General Hospital brought back characters from the dead that most fans wish had stayed dead and buried. Sometimes a resurrection is bad, not because of the character, but because bringing them back destroys soap history and undoes major storylines. And sometimes they’re just badly written or flat-out ridiculous.
General Hospital: A Tale of Two Jasons
Number one, the first resurrection I want to talk about made our worst list, not because of the character himself, but because of how GH handled it because it involved an actor transition. This is about the character of Jason Morgan (Steve Burton). I’m fine with the return that he just made, the most recent one. That’s not what I’m taking issue with. That resurrection when he got crushed in the tunnel, that’s fine. It’s a past return that’s the issue for me.
Jason Morgan’s Return: A Tale of Two Actors and a Controversial Twin Twist
Steve Burton’s character has come back from the dead a few times. In 2012, Cesar Faison (Anders Hove), while wearing a Duke Lavery (Ian Buchanan) mask, shot Jason in the back and kicked him off the pier, and he was presumed dead. Then two years later in 2014, Billy Miller stepped into the role. He was first introduced as Jake Doe and then later, through a DNA test, was revealed to be Jason Morgan (played by Billy Miller).
Billy Miller was a phenomenal actor, God rest his soul, but fans were initially torn about him. I thought he was wonderful. I was a fan of his from his Young and the Restless days. He was so good over there as well. But then Steve Burton decided to come back. He had quit General Hospital and had gone over to Young and the Restless for four years and then abruptly decided to come back. They talked him into it. Also, the producer he followed over there, Jill Farren Phelps, was being pushed out at Y&R.
Steve Burton Returns as Jason Morgan
So, GH brought Burton back as Jason, but then they had this problem. What to do about Billy Miller? That’s when the GH writers invented Drew Cain who was Jason’s twin brother. And from that point, Billy Miller was largely back-burnered. He got a lot less screen time. It wasn’t the role he was hired on to play. He wasn’t too happy about it. And his primary scene partner, Kelly Monaco, reportedly was also defending him and pushing back on Frank Valentini for shaking everything up to make room for Burton’s return. It was nothing against him; it was just about who was hired to play what and then shoving people aside to make room for somebody else.
According to Kelly’s mom and Billy Miller’s mom who made posts on social about it, that’s ultimately why GH fired Billy and sidelined Kelly. And of course, that is backstage chatter. But both their moms had a lot to say about how the powers that be at General Hospital treated Billy and Kelly. And then they killed off Drew in 2019. Then they recast him with Cameron Mathison. And of course, then Billy Miller took his own life. Very sad. And now Drew is probably the most hated character on General Hospital.
The Unnecessary Resurrection of Jake Webber: Undoing a Heartbreaking Storyline
The second resurrection that made our bad list is Jason’s son, Jake Webber (Hudson West). It was an unnecessary return from the dead that destroyed some really heartfelt history. Some stunning General Hospital episodes that if you were watching at the time, I know you remember. If you were watching back in 2011, Ron Carlivati wrote this tragic exit. Little Jake Webber (Hudson West) was run down by his granddad, Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary), who was driving drunk. It was terrible.
And then Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy) was little at the time. She was dying from kidney cancer. So, Carly Corinthos Spencer (Laura Wright) went and asked Jason to get Elizabeth Webber (Rebecca Herbst) and Lucky Spencer (Jonathan Jackson), who was raising Jake as his kid, to donate his kidneys to save Josslyn’s life. Well, Liz was grieving and furious. She didn’t want to donate. She was angry that Jason came and asked when he’d never been a dad to Jake. And ultimately, if I remember, Lucky talked Liz into it. And then we watched Jake, little Jake, little adorable Jake die on screen in 2011. I remember bawling my eyes out. It was so tragic. It was so well-written.
