This past week, my wife and I started the laborious process of moving my mother out of her house. It's going take us about a month to finish this job, and along the way, there will be thousands of things to sort through, box up, and toss out, many of which are artifacts from my childhood. I bring this up not to complain about my aching back, but as a means of explaining why I recently found myself confronted with a shitty old report card from my sophomore year of high school — specifically the first semester of that year, which was my last semester as a generally awful student who simply couldn't be bothered to do the work.
I'm bringing this up now because the current version of General Hospital is a lot like I was as a student back then, which is to say: just barely coasting by, allergic to effort, and destined for some regrettable dead ends if I didn't wise up and change course.
I thought about this a lot while I was prepping for this edition of Critical Diagnosis. Last week was a pretty meh one for GH overall — which is sadly nothing new, but it means a lot more right now because the show is facing fresh competition from Beyond the Gates. It's a huge deal that we have a new daytime drama on the air, and it says a lot about CBS' confidence that they've scheduled Gates opposite GH; with everything that's on the line, you'd think GH's showrunners would have started prepping for this as soon as Gates was announced, lining up an array of can't-miss storylines designed to keep people tuning in (and actually luring those oft-discussed "lapsed viewers" back into the fold).
This has not been the case. Most of the stuff that's happening on GH right now, at least from a narrative perspective, is extremely predictable and uninspired. The actors, for the most part, are delivering terrific performances, but they're being handed generic junk to work with; there are moments of grace, as there always are on even the worst soap, but they're usually too isolated to help build any real momentum. GH has been a part of my life, off and on, since the early '80s, and I really want to see it succeed, but even for an old fan like me, the product they're currently putting out is really difficult to get excited about.
But much the same way my parents were unable to make me care about school, we the viewers can't force the powers that be at General Hospital to get on the good foot and really start duking it out with their latest competitor. I only started turning in assignments and studying for tests when it became important to me on a personal level, and GH will remain little more than a shadow of itself until the folks behind the scenes really buckle down and start focusing on giving good soap. I only hope they don't wait until it's too late.
Let's All Talk About Finn's Sperm
I've reached the point where I'm actively rooting for the Brook Lynn/Chase baby storyline to eat up as much screentime as possible, if only because that means this dumb thing will be over sooner. I can't bring myself to care about a single thing that happened between these adorable little dodos last week, but because it's my duty to share it with you, I'm going to type it out anyway.
As we recounted in the previous Critical Diagnosis, Chase reacted angelically to the news that Brook Lynn had secretly given birth as a teenager, and he continued to be fawningly supportive last week — up to and including coming to her with the exciting news that he'd decided it'd be a great idea to ask Finn to be their sperm donor. For a number of reasons, Brook Lynn wasn't really on board with the idea, which made Chase so sad that he had to go to the gym, but by the time he got back, he'd come around to her point of view.
Sprinkled into this extremely non-scintillating drama were bits of Gio. He tracked down Lois in Brook Lynn's room so he could pass along an envelope of cash Sonny gave him for a trip, and that intrusion turned into a Gio lovefest that culminated with Brook Lynn hugging him and telling him he deserves the world. He piped up in the middle of a Quartermaine argument about Drew, only to be told by Tracy that he needed to shut up because he isn't one of them — although if he were, he'd be better than Drew. Anvils, anvils everywhere.
Beyond simply stating what happened, I don't know what to say about any of this. Brook Lynn and Chase are such a boring couple that it's impossible to be invested in them, and therefore impossible to care about any threat to their relationship. The thought of Dante finding out he has an adult son should be something worth getting excited about, especially when the secret coming out could destroy a marriage and a pair of friendships, but this story just has absolutely no pulse. It needs to get wherever it's going and then be placed on the furthest of back burners.
Agent Jacks, Reporting for Duty
If the Brook Lynn/Chase/Gio story is boring, at least it isn't offensively stupid, unlike the mess we've got developing on the Cyrus side of things. In a turn of events that surprised no one who's been watching this show for long, Jason was arrested for Cyrus' murder last week, despite the fact that Cyrus has only been missing for a couple of days. His arrest was the work of ADA Turner, who was empowered by the acting DA to pull Anna from Cyrus' murder investigation due to her widely known friendship with Jason. Anna tried explaining that they didn't have much of a case if they were booking him just because a couple of his hairs were found in Cyrus' suspiciously spotless cabin, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.
