General Hospital Viewers Are Irate Over Natalia’s Self-Victimizing and Sonny’s Misplaced Anger — Plus, Why Are They Writing Ava to Be So Stupid?

Credit: ABC screenshots

Most of this week’s episodes of General Hospital revolved around Ava leaking the recording of Natalia’s homophobic remarks and the fallout from it hitting the press. Just as with the episodes surrounding Gregory’s death and Finn’s alcoholic spiral, which I previously called Emmy-worthy, this week served up even more contenders for next year’s awards. I will say, though, that as I watched and recapped this week, I could feel my blood pressure rising at times! This week’s column is also pretty much divided up into before the Fourth of July and after.

Natalia and Blaze Both Outed by the Press

Natalia, the character fans have hated since her introduction, finally got knocked off the pedestal she’d put herself on as Alison’s controlling mother and account manager. Alexis chose the worst possible moment to resign from The Invader, even though it had to be done. Without her there, Adrian was free to splash the story of Natalia’s homophobic remarks on the front page, and the story spread like wildfire.

More: Jacqueline Grace Lopez’s milestone moment

Outings in the press like this usually don’t happen in this day and age. In fact, they are frowned upon unless said figure is an anti-LGBTQ+ public figure who leads a double life. Alexis was right to argue that this was a lawsuit waiting to happen and that even stars are entitled to some level of privacy. Heck, how often are the paparazzi sued for invasion of privacy?

Many fans didn’t understand why Blaze and Kristina were canceled when it should have been Natalia and the leaker. Sadly, the LGBTQ+ community is often like a political party, and at times, there can be more infighting than unity in the group. Extremists calling on Kristina to resign for hiding her love life is going a little far, but it’s not all that out there, as every group has its share of members who are really on the fringes.

Blaze likely will take a hit to her career with some of her fans, but it is 2024, and the music industry has changed. The younger fan base, which I’m sure her pop music caters to, is far more accepting than the generations before. However, it’s also not hard to understand why Blaze would hesitate to come out. For example, just recently, Jason Mraz spoke about coming out and why he took so long to do so. Other recent examples include Lil Nas X and Jojo Siwa, who have faced backlash from some for coming out.

The scenes of Blaze breaking down and letting her mother have it for all the years of her negative remarks about gay people were fantastically written and acted by Jacqueline Grace Lopez. Natalia trying to claim she was a victim, too, was laughable! Alison/Blaze must fire Natalia after this, as her career WILL NOT survive if she keeps her mother on. I also see this as a good segue to bring into the fold her brother or the long-lost uncle she suspected was gay and disappeared from their family years ago. Even if only as a visiting character.

While the characters’ reactions to Natalia were satisfying to watch, Maxie won the week by telling her, “Either you and Blaze get with the program or kick rocks!” Watching Maxie take Natalia down by letting her know Deception was a gay-friendly company and that it had gay customers and influencers following them was epic! It was also great to see them not drop Blaze and how Maxie was able to try and turn the narrative around with the Crimson ad piece “No one cancels love.”

Many fans were upset that Sonny seemed more focused on making Ava pay than giving Natalia the boot. Yes, she already told him she was still struggling with accepting Alison as a lesbian. However, having difficulties accepting someone and then saying such ugly words about them are two different things. I think part of this concerns Sonny’s meds being off, and his current obsession with and hatred of Ava. As to why he thinks Ava did this to hurt Kristina and get to him, that left me confused. More to come on this.

Not only did Maxie shine this week, but Kristina did as well. She refused to let Alison/Blaze throw a pity party for herself, refused to let her walk away from their relationship, and refused to believe this would defeat them. Kristina has grown up a lot in the past year, but this was a big moment for her.

Ava Exposed

As incredible as it was to see Natalia finally get what she deserves, so much of the outing didn’t work for me or make sense. What exactly was Ava trying to accomplish? Was she trying to rile up Sonny? Make him look bad for associating with Natalia in order to help with her custody case? How, in the end, did this serve Ava? Also, she is anything but stupid or rash, and they are writing her as both. How did she NOT expect Natalia to eventually remember it was her to whom she spoke those words? Why did she NOT send the recording in anonymously so Adrian couldn’t rat her out, which he did in record time? It makes zero sense. As I said, Ava is not stupid, but writing her this way is. She’s cool and calculating. She doesn’t make decisions out of the blue, such as sending a recording to the press on a whim.

Alexis was on fire when she confronted Ava in her Metro Court room. She’s also the second character in a matter of weeks to throw Connie’s murder in her face, which can’t be a coincidence. It’s been coming up a lot lately. Alexis also stated what fans have been chattering about: Ava has burned every one of her bridges, she has no one left, and her latest stunt has destroyed her life. Even Trina is opening her eyes after Ava begged her to give her any dirt on Sonny that Joss has told her. With Ava losing everyone, viewers are again wondering if this is it for Ava. Are they setting up a “Who killed Ava?” storyline? I hope it will only be a “Who tried to kill Ava?” story. As crazy as it is that they’ve so quickly undone her redemption, I still love the character and the actress. I hope the writers make the character’s actions make sense!

Of course, then along came Scott, whom Lucy ordered to dump Ava as a client. Scott never seemed to get that far with Ava, only telling her she made her case for custody of Avery far more difficult with this stunt. He gave her an idea when he said the only thing that could help her now was if Sonny killed someone on video or had a meltdown in public. But how is Ava going to arrange the latter? My guess is she’ll wait until he’s beginning a manic phase and taunt him. Perhaps she will whisper in his ear that she’s glad Morgan is dead, or maybe she’ll somehow be behind Morgan’s upcoming return as a way to break Sonny.

Final Friday Thoughts

Friday brought an epic showdown between Kristina and Natalia. Natalia cried crocodile tears that she wasn’t brought up the same way as Kristina, that she was taught gay people were confused, it was a sickness, they chose to be that way, and they were wrong. Some still believe that malarkey, but Kristina wasn’t having it and told Natalia she couldn’t keep blaming her bigotry on how she was raised. Kristina gave Maxie a run for her money in this episode.

In light of what I wrote above, I was glad to see Maxie and Brook Lynn bring up the nasty business of the press outing people. While I noted that the music industry and fan bases have changed in the past decade, I was shocked that the label dropped Blaze. We deserve some clarity on this, and I can only guess it has nothing to do with Blaze’s sexuality and everything to do with distancing themselves from the drama that Natalia’s remarks are making. Blaze, sadly, looks to be a victim of being guilty by association here.

The Metro Court pool scenes on Friday were a lot of fluff, but they only seemed to confirm that Drew will hire Nina as his campaign manager. Maybe his campaign will be rocked by a sex scandal involving him, Nina and the office floor?

Finally, the scenes between Dante and Sonny were pretty powerful. Once again, I have to ask, why is no one questioning Sonny’s mental state and his medications? Sonny was becoming increasingly unglued every second that passed. Even Dante said it to him, “Get yourself together!” When Sonny noted he had a code, that he never hurt a child, I thought to myself, “Well, thank God that Ava didn’t hear him say that, as that would have given her even more ideas!” Then again, it felt like a hint of what may be to come in how Sonny goes down…

That’s all I’ve got for you this week. As always, these are only my thoughts. Leave your own in the comments below!