Welcome to another edition of Critical Diagnosis, fellow General Hospital viewers. Once again, I am here to talk about what happened in Port Charles last week; once again, I am here to tell you that I have no idea what the hell is actually going on with this show. I admit there's a small part of me that appreciates not knowing what in the world I'm going to get from day to day, but it isn't like GH is doing anything impactful (or even really all that interesting) with the chaos on the canvas, particularly when it comes to the writers' current obsession with having characters take on new jobs or simply up and switch careers.
Was anyone asking for Curtis to work for Aurora, let alone as the director of a hastily conceived "health and wellness" division? Was anyone asking for Willow to retire from nursing almost as quickly as she started? Does anyone even care about Joss reconsidering her decision to go pre-med? On and on and on. I know I keep saying this, but there's a big difference between incident and narrative, and GH is leaning real hard on the former at the expense of the latter lately. I'm not sure I understand the point of a lot of what I'm seeing, and that goes at least double for last week's episodes. I think some things worth discussing probably happened — we're about to find out together — but this was probably the most skippable week I can remember, and given the way the ratings are looking, I truly take no joy in saying that.
I Think Valentin Is Involved… Big Time
Even when it's off its game, GH is too packed with talent to be completely without silver linings, and the biggest one last week came courtesy of Anna and Valentin, who are both using Jason to further their own agendas. The Pikeman story itself is beyond tired and has gone through more baldly obvious on-the-fly rewrites than anything we've seen since the Fluke era, but I'm going to accentuate the positive for a couple of minutes and say I really like Anna being the smartest person in the room. Now that she's really thinking about it, it's taken her no time at all to connect a bunch of dots and figure out that Brennan stole the missing money from the busted op they worked together in the '80s and used it as early funding for Pikeman. She has also deduced that Valentin is a lot more than an ex-contractor for Pikeman; in fact, with an assist from Dex and Jason (blech), she now knows that Pikeman was seen speaking with Hume on the day of the Metro Court shooting, at a time when he was supposed to be out of the country.
Given that Anna and Valentin were romantically involved at the time, this is deeply hurtful for her, but she's a veteran spy and a goddamn professional, so she isn't about to sit around licking her wounds; instead, as she told Jason during their debriefing at the Brown Dog Bar, she's going to hoist Valentin by his own shitty petard, because as far back as their days training for the WSB, she's always been better than him. This is a classic case of some truly cool potential opening up in the midst of a pretty dumb storyline. Finola Hughes and James Patrick Stuart are both great, and they're also great together, and if GH intends to give us a few weeks or months of Anna and Valentin playing sexy spy games with each other — which I recognize is a HUGE if, because it's the type of super fun thing they tend to tease us with, only to piss it all away — I will be very, very happy to see it.
That's for later. For now, here's what we have happening in this corner of the canvas: Jason has pledged to protect Dex from Sonny because Joss asked him to. Brennan, who's figured out that Jason could only have infiltrated Pikeman with help from a government agency, has warned Valentin to stay away from Anna because every minute he spends with her, the greater the danger that someone will try to kill her — but Valentin, evidently too smug to listen to reason, is trying to woo Anna all over again, telling her he's lonely in his big old house after sending Charlotte back to boarding school overseas at her request. Valentin has also cooked up a plan to kill Jason and pin it on Sonny, who of course is acting erratically on account of Valentin messing with his meds.
Thanks to the conversation Valentin and Brennan had at Pentonville, where Brennan appears to have his own office and the ability to wander around the prison as he pleases, we now know Anna is 100 percent correct about the money that went missing after that busted op; in fact, we know Brennan and Valentin stole it together. In one sense, I suppose this kicks another leg out from underneath Valentin and Anna's love story, but in another, I also suppose it makes a lot of sense; Valentin was resentful toward Anna back then because he loved her and she didn't reciprocate his feelings, and he did spend a lot of years being the "most dangerous Cassadine," so it's good that the show is at least giving us a concrete example of what that might have meant.
On the other hand, I continue to be resentful about Anna being made to say stuff like "it was the '80s" when she refers to her time as a WSB trainee — this is a very stupid retcon, because Robin was six years old when she showed up in Port Charles in 1985, which places Anna's WSB training in the late '70s at the earliest. I also rolled my eyes when a weepy Anna, recounting the night she shot Charlotte, told Jason that she knew he wouldn't have made the same mistake. It's also insulting that Anna asked Jason for help "getting a read on Valentin" because she was afraid that her emotions were putting the investigation at risk and he's always been such a logical thinker. Gross! But I guess — I guess — these are relatively minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things.
