General Hospital spoilers: Carly goes rogue to combat the John Cates problem?

We’ve long suspected that it was only a matter of time before vintage Carly (Laura Wright) returned to General Hospital , and now more than ever, we think she’ll make an appearance.

In the General Hospital episode that aired on July 22, Jason (Steve Burton) and Danny (Asher Antonyzyn) were at Bobbie’s preparing for their father/son boat trip. Hearing their plans and excited for the duo, Carly has sandwiches made for their venture. Unfortunately, before Jason and Danny can go anywhere, John Cates (Adam J. Harrington) walks in like a dark storm cloud and rains on their parade.

The FBI agent informs Jason he won’t be able to go on the trip, much to Carly’s chagrin. Carly knows how much time Jason sacrificed with his sons working as an FBI informant so she wasn’t sent to prison, so she hates seeing her bestie continue to lose out on time with his family. Despite Carly protesting that Jason be able to take the trip with Danny, John was adamant that Jason was unavailable and Jason relented. Stone Cold asked Carly to take his son home and he went upstairs with John to talk.

As we predicted, John is furious with Jason after discovering Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) escaped Port Charles, effectively leaving the Pikeman investigation in shambles. John accused Jason of aiding Valentin, which Jason denied despite him actually helping Valentin via Anna (Finola Hughes).

After ripping into Jason and making accusations, John then demanded Jason go to Quantico to get a new ID so he could go undercover as an inmate in a federal prison. Jason refused, and of course, John threatened to send Carly to prison. Jason stood his ground and John stated if Jason wants to stay in Port Charles then Jason would need to help take down Sonny (Maurice Benard). However, Jason will never go along with that plan.

While the two men stood their respective grounds, Carly met with Anna and asked if the police commissioner is working with John to go after Sonny. Anna couldn't divulge police business, but it became clear Anna is not. When Carly recapped with Anna John’s latest stunt with Jason, Anna asked that the Metro Court owner let her look into the matter and not do anything rash. However, Carly was furious.

Since hearing of Jason’s sacrifice for her, Carly has done a remarkable job not taking action. Despite wanting to turn herself into the authorities and attempt to beat any charges in court, thereby voiding the leverage John has over Jason, she hasn’t yet taken any action due to Jason’s request. However, seeing John continue to try and pull Jason’s strings may be enough for her to now take her chances. If she does, she has to think about a potential trial and how a guilty verdict could impact her kids and grandchildren.

Now let’s say Carly doesn’t turn herself in. We still think she’s about to do something with equally chaotic repercussions. Based on the following preview clip, it looks like she’ll loop Sonny in about John coming after him. We don’t know if she’ll get into all the details about the leverage John has on her or not, but telling an erratic Sonny about the threat John poses in any capacity spells trouble.

The reason Jason didn’t want to tell Sonny about the infamous Carly audio and John is that he knew Sonny in his present state would erupt. Jason even mentioned fearing Sonny would try to kill John. And John may be despicable, but he is still a federal agent. So killing him is a horrible idea.

As things heat up in Port Charles, we can’t help but expect some major fireworks.

New episodes of General Hospital air on weekdays on ABC. If you miss an episode, you can catch up on Hulu .