Congratulations to the citizens of Port Charles, who can sleep a little easier now that the scourge of the digitalis killer has finally come to an end. Of course, their reprieve will be short-lived — the next major danger is always just around the corner for these poor people — but hey, at least they have a sharp-shootin' blonde college student prowling the streets in pursuit of justice on their behalf, right?
Let's dive in.
Cye, Cye, Cye
Welp, that's it. After years of drifting in weird, lazy circles, the saga of Cyrus Renault — and, by extension, the Gatlin family — has come to an end. Remember when Cyrus strode onto the canvas as a fearsome villain, the likes of which Sonny had supposedly never seen? Remember how ruthlessly he pursued power and attacked his enemies? And then remember how he went to prison, found religion, and spent the rest of his time on General Hospital quoting Bible verses?
We spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether Cyrus' conversion was genuine, and now the verdict is finally in: He was utterly sincere, but also a bag of cracked nuts. Turns out Cyrus developed an unhealthy fixation on the suffering of patients with serious long-term conditions, one that supposedly started when he was responsible for his mother's care; at some point, he snapped and decided he'd been called by God to unburden these poor souls by releasing them from their earthly confinement.
As attempts to make sense out of the senseless go, this wasn't GH's worst, if only because Jeff Kober is talented enough to make you believe in whatever lines he's reading, and he did a fine job of conveying Cyrus' spiritual torment. It wasn't enough, however, to make up for the miserable job the show did of giving us any insight into Cyrus' perspective during the many weeks that have elapsed since Sam's murder. I'm not sure I can remember a story that sidelined its main villain so aggressively. I can't prove that making Cyrus the digitalis killer was a sloppy retcon job, but it sure felt that way.
His actions in the final hours of his life didn't make a lot of sense, either. After lurking in and out of hospital rooms for months without being caught, he decided to confront Elizabeth at her home — and straight up confess to her that he tried to kill Lulu, murdered Sam and Dex, and made an attempt on Michael's life as well. The confession needed to happen, if only so we could figure out why in the hell Cyrus went after Sam, but when he confronted her, Elizabeth had no proof; in a sane world, he would have just asked her why she and Lucky were conducting an amateur investigation into his affairs and left it at that.
Because this is not a sane world, we now know that Lulu's liver failed because Cyrus tried "releasing" her using a medication that didn't kill her, and he later went after Sam because she interfered with his attempt to end Lulu's life. Divine consequences or some such. Despite her best efforts to mollify Cyrus by making him believe she understood his motivations, he was still thinking clearly enough to know Elizabeth needed to be dealt with, so he moved on her with a syringe filled with digitalis — but before he could inject her, Lucky burst in.
Remember how Cyrus was so feeble and physically infirm that he needed to be released from prison? Well, he was still strong enough to handle Lucky, nearly choking him out before plunging the needle into his leg. Lucky punched Cyrus, briefly incapacitating him, but the damage was done — and when a frantic Elizabeth called 911, then performed CPR on Lucky, Cyrus was able to sneak out and get away.
We knew he'd head for his hideout in the woods — and we also knew he'd find Joss there, because she'd just let herself in. Dressed all in black, with Dex's gun in her pocket, she tossed Cyrus' cabin in search of clues, eventually finding the envelope he was using to store his victims' hospital ID bracelets. After taking a picture of the bracelets, she was stunned to see Cyrus in the doorway — and terrified when, after growling "you shouldn't have come," he grabbed a hatchet and went after her. He didn't get far, however, taking no more than a couple of steps before she whipped out the gun and dropped him with a pair of expertly placed shots. After groaning "you're the murderer now," Cyrus expired, leaving us sadly Kober-free until the writers decide to give him a lookalike cousin.
Given that this was her first killing and all, Joss was understandably rattled, but still had the presence of mind to call the new and decidedly unimproved Brennan. Fortunately for her, he'd been outside the entire time, just sort of hanging back and waiting to see what she'd do when a homicidal madman tried hacking her to bits. He spirited her away to WSB headquarters, where he sent her off to the showers with a change of clothes before informing Colette that she needed to hustle out and clean the crime scene "with one exception." When Anna and Dante, acting on a tip from Jordan's old files, arrived at the cabin, they found it immaculately clean, with no trace of Cyrus anywhere — but I'm assuming the "one exception" will be found during the week to come.
