Some General Hospital fans may not be happy to hear it, but we’ve been predicting a new version of #Jarly is coming, and we don’t mean Jason (Steve Burton) and Carly (Laura Wright). We’re talking about John ‘Jagger’ Cates (Adam J. Harrington) and Carly.
Now we’ll admit, when Jason resurfaced back in Port Charles, we immediately thought besties Jason and Carly would again explore a romantic component to their relationship as they had done prior to his presumed death. However, he’s been back in town for a few weeks now, and the sparks aren’t really flying. Granted, they’ve got some pretty big fish to fry with Pikeman still looming around and Sonny (Maurice Benard) continuing down in his spiral. However, the dynamic duo are displaying purely besties vibes.
John and Carly on the other hand have some real chemistry that leads us to think they are on track to kick off a summer fling at the very least. Sure, Carly couldn’t stand the FBI agent at first because he was trying to arrest Jason. But as longtime viewers of General Hospital know, most of Carly’s romances start from a place of loathing her suitor. Then her feelings transform into something else after one big incident.
In this case, it was seeing John get beat up and her taking it upon herself to nurse him back to health. As she tended to his wounds at the Metro Court, she got to know John a little better and they shared some interesting moments of banter.
With all that being said, John and Carly have a few obstacles in their way to becoming this whirlwind romance. The biggest obstacle being John allegedly has irrefutable evidence that Carly is guilty of RICO crimes, and this evidence is what John is using to blackmail Jason into working for him.
We can’t imagine a world where Carly would even entertain John’s company if she knew about this. Although she’s in the dark about this secret for now, it’s bound to come out. It’s the soap world after all. So the question we have to ask is how she will find out? This is where we look to Michael (Chad Duell).
In the General Hospital episode airing on April 18, it looks like Michael shares with Josslyn (Eden McCoy) his concerns about John and Carly getting close. Although he doesn’t know about the blackmail component, he knows John works for the FBI and likely would love to take down Sonny, so that’s probably all Michael needs to hear to dislike the agent. Sonny may not care for his son these days, but we doubt Michael wants him sent to prison.
This leads us to think that Michael will do some digging into John. While he may look to Jason for some initial intel, we don’t think Jason will offer up too much for fear that Michael could get caught up in this blackmail plot or could trigger John to use the information he has against Carly. That’s when we can imagine Michael using his money and connections to do a deeper dive into the agent.
If our theory proves correct, we think Michael will stumble across something big. It makes sense for him to find proof that John is manipulating Jason, and then for Michael to run to his mom with the information. That would probably convince Carly not to trust John.
However, what if the information Michael finds out is something completely unexpected? Perhaps he follows some breadcrumbs and finds evidence that John is Dex’s (Evan Hofer) biological father. While on the surface that doesn’t seem like intel that would destroy John and Carly’s blooming relationship, if John doesn’t know he has a child and Michael promises to point John in the direction of said child in exchange for him leaving Carly alone, would John take the bait?
Taking it a step further, what if Michael discovers that John’s ex-wife Karen Wexler (Marie Wilson) had a baby years ago and that she gave the child up for adoption? Then researching the issue further, Michael finds out that John didn’t raise the child and let him go up for adoption because the baby’s was Jason’s son who turns out to be Dex. If Carly and Jason find out that John knew Jason had a son out in the world and hid that information from him, that too would likely destroy Carly’s connection with John.
While much of this is theory, we can’t help thinking how interesting the prospect of Michael blowing up his mother’s love life really is.
New episodes of General Hospital air on weekdays on ABC. If you miss an episode, you can catch up on Hulu.
