General Hospital spoilers: Michael’s return reveals a major Drew twist?

Given the number of times we’ve eviscerated General Hospital’s Drew (Cameron Mathison) for his villain era, we won’t go into detail again, naming all the reasons he’s become the most infuriating character on the soap. However, we recently had to stop and think more about what’s motivating Drew’s horrific antics.

While it’s easy to point to his jealousy of Jason (Steve Burton), and it’s not too far-fetched to believe Drew is suffering from an unknown medical crisis responsible for his change in behavior, the longer the soap writers go without providing a concrete answer, the more the mind continues to wander. That’s precisely why we have to also consider the possibility that Drew is not Drew.

Back when Drew was spending time in prison in an effort to protect Carly (Laura Wright), we thought it was weird that Cyrus (Jeff Kober) became so infatuated with him, and later had his men stab him. Arguably, from that moment on, Drew has become a different person. He’s grown to be selfish, manipulative and less of the “good guy” General Hospital fans knew.

Although we chalked up the shift in personality to confinement changing him, could it be that Drew’s personality changed because the man has changed? What if at some point in time in between Drew being treated for his stab wounds, the real Drew was swapped out with an imposter? An impostor known as Shiloh (Coby Ryan McLaughlin).

Now we know that Shiloh allegedly died years ago, thanks to Sam (Kelly Monaco) taking him out. However, Shiloh returning from the dead would hardly be the first time someone dead pops back up in Port Charles. And if our hunch is correct here, Shiloh assuming Drew’s identity makes sense from a motive perspective.

For starters, Shiloh wanting to take over Drew’s life isn’t an illogical thought. The two men have bad blood stretching back to their time serving together in Afghanistan, where Shiloh committed treason and Drew threatened to turn him. Subsequently in Port Charles, Drew and Shiloh had more bad blood created once Shiloh and Sam kicked off a rivalry. We should also mention that given Shiloh’s love of money, he likely found himself jealous of Drew once the now-politician learned he was from the wealthy Quartermaine family. All in all, Shiloh may have wanted to take over Drew’s life, given Drew (and his loved ones) “ruined” his.

Of course, we can’t leave the Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) component out of all this. Drew has become infatuated with Willow and is manipulating her at every turn. Similarly, Shiloh once heavily manipulated her as well, and the similarities between this version of Drew and Shiloh are uncanny.

If Shiloh is pretending to be Drew, we can imagine a scenario in which Shiloh faked his death, and once under the radar, used his connections in prison to get Cyrus to place Drew in a life-or-death situation. Then, sometime at the hospital when Drew was being treated, Shiloh had a team help him switch places with him. We can’t explain where Shiloh would get the money to pull off plastic surgery to look like Drew or a team to help him, but considering Shiloh is a conman, we can picture him finding a way to get his hands on some cash.

With that all being said, that leaves the question, “If Shiloh is pretending to be Drew, where is the real Drew?” To that we reply, perhaps Drew is ironically being stashed away at the same facility Michael (Chad Duell) is being held in Germany. Furthermore, perhaps Michael may be the one to find his real uncle while in the facility, and the two together will make a splash with their return to Port Charles. Can you imagine all the people in Port Charles who would be horrified to learn they’ve been interacting with a crazed criminal for months instead of the real Drew Cain?

New episodes of General Hospital air on weekdays on ABC. If you miss an episode, you can catch up on Hulu.