sonny michael
Credit: ABC screenshot (2)

Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

We get it. People can have tunnel vision, especially when emotions are running high. So we understand entirely why young General Hospital dad Michael would want to keep Wiley from the grandmother he blames for breaking up his folks’ marriage (and then some). But by going so far as to have her legally barred from seeing the boy, Michael is behaving just like his father, Sonny — and it’s destined to burn him… badly.

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Were Michael able to see something other than red when he looks at Nina, he might recall how he felt about being kept away from biodad A.J. for huge chunks of his life. Like Nina, A.J. was no saint. But his son still wanted to know him and wasn’t at all cool with the fact that Sonny had once hung him from a meat hook and forced him to sign away his parental rights.

Sonny's menacing laugh

“I wouldn’t hurt a fly. A.J., on the other hand… ”

Credit: ABC screenshot

Stuff like this always comes back to haunt people. Michael knows that. He’s just thinking short-term: “How can I hurt Nina?” However, in the long term, the people he’s going to hurt are himself, when Wiley starts resenting him for taking away his grandma, and his son, who will miss out on a relationship with Nina.

Say what you will about her — and we know you will — she loves Nelle’s only child, and being around her wouldn’t be any more hazardous to his health than, say, being around his Pop Pop, the godfather of Port Charles, or Carly, who once drugged A.J. and dumped him in a laundry cart to make him think that he’d fallen off the wagon.

GENERAL HOSPITAL michael carly toast- "General Hospital" airs Monday-Friday, on ABC (check local listings). (ABC/Todd Wawrychuk)LISA LOCICERO, DOMINIC ZAMPROGNA, LAURA WRIGHT, CHAD DUELL, SOFIA MATTSSON

“A toast… to only having good influences around Wiley. Oh, and you, Mom.”

Credit: ABC

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Sonny paid dearly for separating Michael from A.J., in one bitter fight after another. Now, Michael stands to replay those painful scenes with his own son. (Of course, we doubt that things will get that far; the revelation that Nina is Willow’s mother promises to shuffle the whole house of cards!)

Review highlights of Michael’s wild life in the below photo gallery.