There’s a 46 second clip going semi-viral on GH Soap Twitter right now about Jason’s origin story and Carly’s role in it, and people are rightfully (and maybe not so rightfully) getting upset about it because it isn’t entirely accurate.
I love the Jason Quartermaine –> Jason Morgan origin story. It’s one of the best stories that any soap has really done — they completely changed a legacy’s character’s personality, ripped him from his moorings and launched him into a character that became (like it or not) one of the most popular leading male characters in General Hospital history. It was told in layers with deeply, flawed characters and played out over more than a decade as Jason rejected the Quartermaines, then gradually let them in, but by the time he saw the value in some of those members, it was too late to rebuild. That story stalled out in 2008 for many reasons, but I thought it’d be interesting to talk about that story and how what Laura Wright said about Carly’s role in Jason’s story isn’t actually wrong. (And at the same time, ENTIRELY false, lol)
First, my biases: I still find value in the character of Carly, though I’ve lost most of my interest in Laura’s version of it. That’s not a read on her. She plays what she’s given on the page, and for Carly, the vulnerability was always in the performance, not in the lines. I think Tams and Sarah did that better, but your mileage can absolutely vary on that opinion. I am also a huge Jason fan, and have spent the better part of 22 years writing both these characters.
So — here we go.
Character POV vs. Factual Depictions
There’s a tendency by some to take what characters say as factual — as the show saying this is what happened, and not leaving any room for the point of view the character. There’s that old saying that there’s your side and my side, and somewhere in the middle, the truth exists.
I absolutely believe 100% that Carly holds this view that she was the first person to ever accept Jason after he’d been rejected by everyone. She has always seen herself as the true arbiter of who Jason is, and anyone with a different theory or competing for that role or position is the enemy. She thought Robin was a poor choice for Jason, that she really didn’t get or deserve him. She said the same of Elizabeth and even Sam for a long time. (Let’s leave Courtney out of this.)
We, the viewers, know that’s more complicated. And mostly untrue. But it’s not wrong for Laura to talk about Carly’s perception of that relationship. For her, Jason has always been crystallized as the hot guy in the bar who slept with her even though he said he was in love with someone else and stepped up to save her when Tony and AJ tried to take Michael from her. He’s never grown up in her eyes. Which is ironic.
It’s also not wrong for Jason to feel that, in a lot of ways, Carly was the first one to truly accept him. He says that today in 2024 — with the hindsight of how his life has played out. He told Elizabeth in 1999 that Robin and Sonny were responsible for who he turned out to be. Then he goes on to say that he never really grew up in Robin’s eyes, and I think that’s soured him on the pivotal role she played in his life. Jason now sees himself as the eternal student to Robin’s teacher, constantly correcting him and making choices for him. I think it’d be hard for him now to say Robin truly accepted him because, well. he doesn’t think she did.
We, the viewers, know that Robin was almost definitely right in telling AJ the truth about Michael. She should have done it from the beginning, but the way she did it what resonated in Jason’s life. And he never, ever truly forgave her. It’s one of the reasons Robin was never a romantic option for him again. She would never let him make choices for himself, he thinks. Or maybe she would for a time, but she would always think she had the power to make the final one.
As for Sonny, well — he went on to do the same thing Robin did, didn’t he? Not long after Jason tells Elizabeth that he grew up in Sonny’s eyes, he learns that’s not true. Sonny disapproves of Carly. He wants Jason to make better choices, so he decides to remove Carly as an option.
After Jason is shot and is at the boxcar, Sonny tells Jason, “Now you know who we both are.” And Jason just looks at him with empty eyes. It’s this that shakes him. Not the loss of Carly, but the destruction of who he is. What he thought about himself. He had two pillars holding him up — Robin and Sonny. And by the end of 1999, both of those relationships are irrevocably changed.
For Jason, while it might be factually true that Robin and Sonny accepted him, he doesn’t believe that anymore. Because the one thing he asked for them to do — to accept that he makes his own choices, even his own mistakes, they ultimately couldn’t respect.
So, yeah, everyone upset with this comment is right. Factually, Carly was not the person who accepted him first. But in Jason’s own perception (a key word here), I think there’s room to argue that Jason sees it differently.
As for the Quartermaines — that’s actually easier. Emily was a teenager, so I think Jason just doesn’t think about her as accepting or not accepting. She was special to him from the beginning. And Ned? Jason sees that as transactional. He was friendly with Ned until he learned Ned was just like the rest of the Quartermaines — lying about the accident to cover for AJ. They never really recovered from that. As for Lila, I do wish he spoke about her more, but I don’t think Jason had many scenes with Lila at all once he came back in 2002, which is sad. Maybe she’s just too painful to talk about.
The Jason/Carly Dynamic
There’s no arguing that it’s one of the most toxic friendships in soaps today, and it’s always been that way. They started as no name sex partners, and Carly spent a great deal of 1996 being an obsessive ex, fuming that Robin had usurped her. But I rediscovered something interesting when I did a rewatch of 1997.
Jason and Carly were friends that year. Truly friends. In a way that they were never before or since. Carly moves in with Tony after the first of the year, bubbly and anxious about this new chapter. She believes herself in love with Tony for most of the year, scheming to keep the baby’s paternity from him. Jason is the person she talks to, that she really opens up to. There’s still sexual tension, but Jason also sees her as a friend.
Which is why when Carly is at rock bottom and everyone coming down on her, threatening to take Michael from her, Carly goes to Jason and she does something that changes their entire relationship. She asks him to save her world. To be a hero. Because only he can do this for her. For a guy who’s spent the better part of two years struggling for people to see him as something more than damaged, it must have been incredibly flattering. Like it or not, Robin and Jason’s relationship has that teacher/student dynamic that exhausts itself and they struggled to rebuild when Jason no longer needed someone to guide him. Carly not only didn’t look to tell Jason what to do, she wanted Jason to save her.
For me, that’s kind of where the Jason/Carly relationship has always stayed. Carly looks to Jason to save the world, and Jason is always going to come to her call. She gave him Michael. It doesn’t matter that Michael wasn’t his to keep or that it wasn’t healthy for Jason to continue loving him the way he did. Michael opened a piece of Jason’s emotional character that changed his entire life. For better or worse, it’s hard for Jason to turn his back on Carly. Because for a long time, it was turning his back on Michael.
I think this was an interesting dynamic for a while, but it became destructive by the end of the romantic Jason/Carly period when she slept with Sonny. They closed that door on the romance part of their characters, and it was for the better. Gradually, though it took some time, Jason and Carly built a better, more healthy friendship, though it was always tinged with the savior complex Carly can’t let go of.
For the better part of 2005-2012, they’re actually rarely in the same storyline. Carly judges all his choices, but basically leaves him alone to live his life. Jason does his own thing, apart from Sonny and Carly, though always involved in the business. I think Jason had an epiphany after the death of Sam’s baby that he had tied himself too much to Sonny and Carly, and he very deliberately pulled himself back. If you go back and look and those years, I think you’ll find that while he’s always in their circle, they’re not tied together the way they are now. Jason being completely up their asses did not happen until his return in 2017, and even then, he had his own stories with Sam, supporting Elizabeth through her various issues with the idiot she married, etc.
I think we were all scarred by that horrible Jason/Carly romance in 2021 and after that was shoved down our throats, we just want Carly out of his life entirely. I sympathize, I do. The recent Pikeman story was cut off before we got anywhere, but he showed real frustration with her, real anger — which was promising. I’m hoping for a better, new dynamic in the future. Because I am, as always, the eternal optimist.
