Howdy, folks! I hope everyone's keeping warm while we're stuck bearing witness to the mounting real-world madness of 2025. Do we think it's any kind of coincidence that Drew was elected to Congress just as we started to see historic levels of grift, cruelty, and corruption coming out of Washington? Something to ponder while we look back on the week that was in Port Charles…
Corinthos Coast to Coast
Sonny, whose ridiculous dye job is making him look more and more like the Count from Sesame Street every single day, spent last week preparing to jet off for California with Natalia by his side. Does barware shatter differently in Beverly Hills? We haven't found out yet. Instead, there was just a lot of talk about getting Sonny in to see the renowned cardiologist that Brick found for him — and one deeply weird conversation between Natalia and Lucy. Was Natalia really reminding Lucy that she and Sonny would be taking meetings in L.A., or was she straight up lying about having told her? Lucy can be pretty flighty, but she isn't the type to completely forget conversations she had a day or two ago.
Anyway, before he goes, Sonny has to deal with this dumb custody fight over Avery, which — as many of you have pointed out again and again — has no earthly reason to even exist, especially in light of the fact that Sonny's entire penthouse blew up and lit his adult meat hook son on fire, AND Avery is currently living at Carly's house while Carly is off canoodling with Brennan in Germany. None of it makes a damn bit of sense, but it's some small consolation that at least Ric is involved, and few people are better at pissing off Sonny in such entertaining fashion.
Last week, this took the form of Ric and Ava showing up at Diane's office unannounced, offering a proposed custody settlement that would give Sonny visitation every other weekend. (When pressed for holidays, Ava said she might be willing to consider Arbor Day.) Sonny said no, naturally, at which point Ric started listing all the ways the hearing could go sideways — particularly for Kristina, who was also in the room. It wasn't a very productive conversation, but that's fine; its real purpose was to show us that even the slightest bit of stress is now enough to trigger symptoms of whatever Sonny's heart condition turns out to be. From now until whenever this storyline is finished running its course, we can look forward to watching him wince with his back turned on whoever's pissing him off.
Fortunately for Sonny, everyone in town is an idiot when it comes to noticing medical distress in their favorite mobster — after all, it wasn't that long ago that all of his friends and family members spent months in blissful ignorance while he went into a bipolar tailspin. So far, he's been able to hide his current medical woes from everyone except Jason and the people who've found him passed out on the floor. That may not last long, however; after locking horns with Sonny, Ric told Ava that something seems off with his forever-estranged half brother.
If anyone's smart enough to figure out what's ailing Sonny, it's probably Ric. I'm not saying it'll happen, but if it did, it'd introduce some interesting possibilities to what has so far felt like an enormous waste of time. The custody fight is ridiculous and we know Sonny isn't going to die from whatever this is, but if it gives Ric an opportunity to screw with Sonny, then sitting through all this silliness might be worth it. If I had to guess, though, I'd say this won't happen — instead, I suspect Sonny will keel over before he can leave for California, and end up in GH, where Cyrus will use his apparently ghostlike powers to sneak into Sonny's room and inject him with digitalis.
I look forward to never hearing, reading, or writing the word "digitalis" again. But in the meantime…
Digitalis, Digitalis, Digitalis
At long last, our prayers have been answered: Alexis and Dante were finally told that Sam's death was a murder. Of course, GH being GH, this was handled in a weird way; on Tuesday, Portia told Isaiah that the PCPD had been notified about the digitalis deaths, and then told Alexis — who had conveniently just stepped out of an elevator — about Sam specifically. But then on Wednesday, Portia told Anna about the murders, which raises the question of what in the world Portia meant when she told Isaiah that the police department had already been informed.
Well, whatever. Portia told Alexis and Anna, and then Anna told Dante, who was talking with Lulu, which means now the whole town knows — which we basically watched happen in real time, with a long list of characters pairing up to share and discuss the news. How will this impact Joss' investigation into Dex's death? No idea yet; we didn't see her last week. How will it impact Elizabeth and Lucky's investigation into Cyrus? No idea there either, because we didn't see them after Monday, when they barely pulled off a deeply klutzy document theft at Turning Woods, walking away with a list of deceased patients who were on Cyrus' rounds.
And how about Cyrus himself? Absolutely no idea whatsoever, because he hasn't been seen for close to a month. Why is the story being handled this way? Friends, I could not tell you. I'm only glad for the little bit of movement we got last week. Alexis is furious, of course, and determined to bring her daughter's killer to justice, which is an idea that is not without its appeal, but we've already seen her maim and murder bad guys before, and it always costs her dearly; given that she just got her law license back, I'm really not interested in watching her try to cover up another murder. Dante is also furious — partly with Anna, who has cited the obvious conflict of interest as her reason for barring him from the investigation. She put him on a one-week leave, which I'm guessing will serve as the perfect opportunity for him to clandestinely team up with our trio of amateur detectives.
