General Hospital has been on a hot streak lately, and that continued last week with a string of episodes that gave us plenty of reasons to tune in — not the least of which being the fact that the goddamn election is finally over, bringing us one step closer to the day the words "Measure C" will never again pass the lips of a Port Charles resident.
But beyond the blessed cessation of election shenanigans, last week's GH was solid overall for a number of reasons, including a pretty sustained focus on human emotions and relationships in the midst of all the melodrama. If it weren't for the fact that my mind is now forever seared with the image of Brennan pawing at Carly on the couch of his Metro Court suite, I might be inclined to give the whole run of episodes an A.
Here's why:
Michael Gave the Police a False Alibi, and I Can Prove It
The mystery of who shot Drew actually took a back burner last week, but because Monday's episode started off with Alexis and Felicia discussing the case, I'm going in chronological order and starting here.
A dutiful P.I., Felicia quickly reported Portia's blown alibi to Alexis, then met her at the Miller/Davis offices so they could go over her findings. The whole world is well aware of Curtis and Drew's beef, but that still left Alexis and Felicia to puzzle over what Portia's exact motive might have been for shooting Drew. Fortunately, they didn't have to theorize for long before Ric walked in.
Felicia beat a hasty retreat, leaving Ric and Alexis to argue over whether he could count on Danny coming forward to corroborate Rocco's claims that he hadn't destroyed anything in Dalton's lab. When Alexis refused to go along with his plan, Ric offered to trade Danny's cooperation for Portia's possible motive — and when she demanded proof that he knew anything at all, he quickly complied, telling Alexis all about Portia tampering with Heather's test results.
Now, Ric obviously doesn't know that Brad gave that evidence to Drew, or that Drew was blackmailing Portia with them. But given that Ric was blackmailing Alexis not long ago — and Alexis resorted to illegal means to get out from under his thumb — they both understand all too well how easily animosity can turn to hot lead, and the conversation they had as Ric led Alexis to an awareness of Portia's extremely believable motive was genuinely funny.
For years, I've disliked the way GH has feigned at redemption for Ric, only to end up using him as a slimeball whose schemes always blow up in his face. I'm hoping against hope that this group of writers will be the first to realize his true potential as a permanent fixture on the canvas — a guy who's done some rotten things, but whose past is really no more problematic than anyone else's, and someone who deserves to win as many rounds as he loses. I don't need him to be buddy-buddy with Sonny and Alexis — in fact, they're a lot more entertaining when they bicker — but he's been a pariah and/or punching bag for far too long. I like what they're doing with him now; long may it continue.
Alexis started the week with Portia in her sights, but Chase is still focused on Michael, and his off-the-books investigation took a big step forward last week — even as Alexis warned him that everything he's doing could end up getting him in big trouble. Although she was trying to get him to think about his job security, we know his hyper-fixation on Willow is also starting to bug Brook Lynn; for the moment, though, Chase is way too determined to give up now.
In a way, it's hard to blame him. Thanks to a well-timed visit to the Brown Dog, he happened to find himself next to Ezra Boyle, who was sloppily nursing his sorrows after losing the election to Laura. Now, Boyle is admittedly a boob and a loudmouth, so it wouldn't have been difficult for anyone to get him to blab about anything, but still — this gave Chase an opportunity to do some actual detective work for a change, so of course he was all kinds of excited when Boyle let it slip that he was with Jacinda the night Drew was shot.
This is a solid twist. We just saw Jacinda tell Michael she was alone after they parted ways at the PC Grill that night, so when this comes out, he's bound to be pissed — partly because it knocks the legs out from under his already shaky alibi, and partly because he's clearly developing feelings for her, and he won't like finding out she lied to him about being with such a grubby sleaze, even if it was while she was on the clock. It'll also force Michael to spend more time thinking and/or talking about everything else he did the night of the shooting, filling in the rest of the gaps between leaving the Grill, seething in his car, and returning home.
Given how often these stories change on the fly, it's folly to try and solve a soap mystery, but I still think Michael went to Drew's to confront him, but stopped when he saw Willow shoot him. If he planted the gun in her room at Elizabeth's, then I think he did it because he knew he wouldn't sound credible if he said he watched Willow pull the trigger; if he didn't plant the gun, then I think he's been keeping quiet about what he saw because he doesn't want to be directly responsible for sending Willow to prison, if for no reason other than the extreme likelihood that his kids would probably be pretty pissed about it later on.
Again, there's hardly any point in theorizing, because whatever the plan originally was, I'd be willing to bet it's changed more than once — and in the end, the writers will usually choose the easiest path, which in this case would be for Sidwell to have done it. They'll say he shot Drew, planted the Judge Heran evidence, and then framed Willow in order to keep Drew distracted enough to quit being a pain in his ass. Of course, there's no reason to believe he'd be able to sneak into the Quartermaine mansion, steal Edward's gun, and sneak back out without being detected, but that can always be waved away. He's the bad guy of the week, so making him responsible means there won't be any lasting consequences for anyone.
