Well, here we are again, friends — another week of General Hospital on the books, and I'm back to sum stuff up and let you know what I think about it. As always, I started the week hopeful that by the time I got to the end of Friday's episode, I'd have all sorts of cool stuff to share. Once again, however, I come to you largely empty-handed: Although some significant developments occurred, there was still an awful lot of wheel-spinning going on in Port Charles.
Also, did you know that underage drinking is dangerous and bad?
Afterschool Special
During the year and change that GH has been shoving Gio down our throats, the most annoying thing about the character has been his absolute lack of drama. He's been presented as so angelically sweet that he's practically boneless, and as a result, the incredibly slow-moving "Gio is secretly Dante and Brook Lynn's son" storyline has been even less scintillating. This was apparently brought to the attention of the writers, because now that we're inching toward a reveal, they decided to reach real hard in order to come up with a scrap of conflict between Dante and Gio.
Here's how it went down. Dante and Lulu were supposed to take Danny and Rocco to a Woodchucks game, but those plans went out the window when Chase showed up to Lulu's house, found Dante there instead, and yelled at him for half an hour about how Lulu's supposedly out of line for writing a story about adoption when she knows he and Brook Lynn are going through that process themselves. Dante was confused by Chase's outburst, and he had every right to be; Brook Lynn and Chase's cover for being angry about Lulu's story is so flimsy that not even the dumbest soap character should be expected to go along with it.
Well, even though Dante was perplexed by his friend's outrage, he still decided that he and Lulu should stay home from the game and have a talk about her vendetta against Brook Lynn. This freed up Danny and Rocco to head to the beach bonfire that was being hosted by some PCU students — and while there, they were of course offered alcohol, and of course when Danny wandered off with some girl, Rocco ended up drinking so much that he had a BAC of .36 by the time he was brought into the hospital to have his stomach pumped.
I'm getting a little ahead of myself, though. Before he ended up at GH, Rocco was found by Danny, who asked Gio to help him get Rocco to the Quartermaine boathouse, where they could let him sleep it off without any parental units being made aware. Their plan might have worked were it not for Cody, who saw the lights on from the stable and decided to mosey on down and check it out. Upon noticing Rocco's shallow breathing, Cody decided he needed to get to a doctor.
Here's where things get extremely silly. When Dante found out that Gio helped get Rocco to the boathouse, he flew off the handle, saying it'd be Gio's fault if anything serious happened to Rocco, and also suggesting that he might have been the one to supply underage drinkers with alcohol in the first place. It was painful to watch, and it only grew more over the top as it went on; in the end, Dante and Lois were going at each other, with Dante accusing Lois of coddling Gio and Lois almost getting upset enough to spill the beans about Dante's paternal connection to Gio — all while Lulu the Annoying eavesdropped from (barely) around a nearby corner.
I could go on, because miles of dialogue followed from this point, but you get the idea. This whole thing was part PSA, part manufactured drama, and 100 percent annoying. I'm generally not in favor of the whole "Wow, I hate the person I never knew was my parent" soap trope, but if you're going to go in that direction, you need to start laying track right away, and it certainly doesn't work if you take a soulful, level-headed character like Dante and abruptly turn him into a foaming lunatic just because that's what the plot requires that day. It was always going to be anticlimactic if Dante found out that Gio was his kid, they hugged, and it was happily ever after — but I would absolutely rather watch that than have to sit through this dunderheaded nonsense. Dante has cooled off since screaming at Gio and threatening to have him arrested, but now Gio thinks Dante has always had a dim view of him, so SECRET FATHER AND SON ARE AT ODDS. To add an extra anvil, the writers even had Dante tell Sonny he couldn't handle it if he lost his son. He was referring to Rocco, of course, but it's very easy to see where this is heading. Are you quivering with anticipation yet?
On the bright side, Tracy and Lois had it out last week, with Tracy berating Lois for hiding her great-grandchild, and Lois essentially telling Tracy to go fuck herself. Rena Sofer can truly bring it when she's given anything to do; these scenes, while entertaining to watch, really highlighted how little purpose Lois has served since her return.
A Mother Knows
While Dante was busy acting out of character in order to serve a deluded narrative purpose, Drew remained extra busy being super gross. Although Nina did her best to (somewhat) subtly talk Willow into leaving his skeevy ass, she was right by his side when he held a press conference to announce he'd been drugged without his knowledge or consent. Willow's resolute confidence that Drew was drugged is impressive, given that she doesn't know what Drew knows — courtesy of Brad, Drew is now aware that Portia was behind his embarrassing evening, and Brad is a million dollars richer. (Selina would be proud, if we ever saw her anymore. Stupid writers.)
Portia really only has herself to blame for Brad ending up in Drew's pocket. As any reasonably intelligent person would, he very quickly realized why she had him compile Drew's medical records and supply her with ketamine, and bopped into her office to demand a raise — at which point she told him that not only would she not be complying, she had set things up so she could pin the whole thing on him. After seeing Lucas with Marco and having a sad, Brad decided to go scorched earth, finding Drew at GH and offering to exchange the identity of his drugger for cold, hard cash.