I also guess I should mention that Jagger is pretty pissed about Jason buying back Carly's half of the Metro Court, which he seems to view as an extracurricular activity that there's no time for. (He might have a point.) Righteously incensed, he has promised Jason that if he doesn't deliver what the FBI needs, then Carly will be brought up on RICO charges and she'll lose the hotel all over again.
Carly Can Go to Hell
Also super pissed about Carly returning to the Metro Court: Sonny, who reacted like a jilted teenager when he realized that after spurning his offer to buy it back for her, she'd accepted it from Jason. It totally tracks that even a fully medicated Sonny would react like this, and it's also worth noting that the explanation Carly gave to Jagger — that she took the hotel back not for herself, but for Jason — is pretty damn silly. Nevertheless, the Metro Court is now just the latest sticking point between Sonny and Carly.
On one hand, I'd much rather watch these two idiots yell at each other than get along. On the other, it's painfully obvious that what we're really seeing here is Carly coming to Sonny's rescue because she's the only one who really knows him and so therefore she can tell his meds are being messed with and blah blah blah A;DLFAJD;LFAJDF;LKADSJF.
Sorry about that — let me try again. Last week was yet another installment in the saga of Everyone in Port Charles Is Talking About How Sonny's Acting Different Lately and Huh, Isn't That Strange, but of course it had to be Carly who finally put two and two together. I'm annoyed about this not just because I have next to no use for Carly as a character, but also because Carly's epiphany occurred the same day that Sonny went to Sam's penthouse, told Dante he's the only one in his family he can trust anymore, and kinda-sorta hinted that he's hoping Dante will help kill any PCPD investigation that arises due to information Dex might share. First of all, Sonny saying he only trusts Dante is very insulting to Kristina; second, Dante is a goddamn police detective, and he spent the entire scene openly regarding Sonny with a look that said "You're acting super weird and I'm definitely on my guard." Third, everyone in the Port Charles ZIP code knows Sonny has a history of doing weird things when he's off his meds. So why did Carly have to end up being the one who barged into Sonny's bathroom, waved around a bottle full of pills, and demanded to know whether he was taking them?
The writers would probably say it's because Carly has arguably the highest stakes in this, as evidenced by the fact that she was only at Sonny's penthouse in the first place so she could tell him she wasn't going to bring Donna over anymore because he doesn't think their daughter is safe there. And I suppose maybe to a handful of viewers, it was extra dramatic when Sonny reacted to all this by telling Ava that Carly could go to hell. For most of us who've been watching for a long time, however, I think it's probably just tiresome — for all the different stuff the writers are trying right now, they could definitely have gotten a lot more creative in terms of who finally started talking about Sonny's meds.
Like many of you, I'm preemptively done with this storyline for a couple of reasons, one of which is that all of the overdue public dragging Sonny's currently experiencing will undoubtedly be undone once the truth comes out about his meds being tampered with. The other is Ava's wholly unnecessary role in all of this. The viewers have known for a little while now that Ava's aware of Sonny's meds being mixed at a quarter of their prescribed dosage; what we haven't known is why she hasn't bothered to tell him. Last week, we got our very dumb answer courtesy of a conversation between Ava and Nikolas.
Ava visited Nikolas at Pentonville after hearing from Laura that he was being transferred out of state, and during their brief visit, she not only told him about Sonny's medication, but also confessed that she's keeping quiet about it for now because she likes Quarter Dose Sonny, and wants to hang onto the power she derives from being one of the few people remaining in his circle of trust. This is not only a very thin justification for her behavior, it also isn't really the Ava Jerome we know. While she's certainly gone after power a number of times, she isn't as stupid as she'd have to be in order to play with fire in this way, and it's also super insulting to have her say that her motivations for doing so essentially boil down to years of jealousy.
Just like we knew Carly would get the Metro Court back, we know she'll also find out about Sonny's meds — and we know she'll blame it on Ava, just as we know everyone in Sonny's life will believe it, because they've all been murmuring about how weird and wrong it is for her to be living with him. As I've complained before, GH seems to need a town pariah at all times, and now that Nina seems to be cycling out of that role (albeit in extremely gross fashion), it looks like Ava's next in line. Even after everyone finds out it was Valentin all along, I'm sure Ava will be hated for not immediately telling Sonny what she knew. Which is potentially justifiable — and that only makes it all the more infuriating, because there's no good reason to write the story this way.
