Ryan Paevey's first General Hospital airdate revealed...with a mystery

It won't be long now until Ryan Paevey is back on your General Hospital screens. In fact, it's coming sooner than we thought. Paevey revealed when his first GH scenes since 2018 will finally air in a video with Finola Hughes.

Ryan Paevey returns to General Hospital

In the video released by GH, Hughes runs into Paevey outside the studio and asks what he is doing there. He tells her that he works there, so Hughes mentions that she thought he had left the show. Paevey reveals that he came back and will air for the first time on Friday, September 19th, but when Hughes asks who he is playing, he informs her that it's a mystery.

Recently, TV Insider's fall preview interview with GH head writers Elizabeth Korte and Chris Van Etten referred to Paevey's character as Nathan, the cop he played from 2014 to 2018. However, there were no direct quotes that mentioned the name Nathan, so who Paevey will portray could indeed still be a mystery.

How Paevey can fit into the Port Charles scene

General Hospital's Nathan and Britt | Image: JPI

While resurrecting dead characters is commonplace on soaps — after all, Nathan's sister, Britt (Kelly Thiebaud), was recently revealed to be alive — Nathan had an open casket funeral, which makes his resurrection a little trickier. Of course, that could have been a body double in the casket, which wouldn't be unheard of.

Nathan had been allegedly killed by his own father when Cesar Faison (Anders Hove) pulled the trigger, not realizing he was going to shoot his son. Faison died soon after, and his brain was placed in a jar. Some fans have speculated that Nathan somehow got Faison's brain and is the one calling the shots with Britt's mysterious research project.

If Paevey is indeed playing some version of Nathan West, that will be music to Maxie's ears whenever she wakes from her coma. Kirsten Storms is currently on an extended leave of absence, so we don't expect to see Maxie again until the end of the year. Imagine her shock if she opens her eyes and sees her late husband.

And imagine Liesl's (Kathleen Gati) surprise when another one of her dead children appears before her, very much alive. She had a thing or two to say about Britt's surprise return, so how she handles a possible Nathan comeback will be fascinating to see, indeed.

Catch all-new episodes of General Hospital weekdays on ABC and Hulu.