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What Happened to Ryan Chamberlain on GENERAL HOSPITAL

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They say evil never dies, and that definitely applies to Ryan Chamberlain on GENERAL HOSPITAL! And as you’ll see from the killer’s history, he’s a hard man to kill! Ryan first appeared in June of 1992, played by actor Jon Lindstrom, who did double duty when GH introduced Ryan’s twin, Kevin Collins, the following year. The actor played both characters on and off over the years, but in February 2023, it appeared that Ryan’s story had finally come to a violent end. But has it, really?

Ryan Chamberlain was introduced as a pediatrician at General Hospital, but it was soon revealed that he had been hiding his mentally unstable behavior for quite a while. Felicia Jones knew him in Texas where he was calling himself “Todd Wilson” and had witnessed him murder his wife, Gloria!

General Hospital Kevin Ryan
Kevin and Ryan faced off in a house of mirrors.Wren Maloney/ABC

When Felicia returned to Port Charles, she had amnesia and didn’t remember Ryan. But he remembered her, and quickly became obsessed with the beautiful blonde, trapping her in a cabin! He was arrested for attempted murder, and Kevin, a psychiatrist, came to town intent on rehabilitating his brother. Unfortunately, Ryan was faking his progress and used his twin to escape the mental hospital and impersonate him!

Ryan crashed Felicia and Mac Scorpio’s wedding with a bomb, but Kevin managed to persuade the hospital staff of his true identity and raced to the church to stop his twin. After Ryan was apprehended once more, Kevin washed his hands of his brother. But Ryan escaped again with the help of his counselor, Connie, who he murdered. Impersonating Kevin, Ryan kidnapped Felicia’s daughter, Georgie!

Kevin helped Mac and Felicia track his psychotic twin down at a funhouse and rescue Georgie, though the killer let himself die in the building’s violent explosion rather than be locked away in the hospital again. Over the years, Ryan continued to haunt Kevin, who felt guilty for failing to save his brother, but those were thankfully just memories. 

General Hospital Ryan Kevin switch
Ryan couldn’t wait to get out of that straitjacket and into his brother’s snazzy suit!ABC

When Carly Corinthos was temporarily institutionalized in Ferncliff in 2018, it was revealed that the mystery patient in the room next to her was actually Ryan, who Kevin had been secretly keeping there for treatment. Unfortunately, during one of Kevin’s visits, Ryan got the upper hand and knocked his sibling unconscious so they could switch places!

Impersonating Kevin, Ryan began making plans for revenge but hit a bit of a snag when Laura Collins returned home from Switzerland and began noticing something wasn’t quite right with her husband. To keep her from uncovering his secret, Ryan broke up with her. Also believing him to be Kevin, Mary Pat tried to extort money from him, threatening to reveal that he knew his brother was alive and in Ferncliff. So Ryan silenced the nurse permanently by murdering her!

Ryan tried to get a suspicious Laura off his case by filing for a divorce, and soon found himself smitten with Ava Jerome. But when Ava wanted to make Kiki Jerome pay for stealing her boyfriend, Griffin Monroe, Ryan helped her out by killing her daughter! The cops were looking for the killer stalking Port Charles, but they got help on the case from “Kevin,” who easily covered his own tracks. Such as when a documentary filmmaker got a little too close to the truth that Ryan was still alive, and the killer took him out and destroyed the evidence.

General Hospital Ryan Laura
Ryan fantasized about getting rid of Laura… permanently!ABC

Lulu Spencer found herself next on Ryan’s hit list when she, too, came too close to the shocking truth. However, after he stabbed her, Ryan was suddenly struck down with a terrible headache and passed out, giving her a chance to get away. As Lulu was rushed to the hospital, “Kevin” was brought there as well, having mysteriously lost his sight in the same way that Anna Devane had!  He recovered his eyesight in time to try and finish Lulu off, but was foiled, so he instead used hypnosis to restore Lulu’s memory of her attack… but made her believe it was Franco Baldwin who had tried to kill her!

