General Hospital: We Expect Esme's Evil Ways To Return With Her Memory

It's been almost a year since Esme Prince (Avery Pohl) found out she had amnesia on "General Hospital." Nearly everyone, fans included, thought she might have been faking, given that her memory loss offered her an easy way out of all the evil things she'd done. The fact that her parents turned out to be the unhinged Heather Webber (Alley Mills) and notorious serial killer Ryan Chamberlain (Jon Lindstrom) didn't help her claims of innocence much either. Throughout 2023, Esme was starting to redeem herself, and it was obvious in her eyes that she truly felt bad for crimes that she didn't remember committing. She got a job at the Invader newspaper, she's been taking care of her baby, and she and little Ace moved into their own apartment.

But as Christmas approaches, she started getting flashbacks from December 2022 when she was creating a makeshift holiday tree while being held captive by Nikolas Cassadine (then Marcus Coloma). On the December 26, 2023 episode, all of her memories came flooding back. Conflicted, she went to Ryan's grave, and she grappled with what to do next, admitting to herself that it was difficult to be a good human being. In a Shakespearean monologue, she spoke to the headstone, "I should want to take that path. But you never showed it to me. I had to learn it all on my own. And even then, it's really only because I lost my memory."

She reflected on the positive changes she'd made, but a darkness also crept into her thoughts.

Esme Prince continued talking to Ryan Chamberlain's grave on "General Hospital," stating, "But there is another path, too. The crooked one that you showed me, and it would be so easy to go back. But what if I don't have a choice?" As she wrestled with her newfound options in life, she speculated that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and she's probably destined for evilhood due to her DNA. "That is the legacy you left me, dad."

Before the amnesia, she had an evil visage, and afterward, she had a regretful look in her eyes which helped validate her amnesia claim. But as the year went on, Esme became a self-pitying sad sack. Now that she has the combined memories of her past along with her redemption arc, it's going to be fun to see how she navigates things. She previously admitted to Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn) that she was developing feelings for Spencer Cassadine (Nicholas Chavez), but with her memories back, her resentment toward his girlfriend Trina Robinson (Tabyana Ali) has also returned. It seems clear that she's going to take the darker, yet more informed path. 

This bold, new, yet conniving Esme could carefully enact a scheme to break up Trina and Spencer without jeopardizing the goodwill she's created, and if she keeps her memory status a secret, no one will see her coming!