Welcome back to Critical Diagnosis, friends! This is going to be another quick column — not just because I continue to be sorely tested by life in general, but because last week's episodes were pretty pointless. Beyond the Gates is still gaining momentum, and General Hospital is still puttering along. I wish any of the stories that are currently brewing looked like they had any chance of going someplace exciting, but they really don't. The best I can say right now is that I'm looking forward to watching Ava and Ric team up to bleed the Cassadine coffers — and in recent years, the show has trained me to expect a quick and uninspired end to any story that looks like it could be this much fun.
Maybe this time will be different! Hope springs eternal. In the meantime, let's look back at last week.
Puppetmaster Drew
I still have no idea what Portia is holding over Drew in terms of his medical records, but I do know that the writers haven't run out of ways to make him look like a bigger asshole than he was before. Last week, he earned additional scumbag points in a couple of ways: First, he used Willow's big fight with Carly as an opening to slither in with legal papers making him Wiley and Amelia's legal guardian if anything should happen to her; second, he made it clear that he's grooming Boyle to run for mayor.
Willow, of course, thought Drew's guardianship gambit was a terrific idea, reacting so enthusiastically that she said she didn't even need time to think it over before signing the papers. We already know Boyle is a sleaze, so it didn't take much at all for Drew to puff him up and prime him for action. The question here is what purpose this all serves. I guess Drew would get some satisfaction of stealing Michael's kids after Michael helped box him out of Aurora, but why would he think to do it this way? Is he planning to get rid of Willow? If so, why?
Beyond that, what's the point of engineering a takeover of Port Charles by having Laura pushed out of office? I mean, I get that she's pissed him off, and he has no love for Sonny, and pulling all these strings gives him a better chance of using the city's government to ruin the Corinthos business. But wouldn't it be easier for Drew to use his power in Washington to meddle with Sonny at the federal level? He certainly knows enough about Sonny's business to make it hurt. What he's doing now is vindictive and petty, but in a weirdly roundabout way.
Oh, and then there's Kai. Drew obviously sees him as another pawn, but it's hard to understand why. Yes, he's a college sports star, and yes, he could have a career in politics or public speaking at some point — but those days are well in the future, and it's more than a little strange for a first-term congressman to bet this heavily on such a long-term investment. I mean, I just had a couple of vaccinations and some bloodwork done, and that cost more than $2,000 before insurance — the cost of Kai's cutting-edge elective surgery will be many times that amount. How and when will this pay off for Drew?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that even as a cartoon villain, Drew leaves a lot to be desired. This all feels like it might be tripping over its own feet on its circuitous way to something like a point, which is great. I can't wait for it to be over.
Parental Commitment
Even at its most uninspired, GH always offers a few glimmers of genuine pleasure, and right now, I'm seeing those glimmers from Ava and Ric, both of whom are never more entertaining than when they're in schemer mode. I wasn't all that excited about the way the rivalry between Ava and Alexis was contrived, but now that it's canon, I'm very much enjoying their increasingly bitter feud — which is currently being won by Ava, thanks to all the evidence she's amassed proving Kristina is responsible for the car crash that could have killed Elizabeth and Ric.
After agonizing over the idea of having Kristina committed — an idea that evaporated as soon as Molly and Kristina came over for a "Davis girls night" and made it through a movie without trying to claw each other's eyes out — Alexis agreed to Ava's terms, arranging to have her entire divorce settlement redirected to her bank account in installments. Of course, the tricky thing about blackmail is that the terms can change on a whim, and Ava's whims tend to be pretty dangerous for her enemies; Alexis was reminded of this when Ava informed her that the terms of their "agreement" had changed, and her price had gone up.
One of the enjoyable things about this story is that Ava, Alexis, and Ric are all playing to type. Ava is rightly pissed about having her divorce settlement stolen, and just as rightly sick of Kristina's bullshit; Alexis, meanwhile, is doing exactly what she's always done, which is whatever she has to do in order to protect what she sees as the best interests of her children. And then there's Ric, who has always had a taste for revenge served cold. The steps leading to this place were plot-driven and messy as hell, but now that we're here, there's a ton of soapy potential waiting to be tapped. Here's hoping the writers don't screw it up.
21 Dumb Street
After like a week of training, Joss is investigating her first case, which has something to do with PCU's Professor Dalton. This new character is being played by Daniel Goddard, an actor I have no experience with but who is apparently a massive jerk in real life; on the other hand, he has an Australian accent, and we all know how much GH loves those. Anyway, Joss has been tasked with becoming Dalton's research assistant, which will be tough for her to pull off — partly because she missed the first few classes due to her trip to "Easter Island," and partly because Emma is already his star student.