This is all a lot of story-driven hooey. As many people have pointed out, it wouldn't be hard at all to track Jason's location throughout the night of Cyrus' disappearance, but that hasn't even been mentioned; instead, Jason told the cops the truth, which is that he was with Drew during the window of time in question. Unfortunately for Jason, when Drew was called in to corroborate that story, he lied through his terrifying teeth, which is the type of silly curveball that can sometimes be exciting in the moment, but really leads nowhere.
Drew hates Jason and the Quartermaines in general right now, so his motivation for lying is obvious, but it's just as obvious that the lie he's telling is destined to blow up in his face. We know GH likes to have it both ways, imagining a world where Spinelli can hack into servers and root out surveillance footage, while Jason can also drive from the Quartermaine mansion to a cemetery and then to Drew's house without leaving any kind of digital trail, but even for them, this is complete nonsense — Drew cannot possibly believe his lie will stand. And when the truth is revealed, how will he be able to face the media, his constituents, and his fellow members of Congress? How will he be able to justify his lie when Willow finds out? How stupid are we supposed to think he is?
For the moment, the only other people who really know Jason's innocent are Joss, Brennan, and Colette. Joss knows because she's the one who really killed Cyrus; Brennan knows because he was there and ordered the cabin's cleanup; and Colette knows because it was her team that planted Jason's DNA at the crime scene. Framing Jason for a crime is usually the kind of thing that sends Joss into a flying rage, but Brennan was able to calm her down pretty quickly by offering vague assurances that Jason will never do time for Cyrus' murder; after pulling off that trick, he followed it up by convincing Joss to join the WSB.
You already know I hate this idea with the type of burning intensity that a person usually only feels when they have a UTI, so I won't waste everyone's time with another rant. I'll just tell you what Brennan told Joss, which is that she's a perfect recruit for the Bureau because she's young and attractive and not afraid of talking to people. And never mind going off for months of training — instead, after giving her word that she'll never tell anyone she's working for the WSB, she was shipped off to an undisclosed location for her first mission.
Ballantine is rolling over in his grave.
While Joss serves the greater good by letting Jason stay in the PCPD's crosshairs, Drew's other enemies continue to align against him. On the Aurora side, Curtis met with Stella to talk about her friend in Congress, Doug Henderson, who's willing to meet with Curtis and hear his anti-Drew pitch. On the personal side, Nina pressured Maxie into giving her access to the safe that was just installed in Drew's new house. Both of these developments happened quickly in passing, so there's nothing else to say about them yet — but it is clear that Drew's dirty deeds are getting closer to daylight, and when the truth is revealed, it'll be hard for him to justify his actions to Willow.
For the moment, however, Drew and Willow are closer than ever. In fact, after watching Carly shriek at him following his lie about Jason's alibi, she abruptly reversed course and told Drew that she and the kids would love to move in with him. Remember just the other day when Willow said Wiley didn't even know his parents had split up? I guess that wasn't such a big deal after all.
The one glimmer of entertainment to come out of this last week arrived courtesy of Martin and Tracy, who crossed swords after Tracy filed a cease-and-desist motion ordering Drew to stop using the Quartermaine name. In retaliation, Martin not-so-subtly pointed out that the Quartermaine crypt is actually partly on public land, and threatened to go public with the family's gaffe if she didn't drop her C&D against Drew. Tracy being Tracy, this threat went nowhere; she simply smiled at Martin and told him she was calling his bluff. None of this felt particularly impactful, but these characters — and these actors — are fun to watch together, so it was at least entertaining.
In fact, Michael E. Knight was also partly responsible for the other enjoyable Cyrus-related scene of the week, which took place when Martin visited Laura at GH. After he told her he'd been awakened by the PCPD at his door, looking for information about Cyrus' disappearance, she explained what their brother had done, including his attempt on Lulu's life. He was visibly stricken by the news, and Knight really made you feel Martin's pain; whatever happens now that Cyrus is no more, I hope the writers continue to keep Laura and Martin in one another's orbit, because it's always a pleasure to watch them trade lines.
