The Return of General Hospital’s Jennifer Smith Was No ‘Fluke’: Why We’re Sure the Stage Is Being Set for a Resurrection That’ll Really Kill!

You just can’t keep a good villain down. 

This is a safe space, so we’re going to be honest here. While we all have our doubts about whether Luke is really, truly, dead on General Hospital, we don’t think there’s a single person who believes that the cable car incident was an accident. Even Laura herself, Genie Francis, has her doubts.

If that’s the case, the only questions left would be: Who orchestrated the accident and to what end?

There are all the usual suspects, of course — Helena wasn’t the only enemy Luke made over the years — but what if the “accident” wasn’t caused be someone else? What if Luke himself staged it? Or rather, Fluke himself.

We all know that in the daytime world, alternate personalities have a tendency to never truly disappear any more than characters ever actually die.

Above: If Fluke broke out of the straitjacket of Luke’s mind, he could be extra ticked off and hungry for revenge.

Credit: Howard Wise/JPI

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From a practical standpoint, Anthony Geary retired and took Luke with him, but he never shut the door on the idea of coming back from time to time. It would just be a matter of how the show could convince him to return.

As he told TV Guide back during the Fluke storyline, his alternate personality was created partly in response to his growing dissatisfied with his storylines and gave him a way to get back in touch with “Luke’s black hat.”

“This storyline has revived my whole interest in the game,” he added. Bringing Fluke back could be a fun, splashy story for him to pick up for a time with a character he enjoyed playing.

Then there’s the Jennifer Smith angle. What if Fluke is the big West Coast threat who sent her to Port Charles to check on Sonny?

Co-writer Dan O’Connor told Soaps.com that “there’s always the potential for looming threats on the horizon when you get involved in the Mob world.” Right now, he added, Sonny “has an uneasy truce with Selina Wu. And things seem to be on the up and up, but that doesn’t mean things will necessarily stay that way.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Luke’s alter tried amassing power and taking on the Corinthos clan. The direct approach didn’t work, so it might make more sense to build up a base of power away from Port Charles before moving in. That takes time and lets the show slowly ramp up the “looming threat” as it builds to a big reveal. And it doesn’t get much bigger than Anthony Geary.

Above: Laura told Jennifer to get closure by closing one chapter and opening the next one. So is she about to close her heart to Luke and open it to Fluke?

Credit: ABC Screenshot

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Plus, Jennifer mentioned to whoever was on the other end of the phone that she didn’t get the closure she needed before asking rather impatiently whether they were finished in Port Charles. It sounded like she didn’t want to be there, which would be odd for someone as Luke-obsessed as she always was.

It’s tough to get closure when the person you’re grieving isn’t dead in the traditional sense. Fluke could have either won Jennifer over by giving her a taste of what she always craved with Luke, or just bent her to his will as he did the Jeromes and Johnny Zacchara. Either way, it would still make saying goodbye to the man he replaced difficult.

Frank Smith’s daughter is a tricky character to get a read on, especially since she’s been played so infrequently and so broadly over the years. She went through all the motions of a grieving, borderline mentally unstable “widow” (the marriage she forced Luke into was never legal), but her demeanor in the car certainly made her memorial performance seem less genuine. And that’s got us suspicious.

What do you think? Is the show ramping up to a Fluke comeback instead of a Luke return? Or is Jennifer’s partner in crime actually a not-as-dead-as-everyone-thinks Lorenzo Alcazar? Or perhaps the nefarious Jerry Jacks? Sound off below, then, while you ponder Fluke’s possible return, why not take a look at our extensive gallery of General Hospital‘s mobsters. It’s packed full of the mafiosos that you love — and love to hate!