General Hospital: January 2023 Discussion Thread

[Darn]

I don't think what he does really matters. He does illegal stuff. He's a mob boss. It's a nice to know but ultimately irrelevant because they'll never show him doing anything destructive. He's an elderly bad boy who doesn't do anything bad.

[carolineg]

I think we discuss this every few months and never reach a definitive conclusion lol.  My understanding is we are to believe it's mostly money laundering and various RICO violations.  I don't think Sonny deals in sex trading, drugs, guns etc himself, but does launder money for those who do.  Plus I think he imports illegal items that may not be drugs or guns but could be anything from counterfeit items to exotic animals lol.

[Vee]

"Sonny is the Tiger King/runs into Joe Exotic expy" is a viable plotline!

[carolineg]

Yes!  I personally think he's importing fake Gucci's and Yeezy's, but tigers and monkeys would be cool too.  Like @Darn said we will never know because Sonny does illegal things, but the audience can't know what those bad things are because then we might think Sonny is bad.

[Vee]

Which is why I still say that if this show ever undergoes a sea change, just do it. Get Scorpio in a room laying it all out for the other cop characters and how Sonny funnels all his worse businesses into intermediaries and then claims he's not doing them. We always knew he was doing that shít in the '90s and the turn of the century. But whatever, I'm bitter.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Vee

[titan1978]

You want to center the show around a mobster, you should play at least a version of the truth.  For all the faults I had with Guza, I never doubted his Sonny was a criminal.  And those around him paid the price quite often, even if the show went out of their way to say he was a good man.

Once upon a time it wasn’t that Sonny was “better” than the Quartermaines.  It was just that Jason Morgan could no longer be Jason Q, and actively wanted to be around people that were more honest and didn’t have expectations.  The saint Sonny stuff comes around later, still during Riche though.

Edited January 19, 2023 by titan1978

[carolineg]

Yeah, well in the 90's Sonny was allowed to have a dark side and his business was allowed to be dangerous and scary.  Sonny was a bad guy that did nice things sometimes.  He was so far in the business he couldn't get out when he tried.  20 years later he's had numerous opportunities to get out........he just didn't.  I don't know why Sonny doesn't just get out now.  For Michael, for Nina, for whatever reason.   I don't even think the mob really drives much story these days.

When in the Riche area do feel like it began?  I always think of it as after she left.

[Vee]

Me too.

[titan1978]

I felt back then it started really creeping in when they went forward with Sonny/Carly. There were moments before that, but it really settled in there for me.  Once Guza returned with Pratt under JFP, it was full steam ahead.  Actually, I would say it started with Jason being the lead when Sonny left for a year.  Saint Jason existed before we got full on Saint Sonny.  Then it kind of transferred along with Michael to Sonny.

[carolineg]

Hmmm...now that you say that I guess I can see the Sonny being a saint stuff starting when he came back.  His huge 'sacrifice' for Brenda amounted to nothing because she 'died' anyway, Hannah played him, and Jason was basically better at being the head of the mob than Sonny.  But that begins the sanctification of Jason more to me like you said.  Sonny was just kind of a sad sack.  Even him hooking up with Carly was screwing Jason over in a misguided attempt to protect him or something.   I definitely can see your point of view.  In my mind it started more when TB took over as Carly and the Sonny/Carly pairing was more romanticized and they became the leading couple.  I think SB's Carly/Sonny still remained a very toxic coupling with two people who weren't great. 

[Vee]

I think they did truly show it more often in the Guza years, but also regularly walked it back or tried to fob it off on someone else. Ron and Frank did this too. In the later years, when he was perhaps tiring of Maurice (which we've all discussed here a lot from that period), Guza seemed to have a keener interest in showing the price of Sonny's choices: Michael is shot in the head and comatose for years, then his marriage for power to Claudia (who ordered the hit) gets Michael convicted, jailed and raped. Later, Sonny destroys Jax's life to help Carly in court then accidentally crashes his plane and nearly kills him, all of which cost him Brenda.

They always had some bullshit buffer character or plot event to try to mitigate Sonny's guilt, but the point is there were far less of them in the late 2000s-early 2010s. You could not fail to acknowledge that yeah, Sonny got Michael shot, Sonny got Michael jailed and raped. Even Jason and Carly basically said it. Ron also had Sonny murder A.J. in cold blood. The difference is he had even less interest in playing the consequences and guilt than Guza's team. He seemed to simply get bored of the story.

My version of a Guza twist was always to have Sonny and Ava's mob war ice each other out by having their retaliation criss-cross: Sonny would accidentally kill Kiki by bombing Ava's penthouse and Ava would accidentally get Avery killed while having her people run what she thought was Sonny's limo off the road. Kiki is dead, but you could still do that with any of their various extraneous relations or children today. Willow too!

I think Sarah's Carly and Maurice were absolutely a supercouple. I think they (and Tamara's) were the last GH supercouple, with the exception of perhaps Patrick and Robin (I'm sure some people count Jason and Sam, Nikolas and Emily or Jason and Elizabeth but I fuckin' don't). And I think the writing for Sarah and Maurice by the end of Guza I/MVJ was very romanticized, but it worked for me as a teen because the show was overall more gritty and candid in those days and they didn't pretend either of them were total saints. It wasn't until Guza II with Pratt that S&C and Jason/Courtney become totally golden superheroes.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Vee

[carolineg]

Oh, I agree about Sonny/Carly being GH's last supercouple.  I don't even consider Patrick/Robin mostly because I vastly prefer Jason/Robin lol.  Anyway, regarding Carly/Sonny, I thought they were portrayed as two people that were very damaged that slowly fell in love with one another's faults and imperfections.  They were different than their previous romances and it was interesting to watch unfold.  I did really like them through most of Tamara's entire run.  I do think Guza/Pratt wrote them as superheroes, but I also think Frons/Guza/JFP/whoever started to really try to appease some of the nuttier, more vocal S&C fans plus catering to MB's demands and the writing suffered.

[AbcNbc247]

Spencer, FTW!!

If I didn’t think I could like the guy anymore than I already did, I was wrong. He was great defending Cam and supporting him and exposing Joss for the trashy, unfeeling whore that she is. God, I f****n hate her. I can’t wait for Cam to get the chance to rip her to shreds.

Everyone should have a friend like Spencer. The Cam/Spencer bromance is one of the best things on the show right now. 

And even though I don’t really like Sonny, I’ll always be a fan of Carly getting dragged, regardless of who it’s coming from. 

[Noel]

Not fake Gucci's, lol! Nooo! What is this world coming to?

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 I must admit reading this thread is not only entertaining, but it also helps me know a little of who's who. 

So far, this is pretty decent drama. I could be wrong as history is important, so I don't in terms if there are past stories where history has been re-written or not.

I enjoyed yesterday's eppy and look forward to more scenes with Nina and Ava. I think these two are my faves. They seem more relatable to me for some reason. I get them wholly and completely.

[Darn]

They've always shown the consequences of his business but rarely past like 1997 what he actually does. He has territory that others want, everyone has a gun, you will explicitly hear what his enemies do wrong (Alcazar was an arms dealer for instance) but not what makes what he does illegal.