It was another short week in Port Charles, but it was a (cough) hot one. With literal sparks flying from the firestorm of Chad Duell's exit from the show, last week's General Hospital was almost solely focused on the fallout from Michael once again ending up in a set of crosshairs intended for Sonny — which may make it hard for me to break this up into chunks the way I normally do, but I'll do my best to keep the column from turning into one long block of text. Let's stop, drop and roll, shall we?
Burnin' for Q
Michael Corinthos has been a part of the show for nearly 30 years, and he's one of the most connected characters on the show, so when we found out Duell was taking a hike and there were no immediate plans to recast the role, it was extremely apparent that something drastic would need to happen in order to take Michael off-canvas. I'm not sure how many of us had "Michael happens to be in Sonny's penthouse when a bomb goes off" on our list of likely options, but let's give GH credit for going for broke here — rather than having him kidnapped, sent to prison, or turning the character into yet another deadbeat dad who's trying to find himself while wandering the earth, the writers opted to flambé Carly's eldest.
And not only did we watch Michael tumble ass over elbow when the bomb went off, and then stagger around the penthouse engulfed in flames, we saw it happen in the midst of a sex montage between Willow and Drew. I know some folks had a hard time with this choice, and I can absolutely understand why, because it was in extremely poor taste and the editing was weird as hell. On the other hand, it was also incredibly soapy, so I can't get too upset about it.
My main issue here is the same it's always been — I just don't think the writers laid enough track in terms of making us believe in or care about Drew and Willow's affair. When something like this happens, it should feel like everyone involved is doing the only thing that seems right for them. We should be appalled by Willow and Drew's behavior, but we should also feel the intensity of their bond, and that has simply never been the case. Instead, it just feels like pieces are being moved around on the canvas, and for a storyline that's as suddenly high-stakes as this one, that strikes me as a major missed opportunity.
Then again, "major missed opportunity" has pretty much been Michael's middle name for as long as I can remember. I don't think Duell is a bad actor, but I do think he's all wrong for the type of character Michael needs to be. His dual Quartermaine/Corinthos heritage should be good for more than a spiteful name change every few years — he should be a brilliant businessman with an adulterous streak who struggles to resist indulging his attraction to violence. He should also be at least faintly embarrassed by his parents at all times. At various points, the writers have tried to make us believe all of these things about Michael, but Duell simply doesn't have it in him; he always comes across as a wannabe tech bro who owns 11 different pairs of boat shoes and thinks black pepper is spicy. Whenever they get around to bringing Michael back, I really hope they find an actor who can make the character as dynamic as he deserves to be.
Since Q Been Gone
As previously mentioned, Willow and Drew were busy making the beast with two backs while Michael got barbecued — a tryst that started when Michael had Willow served with divorce papers. Again, the way it all broke down was so hilariously soapy that I can recognize the entertainment value in spite of the many problems with this storyline, but I do want to pause and point out just how deeply, incredibly stupid and selfish Drew and Willow have suddenly become.
Michael only lashed out the way he did because Willow took off to Washington DC with Wiley so they could watch Drew's inauguration, and didn't even bother to let Michael know — a decision so monumentally foolish that Martin triggered waves of social media applause when he made an anguished "you total dumbass" face upon hearing the news from her. Yet neither Willow nor Drew seem able to comprehend that there are consequences for this kind of behavior; she shook and cried and humped her new boyfriend, while he summed everything up in the most self-serving way possible, saying Michael stole Aurora from him before deciding to steal Willow's children from her.
This type of soap storyline should always include plenty of dragging and reading for filth, but again, to get maximum value out of it, we should really feel torn — or at least recognize some glimmer of actual human behavior in the suds. But that isn't what we're getting here. Michael reacted very reasonably to not only finding out Willow cheated on him with his uncle, but being served with a custody petition; in response, Willow took their son across state lines and left him alone in a hotel room so she could bone the guy she's suddenly madly in love with. Drew, meanwhile, is spiraling into a realm where he could end up breaking the rules of psychotherapy by somehow having less than zero self-awareness. After hearing about Michael's accident, he actually showed up at the hospital — and had the audacity to get in Curtis' face when his former friend (again, quite reasonably) pointed out that Drew's the bad guy in this situation and his best move is to make himself scarce.
