Monday recap: the bored and the boring.

Delia makes a grand entrance at the PCPD, promising to clear up this Ava/Denise idiocy. If only that were actually true and this wasn’t clearly going to drag on for months of bad accents and tacky wigs!

Anna can’t believe that Nikolas could be the one behind the election tampering. Sloane, sounding like he’s channeling the writers’ room, asks if it’s really so strange that he would be following in his family’s footsteps.

SLOANE: Is is so inconceivable?
ANNA: What, that you fixed the mayoral election? No. And that you had someone help you, yeah, sure I get that. But it couldn’t have been from the person you say.
SLOANE: The Cassadine family has a very bad reputation. They have a long history of going to any length to get what they want. Why should prince Nikolas be any different?

Yeah, why should Nik be any different than his psychotic family? I mean, other than every bit of previous characterization he’s ever gotten, the two decades he’s spent being disgusted and horrified by Stavros and Helena, or his genuine love for all the people he’s currently hurting, of course. But who cares about petty details like those?

Cut to Nikolas, on the phone with Rosalie. He reminds both her and the audience that she really works for him. I can see why he might assume we’d forgotten, as it’s been so long since this plot has gone anywhere. Unfortunately, Rosalie is making this call from the Quartermaine living room, because she went to the Olivia Falconeri school of incompetent secret-keeping. Naturally, Tracy overhears enough to be suspicious.

TRACY: Did Michael ever tell you the importance of discretion when carrying on furtive conversations about the family business?
NIKOLAS: [incredulous] Is that Tracy? Are you calling me from the Quartermaine house?

First of all: LOL, Tracy. As if anyone in this town, including you, has ever learned the importance of that lesson. Second: I know, Nik, I know. So hard to blackmail competent minions these days. Rosalie covers by claiming to have been on the phone with Nina, on Michael’s orders. Tracy marches off to find Ned and verify the story of him giving away his shares, when Lulu comes in to tell her that Luke is missing.

Madeline — whose time in prison has not limited her access to drag queen amounts of eye makeup, by the way — wants a progress report on Ric’s efforts to get control of the family fortune. They helpfully recap a bunch of information they both already know, like the fact that she is still in prison because her original lawyers weren’t able to convince the judge she had nothing to do with the big break out. Since all of the prisoners who actually escaped that night are now walking around free, it seems kind of petty to punish Madeline for it, but I guess that’s PC justice for you.

Franco runs into Nina at the MetroCourt and immediately starts needling her about Ric’s absence. This prompts Nina to launch into a defensive description of their sex life, which involves both slapping her own ass and the phrase “mystery sandwich.” It may not have convinced Franco that she’s actually having sex with Ric, but it definitely convinced me that she’s not mentally competent to be having sex with anyone.

“We do all the sex things!”

Delia announces that she is “Denise’s” mother, but after a ridiculous amount of beating around the bush, she finally clarifies that Denise is not Ava, but Ava’s twin sister. Since you know, and I know, and basically everyone knows that OF COURSE she’s really Ava in disguise, I’m just going to keep the recapping on this plot short, okay? Okay.

Meanwhile, Rosalie’s made her way to Wyndemere to fill Nik in on Michael’s plans to buy the stock back from Nina. He tells her to proceed with the plan, but to use his money and bring the stock to him afterward, telling Michael that Nina wouldn’t make the deal. That seems… doomed to get found out, but all right.

Lulu tells Tracy that after decades of violent psychosis, Luke was given a month of therapy and then discharged without alerting his family/recent victims. (#PCjustice) This was two days ago, so Lulu and Tracy are working themselves into a big freak out when Luke walks in, brandishing his release papers. It’s cool, though; he’s still got to do some community service for trying to blow up half the town.

Same, Trace. Same.

Nina and Franco’s endless bickering is interrupted by Nathan’s arrival. He reminds his sister that her new husband was literally proposing to another woman two days ago, and also is kind of a sleazy asshole? Nina is offended that he doesn’t think Ric could possibly love her, which highlights one of the many problems with this story line. The first, of course, being that it expects us to see Nina and Franco as a pair of sympathetic victims rather than a pair of malicious whackjobs.

