Spencer's 'General Hospital' Fate Is on a Cliffhanger — Will He Ever Return?

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for the Jan. 31, 2024, episode of General Hospital.

It’s common for actors to leave soap operas — the shows run for decades with continuous storylines, so producers will often replace one actor with another to keep their storyline going. However, in the case of General Hospital, the writers want to do everything possible to make sure that Nicholas Alexander Chavez is irreplaceable.

The actor announced that he might temporarily leave GH before his final episode as Spencer Cassadine aired on Jan. 31, 2024. After the episode’s cliffhanger, he’s expected to be missing in action for the foreseeable future on General Hospital. So, is Spencer leaving GH for good?

In the Jan. 31 episode of GH, Spencer’s fate is left up in the air after a dramatic showdown between him and Esme. Throughout their recent arc, Esme saw herself as a victim after her son was “taken” from her. Esme takes over the private yacht and sets it on a new course, cuts off the communication, and kidnaps Trina.

She’s keeping Trina locked in a secret room on the yacht, bound and gagged, while Spencer is tied up. Her plan was that Trina would get herself out and call Laura to use Spencer as a bargaining chip to get her son, Ace, back. Esme would then drug Spencer with a serum, but Trina got out quicker than Esme imagined and tried to stop Esme from drugging him.

Even though Esme gets the syringe into Spencer, he overcomes the serum to stop Esme from drugging Trina, and they both go overboard. It’s the perfect soap opera drama to keep us guessing if Trina and Spencer will survive. For the next few months, we expect that the characters will assume Spencer is dead, but he will hopefully return unexpectedly as if he has come back to life.

In June 2023, TVLine first reported that Nicholas would take a temporary leave of absence from General Hospital because of some exciting news. He was cast to play Lyle Menendez in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, a continuation of Ryan Murphy’s Emmy-winning anthology series.

While the role is great for his career, it could mean the end of Spencer in GH. As of now, however, it seems like Nicholas will return to his soap opera roots when he’s done filming Monster, so it’s unclear when he’ll come back to GH. On the bright side, Spencer’s former bestie Cameron Webber, portrayed by William Lipton, is back because of Spencer’s “death.”

So even if Nicholas is out for a bit, we’re getting some real treats in the meantime.