General Hospital Character Recap: Nelle Benson Archer

Nelle Benson Archer – a nascent black widow with a penchant for popping up at the most inopportune of moments. This villainess has even managed to infiltrate two of General Hospital’s most prominent families – the Corinthoses and the Quartermaines.

Who Is Nelle Benson Archer?

Janelle “Nelle” Benson Archer is the only biological child of Frank Benson, the adoptive father of Carly Corinthos. As a child, Nelle was forced to submit to an unnecessary medical procedure that saw her healthy kidney removed and donated – for profit – to her niece (though no blood relation), Josslyn Jax.

When pressed, Frank eventually told Nelle that Carly had financed the surgery and was well aware of who the organ was coming from. This despite the fact that it was Jax who approached Frank about procuring one on the black market.

Now imbued with a burning hatred for Carly and a desire for revenge, Nelle set about courting wealthy scion Zachary Grant in hopes that the inevitable marriage would afford her the finical aide and status to further her goal.

Upon learning that Zach had made her the beneficiary to his estate – and that she could collect whether they were wed or not – she rigged his kayak to sink and stood by as he drowned. However, her act of murder was for not – the Grant family tied the will up in probate and she never saw a dime.

The Stars Align 
As luck would have it, Atlanta-based Nelle was contacted by Nina Reeves and asked to come to Port Charles in aide of determining if she was Josslyn’s donor. When tests proved conclusive, Nelle worked hard to ingratiate herself into the lives of the young woman and her extended family.

In time, she had Carly and Co. eating out of her hand and she even managed to get her enemy’s oldest child, Michael, to fall under her sway. After biding her time, Nelle eventually had the ammunition she needed to start her decimation of Carly’s life.

First, she caught Carly and Jax kissing and “innocently” let it slip to Sonny. Then, she drugged Sonny, made him believe they had slept together, and then clobbered together a conversation she had recorded of the two of them discussing the “affair” and mailed it to Carly.

When her actions and reasoning were eventually exposed – and her face roundly slapped by Carly – Nelle managed to worm her way back into Michael’s good graces and gain both a marriage proposal and a much-wanted pregnancy. But justice was right around the corner.

Nelle Benson Passes On Redemption

Thanks to a snooping Felicia, Carly and her mother learned about Zach Grant’s mysterious death and became convinced that not only was Nelle guilty of murder, but she was also planning on making Michael victim number two.

In response to Carly’s accusations and constant interference, Nelle began to gaslight her into believing that the recently deceased Morgan was haunting her and climaxed her plot by staging a fall down a flight of stairs and accusing Carly of giving her a push.

With one enemy down for the count – and shipped off to Ferncliff – Nelle had to next deal with the arrival of Harrison Chase, the detective who had investigated Grant’s murder and whom Nelle had nearly ruined with an accusation of stalking.

But, figuring that, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Nelle turned to Chase and asked for help in killing Michael when she learned that her fiancé planned to seek full custody of the baby once it was born.

Unluckily for Nelle, Chase and Michael were running a sting to prove her guilty of all her various crimes. While in a car that she feared was about to explode, Nelle confessed to a number of her shenanigans. And when a subsequent crash provided Nelle the opportunity to both escape and leave Michael to die, she took it.

The in-labor schemer fled into the woods and delivered her baby with the help of Liesl Obrecht. Minutes later, she convinced Brad Cooper to switch her living child with his recently deceased one.

Orange Is the New Black 
Authorities eventually caught up to Nelle and she pled guilty to charges that included murder and attempted murder. She was remanded to Pentonville but served only a fraction of her sentence before being released due to overcrowding.

Now, Nelle is not only a free woman but one who possesses a number of shares in ELQ – thanks to her prison chaplain-officiated marriage to David Henry Archer – AKA Shiloh – and the life-altering secret that her and Michael’s baby is alive, well, and being raised by Brad and Lucas. General Hospital (GH) airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings for airtimes.