Instead of going home, or going to his dentist for another set of veneers, Drew went to the hospital chapel, where he flat out told Carly that it's her fault Michael ended up fighting for his life in a burn unit, because she made the decision to have Sonny adopt and raise him. This is the absolute truth, of course, but it's hard to understand where the hell Drew thinks he gets off. He keeps saying he didn't mean for anyone to be hurt by his affair with Willow, but he doesn't seem the slightest bit conflicted about any of this. As satisfying as it always is whenever someone reminds Carly that she has willingly and repeatedly exposed her children to this type of danger, he was the wrong character for that moment; it would have made a lot more sense, and been a lot more satisfying, coming from Nina or Tracy.
There will be plenty of further opportunities for recrimination, however, because the war has just begun. Carly fired the first salvo by sending Diane to Nina's apartment with an officer of the court to remove Wiley and Amelia from Willow's custody; after whimpering and crying for a little while, Willow listened to Drew, who pointed out something Martin had already told Nina: As Michael's medical proxy, Willow could legally shut Carly and Sonny out of decisions regarding his care — or use that proxy as a bargaining chip for working out a more favorable custody agreement. That seems to be the direction Willow's headed, at least based on the closing moments of Friday's show, which saw her striding up and asserting herself as the only person the doctors should be speaking with regarding Michael's condition.
I'm not mad at this twist — it's nicely soapy, and it makes sense that Michael wouldn't have thought to revise his medical proxy this early in their divorce proceedings. I think Martin should have been the one to trigger Willow's decision, though; having it come down to Drew again just reinforces the supremely unpleasant and weirdly paternal dynamic between these supposed lovebirds.
Lying Liars Who Lie
Instead of having Martin tell Nina about the medical proxy gambit, and then having Drew pull a law degree out of his ass and come up with the same strategy, I think it would have made more sense for Martin to tell Willow. She would have been appalled by the suggestion, of course — but she would have changed her mind after running into Joss at GH.
If you watched last week, you already know what I'm talking about, but if you didn't, here's what happened: Willow rushed to the hospital, and on her way to see Michael, she encountered Joss, who absolutely filleted her for the better part of an episode. As with Drew throwing Carly's past decisions in her face, nothing Joss said to Willow was untrue — she absolutely does have a pattern of dropping her drawers for whichever hero has most recently come to her rescue — but Joss is also a self-righteous hypocrite who has no problem shitting on people for doing things she's perfectly willing to forgive when they're done by her friends, loved ones, or herself. Dragged for being a "lying, faithless skank" by her soon-to-be-former sister-in-law, Willow feebly pointed out that Joss cheated on Cam; in response, Joss argued that she and Cam weren't married with children when she decided to get busy with Dex. It was all pretty entertaining in spite of Joss' rampant hypocrisy, right up to the moment when Nina arrived and growled at Joss to get away from her daughter — which Joss did, albeit after some unintentionally funny whining about Willow and Nina being "lying liars who lie."
See, if Willow had been shocked out of her weird fascination with Drew after hearing about Michael's accident, and come to the hospital determined to make their marriage work after all, only to be verbally assaulted by Joss — and then find out that Carly had used a court order to take her kids — it would have made a lot more sense for her to snap and assert her control. She might even have come across as slightly sympathetic, instead of fickle and deranged.
Well, whatever. This could all be moot soon anyway, because the week ended with Cyrus sneaking into Michael's (unguarded!) hospital room, giving him a weird angel of mercy-type speech, and injecting his IV bag with digitalis. Will he be ushered into Quartermaine heaven by AJ, Alan, Lila, and Edward? Or will someone at the hospital finally put two and two together and realize there's a killer on the loose?
