🤫 Josslyn’s Moral Victory: The Convenient Scapegoat That Is Dalton

The dramatic timing is sickeningly perfect, isn’t it? Just as the city of Port Charles reels from the wholly avoidable death of Rocco—a death caused by the very system General Hospital constantly romanticizes—the writers hand us a convenient resolution: Josslyn Jacks discovers Professor Dalton’s terrible secret right before the villain dies. This isn’t thrilling storytelling; it’s a cowardly, predictable mechanism designed to sweep the mess under the rug and protect the true culprits.

Josslyn, the perpetual student of moral righteousness and self-appointed judge of everyone else’s flaws, is now positioned to play the heroine. We are meant to cheer as she unearths the shocking truth about Dalton—the man who maliciously framed Rocco and whose actions are indirectly responsible for the young man’s death. But let’s be judgmental and brutally honest: this “discovery” is nothing more than a contrived act of cleanup. Dalton’s timely death is the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for everyone else involved.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. By having Dalton die immediately after the secret is exposed, the show ensures that there will be no lengthy, difficult legal battle, no messy interrogation of the prison system, and crucially, no accountability for the heroes. Dalton becomes the singular, evil scapegoat, allowing Dante to wallow in his grief without facing the music, and allowing Sonny to launch a self-righteous mob vendetta without any moral consequence for his own life choices. General Hospital refuses to acknowledge the negative impact of its core dynamic—the mob’s existence—so it invents a disposable villain to take the fall.

Josslyn’s “terrible secret” discovery, while giving her a moment in the spotlight, serves only to reinforce the show’s toxicity. It tells the audience that justice is not served by legitimate legal means, but by a soap opera teenage detective who conveniently stumbles upon evidence right before the villain conveniently expires. The system remains corrupt, the mob remains powerful, and a piece of paper or a hidden flash drive instantly fixes the emotional trauma, absolving the core characters of any real, lasting guilt.

It is a judgment against the very soul of the show. Dalton was a means to an end, and now that his purpose is served—to provide a catalyst for pain—he is unceremoniously disposed of. This is not justice; it is cheap, manipulative, and ensures that the cycle of hypocrisy in Port Charles will continue spinning its exhausting, predictable web.