The only downside to all of this is that as of right now, Brad has quit his job at GH and is leaving town. I refuse to believe it's true.
Anyway, back to Drew. He went to Mac and said he wanted to file a police report, but then bizarrely rejected Mac's offer to have the Port Charles Grill pull up camera footage from his visit. After getting Brad's information and holding his press conference, he assured Brad that he intended to grind Portia into dust — and then he strolled into her office to demand that she find a way to convince Curtis to make Aurora cover him more favorably.
It's the same exchange we've seen between Portia and Drew a thousand times, but the difference this time was that Cameron Mathison actually played Drew like a villain. I still have zero tolerance for his bugeyed lunacy, but one of my biggest problems with Drew's heel turn thus far has been that he's done a lot of heinous stuff without ever really being framed as a bad guy. If this marks the spot where Dark Drew really starts to own his despicability, I'm marginally more down for it — to the point where if Portia is the only person who brings this out in Drew, I'd even be okay with a few rounds of hate sex between those two. Whatever it takes to get GH to recognize that Drew is a scumbag.
I'm on a Mission
Now we've got a few storylines that are too busy for bullets, but too thin for a lot of chit-chat. Item one: the continuing saga of Agent Jacks, whose big contribution to espionage history last week entailed stealing a thumb drive, copying and corrupting its contents onto an identical duplicate, and pretending to find it in the sand so Emma could momentarily believe her big data model was still intact. After hugging Joss in gratitude, Emma came clean about her exodus from California, admitting that her expulsion happened because she and some friends were convinced that Professor Dalton was performing unethical experiments on higher mammals, and they broke into his lab to prove it. Just like I said (although it wasn't hard to figure out), Emma's on her own mission to discredit the professor, which further complicates Joss' feelings of guilt regarding her orders to scuttle Emma's bid to become Dalton's research assistant.
According to Brennan, the WSB believes Dalton is developing technology that will have "global implications," and they want it. Joss' brief is to basically watch and wait so the Bureau can catch him in the act, steal his work, and use it to keep Frisco offscreen for another ten years.
The Dolos Fund
Ric and Ava didn't have a bunch of screentime last week, but they were pretty busy. First, they visited Alexis to tell her that the price of their silence had doubled; then, to celebrate, they went to the Brown Dog, where Ava used her brand new "Dolos Fund" corporate card to open a tab. Because this is the austerity era of General Hospital and we can't see a local watering hole unless half the town is there, Ava's card was naturally briefly mixed up with Cody's, and he watched with interest as the bartender — who told him "these usually have really high limits" — walked it over to her. Will his budding affection for Molly lead him to tell her that her old man is up to something shady with his fellow town pariah? We know it's only a matter of time.
Pier Pressure
This was blessedly a largely Sonny-free week. We still heard all kinds of jibber-jabber about his ties to Laura and the referendum and the goddamn esplanade, but it wasn't until late in the week that he reared his unnaturally jet-black head in person — and actually served as the voice of reason, not once, but twice. First, he told Dante he was being a dick to Gio; second, he listened to Sidwell's offer to purchase his piers, and even though he pushed back a little — pointing out that if the referendum passes, Sidwell would just have to give those piers over to the city — he later told Jason that he might actually accept the offer. And although Jason greeted this news with the same blank stare that serves as his response to most things, I think we'll shortly hear him say he supports that decision; after all, it was only moments beforehand that he told Lois he understands Danny is his first priority and he needs to "make some changes."
So what does all this mean? Probably nothing at all, given what time and previous writing regimes have taught us, but I'm so hungry for change where Sonny and Jason are concerned that I'm willing to contemplate, if only for a moment, what the mob-free versions of these characters might look like. I also want to point out that Carlo Rota seems to be having a blast, and his enjoyment is infectious; if you haven't already watched them, I urge you to go and see the scenes featuring Drew and Tracy bickering at the Metro Court restaurant while Sidwell looks on in pure, open-mouthed glee. I still say Sonny never needs another enemy, but this one is fun right now.
That'll do it for last week's major events. Time for your bullets!
Willow was a raging bitch to Carly, which was entertaining to watch
Kai had his procedure and it went fine; no word yet on when Trina will be surgically removed from his dead-end storyline
Lucky convinced Kristina to mend fences with Alexis
Almost the entire population of Port Charles knows that Brook Lynn had Dante's baby
Lulu put on her big girl investigative reporter hat and resolved to find out where Lois was when Gio was born
Sasha continues to exist
Marco told Tracy that she needs to wage a charm offensive if she wants to get rid of Sonny; in return, she told him that if Sidwell succeeds in that goal, "all of Port Charles will be open to him"
Isaiah and Elizabeth had the type of meaningless conversation that only perpetually sidelined characters can have
Chase and Brook Lynn visited Alexis to have an eye-wateringly dull conversation about adoption
Sasha told Jason that Michael refused to see Willow in Baden Baden
We were treated to a few minutes of Ned, who agreed to Lulu's request that he endorse Laura for mayor
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