Believing himself in the clear, Ryan popped the question to Ava, but when Franco gave an interview gloating about the killings as part of a plan to smoke out the real murderer, Ryan fell for the bait and flew into a rage. Stabbing Franco and stuffing Carly in the trunk of his car, Ryan headed to Niagara Falls to marry Ava, but once there, his plans fell apart as Jason Morgan and Laura showed up to put a stop to his reign of terror. Jason shot Ryan, who jumped off a bridge and tried to take Ava with him! Jason rescued Ava (and later, Carly) but Ryan disappeared.

The cops later called off the search when Ryan’s severed hand was found, but because he was alive when it was removed, Jordan Ashford suspected the killer could still be out there somewhere. Laura and Curtis went looking for him and discovered Ryan was not only alive, but headed back to Port Charles for revenge! He crashed the Nurses Ball to truss up Kevin and then followed Ava to a secluded location where she was lying in wait for him! He taunted her mercilessly, but when the cops arrived, she decided not to pull the trigger. She did, however, stab him in the back (literally!), putting him in the hospital where he was forced into donating his kidney to save Jordan’s life. But even after he was locked up in Pentonville, Ryan continued to haunt Ava, sending her letters so she’d never forget about him as much as she might want to!

GH Sonny Ryan
Ryan was silenced before he could rat out Julian!ABC

In October 2020, Ryan got a letter from Nelle Benson detailing Julian’s involvement in the baby switch, so he immediately called Ava to visit him in prison offering her the evidence to protect her brother in exchange. Ava offered to divorce Nikolas Cassadine but a jealous Ryan saw through her lies and refused to hand it over. When Ryan contacted Sonny and was about to offer him the evidence against Julian, he was suddenly stabbed in the back! Rushed to the hospital, Ryan survived surgery but lingered in a coma.

Although Kevin shared with Ava, Nikolas, and Laura the news that Ryan was conscious but unable to speak or move. However, as an orderly wheeled the patient away, the sly smile on the serial killer’s face indicated this was all part of another evil plan! And in 2021, when Alexis Davis was transferred to the minimum-security prison Spring Ridge, she found out that Ryan was also a resident of the facility! The attorney grew suspicious when she found out Harmony was working there and taking care of Ryan. Although Nikolas and Ava suspected Ryan of being their stalker, it was revealed that Ryan had been writing letters to Spencer, so things were more complicated!

Spencer’s girlfriend, Esme Prince, got a job working at Spring Ridge, and began spending time with Ryan. Concerned, Kevin restricted her contact with the serial killer, which forced her to go to extremes to see him. it was then revealed that Esme is Ryan’s daughter and was helping him execute his plan to drive Nikolas and Ava apart so he could have her for himself. And naturally, Ryan could fully move and speak, and was just pretending to be “locked-in.” Ryan approved of Esme’s plan to sleep with Nikolas but was also suspicious that his daughter could be the serial killer known as The Hook.

GH Ryan Heather Felicia Ava
Ryan and Heather’s escape attempt didn’t go as planned.ABC

When Esme questioned him about her mother, Ryan promised to reunite them once he was set free. And when Heather Webber got herself transferred to Spring Ridge, she paid Ryan a visit and it was revealed that she was Esme’s mom! When a pregnant Esme was admitted to Spring Ridge with amnesia, Heather set in motion a master plan to break their entire family out! During the escape, Ryan knocked out Mac but there wasn’t time to finish him off. They traveled to Wyndemere where Ryan held Ava and Felicia at gunpoint, threatening to kill one of them and take the other away with him. When Esme tried to flee from the insanity, Ryan went after her and as she went into labor, tried to help her. Ava caught up with them and shot Ryan in the shoulder. As he taunted her about how he manipulated everything to destroy her life, Ava tried to fire again but the gun didn’t work. It was Mac who appeared and shot Ryan dead. 

Keep watching GH to see if that’s really the last we’ll see of him!

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