General Hospital spoilers: Jake’s art school in Spain leads to the return of Lucky?

Ever since it was announced that Jonathan Jackson is making his triumphant return to the General Hospital canvas as Lucky Spencer , we’ve been trying to figure out what storyline may bring him back.

We theorized his return would have something to do with the arguable love of his life Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst). After all, she’s single these days now that Finn (Michael Easton) has left Port Charles to go to rehab, and we’d go as far as to say she hasn’t really had a great romance since Lucky (although, we did oddly appreciate her pairing with Nikolas (Tyler Christopher). So it just makes sense to us if Lucky returns to kick off another round of their great love affair.

However, even if our suspicion is correct on that front, we have to assume that Lucky comes into her life again for a reason other than just hearing that Elizabeth is single and ready to mingle. Enter Jake (Hudson West).

As viewers know, Jake got accepted into a highly-esteemed art school in Spain. Unfortunately, it looked like he was going to have a hard time attending the school of his dreams because Elizabeth couldn’t afford it. Thankfully, Jason (Steve Burton) steps up for his son and offers to pay the tab in the General Hospital episode that aired on July 15. Jake shows gratitude toward his father, and it looks like Jake is headed to Europe. However, could he also be traveling into trouble?

Although Jake’s acceptance into the art program could be completely innocent, we have to consider that it could be a trap being laid out by the Cassadines. Longtime viewers will recall that Jake was once kidnapped by Helena and mentally programmed to wreak havoc on Port Charles residents. Thankfully Helena’s mind control was broken before things went too far, but it still stands that Jake is used to being a Cassadine pawn.

Now we understand that Helena allegedly died some years ago, Victor (Charles Shaughnessy) is presumed dead and many of the heinous Cassadines sans Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) are no longer part of the Port Charles fabric. But we can’t ever underestimate that family.

With Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) in charge of Pikeman and looking to eliminate Jason from the picture, kidnapping Jake and forcing Jason into a rescue mission is the perfect opportunity for Valentin to lay a trap to try and terminate him. Fortunately for Jake and Jason, Jake’s stepfather Lucky could ruin Valentin’s plans.

We can imagine Elizabeth catching word that Jake has gone missing and going into a full panic, calling Jason to help. While Jason commits to playing hero for their son, Elizabeth may also reach out to Lucky who is abroad to see if he’s able to get to Jake sooner. Then we think it’s possible that Lucky goes to save Jake by himself, or he winds up teaming with Jason upon his arrival. That would be quite the dramatic return to the soap for Lucky.

Just a reminder, this is all speculation at this point, but we’ll be following along to see if our hunch proves correct.

New episodes of General Hospital air on weekdays on ABC. If you miss an episode, you can catch up on Hulu .