General Hospital Villainess Is Down But Out? Ha!

The residents of Port Charles breathed a sigh of relief as the February 27 episode of General Hospital unspooled. Not only did Esme tell Heather, “My father is dead, and as far as I’m concerned, my mother is, too,” but the notorious Hook killer was hauled away by the authorities. And according to Laura, “Where you are going, you’ll be lucky to ever see the sunlight again.” (Read the full recap here.)

But Heather was undeterred. She blamed Laura for everything that had gone wrong and vowed to return. And although this would appear to be the end of Bold & Beautiful scene stealer Alley Mills’ stint as Ryan’s babymama, it obviously isn’t necessarily — or even likely — the end of Heather’s reign of terror.

The question now is, when the character makes good on her dire promises, will Mills reprise the role, or will the show call back into action Robin Mattson, who became the third actress to play Heather all the way back in 1980 (and, obviously is the soap vet most closely associated with the crazy-good part).

Mattson’s roots in Port Charles run deep.

Credit: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Mattson might have returned in 2022 for the storyline that introduced the madwoman to Esme, reunited her with loverboy Ryan and sent Brando and Rory to their graves. But she wasn’t available. “As nice as is to be missed, and so many of you have wondered what happened to me,” she Facebooked in November, “I just want to let you know that I’ve been recovering from my knee surgery, and today I’m going to have hip replacement surgery.”

So it was gonna be a minute before there would be any more kicking up of the heels for the soap-hopper, once Hope on Guiding Light, Gina on Santa Barbara and Janet From Another Planet on All My Children. Catch up on all of the latest General Hospital exits via our updated photo gallery.