Critical Diagnosis: Week of May 13, 2024 - May 17, 2024 by Jeff Giles



Well, folks, the wedding of the century has come and gone. Did you feel all the feels?


That isn't an entirely serious question, but I'm not being entirely sarcastic either. While the Brook Lynn/Chase nuptials were fairly low on drama, they were also very sweet and generally unobjectionable — much like the couple themselves, at least in the… however many months it's been since whoever was writing the show at the time finally got permission to take the "singing Chase" storyline out back and give it the Old Yeller treatment. Those two are a glass of milk, which is fine. Almost everyone likes a glass of milk every now and then, even if it's only because they went a little too far with the hot sauce.


Given that the wedding basically ate the show last week, I'm not sure how much there'll be to say in this edition of Critical Diagnosis; then again, I feel like I've given this warning a few times, and each time, the column has been more or less as long as it normally is. However long I manage to blabber this time, I can tell you this column won't be as cranky as last week's; if I wasn't particularly invested in what went down during the "I do's," neither was I particularly annoyed.


Baby steps. Here we go.


Wedding Bell Blues Booze

In the weeks leading up to this wedding — all 438 of them, or at least that's what it started to feel like — the only big question was whether Gregory would be able to maintain control of his faculties long enough to get through officiating without experiencing some sort of medical event. I think we all knew General Hospital would not be able to resist the temptation to make Gregory's worst nightmare come true, and in the closing moments of Thursday's show, as the muscles in his mouth and jaw started freezing up, it seemed like we were about to get ourselves a good old-fashioned "Grampa had to go to the hospital" wedding.


As it turned out, the show was really just using Gregory's condition as cliffhanger fuel. He froze up for a few moments, everyone looked aghast, and then Tracy walked up to assure him that although she was willing to take over as they'd discussed beforehand, she wanted him to take some time to simply breathe — and no matter how much time it took, it would be fine and no one would mind.


Ugh. Look, I've written here before about how I dislike the show using real-life terminal conditions as storyline fodder, and I'm opposed overall to this story on those grounds, but Jane Elliot is a goddess and Gregory Harrison is extremely talented, and these moments were moving in spite of themselves. They were also over pretty quickly; before long, Gregory gathered himself and proceeded with the ceremony, and the rest of it went off without a hitch.


There were two hints of drama that came up during the reception. The first came when Finn — after being cornered into giving Carmine Cerullo some free medical advice regarding a rash on his leg — inadvertently took a small sip of champagne without thinking during the wedding toast. In the moments immediately after, he looked like he'd accidentally shot someone, and for the rest of the night, he had the peaceful-yet-resigned air of someone who knows they are about to die. This is all strange to me, for a number of reasons — first, drugs and not alcohol were Finn's issue, if I'm remembering right; second, he couldn't even have cooked with the amount he accidentally drank; third, the show has spent the last couple of weeks hinting at Finn falling off the wagon because of Gregory-related stress and assorted angst. 


I can understand Finn being upset about what happened, but it was an honest mistake; a functioning adult would have simply told Elizabeth what happened, robbing the event of much of its power by speaking it out loud, and tried to find a meeting later that night. Instead, I fear we're about to see him backslide completely, all due to a few unintentional drops of champagne. I'm not saying stuff like that never happens in real life, but I do think it's kind of insulting to real-life addicts to portray sobriety this way, and it's dumb drama besides.


Speaking of dumb, our other bit of wedding-related drama occurred toward the end of the night, when Sonny — after knocking back bourbon and glaring at Dex throughout the reception — followed his former employee out of the terrace in order to deliver a stern warning that Dex needed to stay away from anyone in, or considered to be in, his family. When Dex foolishly grabbed Sonny's arm in an attempt to talk some sense into him, Sonny snapped and decked him; by the time the commercial break was over, Dex the military vet and all-time PCPD academy champ was bleeding in a ball on the floor while an unscathed and elderly Sonny whaled on him.


Just in time, Jason — who was right on Sonny's heels when he left to follow Dex and must have somehow gotten lost or stopped to take a gigantic dump — jumped in to bearhug Sonny from behind and tell Dex to run. At this point, Sonny went volcanic, screaming that he'd kill both of them, just in time for Kristina to walk in, see what was happening, and drop a plate of cake in shock. Cue end credits.