Ava Jerome is a queen and should be treated as such. If she wants power, she's more than capable of going out and getting it herself, or forming an alliance with someone who can help her attain it. I don't have anything against her plotting against Sonny while cuddling up to him — far from it — but she should be doing it for reasons that are far more compelling than the ones she's been given. I'd much rather see her teaming up with Selina, or even Valentin. As it is, she's merely seizing an opportunity due to the way her feelings were hurt. This is not the Ava we know.
What the Hell Is Wrong with Us?
Speaking of characters being written out of character, oh god here's Nina, who had more gross sex with Drew last week after blundering into his office while he was having a meeting with Michael and Willow. After Michael and Willow beat a hasty retreat, Nina and Drew went at it, and were in the middle of getting dressed when Willow came back and started knocking on the office door. After initially mistaking her for the cleaning staff and hoping she'd go away, they eventually let her in, at which point Willow told Nina that if Drew can sit across a desk from her, then it makes her wonder if maybe she's been too harsh, and maybe they can have some sort of mother-daughter relationship after all.
Look. I don't agree with the puritanical point of view that transactional sex is vulgar or debasing, and I do think there's a way in which a storyline like this can be told without sacrificing entertainment value. But the Nina/Drew dynamic is disgusting, partly because the writers needed it to turn on a dime — presumably for shock value — and they never put in the work to take these two from "open hostility and alarming threats of physical violence" to "sparks flying during hate sex." Also and just as importantly, Nina has had to sacrifice everything in this deal — even if we buy the notion that Drew Cain is capable of satisfying a sexual partner, she's really the one making all the concessions to him, all for the sake of Drew putting in a good word for her with Willow. None of it makes a goddamn lick of sense, especially since Nina is an intelligent, independent person.
Because this is GH, they've really only sort of hinted at how wrong the whole thing is, and only very briefly, by having Nina blurt out to Maxie that she and Drew have been having sex. Maxie's response? "A therapist would have a field day with you." (Again: Numerous characters are
getting a raw deal from this writing regime, but Maxie is experiencing a long-overdue renaissance.)
Anyway, like I said, that was just one moment among many revolting ones. For example, Nina interrupted a meeting between Curtis and Drew last week, and cautioned Curtis to be sure he knows what he's getting himself into before he gets in bed with Aurora. "I haven't heard you complaining," said Drew. "You drive a hard bargain," said Nina. "Barf," said me.
(After consulting with Portia, Curtis agreed to be Aurora's new health and wellness guy. I can't wait to be bored silly by all the places this storyline refuses to go.)
But Nina isn't just sleeping with Drew in the hopes of a better relationship with her own long-lost daughter. She's also sharing her own Crimson exclusives with this blindingly veneered goblin, as we saw when she allowed Drew to insert himself into a sit-down with Congressman McConkey (veteran character actor Sam McMurray), an old friend of her dad's who chose the magazine as his outlet of choice for a personal statement. After accompanying Nina to the meeting, Drew brushed past McConkey's unamused reaction to someone else in his office, commandeering the conversation in order to pitch him on a Port Charles revitalization project that would focus on some long-neglected docks. Even after McConkey told them he had stage 4 lung cancer and wouldn't be alive long enough to shepherd the project through, Drew kept badgering him until he finally agreed to provisionally support it pending a look at the details. And what finally changed his mind? Nina vouching for Drew, of course.
GH is often accused of being misogynistic or ableist or racist, and in a lot of cases, I think there are most likely other reasons for the clumsy way in which they tell the stories that provoke that type of response. In this case, though, I think it's virtually impossible to watch this bullshit unfolding and not come away with the conclusion that this regime is hostile toward women. I'm not going so far as to argue that it's on the same level as writing a rape victim falling in love with her rapist, but it's still pretty awful, and every single person involved should know better. That said, Cynthia Watros is a gem, and any moment in this travesty that actually feels like it's rooted in real human behavior is due solely to her herculean efforts.
Baby Blues
I've tried to avoid writing about this dumb storyline for as long as possible, but it ate up enough airtime last week that I can't put it off any longer. I am referring, of course, to the story of Kristina serving as Molly and TJ's surrogate.
