General Hospital‘s jaw-dropping twist of Willow Tait‘s (Katelyn MacMullen) being revealed as her husband, Drew Cain’s shooter, has left viewers reeling. The writers of the ABC soap opera recently shed light on the compelling reasons behind their decision.Why Willow was chosen as Drew’s shooter on General Hospital
For head writers Elizabeth Korte and Chris Van Etten, there was only one choice that felt truly authentic. In an exclusive interview with Soap Opera Digest, Korte and Van Etten unveiled the reasons behind why Willow Tait, Drew’s own wife, shot him.

As revealed by Korte, the prospect of Willow as the trigger-woman was a tantalizing narrative thread, too hard to resist. “We definitely wanted to see how the weight of bad decisions [would play out],” she noted. “Arguably, Willow’s real bad decision was just to fall into this affair with Drew.” This kicked off during her marriage to Michael (Rory Gibson), Drew’s nephew. “And then, once she did, every decision she made — as sometimes happened — really spiraled to work against her,” Korte added.

“When we laid it out and realized that Willow was the best character to be the one who shot him, we were then able, hopefully, to build in that spiral, the layering of things which she had done — and any single decision that she had made in the course of [this spiral], you saw hopefully clearly why she was making it,” continued the co-Head Writer.

Korte explained how Willow’s troubled past, including her time in the Dawn of Day cult, has conditioned her to crave validation. Drew then exploited that. A heart-wrenching consequence of Drew’s manipulation was Willow losing the custody battle to Michael. This stripped her of even visitation rights to her kids, Wiley and Amelia.

According to Van Etten, the scorching revelation that Drew had slept with Nina, her own mother, was the spark that ignited Willow’s rage. Her aborted wedding snapped her eyes open to the real culprit behind her misery. It shifted her anger from Michael to Drew.