So look. It's one thing for Sonny to walk away from a confrontation with Cyrus with nothing more than some bruises on his knuckles, given that they're a decade apart in age and Cyrus didn't lift a finger to defend himself. And I know we've all made fun of the way the show has portrayed Dex as some sort of badass, but if that's the way they want it, then that's how they need to play it — Dex should have given as good as he got in that fight, or used some sort of military/police technique to physically subdue Sonny, especially given that all it took for Jason to hold him off was to simply hug him from behind. (You came so close, Sonny/Jason shippers. So close.) The fact that it was written this way does no favors to the show's rep as a Sonny glorification forum.


If I had to guess, I would guess that it was really written like this so even more people will peel away from the "Sonny's okay, I guess" camp. Everyone is acting like beating Cyrus is the worst thing Sonny's ever done, so I suppose the same will hold true for Dex, who has never sold highly addictive illegal drugs or blackmailed anyone into blowing up a crowded bar. That doesn't change the fact that it was all very, very silly, and "oh wow ha ha ha what am I watching" should absolutely not be the reflexive reaction when you're witnessing someone receive an undeserved ass-kicking.


Let's not end the wedding recap on a sour note, though. Before we move on to the next thing, I want to point out that there really were some very sweet moments, many of which involved Wally Kurth and Rena Sofer. Watching those two talk about how proud they are of their daughter has the kind of extra impact you really only get on daytime — not only because their characters go back decades, but because they were married in real life and share a daughter who's the same age as Brook Lynn. And when Ned got choked up moments before walking Brook Lynn down the aisle, struggling to get the words out while telling her that he could never really give her away because she'd always be his little girl, it made it that much easier to get caught up in the moment.


There were also assorted moments that were pretty sweet and/or amusing, like Spinelli assuring Anna that his intentions with Maxie are honorable, or Portia and Jordan meeting in the bathroom and wondering how and why they were even invited. And we also got a new character (and evidently another contract player) in the form of Giovanni, a.k.a. Gio, a Cerullo cousin who showed up to play violin at the wedding (his lessons and his first two years of college were paid for by Sonny, of course). Again, all in all, the whole thing was pretty unobjectionable, and although I know it's unfashionable to give Frank Valentini credit for anything, I remain appreciative of his ability to pinch enough pennies to occasionally give us an event that feels like it might actually be an event, at least in the context of perpetually almost-empty Port Charles. And kudos to whoever remembered that Chase and Brook Lynn's road to marriage officially got started thanks to Leo brewing up some love potion, too.


Citizen Congressman Kane Cain

There isn't a ton to say about this storyline yet, but it's way too funny to limit to a bullet point, so here goes. I had assumed that the whole "revitalize the docks" storyline was really just an excuse to mash Drew together with Jordan and send Tanisha Harper looking for the next out in her contract, but as it turns out, it's even sillier: After strolling into Drew's office, Congressman McKonkey demanded to know why he should put his name on a project driven by a convicted criminal — and then when Drew offered to step back and have Michael lead it, because the improvement of Port Charles matters more to him than getting any credit for it, McKonkey said that was the exact reaction he'd been hoping for. Why? Because he's looking for the person to replace him after he exits office at the end of his current term, and based on Drew's lip service toward community service, he's come to the conclusion that Drew is the guy.


Based on GH's current state, I don't know what to think of this. Is it Drew's exit storyline? Is it just the latest in the dozens of career changes that have recently exploded across the canvas? Is it just another potential story that'll be dropped as quickly as it started? Did the writers just want to make me watch in open-mouthed astonishment as an allegedly savvy congressman offered to endorse a brainwashed weirdo who was convicted of insider trading like six minutes ago? I have no idea, but I think I can't wait to find out, which I suppose counts for an endorsement.


Shanks for the Memories

The Pikeman story was mostly shoved to the margins last week, but not entirely. As promised the week before, Anna confronted Carly about the abject stupidity she displayed when she visited Brennan in Pentonville and opened her enormous mouth to tell him he was being investigated by the FBI (and Jagger in particular). It went about the way you'd expect, with Anna laying into Carly and Carly not only refusing to apologize, but planning another Pentonville visit for the very next day. Oh, and moments after that? Nina walked up and told Carly she was right about Sonny all along. Gosh, it's good to be Carly — you can be a horrible ass to everyone, all the time, and still have people apologize to you. At least she wasn't at the wedding.


Fortunately, Anna is on the case, and Anna is smarter than almost everyone, almost all the time. After telling Jason that Carly blew their op, she pointed out that if they can figure out how Brennan is contacting his successor at Pikeman, they can nail everyone anyway — and she decided that the way to do that was to just sit back and watch Carly's Brennan visits. At the same time, she resolved to work Valentin for information. Solid spy stuff! I'm just annoyed that Robert has gone missing in the midst of all this.


