I hate to rag on the current writing regime at ‘General Hospital,’ mostly because they’ve made some marked improvements in the show but, the truth is, I’m concerned.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled with the possibility of a Sam and John romance. I’m enjoying Luke and Anna tremendously. I’m even enjoying Heather’s antics – even if she has spent the better part of the week acting opposite of a corpse.

What I’m not thrilled with (aside from the horrendous DID storyline) is what the writers are doing to Johnny.

Johnny has always been a conflicted character. In the capable hands of Brandon Barash, Johnny hasn’t always been portrayed as a white knight – but he usually has something akin to a moral compass.

All that changed over the last two weeks.

I could actually accept him killing Anthony and trying to frame Luke and Tracy for the crime. Given his emotional duress upon finding out Claudia was his mother and not his sister, for Johnny to snap and kill Anthony was understandable.

Let’s be honest, Anthony was likeable but not redeemable.

The problem is, Johnny isn’t redeemable anymore either.

It’s not just the murder of Anthony – and it was a murder folks. Sitting there and watching him die a slow death WAS murder. I can actually live with that (what’s that say about my moral compass?).

What I can’t live with is the fact that we found out he’s responsible for the accident that killed Cole and Hope.

First of all, did anyone else think that the revelation felt “tacked on”? Like it was added after the fact and was hurriedly written? Because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

At least when we thought it was Kate it was a forgivable action because she is mentally ill.

This is not a forgivable action. Not only did Johnny do it, but he covered it up and blamed it on a woman he knows to be mentally ill.

Speaking of that woman, Johnny sleeping with her when she was Connie essentially constitutes rape because Johnny was aware of Kate’s fragile mental condition. She didn’t have the ability to consent – and Johnny knew that.

So, when we take a long, hard look at it, the truth is, in the last three weeks Johnny has been turned into a rapist and a triple-murderer. How, exactly, can the character come back from that?

Since Johnny can’t be redeemed, the only options are making him a total bad guy or killing him off. Either way, that gives the character a limited shelf life.

As a fan of Johnny and Barash, I’m a little disheartened by what I’m seeing.

Sure, Barash has been turning in a great performance – but I would have rather seen him stay the course than lose him.

If Barash is cut loose, which I see no way around at this point, and the writers bring in more ‘One Life to Live’ characters there’s bound to be a mutiny amongst the fan base. ‘General Hospital’ fans love Johnny. Losing him will be too much for some to take. If they think it’s in favor of new ‘One Life to Live’ imports – things are going to get ugly.

In the grand scheme of things, I’m hopeful that we’ll somehow find out that Johnny is just pretending to have killed Cole and Hope as a delayed reaction to his sexual encounter with Connie.

If that’s not the case, though, I think Johnny fans are going to be in for a rude awakening.

In recent weeks, there had been rumors that Barash had been let go. Amid the fan fervor, show runners took to Twitter to assure fans that wasn’t the case.

The problem is, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. These rumors about character ousters usually stem from somewhere. Sure, a handful of them are made up by people on message boards who claim they have spoilers but are really just writing fan fiction – but the majority of them have some grain of truth.

And that’s what really concerns me.

What do you think? Is Johnny on his way out of Port Charles?