Greetings once more from the friendly skies, folks — it hasn’t happened in a while and I don’t think it’ll happen again for a long time, but I’m writing this week’s column from a plane, which means I’m hustling to beat the clock before the flight attendants make us fold up our tray tables and stow our devices. Fortunately, we’ve just gotten through another fairly focused week of General Hospital, so I’m hopeful I’ll be able to knock this out in time.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m headed out of the country for a week, and I won’t have access to GH while I’m away (darn those stupid international streaming rights agreements), so I’ll be forced to miss what would have been the next edition of Critical Diagnosis. But I’ll be back on my regular beat as soon as I return, so don’t have too much fun without the column while I’m gone, okay?
With that, let’s dive into what went down in Port Charles last week.
Doctor Finn Is Spiraling
Finn’s lightning-fast descent into insta-alcoholism really picked up the pace last week. On Monday, Portia told Elizabeth that he’d be ending his bereavement leave early and returning to GH the following day — news that Elizabeth responded to by telling Portia that Finn was “spiraling” and urging her to make him go to rehab. While those two were mulling Finn’s future, he was busy having it out with Alexis, who did as she’d promised Chase and went to Finn’s apartment to try and talk some sense into him. She was not successful: After he snarkily thanked her for her concern and said he’d call her when he felt like he needed help, she told him to call when he hit rock bottom, which would be sooner than he wanted to believe.
Well, we don’t know if we left Finn at rock bottom at the end of last Friday’s episode, but he’s definitely getting close. Upon returning to GH, he was waylaid by Portia and Terry, who pulled him into an office, told him they’d taken the liberty of clearing his calendar for the day, and told him the only way he could continue to practice at the hospital was by agreeing to a set of restrictions that included supervision and random testing. Finn reacted poorly, to put it mildly — first he pointed out that when he was using years ago, he’d had a drug problem, not one with alcohol, and then he went nuclear, loudly reminding them that General Hospital wouldn’t even exist if he hadn’t signed over the revenue from the patent for his Blackwood’s cure, threatening retaliation against them for endangering his career, and finally quitting in a huff. From there, he went straight to the nurses’ station, where he confronted Elizabeth for ratting him out and told her to stay away from him and Violet.
Knowing he had an empty apartment because Violet was on a pool date with Maxie and her kids, Finn went back home and poured himself a drink. Or many drinks. How many? We have no idea; we only know that at some point, he woke up from a drunken stupor, discovered he’d cut his hand on a broken glass at some point, and abruptly passed out on the floor, where he was later found by Violet. Finding missed calls from Tracy on Finn’s phone, she used it to call her and ask for help.
Tracy came right over — after calling 911, of course, because Tracy is never not sharp — and took Violet to Brook Lynn and Chase’s while the EMTs worked on Finn. (Line of the week might have to go to the paramedic who looked up from Finn’s zonked body with barely concealed disdain and said “Drunk is not an emergency.”) Chase and Brook Lynn, having spent the week talking to Alexis and Stella about how best to protect Violet in this situation, were ready to spring into action, following Tracy’s orders that they take Violet to the Quartermaine mansion and spend the night with her there. When Chase insisted that he go back to Finn’s apartment with Tracy, she gently pointed out that he’d be better off helping Violet. “I can say things to him that you can’t,” she told him. “And what I’m going to say to him, he needs to hear.”
Whatever conversation they’re about to have is being saved for the week ahead of us, because Tracy spent the remainder of her Friday screen time trying to wake Finn after returning to his apartment and finding him bandaged but still asleep. Initially unsuccessful, she took pictures of Finn and the mess he’d made, packed him a suitcase, and found his doctor’s bag, where she rooted out a packet of smelling salts that finally roused him. The first words out of his mouth were “Where’s Violet?,” to which Tracy calmly responded, “She’s gone. She’s not coming back.”
