Credit: Disney (2)
No one can say that General Hospital isn’t sending Michael out with a bang. Ahead of Chad Duell’s exit from the role that he’s played since 2010, the soap is having Carly and Sonny’s eldest child stoop to a new low with estranged wife Willow. In Friday’s episode (recapped here), he went so far as to ask Diane whether they could use her taking son Wiley to DC without his OK against her in court.
If only Michael had any idea that he and Willow weren’t ever going to have to wage their custody battle. Though we can’t know whether there is any truth to the teaser that leaked this past week, it suggests that Michael won’t live long enough to fight to hold onto his kids. In fact, if he does, as rumored, go up in smoke, it may become much easier for Sasha to keep the secret that she is carrying his child.
You know the old saying: Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.
In late November, the Emmy winner announced via social media that he’d be leaving his first-ever series-regular role. “This wasn’t an easy decision for me,” he said, “but it feels like the right time in my life.”
But, he hastened to add, “This isn’t a goodbye, it’s a ‘See you later.’”
In a subsequent interview with co-stars Steve Burton and Bradford Anderson’s Daily Drama podcast, Duell shared that General Hospital had left the door open for him to one day reclaim his role of Michael. So even if he is killed off, he could always come back a la… well, pretty much every other character on the show.
Duell, who started his showbiz career with appearances on Wizards of Waverly Place and The Suite Life on Deck, is looking forward to moving beyond his Port Charles alter ego. But he’s played the part for so long, he acknowledged, “it’s going to be a process, kind of unraveling that and really seeing who I am and where I am now in my life. There’s a lot of work I have to do to achieve the potential I know that I have. Not just career-wise but a lot of aspects.”