This is the type of story that could pack plenty of drama even without resorting to cheap theatrics, but the GH writers have long been in love with the idea of a contentious dynamic between the Davis sisters despite having rarely done the work to figure out why that type of dynamic would even exist, so of course Kristina's surrogacy has been overshadowed from the start by the tired old notion that she's flighty and self-centered or whatever. Last week, it fell to TJ to start beating that drum, and unfortunately for Tajh Bellow, he was required to do so in a way that was terribly clumsy, substantially out of character, and ignorant of relatively recent GH history.
Here's how it went: After learning that Kristina came by their apartment in the middle of the night to lean on Molly after having a fight with Joss, TJ basically flew off the handle, laying into Molly about how Kristina was behaving irresponsibly by going to a party and getting into an argument. When Kristina came over for breakfast last Wednesday, TJ wasted no time starting in on her to her face, and when Kristina pushed back, he even went so far as to suggest that she should stay away from Sonny until she gives birth.
This is the type of uniquely infuriating decision GH makes all the time. On the surface, does it make sense to worry about a baby surrogate's relationship with her mobster father? Sure. But is this the type of thing you'd hash out beforehand, especially if said surrogate is your sister-in-law? Certainly. And if you're making a lot of noise about it, but you also happen to be a person who moved out of your mother's house and moved in with this mobster just a few years ago, shouldn't that at least be acknowledged? Shouldn't at least one person in your stupid life point out that you're being a raging hypocrite, and ask you to explain your sudden change of heart? Yes, TJ is an expectant father, but he's also a doctor, and he should be extremely well versed in the statistical risks associated with pregnancy. There's no reason in the world for this to happen on this show other than the writers straining muscles while reaching for conflict.
Of course, that isn't the only anvil we've been waiting to drop. There's also Kristina bonding with the baby and starting to think of it as her own, which the writers have none-too-subtly been threading into the story; that came to a point last week, after Alexis observed Kristina making offhand comments about "my baby" and wondering whether it'll take after her, she point blank asked her if she's starting to think of the baby as more hers than Molly and TJ's. We'll find out the answer to that question next week, but in the meantime, good news: The argument between Joss and Kristina turned out to be a big bunch of nothing, because Dex told Kristina that Joss was right about Sonny ordering him to kill Cyrus. This was discussed out in the open at the park, naturally, and of course Joss happened to come jogging by at just the right moment, and Kristina immediately apologized, the end. Why would this show possibly want to have two young characters with strong personalities and tons of shared history at odds with each other? What, you think this is a serial drama or something? Silly viewers.
Disaster at 66 Harbor View Road
Being a soap fan in the 21st century means being willing to accept something you love in a diminished state. No matter how long ago you came to GH, you probably remember a time when the churches and courtrooms were full, local businesses actually seemed crowded, and it wasn't at all uncommon to watch scenes featuring more than two or three characters. While I know Frank Valentini is all kinds of unpopular for all kinds of reasons, I'll always give him credit for managing a dwindling budget in ways that impact the onscreen product as little as possible, and I appreciate the way he still makes an effort to give us new sets, "location" shoots, and a handful of extras.
I also appreciate the fluid way the current writing regime is mapping out its scenes. For years, if you saw characters on a set at the start of an episode, you could pretty much bet on them still being there at the end of the episode, and it created a really walled-off feeling — not just from episode to episode, but between groups of characters. People could go years without interacting at all, and that isn't so much the case anymore. I admit it's a little weird to see people pop up for a minute and then disappear for the rest of the show — as was the case with Felicia and Elizabeth and Yuri (who didn't even get a line!) last week — but I still think it's preferable.
All of that being said, last Thursday's episode was weird as hell. Most of it took place at the Quartermaine mansion, and it found a long, long list of characters moving in and out of the kitchen, terrace, stables, and gatehouse — which is not the kind of thing I would ordinarily complain about, but in this case, it was all in service of stories that, for the most part, absolutely do not need to be told. In the end, it kind of just made me sad for the GH of old, which would have done this kind of thing on a regular basis, except the scenes would have existed for a real purpose. It really bummed me out that this was all going on at the Quartermaine mansion, with Tracy and Brook Lynn the only genuine Quartermaines in sight. It's true that most of the actors who played the Qs of old are dead or at least semi-retired, it's also true that the show has done a horrible job of maintaining the family legacy; we really should have Dillon and Lila Rae and at least one AJ lovechild and also at least one Justus lovechild on the scene. Michael is no kind of Quartermaine and Willow might as well not exist, and while I have nothing against Olivia or Lois, it's obvious how heavily the show leans on them to provide a fuzzy facsimile of the shenanigans we expect on that set.