There’s obviously a LOT of drama to be mined from this situation. In a very real and not insignificant sense, I’m annoyed by the fact that this storyline is heating up so well, because I still think the entire thing is predicated on a lot of questionable writing decisions. It’s been impossible to ignore how quickly the setup for Finn’s downfall was paced; he went from stone cold sober to raging blackout drink-from-the-bottle drunk in the space of a couple of weeks. What makes this even more irritating is that you can make excuses for it if you want to: Finn is an addict. Grief is unpredictable and often makes people do out-of-character things. So on and so forth. I, however, do not want to make excuses for any of it — yes, it’s great that Finn and Elizabeth are no longer a couple, and yes, multiple actors are being handed rich material as a result of what’s happening. But it’s still a deeply agenda-driven storyline that handles a real-life condition irresponsibly, and whatever shape Finn’s arc takes from here, I don’t have any faith in that changing. He’s either going to bottom out completely and die mere moments after falling off the wagon, or he’s going to go to rehab and dry out mere moments after running through the program. Either way, this whole thing should have been handled with a lot more sensitivity and grace.
There’s Something You Need to Hear
To this point, the entirety of the latest “Jason Returns” storyline has been pretty much a dud. I like the actors playing Brennan and Jagger, I like having Anna running around in pursuit of a case, and I really like the sexy spy games brewing between her and Valentin. Everything else? Not so much. I do have to admit, though, that I appreciate the way this story has prompted a widespread reappraisal of Jason’s lifestyle and an honest look at the way his choices have impacted his friends, family, and loved ones.
That aspect of the storyline came to a point last week, when Sam visited Spinelli in his weird closet-sized office or whatever so they could drill down into the FBI’s evidentiary database and finally figure out what the Bureau has on Jason. Although Spinelli lamented that Jagger’s level of access prevented them from corrupting, altering, or deleting the file, they were able to play it — which is how Sam finally figured out that Jason went missing in order to protect Carly from being brought up on racketeering charges. After instructing Spinelli to make a copy of the file, she made a beeline for Carly’s office, settin
For the most part, those possibilities were left untapped. I’m not saying Sam didn’t lay into Carly — she most certainly did — but it wasn’t the knock-down title fight some of us might have been hoping for, especially since Carly’s reaction after hearing the recording was vintage Carly, which is to say she weakly deflected and tried to blame someone else (in this case, Jagger). This version of the character has long been written as someone who is pathologically incapable of accepting blame for anything, and every day, it gets more tiresome, especially when she’s written into situations like this one, where she is absolutely at fault for creating havoc by brazenly sashaying into the criminal underworld and pretending to be qualified to run an organization. Of course, most of Sam’s anger is still reserved for Jason; the conversation those two have should be much more satisfying.
In the meantime, Jason has other problems to attend to, starting with Jagger’s current loud insistence that he’s got Anna dead to rights as the new leader of Pikeman. Why is he so sure? Well, he was able to obtain a warrant for her personal email account, where the FBI found messages between her and Brennan going back five years. Although none of the messages are actually incriminating, Jagger’s certain she’s the one, and he has ordered Jason to find proof.
The issue with this is that those messages aren’t real. Minutes after being told to build a case against her, Jason went straight to Anna and told her about the email; minutes after that, they both came to the conclusion that the whole thing had been planted by Valentin. As Anna hastened to point out, Valentin didn’t do it to frame her; knowing the fake evidence wouldn’t lead anywhere and trusting her to be able to handle Jagger, he was simply using her as a diversion so he could keep running Pikeman in peace. Although Jason quickly grew antsy about telling Jagger, Anna again reminded him that without real, solid evidence, they’d just be giving Valentin an opportunity to escape; once more, she insisted that she has to be the one to crack the case, because she’s Valentin’s blind spot. Putting her theory to the test, she agreed to meet him at his place for dinner, where they shared Bordeaux and sly banter before making out on the sofa while Jason watched disapprovingly from outside.
