General Hospital spoilers: John Cates or Ava murdered?

When it comes to General Hospital ’s John Cates (Adam J. Harrington) and Ava (Maura West), they’ve managed to get under the skin of nearly every resident in Port Charles.

For John, not only is he largely responsible for why Jason (Steve Burton) has been away from his loved ones for almost three years, but the FBI agent also continues to taunt and threaten Jason with the infamous Carly (Laura Wright) audio. Now that Carly is aware of the sacrifice her bestie made for her, she too is livid with John for threatening to throw her in prison using the audio recording.

Beyond the best friends, John has also had several bad run-ins with Sonny (Maurice Benard) and Anna (Finola Hughes), and we imagine Sam (Kelly Monaco) isn’t thrilled with John for Jason’s disappearing act either (although, she largely blames Jason and Carly for Jason ultimately making the sacrifice).

Then there’s Ava. The art gallery owner was never in contention to win a popularity contest in town, as she came on the show scheming against and manipulating several of the main players in Port Charles. In terms of her recent transgressions, she leaked an audio clip to the press of Natalia (Eva LaRue) making disparaging remarks about the LGBTQ+ community, just to get back at Sonny. Additionally, she encouraged Sonny to alienate most of his loved ones, was discovered to be behind Alexis’ (Nancy Lee Grahn) disbarment and is responsible for Sonny’s latest bipolar medicine prescription being swapped with placebos (that’s not known yet).

We should also add that John’s relentless investigation of Pikeman drew the eyes of Brennan (Charles Mesure) and Valentin (James Patrick Stuart), and Ava and Sonny are now entrenched in a custody battle.

Having said all of that, between John and Ava, there is no shortage of people who may want to see them gone for good. So will one of these two find themselves murdered?

Now we’ve long suspected that Ava was going to be killed off the soap . Writers have really painted her into a corner, and we can’t readily see how she makes it out unscathed. Messing with Sonny’s medicine alone is a major misstep that could bring about severe consequences once the truth is revealed.

As far as John goes, given he’s not been back on the soap canvas that long and he doesn’t have any known familial ties to Port Charles, his death wouldn’t seem to be as impactful on fans. Plus, with him gone, there’s a chance Jason, Carly and Sonny could see their FBI problems disappear (after they’re able to beat suspicions of murder). The trio desperately needs out of this current holding pattern they find themselves in.

To add another twist to our theory, what if John is murdered and Ava is framed to look like the killer? That scenario would also solve Sonny’s custody issue, and many people in town may not shed a tear for Ava if she’s wrongfully convicted, even if temporarily. Let’s not forget, Ava still has Connie’s (Megan Ward) blood on her hands, and she never paid for the crime. Plus, Ava tampered with Morgan’s (Bryan Craig) medicine which led to his death.

As the walls close in on John and Ava, we’ll be paying attention to see what happens next.

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