Dante Doesn't Want Me As His Son
Speaking of responsible, here's Gio, who kicked off another round in the entirely story-driven feud between himself and Dante by stepping up and revealing his involvement in the break-in scheme that resulted in Rocco being led off to a juvenile detention facility. Because Gio is a stand-up guy, he didn't say anything about the whole thing being Emma's idea; instead, he took the blame for the whole thing himself, explaining that he joined up with SAAC, became convinced that Dalton was testing on animals, and hatched a plan to expose him. He did eventually add that the break-in was called off on account of Ned's heart attack, but by that point, it didn't matter — Dante was instantly willing to believe the worst about his newfound son, and by the time Emma arrived to say the whole thing was really her idea, it didn't matter. He assumed Gio did it to impress Emma, and told him to leave.
I understand that the writers are trying to create drama here, and honestly, if there's one thing Gio needs, it's a little bit of drama to sharpen his angelic edges a bit. But this, as the kids say, ain't it. Dante is a cop, and has doubtless dealt with plenty of kids who are thoughtless or worse; he's known Gio for most if not all of his life, and regardless of whatever else might be going on, he should really know that whatever mistakes he might make, he's a stand-up guy. The whole thing reeks of prolonging the inevitable reconciliation.
On the bright side, Dante laying into Gio did at least lead to what appears to be a profound thaw in his relationship with Brook Lynn. Encouraged by Michael, who sneakily reached out to Gio and told him to come to GH because he was "needed," he had a really sweet conversation with her, starting with Brook Lynn clearly making it known that Dante doesn't speak for her. She explained that she understood he was trying to do the right thing, but the situation spiraled out of his control in ways he couldn't have foreseen — which he quickly connected to the aftermath of her giving him up for adoption. The whole thing ended with him saying "Thanks, Mom," which was definitely corny, but moving as well. (It was followed by a shot of Michael watching and smiling, which was also nice; lately, he's been seen doing nothing but scheming, and a glimpse of his softer side was overdue.)
As for Rocco? He spent the week offscreen in lockup, but he was far from forgotten. After trying to defuse the situation between Dante and Gio, Emma bumped into Britt, who called her a "runty little thief" right before she realized that Rocco had been cozying up to her in order to make it easier to gain access to her key fob. She was genuinely hurt by this, so we will pause now to give credit to Emma for caring enough to take some of the sting out by assuring Britt that Rocco was, in fact, genuine about wanting to get to know her.
While various adults worried and fought over Rocco's travails, Charlotte and Danny decided to do something about the situation — specifically, make their way over to the PCPD, where they told Nathan they were there to confess to their part in the break-in. After asking if they were sure, he pulled them into the interrogation room, where he dutifully pulled out his recorder and listened while they laid out the story of what really happened that night.
There's a lot we still don't know about whoever the hell this version of Nathan actually is, where he's been, or what he's up to. But in this particular moment, he behaved exactly like the Nathan of old, which is to say he called Jason, and then went down the hall to grab Lulu and Dante, rounding everyone up in the interrogation room before explaining that he was "rusty with procedure," so he'd accidentally recorded their statement without their parents present, which meant none of it counted. They were free to go. Charlotte and Danny were unamused by this, and insisted they wanted to come forward — and after some initial stonewalling that actually lasted a couple of days in terms of screentime, all parties involved agreed. (In the interim, Charlotte told Danny she wanted to invent some more serious allegations against Dalton, which was a nice nod to her Cassadine roots that led Danny to chuckle, "Your parents have no idea how much trouble you are.")
All of which is to say that in the end, Ric's plan to save Rocco by turning the tables on Dalton and leveling more serious charges of filing a false report and obstructing justice against him ended up working — at least as far as getting Jason, Lulu, and Dante on board, which is really no small feat. In the end, though, it turned out to be moot.
I Took Your Advice and Cut Him Loose
After months of being a perfect nothing on the canvas, Dalton finally became a character last week, and you know what it means whenever a background player starts getting lines: instant death. Everyone had the professor in their crosshairs as the week began — starting with Laura, who hauled off and slapped him at a polling station when he smugly predicted that she'd have a harder time protecting her grandson after she lost the election.
Laura's wrath, however, was nothing compared to what Sidwell had in store. Moments after hearing from Marco that Dalton manufactured evidence and drew undue attention to the lab, he was confronted by Britt, who threatened to burn down their entire operation if he didn't find a way to bring his rogue collaborator to heel. (Marco even suggested alerting "the guy you're running this operation with," but was told that the identity of the guy in question was "on a need-to-know basis.")
Clearly, Dalton had become more trouble than he was worth to Sidwell — and that was before Sidwell found out that Dalton had officially attracted the open attention of the WSB by making a drunken ass of himself at the Brown Dog. Initially targeted at the bar as part of a honeypot operation by Vaughn and Joss, Dalton derailed what he was hoping would be a night of sin with Joss by getting into an argument with Emma, who revealed herself as the one who broke into his lab in California and vowed to expose him in Port Charles. When Dalton made like he was going to hit Emma, Vaughn swooped in, flashed his badge, and told him to be at the WSB field office the following day at 1pm sharp; at this point, Dalton skulked off.