Sidwell's Deception
In addition to causing himself trouble by lying about Jason's alibi, Drew's making enemies by aligning himself with Sidwell. As we've discussed before, Sidwell has offered to invest in the McConkey Esplanade, but seems willing to do so only if the location is moved from its originally proposed spot to the area currently occupied by the Corinthos Coffee warehouse. Drew's motives for going along with this are obvious — it's a way to, as Jordan put it when explaining the situation to Sonny, "screw Jason by screwing you." Sidwell's reasons for antagonizing Sonny are currently unclear, but I'm sure they'll come down to yet another tired war over the Corinthos organization's territory, blah blah blah.
One thing I do like about Sidwell's steady creep into Port Charles is the way the writers have taken pains to connect him with a variety of characters. Lynn Herring is always a hoot when she's given good material, and it's fun watching Lucy flutter around Sidwell; it's also nice to see Jordan going undercover by pretending to be interested in him, if only because we so rarely get to see Jordan do anything at all.
Somewhat less interesting is Sidwell's involvement with Deception. As soon as the Deception crew started talking about needing heaps of zincite for their new product, it was glaringly obvious that Mr. Rare Minerals here would enter the mix somehow — and that other shoe dropped last week, when Lucy informed Maxie and Natalia that Lulu fucked up the call with their distributor so badly that he opted to sell his product to Enchantment instead. Determined not to be out-zincited by Erica Kane, Lucy approached Sidwell, who casually demanded five percent of the company in exchange — an arrangement that sounded like a great idea to Lucy, even after Sasha and Carly angrily interrupted their meeting to publicly condemn him for kidnapping Sasha, holding her at gunpoint, and trapping her in a room with a bomb.
Sidwell remained unfazed, as he always does in these situations; pressed for an explanation, he simply made some noises about how all events are open to interpretation, and if he'd really done anything that bad, he would have been charged with a crime. Faced with the embarrassment of having him tell everyone they used to be married, Natalia went along with him, saying his zincite would be good for the company.
Like most of you, I do not care about Natalia, and I have no interest in learning more about her marriage to Sidwell, but I don't get a vote here, and I suppose this does at least give her something resembling a reason to be part of a storyline. That being said, where was Tracy in all this? She's supposed to be calling the shots at Deception, and mixing her up with shady characters is pretty much always a good idea. Watching Lucy fawn over him is fine, but it'd be more fun if we got to watch Tracy calling him a dirtbag at the same time. Baby steps, I guess.
That's it for the big stuff. Time for your bullets!
- Lucky woke up and immediately started complaining about wanting to be somewhere else
- Ric and Ava made time for a little sexy banter after spending the night together
- Trina told Ava that she's downplaying her connection with Kai in order to spare Joss' feelings
- Dante told Alexis, Kristina, and Molly that Cyrus murdered Sam, and explained why
- Alexis told Ric about Cyrus murdering Sam, and they shared an awkward yet meaningful hug
- Quinn and Kai argued about Kai's relationship with Trina
- Selina tried forcing Brad to resign from GH on the grounds that he's partly responsible for Cody's gambling debt; in response, Brad got square with Selina by giving her proof that Portia tampered with Heather's cobalt poisoning test
- Alexis and Lucas had an emotional conversation about Sam's murder and Lucas' reasons for not attending her funeral
- Alexis and Drew agreed that now is not the time to tell Scout that Sam was murdered
- In an embarrassingly flimsy attempt to recapture that old Sprina magic, Trina and Kai went to an art gallery to take part in a community painting project, where she slipped off her ladder, he caught her, and they kissed
- Lucky told Sonny that Luke prevented his death from digitalis by appearing to him from beyond the grave and murmuring, "Not your time, Cowboy"
- Sonny clutched his chest several times
- Brennan was momentarily interesting when he threatened to drop a bomb on Sidwell if he messes with Carly again
- Joss' cover for her first mission is a sudden environmental science trip to Easter Island
- Tracy thinks Martin knows more than he's letting on about Valentin's location
- Kristina spent the week growing progressively more unhinged about the ineffectiveness of the justice system
- Leo was mentioned for the first time in forever
- Molly and Cody continued their chem testing by having a talk about their complicated relationships with their fathers
- Monica had the audacity to buy a sweater for Sasha's baby
- Olivia and Carly decided to save Sasha from the Quartermaines by offering her a job at the Metro Court
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