Photo: ABC
If a character is created at the request of the Elizabeth Taylor it goes without saying she will be BOSS. Helena Cassadine Queen of daytime villains. She is the poster child for whatever a man can do a woman can do just as well, if not better. We will put Ms. Cassadine right up there with any male villain in daytime. Diamond and Steel are the words that come to mind when we think of Helena.
Revenge, securing the Cassadine fortune and ensuring her family’s legacy were Helena’s driving forces. Helena’s scandalous repertoire ranged from misdemeanor soap crimes i.e. paternity tampering to the most violent of offenses i.e. murder and everything in between i.e. kidnapping, brainwashing, poisoning, hexes, etc. She attempted murder/murdered (especially Luke Spencer) and others tried to murder her (thought they had succeeded) and presumed her dead more times than we can note. But like any good villain worth their salt, you couldn’t ever count her out. Still, we don’t.
Luke, Laura and Robert dared to stop the Cassadine’s plot of death to the earth by freeze. And the Queens’s on-screen reign began when she came to Port Charles to avenge the deaths of her husband, Mikkos, and her brother-in-law (Mikkos’ brother), Tony, who both died during the climax of the story. Her arrival launched decades of Helena against the Spencer’s, anyone associated with them and anyone who attempted to get in her way. She pitted her family members against each other when it suited her purpose. She really had no permanent alliances. Everything and everyone was temporal and disposable when their time came. And it always did.
Helena started with Luke and Laura, her favorite foe targets, by cursing them at their wedding. Laura disappeared the next year and was presumed dead. But Helena had kidnapped her, held her against her will which is standard modus operandi for a soap. But why stop there? Helena made Laura marry her son, Stavros, and Laura had a son (Nikolas) by him. Helena would also kill Katherine Bell when Helena was supposed to be paralyzed from being poisoned by Stefan, and frame Laura. She held Luke prisoner and attempted to kill him on endless occasions. She started terrorizing Luke and Laura in the early ’80s and in 2013 there she was holding them at gunpoint on the Haunted Star because they were looking for their daughter, Lulu, who Helena had kidnapped. That’s stamina. That same year she poisoned Luke’s earring with the toxin Polonium 201.
Lucky, Luke and Laura’s son, was also a favorite mark of Helena’s. Once Helena kidnapped Lucky and took him on a tour of important places in the Spencer family’s history, a “This is Your Life” Helena style. During the tour, she brainwashed him and sent him back to Port Charles to carry out her instructions. Lucky carried out a myriad of her instructions while under her power. One was, Lucky poisoned Lucas Jones with a mysterious virus so Helena could blackmail Lucas’ father Tony Jones. Helena would help Lucas if Dr. Tony helped cure Helena’s son, a cryogenically frozen Stavros. There was a time when Lucky poisoned his own father under Helena’s command. Lucky was shot by Helena. She put Lucky through it.
She let Elizabeth, Luke, Jason, Lucky, Laura, etc, all think for several years that Luke ran over Jake (Elizabeth and Jason’s son) and killed him when in fact she had kidnapped him and had him hidden away. Helena did not play.
There were some who weren’t in Helena’s direct path per se but they were deemed guilty by association. Elizabeth tangled with Helena mainly because of her relationships with Lucky and Nikolas. Emily wasn’t good enough in Helena’s eyes for Nikolas so Helena put a curse on her and attempted to kill her a few times. Tracy’s love for Luke had her imprisoned and a few attempts made on her life. Alexis was merely born and that was enough. Alexis’ mother had an affair with Mikkos that brought her into the world. That was enough to land her in Helena’s cross hairs often (plus Helena didn’t want Alexis to ever get one dime of the Cassadine fortune). A very young Alexis saw her own mother murdered, slain, in front of her by Helena’s hands. She did not play.
And what’s a soap character without a little paternity switching. Helena tampered with Nikolas’ paternity, tried to tamper with Spencer’s and tampered with Aiden’s.
Nobody was safe from Helena. She terrorized family and foes alike. She was an equal opportunity “terrorist”. Helena poisoned her son, Stefan’s wine glass and threw him overboard on her yacht to drown him. It didn’t. She was always kidnapping, cursing and/or poisoning the women in Nikolas’ life. When she grew tired of his resentment towards her (imagine that lol) she tried to get him declared mentally incompetent and institutionalized. As we said before, her hands were all over Nikolas’ paternity “mix-up’. She made it appear Stefan was his father, for awhile, but his father was really Stavros. She kidnapped Nikolas’ son, Spencer, and brought him all the way to Russia. She had her henchman rough Nikolas one time. She was no lovable baking cookies grandma.
Two of our favorite storylines;
Helena bought an entire drug company that owned the medication that Jasper Jacks’ love, Chloe, needed to treat her brain tumor. She bought an entire company just to blackmail Jasper into bed. It didn’t work because Jasper turned the tables and handcuffed Helena (and not in a good way) to the bed and made the electronic transaction needed for him to buy the drug company instead. We loved this because it showed how Helena, being all that she was, was still very much a woman. And as we all know a woman can go to great lengths to get who she wants.
She was using her daughter “Cassandra” (her real name was Irina) to get close to Ethan (Luke’s son with Holly). Helena then ordered her daughter to shoot Ethan in front of Luke. But Irina wouldn’t because she had developed real feelings for Ethan. So, what is a mother to do when her daughter willfully disobeys her? Well, if you are Helena you order your henchmen to kill her, which is exactly what she did. Steel.
Time didn’t slow or soften Helena down one bit. Some of her escapades just in the last five years or so are listed below. She;
- Stole Lulu’s embryo which was originally thought to be fathered by Stavros. Still focused on establishing the family legacy.
- Working with Victor (her brother-in-law) and Peter Harrell, Jr. held Maxie, Lulu, Nathan, Dante and Robin at Crichton-Clark Clinic.
- Held Robin and Jason captive.
- Programmed/performed mind control on who was thought to be Jason Morgan.
- Ordered “Jason” to kill Sam and Patrick.
- Used Luke’s DID to her advantage and partnered with him and placed a bomb on the Haunted Star with a lot of Port Charles on it.
Even from the grave, you can’t keep her down. During Jake’s time on the island, Helena brainwashed him to unleash the potentially deadly Chimera virus. The Nurses Ball 2017 was to be ground zero. A
deceased Helena appeared on screen as a hallucination in Jake’s mind encouraging him to unleash the virus. But “Jason”, his “dad” and Elizabeth stopped the impending disaster.
Is Helena dead, dead? Even if she is, does she have any other disastrous plans just waiting to be put into motion? Who knows. Time will tell.
But dead or alive; Long Live the Queen!
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