At the moment, it looks like Joss will be the one to catch Cyrus, which is just as preposterous as it sounds. She's being fed information by Brennan, who's still lying to her about the existence of WSB footage showing Dex's murder — it arrived in his inbox last week, and it confirmed what we all suspected, which is that Cyrus is the stabber. Because he's apparently prevented from pursuing domestic cases (which is absolutely not a restriction the WSB has faced before), Brennan has resolved to leave a trail for Joss, which he started by giving her the list of people who gave police statements after the stabbing. First on that list? Felicia, who was in the middle of recounting the events of that night to Joss when a persistent elevator bell finally triggered the memory that had been eluding her since she gave her statement: Cyrus' donation bell stopped ringing right around the time Dex was attacked.
Brennan was in earshot during this conversation, of course, and looked on with intense interest as Felicia revealed what she knew. There's a lot of speculation surrounding the possibility of Brennan recruiting Joss for the WSB — which makes less than a single lick of sense, but given the adoration that the writing staff continually heaps on every member of Carly's family, is also eminently possible.
If Brennan does deputize Joss, he can use her help solving his latest mystery, which is why the explosive device that went off in Sonny's penthouse appears to have been constructed using the blueprint for a (sigh) top-secret WSB bomb that was designed to leave little trace of itself after going off. He was his usual cagey self when Anna told him about the apparent WSB connection, but when he met with Colette later, he told her that the Bureau "may bear some of the blame" for Michael's condition.
The easy conclusion here is that Sidwell planted the bomb, because he's in town — in fact, he's the new owner of Spoon Island, more on that in a minute — and on these shows, there's never been a coincidence too flimsy to hinge a storyline on. If Sidwell had the type of WSB connection that would give him access to a proprietary weapon, I think we'd have heard about it from Anna or Brennan by now, and I also find the idea of Sidwell going after Sonny to be deeply tiresome, but I'm sure this is the road we're heading down anyway.
The silver lining, at least for now, is that Sidwell purchased Spoon Island and Wyndemere through Lucy, and in what could be a nice inversion of her long-ago quest to wheedle her way into Port Charles' high society, she's taken it upon herself to show him around town and give him a crash course in who's who. I'm hearing that Sidwell will end up taking an unhealthy shine to Lucy, which seems likely to echo the way Victor Jerome became obsessed with her all those years ago; here's hoping he doesn't end up choking to death on a piece of jewelry he gave her. Until then, we can enjoy the interplay between Lynn Herring and Carlo Rota, who seem to be having fun with Lucy and Sidwell's opening act. And hey, who knows? Maybe Sidwell is the reason Scott disappeared, and he'll escape from wherever he's been stashed so he can come to her rescue.
I think that's it for the big stuff this week. Here come your bullets!
- Brad confronted Cyrus, shouting a list of his crimes after seeing him at GH; after Lucas pulled Brad away, Portia officially banned Cyrus from visiting patients, ignoring his protests as well as his evil eye
- Joss found Dex's gun while she was packing up his stuff, and fiddled with the weapon for a few minutes before she was interrupted by Brennan
- Brook Lynn fretted to Lois that she doesn't think she'll ever get pregnant, and she thinks it might be divine retribution for the teen pregnancy no one has ever openly acknowledged until now
- Curtis told Nina they should leak Drew and Willow's affair to the press, a "nuclear" option that he believes will lead Drew to show his true colors by abandoning Willow
- Kristina and Sonny had a chat on his Hospital Roof of Pain
- Isaiah tried to warn Sonny that the stress of the bombing could aggravate his heart problems
- Sonny vowed to Jason that they'd retaliate against the bomber; Jason agreed, but said the explosion is a loud reminder that they need an exit strategy
- At Ava's request, Ric made an extremely unsuccessful attempt to convince Alexis to give Ava her divorce settlement back
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