The Marriage Swap: Ned, Chloe, Jax, and Alexis
We’re going back to a Port Charles 411 from 2020 to fill in a few gaps in our Alexis Davis series. A lot of who Alexis was in the late 1990s and early 2000s runs through the marriage swap with Ned Ashton, Chloe Morgan, and Jax, including how her friendship with Jax got started. You can watch the full episode below or on Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
Chloe Morgan had about a month to get married. The fashion designer had started Chloe Morgan Designs with help from her Uncle Herbert, and the terms said she had to be happily married by the fifth anniversary of his death or she would lose the company. Ned Ashton offered to marry her. His girlfriend, Alexis Davis, was fine with it, and she went and told her best friend, Jasper “Jax” Jacks, who could not stand Ned.
The four of them met in the Quartermaine den, and Jax pointed out that a wedding right before the deadline would look suspicious. So they flew to Las Vegas. Ned wanted Elvis to officiate. On the plane, Jax said he had made it this far in life without watching anyone get married by Elvis and was not about to let it happen to Chloe. Alexis gave Chloe a blue garter, Jax had brought her flowers, and Ned didn’t bother denying that he hoped Chloe’s designs would help sell L&B Records artists.
Ned had booked the Chapel of Bells under the name Davis because it was easy to spell. Reverend U.I. Love got the couples mixed up and kept calling Ned “Ms. Davis.” Then Aunt Gertrude, Uncle Herbert’s widow, walked in. Her attorneys had defined “happily married” as a decent courtship and a proper wedding with family and friends. A quickie in Vegas didn’t count. Jax told her she had it wrong, this was the Davis wedding, and handed the bouquet to Alexis. Alexis went with it. Gertrude stayed for the ceremony. Nobody objected, and Jax and Alexis came home married.
Back in Port Charles, they had to explain to the Quartermaines how Ned went from dating Alexis to being engaged to Chloe. The cover story was that Jax and Alexis had been stranded in the Sahara together. Edward reminded Ned and Chloe that they were cousins, third cousins twice removed. Lila told them marriage is not a trivial affair and said that if they were sure, she wished them the best. Before long she asked for the truth and told them she had kept plenty of secrets for this family already.
Gertrude found an ally in Edward. At Ned and Chloe’s backyard wedding, with Chloe in a dress she designed herself, Gertrude objected with a letter Ned had written to Alexis. The minister moved on. Gertrude then offered the newlyweds a honeymoon at the Bora Bora spa she had inherited from Herbert. They went to Rome instead, and after an argument about bear spray, Jax and Alexis showed up too.
Rome got crowded. Jax and Chloe slipped out dressed as German tourists, Ned and Alexis slipped off on their own, and Gertrude paid a hotel maid to open a door at the worst possible time. Back home there was Mike Corbin getting paid to take Gertrude out, a surveillance camera Edward hid in the gatehouse, and a VHS tape that Lila made sure he never saw.
This Port Charles 411 covers all of it, from the Jax family’s visit and the moose burgers to how the whole arrangement came apart. It’s also the backstory for every time Shannon and Amanda have compared it to Michael, Willow, Sasha, and Chase.
Next week they pick up with Ned and Alexis as a couple, followed by Jax and Chloe the week after. On Monday, they’re back with the weekly recap of this week’s General Hospital.
We’ll meet you at the pier.
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