I'm not sure we need more of the "Joss and Emma are frenemies" antics that the writers seem to think are so entertaining, but Braedyn Bruner keeps getting better as Emma, and Joss definitely needs to be knocked down a few pegs on a daily basis, so maybe there's some fun to be had there. As for the case? I desperately could not care less, and I can't imagine a scenario in which the whole "Joss as WSB agent" angle is ever anything less than offensive to longtime viewers. I can tell you this much: Right now, it looks like whatever Dalton's doing has something to do with GH, because Joss followed him to a locked lab, which he entered carrying a briefcase and exited empty-handed. I'm sure we'll learn more soon, whether we want to or not.
A Morsel of Information
The Port Charles resident who had the worst week has to be Natalia, who went straight from being unfriended by Sonny to having her secret history with Sidwell blabbed all over town. Upon arriving at Wyndemere for what she thought was a plain old business meeting celebrating the apparently massive sales of Deception's new zincite-infused skin cream, she was shocked to discover that Sidwell had told Lucy all about their long-ago marriage. Just as Lucy was telling Natalia that her days are numbered, Jason was in the Deception office, telling Brook Lynn and Maxie that Natalia has been lying (by omission) to them for months.
Already on the outs with Sonny and facing the loss of her job at Deception, Natalia was backed into a corner when Lucy left her alone with Sidwell — and he pounced, dangling the carrot of helping to repair her relationship with Marco if she'd just give him "a morsel of information" explaining why she flew to a cardiologist's office with Sonny. Folding like a tent, she immediately sold out, telling Sidwell that Sonny has a heart condition and he needs surgery.
I would still dearly love to believe that Sidwell's interest in Sonny is strictly business, and he isn't just the latest wannabe bad guy to show up in Port Charles and try to take over Sonny's stupid territory. I'm sure my hopes are in vain, but for now, I'm enjoying the ambiguity that Carlo Rota brings to Sidwell — he's oddly charming, and keeps his violent tendencies under cover so often that he makes it easy to believe he really is just a regular old businessman. Rota's making me want to go along with Sidwell's charade, which is something I'll be very happy to do until the next tiresome mob war erupts.
In addition to putting the screws to Natalia, Sidwell also pulled off the coup of (almost officially) hiring Jordan, who staged her resignation from the mayor's office during Laura's press conference announcing the referendum over the location of the esplanade. One would think that leaving something like this up to the voters would be seen as a good thing, but whatever; the writers want Jordan working undercover in Sidwell's camp, so here we are, and I'm not mad about it. I mean, there's a decidedly non-zero chance that this will end up being dumb, but Jordan has been given so little to do for so long that for the moment, I'm just happy to see the character being used in something approximating the right way.
Brook Lynn and Maxie, meanwhile, are up in arms about Natalia — and also Sidwell, who they're determined to box out of Deception before it's too late. After getting the news from Jason, they made the decidedly strange decision to reach out to Anna, asking her advice for how they can get the company out of its contract with him. Anna, of course, is not an attorney, so she had nothing useful to offer — which is just as well, because as long as Sidwell is involved with Deception, the writers have a reason to put him in scenes with Tracy. Those two jawed at each other in the Quartermaine solarium last week, having a conversation that was briefly supervised by One-Line Yuri before Tracy sent him to another room so she and Sidwell could have some real talk.
That talk went basically nowhere — Sidwell made his big pitch asking Tracy to have Sonny removed from Deception; Tracy told Sidwell that she doesn't trust him any more than she trusts Sonny — but few things put a glint in Tracy's eye like sparring with a criminal, so watching them talk in circles was actually pretty entertaining.
…And that's basically all the big stuff that happened last week, believe it or not. Time to let those bullets fly!
- Carly and Brennan had a conversation about Willow and Drew that might as well have been a flashback
- Trina spent the week talking about Kai
- Sonny agreed to stay away from Rocco's big debate in order to make things easier for Laura
- Gio played violin for some ducks
- Dante remembered that Ric is his uncle
- The show started its annual feeble five-episode attempt to turn Amy Driscoll into Amy Vining Jr.
- Lucky decided to be Elizabeth's nurse during her recovery
- Even after combining their intellectual might, neither Curtis nor Anna were able to figure out why Jordan abruptly resigned
- Diane and Alexis were up in arms after finding out that Marco is Sidwell's son
- Felicia asked Carly to try and convince Sonny not to fight the results of the referendum if they don't go his way
- Molly blew a tire and was rescued by Chem Test Cody on horseback
- Chase and Brook Lynn talked about adopting an (ahem) older child
- Upon hearing about Sonny's heart condition, Carly vowed to go to California with him for his surgery
- Emma started her community service at GH, which mostly entailed letting kids get paint on her clothes
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