General Hospital: Sonny Is Leaving the Mob — Is GH’s Mob Era Ending?

On General Hospital, Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) made a stunning announcement to his son Dante Falconeri (Dominic Zamprogna) in the Thursday, August 6 episode: He’s getting out of the mob, just as his right-hand man, Jason Morgan (Steve Burton), opted to do earlier this week.

What Sonny Leaving the Mob Means for GH

On paper, that’s two characters changing direction. In practice, it’s GH potentially signaling a shift in its storytelling identity. For decades, “Sonny in the mob” hasn’t been a single plot — it’s been one of the show’s organizing assumptions, the premise that quietly determines what kinds of stories get told, which characters get placed in the center of the canvas, and what stakes the writers return to for dramatic juice.

That has been just fine with plenty of fans — and a longtime sore spot for others, who’ve argued for years that mob stories have too often come at the expense of other pockets of the canvas, especially the hospital itself.

The mob’s place in GH’s storytelling didn’t begin with Sonny, who was introduced in 1993. In the 1970s, there was mob boss Frank Smith (George Gaynes) and those on his payroll, including Roy DiLucca (Asher Brauner) and a certain someone by the name Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary). In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was Duke Lavery (Ian Buchanan) and the Jeromes, Victor (Jack Axelrod), Olivia (Tonja Walker) and Julian (Jason Culp).

But Sonny — and Jason, who started working for Sonny in 1996 — certainly defined the modern era of it, the version of the show where organized crime as a plot device wasn’t a sometimes-thing. For decades now, Sonny’s mob life is how GH has most reliably made a threat stick around, made a secret cost something, made a favor turn into leverage, made protection come with a bill, made blowback travel from one corner of the canvas to another. Comas, shootouts, divorces, even entire families — the Alcazars, the Zaccharas — came and went along the way.

Both Sonny and Jason have tried to get out of the mob before, only to find it impossible. But that doesn’t appear to be the story GH is telling this time.

The dual events of this week — Jason’s mafia exit followed so swiftly by Sonny’s — reads as more than the men making a career choice. GH isn’t merely swapping out who runs the Corinthos organization, it’s moving the two characters most associated with operating that world toward the exit at the same time — which forces the show to reveal what it wants to lean on next.

Do you think GH is going to pull back on the mob — and is that a change you would embrace or protest? Let us know by voting in our poll and sounding off in the comments below.