The Hypocrisy of Hysteria: Tracy’s Regret is Just Another Power Play

 

The title you provided—Ronnie dies in a plane crash, Tracy cries tears of regret—is a masterful piece of manipulative soap opera clickbait, but the reality is far more cynically Port Charles. Ronnie Bard did not die in a plane crash. Instead, the short-term character (Monica’s long-lost, less-privileged sister, played by the legendary Erika Slezak) simply made her exit, returning to North Carolina after serving her purpose in a scheme that, once again, exposes the rot at the core of the wealthy Quartermaine dynasty.

The “death” here is not Ronnie’s, but the supposed regret of Tracy Quartermaine.

Tracy, the relentless, judgmental queen of the Quartermaine empire, spent Ronnie’s entire run treating her with “appallingly awful” contempt, constantly confronting her and attempting to bully her out of the mansion [1.1]. The source of this entire conflict was a fraudulent will concocted by Martin Gray to make it look like Monica had left the house to Ronnie, a scheme designed purely to torment Tracy [1.6].

If Tracy is “bursting into tears of regret,” it is not because she suddenly grew a conscience and mourns the poor, working-class Ronnie, but because her own greed and judgmental nature were weaponized against her. She “drowns her sorrows” because Ronnie’s announcement that she was selling the family home—to the family nemesis, Drew Cain, no less—shocked the entire Quartermaine clan and exposed the potential loss of her prized possession [3.2, 3.6].

Tracy’s tears are not of genuine grief over her appalling behavior toward her sister-in-law’s sibling. They are tears of pure self-interest and foiled ambition.

The Catalyst for “Regret”: The only thing that stopped Ronnie from selling the mansion to Drew was Tracy finally finding Monica’s legitimate, original will, which proved her own side of the story [4.1]. Her emotional climax was tied not to human feeling, but to the legal vindication of her right to the house.
The Unearned Victory: Ronnie was not a heartless villain; she was a victim blackmailed by Martin and pushed to the brink, admitting “through tears that there was something else going on” [4.4]. Her tears were genuine distress; Tracy’s tears, by contrast, are simply frustration that her life was momentarily disrupted by her own family’s corruption and her inability to accept that she could possibly be the target of deception.
The Ultimate Judgment: Tracy’s eventual “upper hand” allows her to seize ownership of the mansion [4.2]. Instead of showing remorse for how she treated the “poor kid who’s worked all her life” [1.1], she vows to make “huge changes” and potentially evict family members who doubted her, further cementing her vindictive, selfish nature [4.2].

The great tragedy is that Ronnie, a character who was “out of her depth and doesn’t know what the hell’s going on when she steps into this town” [1.1], was used as a mere pawn in the never-ending power struggle of Port Charles’s wealthy elite. The emotional manipulation of the title—”Tracy bursts into tears of regret”—is just a cynical curtain drop on a storyline that only served to confirm that in this town, the only thing that truly matters is controlling the deeds and the money.