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The Twisted Cassadine Love Story ...

Let's just say, there must have been a lot of in-breeding happening in the centuries of Cassadine spawning that occurred before Stefan, Alexis, Helena and Nikolas et al finally came into the picture. When the Cassadines get together, you can almost hear the theme from "Deliverance" being played by a classy string quartet! When Stefan and Alexis first came on the show, they were closerthanthis and caused more than a few eyebrows to be raised: if they were cousins, why did they often seem thisclose to doing the nasty? (See the picture at left: have you ever leaned in this close and lovingly and seductively to one of your cousins?) It was eventually discovered that Stefan and Alexis weren't cousins, but were in fact half-siblings: Alexis' mother, an opera singer, had had an affair with Mikos Cassadine, Stefan's father, and was later killed by Helena Cassadine, who had the woman's vocal chords slit. On a scale of one to ten on the evil-but-classy soap murder scale, Helena's method of disposing of Alexis' mother rates a 10+!

But the sexually-charged chemistry between Alexis and Stefan wasn't the only weird link in the Cassadine family chain. Stefan also took an obsessive interest in the life and future of his nephew, Nikolas. Of course, with those big, brown, melancholy eyes, killer physique and puffy lips, who can blame Stefan for wanting to gaze a little longingly over his nephew's bod? Stefan jealously protected Nikolas from the outside world and discouraged Nikolas from having relationships with the opposite sex -- including the ever-sweet and virginal Sarah Webber. It didn't do much good, though: despite Stefan's over-protectiveness of Nikolas, the boy eventually lost his virginity to Katherine Bell, a much-older woman whom -- you guessed it! -- was once engaged to be married to Stefan. Since incest is taboo, I guess the next best thing is to do the nasty with the same kitty kat that your uncle once did the nasty with?

But none of the above can compare with the bizarre and sexually-charged relationship between Stefan and his mother, Helena (right). Her loathing for him, his twisted love/hate for her, their mutual, perverse fascination with one another .. all of it came to a head when Stefan confronted his mother and told her he had always adored her, loved her, yearned for her love and searched for her in every woman he ever met. Helena, determined not to hear her son's profession of love, ignored him and persisted with her own version of events: that she never loved Stefan because he was a skinny, sickly little boy whom she felt would never amount to anything worthwhile. It was probably one of the most shocking and perversely compelling scenes on daytime drama ever, and one of the only times that the idiots at GH pushed the envelope and gave us something spine-tingling to flood the message boards with. 

The Cassadines. Love 'em or hate 'em, they're a mesmerizing, dysfunctional bunch.