Willow Twist Explained by Katelyn MacMullen (Exclusive)

Drew Cain’s (Cameron Mathison) shooter was finally revealed on the Friday, January 8, episode of General Hospital, and the truth hit close to home — it was his wife, Willow Cain (Katelyn MacMullen)!

The bombshell came during Willow’s trial, when she took the stand. Through a series of flashbacks that filled in the missing pieces of that fateful night four months ago, viewers learned that Mrs. Cain plugged two bullets into Drew’s back. For MacMullen, the development came with little advance notice. “I found out about a week and a half before we shot the flashback scenes,” she says. “On one hand, I was a little surprised. On the other, we were all so curious, as a cast, as to who did it, so it was kind of exciting to know that it was Willow and to then be able to figure out why she did it.”

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What made the twist even more compelling was that Willow had long been considered an obvious suspect, yet the show’s decision to actually go there still delivered a true soapy surprise. “Usually, there might be someone who comes out of left field, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, I never thought of that,’” points out MacMullen. “But for them to confirm that it was, in fact, one of their prime suspects, and the way they did it, was really interesting.”

That lingering uncertainty informed MacMullen’s performance well before the truth was revealed. “Up until that point, I suspected that it could have been Willow, but I didn’t know for sure,” she relays. “So, it was kind of fun to play around in that gray area of, ‘Did she do it? Did she not do it?’ and to work in a way where it could be her, but it also couldn’t be her. And then once I knew that she was the shooter, it was more like, ‘OK, now she’s kind of fighting for her life here.’”

As MacMullen sees it, Willow’s actions were driven by desperation — specifically, losing custody of her children, Wiley Corinthos (Viron Weaver) and Amelia Corinthos (Sequoia and Serenity Mork Macko). “From my perspective, she felt like she had no choice,” explains the actress. “I think she’s been in a place of psychological distress, and she doesn’t quite know who to trust. She’s been backed into a corner of, ‘You must do this to get your kids back,’ but then that didn’t work, and then it was, ‘You have to do this to get your kids back,’ but that didn’t work either.”

Further complicating matters was Drew’s influence. “As she’s come to realize, Drew was isolating her and keeping her in a position of powerlessness so that he could use her for his own needs,” MacMullen adds. “So, she knew that if he remained in the picture, she was never going to have her life or her children.”

For MacMullen, whose character has largely been portrayed as a moral anchor since arriving in Port Charles in 2018, exploring Willow’s darker side has been a welcome departure. “I feel like in life, people go through these ebbs and flows of being the hero of their own story or maybe the villain,” she notes. “And I think the beautiful part of playing a role for, now going on eight years, is that I’ve gotten to see that ebb and flow with her of experiencing the highs and now the absolute lows of her life. Living through all these things that have brought out the worst or the best in her has been, on one hand, challenging, but also a cool gift of working in this particular genre where you’re playing the character for so long.”

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Offscreen, the revelation sparked plenty of amusement, especially for MacMullen and Mathison. “Well, obviously, we had a good laugh about it because we always wondered,” she details. “We both were like, ‘Oh, my gosh, it was Willow. That’s so crazy,’ because in all these scripts, it’s always them as this team. But it really kind of shows that she’s been faking it with him for a while.”

She reports that Mathison also appreciated the pivot. “He thinks it’s great,” MacMullen enthuses. “Cameron is a great sport, and he’s an incredible guy, and working with him is such a pleasure. We’ve just had a blast.”

The rest of the cast has also leaned into it. “There’s definitely some new, I don’t want to say nicknames, but people are like, ‘What’s up, Killer?’” MacMullen chuckles. “But it’s all in good fun, to keep things light. I love that there are so many tentacles to this story. I think we’re all quite intrigued by it. It’s been quite fun to just chat about and joke about and then experience because we’re all in it together and we’re like, ‘Dang, this is a crazy fun time.’”

MacMullen expects a wide range of responses once the truth plays out on air. “I think it’ll be fun because there will be people who are like, ‘I knew it,’ and then other people that will be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I didn’t see that coming,’” she offers. “So, I think it’ll be fun to see whether it confirms people’s suspicions or goes against their suspicions.”

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As one of the central players in this tale, MacMullen says she was grateful to be entrusted with such heavy material. “It’s meant everything,” she reflects. “It’s been so much fun and so awesome, and I don’t think we even quite realized where the story would go or what would happen. But the fact that they’ve kept building on it has been such a joy. I feel really honored to be a part of it in any way, because I think the writing has just been so, so incredible.”

And the reveal is only the beginning of what promises to be an even more dramatic shift for Willow. “She’s shocked and determined,” teases MacMullen. “There was so much pent-up anger, and it’s finally come out. The cool thing about this story is that it’s gone in so many different directions, and the possibilities are endless, and I’m excited to see where it goes.”

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