General Hospital Recap: Monday, July 29 – Ava Blabs to Cates About Sonny’s Meds – Michael Stops Dad’s Attack

General Hospital (GH) spoilers recap for Monday, July 29, reveals that John Cates (Adam J. Harrington) pushed Jason Morgan (Steve Burton) to get on the stand, testify against Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) and free Carly Spencer (Laura Wright). Jason couldn’t trust Cates and said one deal was enough, but John urged him to mull things over.

Once John made it back to Ava Jerome’s (Maura West) suite at the Metro Court, she gladly let him use it to change for Carly’s arraignment. After talk turned to Sonny and how volatile he was, Ava sought John’s assurance that she could trust him and ultimately spilled a secret.

Ava claimed Sonny exploded a few times, so she got suspicious enough to test his meds and learned one of them was only at a quarter strength. Ava suggested the other medication was likely off too, but she said she never told Sonny out of fear that he’d blame her.

After Ava gave John a warning for his safety, he appreciated it – though he hinted that it’d help her custody case if Sonny came after him.

At the police station, Michael Corinthos (Chad Duell) visited Carly in the interrogation room and got updates on her sending Dante Falconeri (Dominic Zamprogna) to calm Sonny down.

Carly also wanted Michael and Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy) to make peace with Sonny for Donna Corinthos’ (Scarlett Spears) sake. That way, Josslyn and Michael could step up for Donna since Sonny couldn’t be counted on as a father right now.

While Michael vowed to grant Carly’s request, Dante paid Sonny a visit in his office to discuss Carly’s ordeal. Sonny felt that John came back to Port Charles to take him down and suspected Cates would offer Carly and Jason immunity to turn on him.

Dante talked about seeking Anna Devane’s (Finola Hughes) help to handle Cates and warned Sonny not to go after John since it would just make the situation worse.

Once Dante was gone, Brick (Stephen A. Smith) reached out with news on Cates being at the courthouse, so Sonny quickly headed there.

At Kristina Corinthos-Davis’ (Kate Mansi) place, Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn) came over and heard Kristina’s side of the story following her fight with Molly Lansing-Davis (Kristen Vaganos).

Kristina showed Alexis the papers she refused to sign that would relinquish her parental rights. After Kristina ranted about Molly’s outburst, she thought maybe she should keep the baby and file the petition of custody she had drawn up.

Although Kristina kept talking about what would happen if Molly and TJ Ashford (Tajh Bellow) broke up, Alexis struggled to believe they would.

Kristina also suggested TJ and Molly didn’t plan on taking time off with the baby, which meant this child would either stay with a random nanny or with her.

Since Kristina was carrying this baby and would probably end up caring for it, she acted like she should just go ahead and be the mother. Alexis argued that Molly and TJ could have plans that Kristina wasn’t privy to, especially since Molly was such a planner.

However, Kristina felt now was the time to make a move and indicated that she was responsible for this child’s future. After Kristina said she’d get someone else to help her legally, Alexis warned her to really think about what she was doing.

Alexis was concerned about Kristina losing her sister over this, but Kristina was determined to make sure this baby had a stable home.

At GH, Molly told TJ about Kristina refusing to sign the papers and acknowledged that if they went to court, the battle would be between TJ and Kristina. Molly also suggested that a judge would likely side with Kristina as the bio mom in that case.

Now their best strategy in Molly’s opinion was to wait until after the birth and hope Kristina remembered her promise after the pregnancy fog lifted.

Molly also brought up Kristina acting like she’d be a better parent and her prediction about them breaking up. Although Molly and TJ acknowledged there had been times in the last year when that seemed possible, they agreed they didn’t want to lose each other.

After Molly got a phone call about an FBI agent’s latest demands, she had to take off. Dante showed up soon after and got TJ to check into Jack Brennan’s (Charles Mesure) records, but there was no sign of a Jack or John Brennan in the system.

Back at the PCPD, Jason arrived in the interrogation wearing a suit and was upset over Carly not listening to him about Cates. Carly acknowledged that she lost her cool, but Jason really needed her to do whatever Diane Miller (Carolyn Hennesy) said now.

Jason talked about John’s vendetta against Sonny and assured Carly that he’d look out for Michael, Josslyn and Donna if things went south in court.

Once Carly was on her way to the arraignment, Dante found out Anna had taken off on a surprise trip to Washington, D.C.

At the courthouse, John pushed Molly to surrender all the open case files on Sonny, but she questioned whether he had the authority to demand those. Molly also confessed that Sonny was her uncle, which gave John more fuel to harass her.

Cates noticed Sonny enter with Michael, so he started provoking Molly to get a rise out of Sonny. Once Sonny approached, John started provoking him, too.

After John pushed Sonny’s buttons over Jason, Carly, Karen Wexler (last played by Marie Wilson) and Stone Cates (Michael Sutton), Sonny nearly slugged him. Michael held his dad back, but Sonny was definitely furious!