But the second being that Nina doesn’t know Ric. Like, at all.  So it’s really hard to take her declarations that he loves her for who she is very seriously. He can’t break her heart because they got married five minutes after they met. There’s no reason for her to love or trust him, and no genuine feelings to betray. And hence, I don’t really feel sorry for her at all. She’s just an idiot.

Anna accuses Sloane of getting creative with the truth, since she knows that Nikolas was one of Felicia’s biggest backers. Sloane claims that Nik thought Mayor Lomax was simply more corruptible.

Anna needs a drink to deal with this level of bullshit. I hear that, girlfriend. Sloane recaps everything that happened with the conspiracy to steal the ballot box. I swear, this episode is 90% characters explaining stuff we already know and/or don’t care about.

Franco butts into Nathan and Nina’s conversation, demanding to know if the former has convinced the latter to end her sham marriage yet. This obviously causes her to double down on her defensiveness and walk out on both of them. Nathan exasperatedly wonders if Franco ever shuts up. (Answer: no.) Hey, remember when this character was supposed to be a master of psychological manipulation? HAHAHAHA.

Ric drops the bomb that he married Nina. Madeline is shocked to hear that she is talking to her new son-in-law. It seems the plan was simply for Ric to take Nina’s case and then give Madeline access to the funds. But instead he’s going for the double cross, because he is Ric, and a sleazy asshole. Madeline is shocked — shocked, I say! — that the attorney she hired to steal her daughter’s inheritance might not be the most ethical guy in the world.

Delia explains that Ava and Denise are fraternal twins with identical faces who she gave up for adoption. Only they were separated by the orphanage and she lost track of Denise. Sonny points out that this all seems like an incredible load of bullshit. I don’t get to say this often, but: WORD, SONNY. Delia explains that Ava never mentioned it because she never knew and everyone nods like this is not insanely stupid on every level.

Ric explains that the Jake scheme nearly bankrupted him and smugs at Madeline that she should look for a new lawyer, since he won’t have much time for her case now. Madeline calls Ric a “little wart” — which is a great insult, so I’ll give her that — and threatens to tell Nathan everything. And since Nathan is “a very, very skilled detective” (HAHAHAHA!) he’ll be able to prove the connection with the visitor logs showing Ric’s been meeting with Madeline.

Luke, meanwhile, is explaining that he didn’t come straight home from the hospital because he needed to take a side trip to get a tattoo — the same dragon tattoo his father had on his arm. Geary plays this like Luke has no idea why Lulu and Tracy would find this development alarming. It’s either a really cheap writing choice or a sign this Fluke nonsense isn’t over yet. I don’t know which is more annoying.

Anyway, Luke says that when he was crazy, he’d hallucinate the tattoo. So he decided to claim it for his own, so his dark side couldn’t taunt him with it any more. Okay, sure. Whatever. Since Tony Geary is leaving, I’m finding it even more difficult to care about any of this than usual. Luke promises to spend his remaining time making it up to Lulu and Tracy for repeatedly trying to kill them and everyone they love.

Anna laments that Port Charles is a cesspit, and both she and Sloane are part of the problem, since they’ve both broken the law themselves. They start reminiscing about that time she came to search his hotel room and he immediately showed her his dick. “I know you like a thorough search,” he says. I’M LAUGHING THROUGH MY VOMIT.

Madeline orders a chastened Ric to make freeing her from prison his number one priority. They’ll worry about gaining control about the money later. I’d feel sorry for him for being so bad at scheming except I violently hate his guts. Sorry you suck at everything, Ric!

Nina gets a call from Rosalie, who claims to miss her and how close they used to be. Because she is a narcissistic child, Nina is immediately flattered and agrees to meet with her.

Denise is just thrilled to learn she has a whole new family! So thrilled that she wants to stick around indefinitely in this town where she’s already been arrested and threatened multiple times. Why would she go back to the city where she lives and works, and presumably has friends and loved ones? She’ll just drop all that and move into with her new brother, the mobster, of course!

WELL, THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY

Sloane kisses Anna and she enthusiastically reciprocates. Of course she does! The love of her life died two days ago and this man just got finished explaining how he framed her and stole her job. Who wouldn’t be in the mood to make out?