Serena Baldwin

Serena Baldwin didn't get a normal beginning. Her mother, Dominique Stanton, married Scott Baldwin in Las Vegas and found out soon after that she had an inoperable brain tumor. Wanting to leave something of herself behind, she had an egg fertilized and asked her friend Lucy Coe to carry the baby. Dominique never got to meet her.

While Lucy was pregnant, a woman named Katherine Bell worked her way into Scott's life, all while secretly being supported by a man named Damian. Lucy watched it happen while carrying a child she knew she'd eventually have to hand over, and by the fall she was faking injuries and fainting spells just to keep Scott's attention. He caught her walking fine on a leg she'd claimed was hurt, and their relationship fell apart from there. Scott and Katherine got engaged. Lucy left town still pregnant, running up his credit card and lying about her whereabouts the whole time. She even faked going into labor to get Scott to a wedding where she exposed Katherine as Dominique's half sister, not her friend, who came to town to swindle him.

Serena was born for real not long after, in a cabin during a snowstorm after Lucy was carjacked on her way to a spa. Scott delivered her himself. Almost immediately, two men working for a man named Joe Garfield kidnapped Scott and the newborn outside a brownstone, demanding a hundred million dollars tied to Dominique's estate. Scott slipped free with the baby in his arms and chose not to come home. He and Serena disappeared to Canada and stayed hidden there for almost four years.

That was just the start. Once the story picked up on the General Hospital spinoff Port Charles, Serena was kidnapped again, this time by Dominique's uncle Rex Stanton, who blackmailed Dominique's other half sister Danielle Ashley into posing as Serena's mother while he kept the girl hidden away. It took an FBI investigation, a ransom sewn into a Nurses' Ball gown, and a meeting in a church confessional to finally track her to a cabin, where they found her sitting there singing. Even after she was found, Rex wasn't done. He framed Scott for the kidnapping, drugged him, and poisoned the well enough that Danielle eventually broke down and confessed the whole scheme before dying in a car accident of her own.

Serena's childhood kept getting derailed after that. A jealous scheme aimed at someone else left her in a car that rolled while she was asleep inside it, and she nearly lost her eyesight for good before a cornea transplant saved it. A wedding got called off mid ceremony because of the same incident. Eventually Scott and Lucy found their way back to each other, married, and gave Serena a real home, along with an adopted sister named Christina and, later, a stepfather in Kevin Collins after Scott and Lucy split.

Her story then mostly moved off screen. She turned up in Paris with Lucy, Kevin, and Christina. A mob boss once threatened her life just to prove he knew her exact address. She came home once in 2017 to grieve her grandfather Lee Baldwin, tied to the real life passing of actor Peter Hansen. She got arrested overseas for confronting dolphin hunters. And this summer, decades after any of this started, Serena came back to Port Charles as an adult, now played by Kelly Kruger, reconnecting with Lucy and getting to know Michael Corinthos.

We go through the whole thing this week: the surrogacy, both kidnappings, the accident, the family she ended up with, and what her return might mean now that we know how she actually got here.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify, YouTube, GeneralHospitalPodcast.com or wherever you get your podcast. Join us Monday as we recap this week's shows.

We'll meet you at the pier.