Leading up to Thursday's episode, the big "drama" at the mansion surrounded Sasha's audition for the job of Quartermaine cook, which she nailed after making some tetrazzini that Wiley and Leo loved. (Michael, ever the idiot, was also there and seemed downright shocked that the woman he dated for an extended period of time was such a talented cook.) She then went to the stables to ask Cody if he'd feel crowded with her living in the mansion, and of course he said no way, even going so far as to volunteer to sleep "with the beasts where I belong" and give her his room if she ended up getting fired. Hearing this, she abruptly swooped in and kissed him; seconds later, Olivia showed up and made a show of saying she had her eye on them and there would be no funny business while they were on the clock.
But Sasha getting the stamp of approval from Olivia was not enough for Tracy, who told her daughter-in-law that she wanted an old-fashioned Quartermaine cook who barred the family from the kitchen. Setting out to get her way, she resolved to test Sasha with an obscure recipe; after discovering Aiden Webber in the house ("Hello, another family's child"), she enlisted him to help her by asking him to pick a random page from a cookbook and telling Sasha to make that for dinner. Aiden quickly volunteered to help Sasha make it. I'm falling asleep just writing this.
Long story short, Tracy ended up loving what Sasha had already made for lunch so much that she told her she had the gig. There was a bunch of other stuff that happened, including Aiden and Wiley and Violet and James and Georgie almost interrupting Michael and Willow getting it on at the gatehouse, but I refuse to write about that any more than I already have.
Elsewhere in the mansion, we were subjected to the latest example of an allegedly major corporation being run like a goddamn lemonade stand, as Brook Lynn auditioned to become the next Deception spokesperson by acting out a Home & Heart taping with Maxie while Lois and an ever-changing peanut gallery looked on. Naturally, Lucy and Scott interrupted the proceedings, with Lucy intent on proving she should continue representing the company and Scott volunteering to record everyone's efforts with his phone camera. Again, I'm tired just writing this; it was very, very lame. In the end, Lois turned out to have the knack for pitching Deception's products, and she was anointed the company's new spokesperson by Lucy herself. My heart breaks for Lynn Herring and Kin Shriner. I don't know what they did to piss off these writers, but it wasn't bad enough to warrant this kind of treatment.
The one positive aspect of all this was the conversation between Tracy and Gregory, who were both chilling on the terrace in the midst of everyone else's tomfoolery. The relationship between these characters is a classic GH example of gold being panned from acres of silt — the good stuff we get is at least 50 percent due to the talents of the actors, and all of it is fatally undermined by the show's dumb decision to afflict Gregory with ALS — but even taking that into consideration, it was really satisfying and even a little moving to watch Tracy reckon with her regret over a pampered life largely wasted on anything other than love. If you're going to watch anything from last week, make it the moments those two spent bonding during Thursday's otherwise utterly pointless episode.
I think that does it for the in-depth portion of this column, but I do want to note one last thing: If I'm counting my weeks right, this marks the one-year anniversary of Critical Diagnosis, which means it was a little more than a year ago that I approached Jenn out of the blue and asked her if Diagnosis Daytime had room for a column about the show. I have no idea how many people are really reading this and I don't think I want to know, but the comments I've gotten from readers along the way have been really gratifying. If you're reading this, then thanks for being part of the journey — and thanks as always to Jenn for hosting this column. As critical as Critical Diagnosis can be, I'm forever fascinated by daytime drama, and I remain ever hopeful that the networks will eventually realize that even though talk shows are cheaper, they're nowhere near as meaningful to the audience. Here's to love in the afternoon, past, present, and future.
On with the bullet points!
Natalia managed to offend Maxie (by calling Brook Lynn a "nepo baby") and Alexis (by referring to Kristina as "a bartender) all in one week
Elizabeth noticed pink paint on Aiden's backpack not long after she spotted it in his hair; worried that he's being bullied, she called his school counselor
Willow decided to abandon her nursing career to be a part-time volunteer for a foundation that helps find bone marrow donors
Trina continued serving as a talk-to for Joss, listening to her talk about possibly changing majors before urging her to admit that she's still in love with Dex
Dante wondered if his failure to stop Sonny means he isn't fit to be a cop
Dex put pants on and fixed his hair in the mirror
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