from the guilt he feels over keeping Ryan alive and in hiding all those years
Chase surprised Brook Lynn by telling her he sold his truck to pay for a honeymoon in Florence; Tracy later stopped Brook Lynn from buying Chase a new truck, leading to a long and fairly well-written conversation about the pitfalls of uneven personal wealth between spouses
Alexis got a hearing date for her disbarment appeal, which just so happens to be the same day as Chase and Brook Lynn's wedding, meaning she can no longer be Gregory's plus one
TJ moped to Marshall about his misgivings regarding Kristina as surrogate
Cody and Sasha talked about her job search
Lucy installed herself as the new Deception spokesmodel for TV appearances, and promptly stunk up a Home & Heart taping
Taggert remains MIA
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