Finola Hughes: Is General Hospital Turning Anna Devane into a weapon?

On General Hospital, Anna (Finola Hughes) is in a mental institution in France, reportedly unraveling. She claimed she’d been kidnapped on Halloween, taken overseas, and held by Faison (Anders Hove). She insisted the WSB assignment never existed. Those around her used words like “breakdown” and “rogue.” Mac (John J. York) looked shaken. Emma (Braedyn Bruner) left in tears. Jason (Steve Burton) bristled at the idea that the WSB had broken her. And then Sidwell (Carlo Rota) made a comment about letting Anna “cook” in the institution for a while. That line felt unnervingly like timing.

General Hospital’s WSB explanation didn’t sit right

General Hospital's Mac, Felicia, and Anna. | Image Source: ABC

Everyone in Port Charles reacted to Anna’s condition with grief. Dante (Dominic Zamprogna) was stunned. Mac admitted seeing her like that tore him up. Laura (Genie Francis) clung to hope that the Anna they knew would come back.

But the details refused to sit quietly. Anna said there had been no WSB mission. She said Faison was alive and had spoken to her over an intercom. Those weren’t random fragments. They were very specific details.

Jack (Chris McKenna) didn’t buy that she had cracked in the field. He said Anna doesn’t crack. Cullum (Andrew Hawkes) dismissed her as no longer their problem. That felt less like an evaluation and more like a containment strategy. The difference mattered, particularly since we know he’s one of the bad guys. (Why do very few actually believe Anna?)

Letting her “cook”

Anna pleads with Mac and Felicia on General Hospital. | Image Source: ABC

Sidwell’s phrasing was the tell. He suggested they let Anna cook in the institution until they needed her. Needed her for what?

What if the facility wasn’t a treatment but a conditioning facility? What if Anna wasn’t spiraling, but being psychologically primed? A trigger phrase, a memory cue, a song, marching orders...something was carefully planted in her mind.

Imagine Anna returning home, fragile but functional. The town would rally for her while Jason hovered, and Dante carefully watched. And then, at the exact moment someone like Sidwell required chaos, a word was spoken. A switch flipped. Not evil or even conscious. Just the execution of a directive she didn’t know existed in her mind.

That would be the real horror. Not that Faison survived or that Anna lost her mind. But that someone rewired her brain for nefarious purposes. Jason already suspected the WSB had used Faison against her once. If they did it again, the fallout wouldn’t just be emotional. It would be explosive. Jack, Dante, and Jason wouldn’t be solving a mystery. They’d be trying to defuse one.