Jason is generally sort of a nothing character when it comes to communicating emotions, which is a pretty big deal on a daytime drama. Again, I have to give credit where credit is due here; in this one particular case at this one particular stage of the story, it’s possible to see and somewhat identify with the pressure Jason’s under. Still blissfully unaware that Sam, Spinelli, and Carly all know why he’s been working for the FBI, he’s been totally open with Anna about needing to get the Pikeman investigation wrapped up before Jagger loses patience and files charges against Carly. He’s also now aware that Drew has decided to run for Congress — news he got from Carly, who was quick to get in his ear about how Drew’s campaign would shine an unwelcome spotlight on Jason. This is all adding up to a Jason who’s more impatient and reactive than I can remember seeing him, and given that this is a character who hasn’t so much as changed his shirt in 20 years, any difference feels major. Right now, Jason can’t be bothered to be strategic — he wants to run a smash-and-grab search on Valentin’s home and torture him for the truth if necessary, and he has no time for Jagger’s blather about Anna running Pikeman, either; he straight up told him he’s derailing his own case by going after the wrong person.
Long story short, Jason’s main concern right now is not letting the two years he spent “dead” go to waste. Will this make him sloppy? Will he actually make a mistake or two? Will he do anything other than hold a clipboard and pinch the bridge of his nose? We just don’t know at this point. It’s a thrilling time for Jason Morgan to be alive, comparatively speaking.
Speaking of “dead” and alive, I should also point out that before Sam had it out with Carly over the recording, they had a whole other argument over Sam asking Carly to ask Jason to stay away from Danny. (Convoluted, I know.) When Carly gave Sam shit for being the one who wanted Jason to give her a baby in the first place and accused her of doing this to hurt Jason, Sam shot back that she didn’t want Danny to end up like Morgan. Is this the first anvil regarding those awful rumors about Bryan Craig returning to the show? In my heart of hearts, I would love to believe the answer is no, but GH is great at giving me stuff I don’t really want, so I’m prepared for disappointment.
Mac’s Back!
Nothing much to report regarding this corner of the canvas yet, but what it lacked in screen time, it more than made up with emotional impact of the sheerly joyful variety. The one and only Mac Scorpio has returned from his “fact-finding mission” in South America, which — oddly enough — turns out to have been a favor for Frisco. After he and Felicia were finally reunited and ended up canoodling on Maxie’s couch, he told her that he and Frisco had some long talks about the way Mac was there for Felicia, Maxie, and Georgie in a way Frisco simply wasn’t. Kind of a weird little grace note to slip in, especially if Frisco isn’t returning to the show, but I’m not mad at it.
In honor of Mac’s return, we got to see him being welcomed back by Anna and Robert, the latter of whom has been absent far too much in 2024. Tristan Rogers sounded better than he has in months during his brief appearance; hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the near future.
Of course, the main storyline that’s been waiting to slide into gear during John J. York’s absence is the one concerning Cody’s parentage. In the days leading up to Mac’s return, we saw Cody and Sasha — so sweet, so light, so dull — having multiple conversations about Cody’s emotional torment regarding keeping the truth from Mac. So powerful is noble Cody’s guilt that after he saw Mac face to face, he went and brooded in the stables, where Tracy found him and got the gist of his troubles out of him. Although he didn’t name names, Tracy’s advice was the same as Sasha’s: Tell your father he’s your father.
Is Cody’s bruise the sign of a terrible disease? Will he wait until it’s almost too late before asking Mac for a life-saving transplant? Will he die nobly in Mac’s arms, thus finally giving him a child of his own for a few minutes before shuffling off the canvas and allowing Mac to remain largely offscreen once more? I think I know the answers to these questions, and I also wish they were different. For the moment, however, it sure is great to have Mac back and see John J. York working again.
That’ll about do it for the major developments; time for your bullet points. I’ll see you back here in a couple of weeks!
- Drew finagled an invitation for Nina to Willow’s birthday party
- We heard more about how Gio’s father died in combat before he was born, which is definitely going to mean he really didn’t
- Drew petitioned the court to change his last name to Quartermaine
- Gio unwittingly cockblocked Cody and Sasha by practicing violin on the Quartermaine dock while they were trying to get it on in the boathouse
- Lucy and Scott made a random appearance that seems to have existed for no reason other than to let us know that Scott was thinking about representing Heather, but was talked out of it by Lucy
- Brook Lynn told Sonny about Finn’s drinking; naturally, Sonny’s response was overbearing and all about himself
- Alexis’ disbarment was vacated
- Dex is bad at volleyball
- Jagger told Carly his investigation is just about over, and she’s one of the few things he’ll miss about Port Charles
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