Before Dalton met his final destination, we saw Joss comforting Emma, who was disconsolate after learning that Dalton was a target of the WSB, because she knew it meant she didn't need to do anything she'd done, and if she'd stayed out of it, Rocco wouldn't be in lockup. Without outing herself as WSB, Joss assured Emma that she'd done a good thing, and revealed what she'd learned from Dalton at the bar: He had a secret second lab where he'd been doing his animal testing.
Someone's going to have to feed those animals soon, because after leaving the Brown Dog, Dalton's next stop was Wyndemere, where he barged in, interrupted Britt and Sidwell, and demanded that he get the Bureau off his back. Britt, who'd been waiting for a chance to rip into Dalton for going after Rocco, renewed her calls for Sidwell to cut him loose – and Sidwell quickly complied, abruptly turning and shooting Dalton in the chest.
Britt freaked out, which was probably necessary from a narrative standpoint but doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the character and where she's been/what she's done. Sidwell decided to nip this in the bud by calling Pascal into the room and ordering him to take Britt home, which didn't calm her down at all, but did give us a funny moment when Pascal briefly tried to say strapping a bomb to her ankle wasn't personal, then changed his mind and said, "Actually, it was. You are very annoying."
(Pascal is far more annoying than Britt, but still; props for comic timing.)
While Britt fretted back in her room, shaking so badly she couldn't even inject herself with the magic Huntington's serum Sidwell supplies her with, Sidwell set about making use of Dalton's corpse — specifically by having it stuffed in the trunk of Laura's car, then messing with one of her tires so she ended up having to pull over on the side of the road where everyone in Port Charles has their car accidents. When she popped her trunk to get her spare, she got a face full of dead professor, screamed, and called — you guessed it — Sonny.
There was a minute when it seemed like Nathan would uncover the cadaver, because he happened to stop by — probably because he misses the spot where his unconscious body was found behind the wheel of a truck a few weeks ago — but he was called away on duty, leaving Sonny to fix the situation by doing what he always does: call Jason and tell him to hurry over ASAP.
This was really bad timing for Jason. Before leaving the PCPD, Danny told Nathan — while Jason was in earshot — that the kids had stolen the key fob from Britt's purse. This naturally led Jason straight to Britt's door, where he told her what he knew and demanded that she tell him everything he didn't. Because she was already knocked off her axis by Dalton's death, she was moments away from coming clean; all she needed was for Jason to promise that he would finally put her first. Before he had a chance to answer, his phone rang, and she immediately shut down.
I'm not a fan at all of the Britt/Jason dynamic they've had in place since she returned — there's only so far you can go with "I hate you, I need a favor," and we passed that point long ago — but teasing big reveals like this is what soaps do, and while I think we definitely need to know a heck of a lot more about Faison's final project in a hurry, I can understand why this scene played out the way it did. I'll only add that while I'm solidly in the camp that believes Kelly Thiebaud and Steve Burton work well together, I don't think this storyline is doing an effective job of keeping them from consummating while taking advantage of their chemistry. She bitches, he blinks, I yawn. We need more, and quickly.
Anyway, Dalton's dead, and Laura's first official act as the re-elected mayor of Port Charles is aiding and abetting the disappearance of his corpse. You can understand why she'd do this, and also why she'd call her friendly neighborhood mob boss upon finding herself in such a gruesome pickle, and yet this only adds more fuel to the fire surrounding her deeply problematic friendship with Sonny. I'm not sure what the hell the writers think they're doing with all this, but it's only going to get more difficult to hold Laura up as any sort of paragon of virtue when she's guilty of stuff like this.
On the other hand? It didn't take her long to realize Sidwell must be the one behind this, and Laura can be pretty fascinating when she's pissed off. If this storyline ends up making her an active participant in her own destiny rather than someone who relies on Sonny to get things done, and we see her bringing the full weight of her mightiness to bear on Sidwell, I'll forgive the hooey we were subjected to during these scenes.
That's all for the big stuff. Enjoy your Thanksgiving! Until next time, some extra festive bullets:
- Curtis saw the ultrasound of the baby he thinks is his, asked if he could keep it, and got weepy
- Kai, who the writers mistakenly believe is more intelligent than Trina, pointed out that Portia might have been the one to shoot Drew
- Brennan is somehow still staying at the Metro Court on a government salary
- Carlo Rota does a very funny Jason impression
- After refusing to talk to him without her lawyer present, Nina told Chase everything he needed to know in order to connect the dots between Ezra and Jacina
- Carly took a bottle of wine to Brennan's room, told him she's ready to take the next step in their relationship, and then lay passively prone on the couch in his room while he sprawled on top of her like a teenager
- Willow told Alexis she went nowhere near Drew's house the night he was shot
- Measure C failed to pass, leaving Sonny's piers in his control
- Lucas told Carly that if she can't accept that Marco is a part of his life, then he'll need to cut her out of his
- Kevin is apparently in Dublin for some reason
- Kristina casually mentioned that Charlie's has to be completely razed and will never be reopened, and I would love to know how she's paying her rent and/or affording nights out at the Brown Dog
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