In the meantime, Brennan has come (sort of) clean to Joss, telling her he's been grooming her for WSB recruitment. Even though he didn't know she had a gun and didn't expect her to kill Cyrus, he's certain she has everything it takes to work for the Bureau. This is insulting and preposterous for all the reasons I outlined in my last column, but there are also some signs that Brennan might not be going after Joss at all.
The biggest sign is the fact that rather than disposing of the murder weapon, Brennan put it in a baggie and stored it in his office, which makes me think he intends to use it as leverage. And why would he do that? Well, maybe because what he really wants is to use Joss' pending WSB recruitment as leverage to get Jason in the door. I'm not sure I trust the writers to be smart enough to go there, but if they do, I won't be mad about it. It would have been a lot more fun to watch Jason work against his will for the Charles Mesure version of Brennan, but still — if we must have Jason stomping around town in his stupid leather jacket until the sun explodes, I'd rather have him handling bad guys for the government.
Oh, and Lucky? Yeah, he's fine. You're shocked, aren't you?
Drew vs. Everyone
Now that Cyrus is no more, we need a new villain to hate. Sidwell's already at the door, but he isn't alone — for the moment, it looks like the writers are setting up a sort of Rich Asshole Jamboree by having Dark Drew join forces with Sidwell in an attempt to stick it to Jason by going after Sonny.
Like many of you, I'm sick to death of powerful people coming to Port Charles and going after Sonny. I'm sure this whole dumb thing will eventually devolve into the same old shit we've seen a hundred times before, but for the moment, I'm not totally opposed to the idea of Drew antagonizing his former friends — and even though I would be willing to bet money that GH has neither the budget nor the willpower to follow through on Drew's threat to use eminent domain to replace Pier 55 with his precious esplanade, the idea of Sonny reacting to this is somewhat appealing.
That's still to come, though. For now, this looming conflict is just a lot of talk — talk between Drew and Curtis and Laura and Jordan, with Drew smoothly making his pitch for eminent domain and effortlessly countering Curtis' argument against it; talk between Anna and Laura and Jordan, with the three of them trying to decide which of these jerks is the least hazardous threat to Port Charles; talk between Drew and Jason, with Drew angrily refusing Jason's offer of a truce ("for the children") and saying now that he has the Quartermaine name and money, he couldn't care less about the family itself.
This is all fun enough to watch in the moment, even if Drew's behavior isn't rooted in sane human psychology. Any normal man would see he had it coming if his family got pissed at him for sleeping with his nephew's wife; Drew, in comparison, is just full of righteous anger, claiming that the Quartermaines are too terrible to judge him for the crime of "falling for the wrong woman." People have started talking again about how much Drew has changed since he went to prison, which I'm sure is being used as an out in case the show decides to rehabilitate him — maybe prison food gave him a brain tumor or something — but for now, he's just a self-righteous prick who is inexplicably irresistible to Willow.
(Well, mostly irresistible. He took her to his new house last week and asked her to move in with him, but she saw past his abs long enough to remind him that Wiley doesn't even know she and Michael have separated.)
While the so-called ultimate conflict between Sonny and Sidwell develops, Drew's main antagonist is Curtis, who has fully shifted into No Fucks Mode as he goes against his former friend — up to and including taking advantage of Stella's friendship with one of Drew's fellow legislators, a guy named Doug who has enough tenure and connections to kneecap Drew's congressional career before it even gets started. I like this version of Curtis, and I'm all for giving Donnell Turner interesting stuff to do; I'm also happy to see the woefully underutilized Tanisha Harper being used for a change, not to mention Laura conducting city business onscreen. I'm far less interested in Sidwell's connection with Natalia, or Sonny's connection to literally anyone or anything, but there will be plenty of columns for me to file those complaints.