Jake Webber Resurrected on General Hospital
And then four years later, Ron Carlivati’s gone. Shelly Altman and Jean Passanante took over as co-head writers in 2015, and they dug that poor kid out of his grave and invented this alternate history that he had been kidnapped by Helena Cassadine (Constance Towers). And then of course they had to undo the kidney donation to Josslyn and wrote it that Jasper Jacks (Ingo Rademacher) illegally bought a kidney from Nelle Benson’s (Chloe Lanier) dad.
It was her kidney and she was young and her dad was greedy. It was awful. This resurrection was an icky redo of what had been such an amazingly sad and tragic soap story. It’s nothing against the character of Jake or the actor that plays him, but honestly, I think this resurrection was one of the worst things Shelly and Jean did in their very unpopular tenure as co-head writers of General Hospital.
Nathan West’s Pointless General Hospital Return: From Tragic Death to Boring Storyline
The third resurrection that fans weren’t feeling is one that just happened. That’s Nathan West (Ryan Paevey) being dragged back from the grave. And of course, I love Ryan Paevey as an actor, but this was another death that was tragic, poignant, and well-written. His wife, Maxie Jones (Kirsten Storms), was pregnant. Nathan was a great guy. Then his horrible bio-dad Faison shot him, not realizing he was killing his own son.
Nathan came through the surgery. He seemed fine. And then he up and died. And Maxie was devastated. It was so sad. Again, I remember crying. Beautifully done, and now has been undone. Which that’s one thing, but then on the flip of that also, GH has done almost nothing with him. Nathan is boring as heck since he came back. In comparison, his sister, Britt Westbourne’s (Kelly Thiebaud), resurrection has been, although improbable as well, much more exciting. I’m hoping GH makes something better of Nathan’s return soon because right now it’s feeling kind of pointless.
Victor Cassadine’s Implausible GH Comeback: From an Explosive Death to Global Mayhem
Number four on our worst resurrection list is Victor Cassadine (Charles Shaughnessy). And again, so improbable. Liesl Obrecht (Kathleen Gati) shot Victor in 2014 when Thaao Penghlis was in the role. Liesl shot him at Crichton-Clark, made sure Victor was dead to keep the secret of Nathan’s paternity. Not only did Liesl shoot him, she left Victor definitely dead. And then knowing that the clinic was going to blow up because he had a bomb with a dead man’s switch. And when he died, the bomb went off. So, Victor was extra super-duper dead.
And that’s why it made no sense when they brought him back from the dead in 2021 with recast actor Charles Shaughnessy. Mind you, I love the actor, and I actually enjoyed Victor when he came back, but this was one of those ludicrous things. That was when we also found out Victor was Valentin Cassadine’s (James Patrick Stuart) father. And then after he tried to kill off a whole bunch of the world’s population, the WSB blew up Victor’s boat. He died once again in 2023. We’ll see if he stays dead. This time they did zip him into a body bag.
Peter August: The All-Time Worst Resurrection of a Toxic Villain
The fifth, final, and all-time worst resurrection on our list belongs to Faison’s (Anders Hove) toxic, terrible son, Peter August (Wes Ramsey). I’m not talking about when he died when Anna Devane (Finola Hughes) watched him after Felicia Scorpio (Kristina Wagner) bashed him in the head. I’m talking about when he was bickering with Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton) and he pushed Peter down the stairs at General Hospital. Both Liz and Finn checked Peter’s vital signs and agreed that he was dead. That is, a doctor and a nurse checked him and said definitely dead. And then Finn and stashed Peter in a freezer, in a chest freezer. So he was dead from the fall down the stairs and then pushed into a freezer.
Yet, when Finn and Liz went to check on Peter, boom, the freezer was empty. Absolutely ridiculous. And now there’s a chance Faison’s worst child may be not so dead again. With Peter’s siblings, Nathan and Britt, back from the dead, and Faison possibly alive, there’s a chance we could get Peter back, too. Even though Anna sat and watched him draw his last breath. But since the WSB took him away, that’s a red flag of future complications.
