sonny GENERAL HOSPITAL - The Emmy-winning daytime drama "General Hospital" airs Monday-Friday (3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. GH19(ABC/Todd Wawrychuk)MAURICE BENARD
Credit: ABC

The Emmy winner couldn’t resist taking the bait that a “fan” dangled.

Everyone’s a critic on the Internet. So Maurice Benard was reminded recently when a General Hospital viewer responded to his post about a possible Jason/Carly re-hookup by saying that “Jarly has more chemistry than Carsuck, and that is just the ‘stone-cold’ facts.

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“It’s time to put Sonny off the show,” the post went on. “Maybe then my favorite actor Will [William deVry, ex-Julian] can finally return!”

In response, Benard planted his tongue firmly in cheek and wrote back: “You just made my night. I was actually thinking of retiring, but after reading this lovely tweet, I may just have to do another 28 years.”

Whether Benard extends his celebrated run as the Don Corleone of Port Charles for another 28 years, it’s doubtful that it would have any bearing on whether or not deVry’s Julian was resurrected. “If I go,” he tweeted back in November, well before his character was dispatched, there will be “no return. That’s a promise.”

Recently, Benard gave a hint of what Sonny’s long-term future in Port Charles might look like when he revealed that he’d stopped dying his hair black and had grown a beard. The scruff, he began to say, was storyline-related… but then he decided that he’d better keep his lips zipped, dang it!

Regular General Hospital viewers will know, of course, that the don is currently MIA following the bridge collapse that preceded the discovery of Julian’s corpse.

And on that cheery note, perhaps you’d like to peruse the below photo gallery in which we (at least try to) predict what will happen next on General Hospital and all the soaps.