General Hospital spoilers: could this one person return to Port Charles to make this whole John Cates chaos go away?

We couldn’t have predicted that when John Cates (Adam J. Harrington) rejoined the General Hospital canvas he would have ushered in so much drama.

It turned out he was the reason Jason (Steve Burton) was away for two plus years, he almost sent Carly (Laura Wright) to prison for racketeering charges, he managed to get under Anna’s (Finola Hughes) skin, he weaponized Ava (Maura West) against Sonny (Maurice Benard) and he disgustingly arrested Kristina (Kate Mansi) for a crime she didn’t commit, even as she was grieving the death of her baby. Let’s just say that in his last few weeks alive in Port Charles, he racked up a lot of enemies.

Then came the fateful night when Sonny shot John on the Quatermaine estate. Viewers saw Sonny kill him and Michael (Chad Duell) leap into action to cover his father’s tracks. However, as in life, John is causing a number of problems in death.

For starters, Carly now has to run around town pretending that she’s rekindling things with Sonny, and for now, that can’t be further from the truth. However, since she provided him with an alibi the night of the murder, alluding to them having a night of passion, the exes have to play up a fake romance for appearance's sake.

Poor Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn) has found herself to be the prime suspect in John’s murder. While a number of people in town believe Sonny is the guilty party, the evidence points to the lawyer, and Sonny and Michael are trying to figure out a way to free Alexis from police custody without shifting the murder investigation in Sonny’s direction, or that of Kristina’s.

With Alexis in deep trouble, Kristina, Molly (Kristen Vaganos) and Sam (Kelly Monaco) are worried sick. The sisters are desperately trying to prove their mother is innocent. Sam even recently vowed to dive into the choppy waters where Alexis threw Sonny’s unused gun, hoping the gun would prove Alexis didn’t kill anyone. Now given the danger that’s been played up about Sam going into the water, we tend to believe that may bring about Sam’s death with Monaco’s tenure with the show coming to an end. However, this last bit is more of a theory at the moment.

Having said all of this, it just seems like the John Cates problem is spiraling out of control. Although we previously proposed that a fall guy be used to pin the murder on to keep the main players of Port Charles out of prison, we’re beginning to believe that there’s a better solution here. John Cates needs to return.

Yes, viewers saw Sonny kill him in cold blood. However, what if John didn’t actually die? What if the FBI agent met with Sonny that night with the intention of provoking Sonny to shoot him so authorities would have a solid case against the kingpin that could land him in prison? In this hypothetical, John knew Sonny would shoot him, but was prepared to fake his death in an effort to see Sonny get charged with murder. You should remember that John was desperate to take down Sonny, so the idea isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

But with Alexis taking the fall, John could return to town and work in the shadows to get the police to redirect their attention back to Sonny. Is it possible that John could slip an audio clip to authorities of Sonny shooting him?

We rewatched the scene of the murder, and we noticed John loudly proclaiming obvious things like he’s a "federal agent" and he’s on the "Quatermaine estate." It was as if he wanted someone or something (a phone or another recording device perhaps) to capture what was happening. We also couldn’t help but notice how John was baiting Sonny. Take a look at the clip for yourself.

Let’s say our theory proves right here. If authorities anonymously receive an audio clip of events, they could shift their attention back to Sonny. However, Sonny, Jason and his team would likely go searching for who recorded the file. That could lead to Sonny’s team tracking down a rogue John.

If Jason finds John, we could picture the two men struggling until Jason kills John in self-defense. Jason could have his name cleared of wrongdoing in an investigation led by Anna. Additionally, the FBI, so distraught by the number of problems John caused them (including going rogue after Kristina and Sonny), the organization chooses to drop any charges against Sonny, fearful the audio won’t be admissible in court anyway.

If this were to happen, Alexis and Sonny go free, Carly and Brennan (Charles Mesure) could kick off a romance without her having to keep up appearances with Sonny and the residents of Port Charles could start to put the John Cates chaos behind them.

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