While Anna planned to get the best of Valentin, he was waiting for her at the Metro Court bar, snarking on the apparent devolution of the wine list under Carly's stewardship and taking a call from the pharmacist Ava visited at GH the week before. Panicked, the pharmacist told Valentin that their deal was off and he would no longer be tampering with Sonny's meds because his wife was on to them. Ever unflappable, Valentin assured the pharmacist that Sonny has no wife and told him to stay the course; after disconnecting the call, he strolled over to Nina, who conveniently happened to be at a nearby table, and talked to her long enough to deduce that the "wife" the pharmacist was describing had to be Ava.


After talking with Valentin, Nina went to Ava's gallery and confronted her — nominally over the way she'd used back channels to get some Crimson ink, but really over the way she wheedled herself into Sonny's inner orbit at Nina's expense — just long enough to be finished by the time Jagger showed up. After warning Jagger that Ava would ruin him if he wasn't careful, she left, which meant she wasn't around to hear Jagger tell Ava that he had her under surveillance, which not only means she's a person of interest in the Pikeman investigation, but that Jagger knew she'd visited that pharmacist at GH.


Ava visiting a pharmacist likely means nothing to Jagger at this point, but it obviously means a hell of a lot to Ava. Even taking into account the goofy way she's currently being written, I think we can reasonably assume she's still smart enough to know that anything Jagger has on her doesn't carry a ton of weight — but it's also more than reasonable to assume that at some point, this could become a ticket out of town (or to the grave) for either one of these characters. I would rather not lose either one right now, but if I have to pick just one we get to keep, I am of course choosing Ava. If GH lets Maura West go, that'll be the biggest sign yet that no one in charge knows what the hell they're doing.


Anyway, while all this was going on, Brennan was in Pentonville, busily plotting his ticket out of the joint — which took the form of a prison shank that a much larger inmate caught him sharpening in the prison showers. When the inmate demanded that Brennan hand it over, Brennan incapacitated him with two absurd blows, then stabbed himself with the shank, put it in his unconscious victim's hand, and waited for the prison medics to arrive. As Friday's episode ended, he was being wheeled into GH, and Anna was leaving the wedding reception after getting the call letting her know about Brennan's predicament.


Given that we've already been shown that Brennan basically has the run of the joint at Pentonville, it's kind of hard to see why he'd risk the various unintended consequences of that type of injury just so he could end up handcuffed to a hospital bed, but I'm sure we'll find out. I like this character and I think it was a mistake to have him sent to prison — but now that the mistake has already been made and Brennan is depending on Valentin to keep Pikeman running while he's away, it's difficult to see the benefit of freeing him, and even more difficult to see the benefit of giving him a temporary hospital pass. That said, it's difficult to understand what the hell GH is doing most of the time these days, so I'm not going to trouble myself with this too much. Who knows? Maybe Valentin will get a new job offer on Monday and end up becoming the hospital's new yoga instructor.


Also, wouldn't there be cameras in the Pentonville showers? I really don't know the answer to that question, but I feel like a federal prison would need to keep an eye on its prisoners at all times.


I think that's it for the big stuff from last week. On with the bullet points, and I'll see you back here next time!


  • Michael told Sasha he hopes it isn't awkward for her to be the Quartermaine cook, given their "romantic" history; she assured him that it is not

  • Jordan told Stella and Trina about Laura trying to get Heather's sentence at least reduced, and Trina was justifiably pissed

  • Willow figured out that Drew is trying to put her in close proximity to Nina, but she isn't mad at him because he "saved her life"

  • Gregory gave Alexis his lucky charm to take with her to Albany

  • Jason and Spinelli finally saw each other, and Jason allowed Spinelli to have one hug

  • Gregory told Tracy he sometimes wonders what his life would have been like if they'd met 25 or 30 years ago; Tracy admitted that she's wondered the same, but given that their families were just married together so wonderfully, she wouldn't want to change anything

  • Sonny took Natalia to the wedding, all of which was rather gross

  • Drew and Jason had a chilly reunion at the wedding

  • Anna and Gloria had a moment in the bathroom, which was almost certainly written as a nod to Finola Hughes' ill-fated co-starring turn across from John Travolta in Staying Alive

  • Jason finally asked Elizabeth about spending time with Jake

  • Sam asked Spinelli to help her investigate the FBI; he accepted

  • Violet sang

  • Sasha and Cody were the only people in town not invited to the wedding

Comments

  1. since I didn't see Mon/Tuesday shows I appreciate your breakdown --@!!!

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