(Instead of going undercover to dig up dirt on Sidwell, Jordan should really be investigating the sudden disappearance of her son, who has apparently been stuffed so far back in the storyline closet that Tajh Bellow is no longer on contract. What a stupid waste.)
Speaking of stupid wastes, here's my last note on this story: As much as I have grown to hate the current version of Drew, I'm also desperately hoping that this story doesn't end in the character's murder. He's a Quartermaine, and he should be used accordingly — neither a consistent hero nor a full-on villain, but someone who's always out for his own interests, and has all the money and influence he needs. He needs a full reset, one from which he emerges as a (mostly) lovable schemer who falls in love as easily as he philanders.
He may also need to be played by a different actor, but first things first.
Oh, Baby
There's no reason to hold off on any complaints regarding the story of Brook Lynn's teenage pregnancy, which has never been interesting and shows no signs of ever becoming anything other than a waste of everyone's time. Last week, the toxin spread to Lulu, who screwed up a crucial call from a zincite supplier at Deception and ended up in a shouting match with Brook Lynn — one that was interrupted by Dante, who stopped by the office for no apparent reason and ended up alone with Lulu after Brook Lynn left in a huff for the Quartermaine mansion. Trying to convince Lulu to take it easy on Brook Lynn, Dante ended up blabbing about Chase's infertility, which Chase had only told him in confidence like half an hour before. This is definitely not something a good friend would do, but it probably seemed necessary to the writers, who I assume were searching for a reason for Lulu to be the one to find out about Gio being Brook Lynn's kid.
That hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it's coming. In the meantime, Brook Lynn finally found the courage to tell Chase about being pregnant decades ago — and all it took was coming home to the sight of her husband in red silk boxers with a rose between his teeth. Forever sweet and always sort of dumb, Chase derailed his own plans for sexytime by moaning about not being able to give Brook Lynn a baby, at which point she finally snapped and came clean.
Was Chase even the slightest bit upset with her? Friends, you know that he was not. I was sort of glad for this, because getting angry with Brook Lynn would have been a selfish dick move on Chase's part, but I also found it highly amusing, because these characters haven't done anything interesting — or even a little dramatic — for as long as I can remember. The real purpose behind this conversation was for Chase to recognize the burden Brook Lynn has been carrying for most of her life, and then ask her if she's ever thought about trying to find the child she gave up for adoption.
From here, the path seems fairly clear. Feeling relieved that she shared her secret with Chase, Brook Lynn will tell Lois that everything is out in the open and they're going to try and find her kid; Lois, in turn, will rush to Martin and try to have the adoption super extra perma-sealed. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Lulu the ex-reporter will suss out the truth, and after agonizing over it for a week or a month or a minute, she'll tell Dante. Poor Ned will be the last to know, and after that, Brook Lynn and Chase will expand their deadly dull family unit by claiming dopey Gio as their own. Happily ever after!
Gio, in the meantime, has nothing better to do than follow Emma around town, explaining the rules of polite conversation to her as she rudely shakes people down for their time and money on behalf of Students Against Animal Cruelty. Riveting stuff.
That's it for the major events of last week. Time for your bullets!
- Kai pulled some strings to pull off a date with Trina at the Savoy on Valentine's Day, only to discover that her father owns the joint
- Tracy had Willow's car moved out of the Quartermaine garage and onto the street, where it was towed
- Sasha went to the PCPD to visit Jason, who was being held so Anna could try and talk him out of murdering Cyrus; while there, Sasha spotted Willow, and planted a kiss on Jason to try and make Willow believe they're an item
- Upon witnessing said kiss, Mac developed a head-splitting migraine
- Despite Spinelli's efforts to play Cupid, Lucas and his male model blind date didn't hit it off; instead, Lucas ended up at the Savoy bar, chatting pleasantly with Brad
- Chase came out of musical retirement long enough to serve as the "special guest performer" at the Savoy on Valentine's Day
- We finally met Tobias
- Donna demonstrated that she has twice as much screen presence as the new Brennan
- Jason visited Sam's grave so he could ask her headstone whether he should murder Cyrus
- Jason warned Tracy that Drew is coming after him, and true to form, she didn't seem the slightest bit concerned
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