Written by Alan Sarapa
Last week marked the ten year anniversary of Chad Duell playing Michael Corinthos on ABC’s General Hospital. The character of Michael has been driving story since he was a baby, when Carly, Jason and Sonny schemed to keep Michael’s biological father A.J. Quartermaine from raising him. A meat hook was involved. Michael is a Quartermaine, a Spencer and a Corinthos. And yet he is a nothing character.
Chad Duell can act. He is not facially challenged. He does have a rapport with actors playing his family members. Yet he has never had a successful pairing in 10 years. From Abby, the stripper who he treated like a therapist only for her to hilariously die off screen via crane to his most recent pairing with Sasha, it has been a parade of blah. Romance is the bread and butter of soaps. If you aren’t inspired to make a fan video of a couple set to a Kim Petras song, what’s the point? And worse yet, the pairings do not even inspire intense hate…just quiet disinterest.
The writing is partially to blame for Michael being a character who is just there. Michael is passive. Things just happen to him. The writers could not even let him take the lead of finding out his baby is alive. He just stood there for an hour while Carly (Michael’s mother, currently played by Laura Wright) did her usual yelling like she wanted to speak to a manager. A young leading man should be a dynamic character. If he can’t fight for himself and has to hide behind mommy, why should we root for him? Being connected to half the town isn’t enough.
The sad thing is that, for a few months in 2015, Michael was interesting. He had turned on Sonny (his adoptive father, played by Maurice Bernard) and Carly after it was revealed Sonny had busted a cap in A.J. and sent him to Soap Heaven to be with all the other dead Quartermaines the show had massacred back in the 2000’s. Michael got custody of the baby Sonny and Ava (Michael’s girlfriend’s mother, played by Maura West) had conceived on A.J’s grave to punish his father. Fans loved it. They were getting what they had wanted for years! Alas, soap fans can’t have nice things, so Michael’s spine crumbled to dust after a few months and he went back to mob apologist status.
There are ways to fix this. My first inclination is firing Chad Duell and recasting Michael, but there’s no guarantee the writing would change. Here’s my suggestions:
Option 1: Make Michael an alcoholic. It has never made sense that he’s so well-adjusted. He was shot in the head, spent a year in a coma, bonked Claudia (his former stepmom, played by Sarah Brown) on the head (killing her) to save his sister whom she had kidnapped after it was revealed she had accidentally put him in said coma, raped in prison, his adoptive father murdered his biological father, and he has multiple dead girlfriends. He should be a mess who needs copious therapy. Yet he has the demeanor of a bland hero in a Hallmark movie who helps the heroine save her bakery mixed with the asexual energy of a guy who does finger guns and pronounces Target like it is French.
It would be easy to drive Michael to booze. Have Nelle (his unbalanced baby momma, played by Chloe Lanier) take their son Wiley and flee the country. Then a devastated Michael could unravel and be self-destructive like A.J. was in his heyday. Material like that could give Chad Duell something to sink his teeth into. They could even do a drinking and driving story with parallels to the famous story where A.J. ended up giving his brother (and Michael’s almost father/uncle) Jason the brain damage that resulted in him being the perpetually constipated hitman we know today.
Option 2: Make Michael a mobster. Before you start screaming at me, I’m not a huge fan of mob stories, but if we have to have them, I want them to be interesting. And having none of Sonny’s clown car full of kids become mobsters feels like a writing mistake.
Michael joining “the business” would change the dynamics of the show. Carly would be pissed because she’s never wanted her kids in the mob despite her addiction to mobster dong. Plus, it would be easy to write. Have Sonny be incapacitated while Jason is missing. Michael would feel compelled to help with the business. Having Michael as a criminal would be a natural consequence of him growing up around crime.
Option 3: Revisit Michael’s 2015 hatred of Sonny and Carly. Sonny and Carly could order Jason to kill Nelle, but Jason misses and hits Michael’s girlfriend Willow instead. Willow could die in Michael’s arms and reignite his recognition of how toxic his parents are. This is the least likely option to happen because this show refuses to let Sonny and Carly be portrayed as villains when that’s what they are.
Option 4: Write Michael out. This is the nuclear option. They could have Michael move to ELO’s (the nondescript corporation that is his Quartermaine birthright) European office for a year or two. When they want him back, they can hire a new actor or convince Chad Duell to return. Sometimes it is best to rest a character and play around with underutilized characters on the canvas. Days of Our Lives does this often. They’ll fire someone and then they’ll be back in six months to a year.
I strongly suspect they’ll just keep on pretending nothing is wrong because that is the General Hospital way. We’ll probably see Michael and Willow getting married soon, which I’m dreading. Those two, as a couple, would be like slathering mayo on a rice cake. It is dead on arrival just like every other pairing in his decade on the show. Happy anniversary, I guess?
Catch Chad Duell as Michael Corinthos on General Hospital weekdays on ABC.
Dispatches from Soapland:
*Flo on The Bold and the Beautiful was being awfully self-righteous with Sally for faking a terminal illness. Flo let Hope think her baby was dead! This is like the Spider-Man pointing at himself meme.
*Kristen on Days of Our Lives stabbing Victor was great. I was worried they were making her too nice, so it warmed my heart to watch her stab that old man. Good for her.
*Why is The Young and the Restless acting like this is the first time Adam has killed someone? He killed Ashley’s unborn baby while in half assed drag, killed Charles Taylor, (probably) killed Richard Hightower, turned Delia into a speed bump they’d cry about for years for Emmy reels and killed a rando in Vegas. If Adam were a real person, he’d have a true crime podcast devoted to him by now and Keith Morrison would want him on Dateline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD1wKJUx2YA
Spot on!
Have Michael revisit his angry side. It’s what killed Claudia. He has less control. He already tried to step in for Sonny once before…aside from Belle, head has his cousin Ned trying to unseat him at ELQ, which results in Valentin having a chunk of the family business. So much going on outside of his control could result in loss of self control. Parents are AJ and Carly, some reckless behavior, risk, is called for.
It’s time for his angry less controlled self to surface. He killed Claudia because he lost control. He once tried to sit in for Sonny with the families and didn’t do too bad. Besides Nelle his cousin Ned is trying to take his position in ELQ resulting in Valentin having a chunk of the company. Time to lose the control and act out!.
His parents are AJ and Carly it’s in his DNA to be reckless, take some risks. Can you imagine Willow trying to wrap her mind around that Michael. He’s a grown man, stop writing him like a boy who’s mommy fights his battles.
Let Ned take over ELQ and piss Michael off. Turn Michael into a JR tycoon like on the old series Dallas. That would be different on the show. It would open up for all kinds off new stories and characters. It would be perfect since he has ties in the business world and the mob
I couldn’t disagree more. Deapite who his parents are, he is the good one…the reliable, good-hearted, honest one. I enjoy Chad’s portrayal of Michael and how he relates to the other characters. Maybe seeing his goofier side, a humorous version of Michael, but leave him as he is.