Drew Sucks, Part MCMLXVIII
I still think Donnell Turner has to be bored as hell with playing Curtis, and he has every right to be, but this slightly new flavor of Curtis — who is not only pissed at Drew, but willing to go scorched earth in order to get back at his former buddy for trying to screw him out of the CEO position at Aurora. is a nice change. For the moment, Drew seems perfectly willing to return fire, even going so far as to delay the long-forgotten esplanade project — and enrage Jordan in the bargain — to try and frighten Curtis into playing ball.
Curtis can be stiff, but he's no dummy. When Jordan confronted Drew during a workout at Sonny's "gym," he told her it was all Curtis' fault; when Jordan called Curtis and asked him to come by, he smiled at Drew's threats and pointed out that Drew has put himself in a bad position from all sides. As Curtis noted, if the esplanade project falls through, Aurora will be fine — but since it's something Drew campaigned on, and something that will benefit his constituents, he's the one who stands to lose the most. (Curtis also declined Drew's invitation to step into the ring, which surprised me; the show rarely passes up an opportunity to feature either of those dudes shirtless.)
Drew is also fighting a losing battle in his personal life. He started the week leaving a whiny voicemail for Monica, who he'd just been told had barred him from the grounds of the Quartermaine estate. (He found out about this from Yuri, who blocked him from entering the mansion OFFSCREEN. What a missed opportunity.) At this point, he's completely isolated from everyone except Willow, but it hasn't prompted any soul-searching on his part; instead, he met with Lucy to try and find a new place in Port Charles, preferably one with five bedrooms and a big yard to contain all the domestic bliss he envisions sharing with his comatose nephew's wife.
While Drew dreams of white picket fences, Curtis is plotting to hit him where it really hurts — in D.C., where he wants to use Nina's connections to put a moat around Drew in Congress and prevent him from building influence or getting anything done. This seems like it'll ultimately be more of a fuck-you to the people of Port Charles, who stand to gain nothing from a neutered representative, but this is Drew we're talking about, so it still feels like a gain for the greater good.
Aside from giving us some mildly satisfying Drew-Curtis drama, the Drillow situation also gifted us with the absolute highlight of the week, which was Tracy convening a Quartermaine family meeting so they could decide what to do about Willow, a.k.a. "the adulteress in the gatehouse." It's been so long since the writers were able to come up with a halfway decent Quartermaine squabble that I figured they were no longer capable of doing so, but this one just about hit the spot — Olivia and Ned argued for kindness, Tracy whooped and cackled, Jason pinched the bridge of his nose every four seconds, and the whole thing reached its peak when Sasha refused to climb up on a bookshelf to get rid of a mouse, and angrily told the entire family she's pregnant.
Babies, Babies
Of course, since Jason knew about Michael's one-night stand with Sasha, he immediately realized Michael has to be the father of Sasha's baby. True to form, he stalked her out to the boathouse and confronted her, asking if Michael knows — and then refused to take her word for it when she told him she'd already worked things out with Michael before the explosion. Determined to safeguard Michael's interests while he's getting better-better in Baden-Baden, Jason told Sasha he needs to hear it straight from Michael — which means he's making plans to fly to Germany, bully his way to Michael's bedside, and have him brought out of sedation again so he can once again experience unbelievable agony in order to grunt out the one-word answer to a question.
I'm guessing we won't see this happen onscreen? But it'd be hilarious if we did. In fact, I fully support GH bringing Chad Duell back once a month so he can lie in a hospital bed and answer questions. Did you leave the oven on, Michael? Boxers or briefs? Who's your pick to win the Super Bowl? Are we out of toilet paper?
Okay, so while Jason prepares to go charging off to verify that Michael did indeed agree to let Sasha raise the baby on her own, she has another problem to deal with — specifically her cousin/ex-boyfriend Cody, who was lurking by the boathouse at just the right time to overhear and wildly misconstrue Jason and Sasha's conversation. Because he's back in his self-destructive era, he immediately started blabbing all over town that Sasha's pregnant and Jason's the father — first Maxie and Lulu, and then Anna. This is clearly the first phase of a gambit to put Jason in a position where he pretends to be the father of Sasha's baby, which is dumb and unappealing, but we know it'll happen anyway because this show always thinks history repeating itself is the height of soapy cleverness.
I'm not going to get into all the reasons I think it's dumb and unappealing here, because it hasn't actually happened yet, and I need to give myself room to complain in the future. But I do want to pause for a moment to remind everyone that Sidwell also knows Sasha is pregnant. Now that he's being remolded into some sort of Faison/Jerome hybrid with secret evil plans, a fondness for high society, and a hankering for Lucy, I wonder whether this particular Sidwell/Sasha connection will be forgotten? I guess we'll find out whenever Robert and Holly return to Port Charles.
In the meantime, Sasha's baby drama isn't the only wombular business Cody's currently into. Last week, we also found out that he's known for decades about Dante getting Brook Lynn pregnant back when they were all teenagers — in fact, Cody was the one Brook Lynn turned to when she needed a ride to the bus that took her… away from summer camp, I guess? Unless they were at camp for nine months, I can't imagine why else she would have booked the trip, or why it was mentioned. Either way, Cody is being set up as another talk-to for Brook Lynn, I assume because there are only so many times the writers can have Amanda Setton say "ma" and cry a lot while Rena Sofer looks concerned. It makes sense in terms of creating extra options for BLQ's tearful confessions, but it also makes Cody a horrible friend; after dropping Brook Lynn off at the bus station, he not only kept her secret from Dante, he claims he didn't think about it again until he came to Port Charles and rekindled their acquaintance.
Plenty of people have already talked about how heavily this story rests on rampant retconning, so I don't need to pile on. We all know what we're watching is stupid. That it and of itself isn't such a bad thing; to be a soap watcher, after all, is to sign up for a certain amount of silliness and stupidity. The real issue here is that the writers are doing all this work in order to give Gio a reason to exist, which makes the whole thing an even more monumental waste of effort. I've said this before, but I repeat: I have nothing at all against Giovanni Mazza. I have no doubt he'll rack up some impressive credits if he's given enough time and support. Here, though? On our show? He's being given nothing at all to work with, and as a result, his character simply does not need to be. I've seen timeshare presentations that have more dramatic potential than anything relating to Gio. He's been bobbing around the canvas for no reason for nearly a year; bolting him onto Brook Lynn and Dante isn't going to make him interesting.
So what's the point? Is it to churn up drama between Brook Lynn and Lois? Brook Lynn and Dante? Cody and Dante? Brook Lynn and Chase? Dante and Lulu? Lois and Ned? I guess this might be good for a few episodes' worth of "I can't believe you didn't tell me" speeches, but then what?
I don't have an answer for any of that, so instead, let me just tell you that Chase and Brook Lynn got their fertility test results back. Brook Lynn can have a(nother) baby, but Chase is sterile, which spares us from another member of the Chase family while also giving him a big, fat reason to feel sorry for himself and lash out when he finds out his partner knocked up his wife back in the '90s. I dunno — I'm all for giving kids to legacy characters and/or families, and conjuring out of the blue like this certainly saves us from having to wait out all the boring childhood years when those kids are good for nothing more than life-threatening illnesses or kidnappings, but this still seems like a big ol' dead end to me. I hope the show proves me wrong.
Carly Invades Germany
Yes, that headline is a reference to the GH meme of the week. I don't know who made it, but I would like to buy them a beer.
As previously mentioned, Carly is in Germany, barking orders at the staff of the exclusive clinic where the world's top epidemiologists are working around the clock to spare Michael from any physical remnant of the time someone tried to kill his disgusting adopted father, but roasted him instead. Her days are mostly taken up with telling the people at the clinic that they aren't working fast or hard enough, but her nights? Her nights are free for Jack Brennan.
Conveniently, Brennan needed to jet off to London for "a meeting" — must be nice — and he decided to pop on by Baden-Baden to see if Carly needed any support. As it turned out, he's the one who needed help, because when he booked a stay at the hotel spa to take advantage of their water's legendary healing properties, he found himself on the wrong end of a garrote wielded by his old pal Valentin.
"This is for Prague," hissed Valentin while trying to choke out Brennan. He damn near succeeded, too, even getting so far as to render Brennan unconscious — but then Carly, who decided she really needed a trip to the spa as well, swooped in and clocked Valentin over the head with a conveniently located vase. By the time she stopped hollering at Brennan long enough to tell a spa worker to call for medical personnel, Valentin was already gone.
For most of us, this would be cause for alarm, but most of us are not Jack Brennan. As soon as he regained consciousness, he resumed flirting with Carly — and by the time he made his way back up to her room, he full-on started sucking face with her. She backed away for a minute, but by the time he took her to the hotel courtyard and showed her the fire pit and champagne he'd arranged for them, it was all over. We might as well start planning the wedding, folks.
I've said this before, but once more, with feeling: I like Charles Mesure. I think he's a solid addition to the show, and I'm generally in favor of WSB action. I'm also willing to concede that Brennan brings out the best in Carly — or at least helps showcase whatever currently passes for her lighter side. I'm also in favor of the show FINALLY doing something with this pairing, given that they've been farting around with the idea of Carly and Brennan for like a year now. GH is so allergic to romance these days that I feel compelled to appreciate the little dribs and drabs they give us, no matter where they come from.
But still. Her?
Time to let your weekly bullets fly!
- Anna told Jason that Sidwell is in town, and tried in vain to get him to promise not to go after him
- Lucy made another pass at Martin, who responded "In your dreams"
- Kai found out he could be paralyzed if he plays football again, and is sad about it
- Emma loves animals and wants Gio to help her raise money for them by playing violin
- Tracy and Martin made the mistake of scheduling manicures on the same day, and sassed each other instead of practicing self-care
- Molly and Cody were chem-tested again
- Curtis is planning to launch a resorts division at Aurora, and wants to use it as an excuse to take Portia on a tropical getaway
- Ric corrected Ava's mistaken assumption that he was representing her pro bono; in response, she told him they won't kiss again until she gets Avery back
- Lulu confessed to Laura that she's still in love with Dante
- Dante and Brook Lynn had a moment, which was interrupted by Lulu's arrival
- Brad badgered Portia into giving him extra vacation time while he's in Miami
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