‘General Hospital’ Is About To Have a New Cop on the Beat

General Hospital’s PCPD has been having personnel troubles these days, which means a cop is needed to help out old faves, while also shaking things up. That’s where Detective Joe Fitzpatrick comes in. Mean Girls star Jonathan Bennett makes his debut as the new Port Charles police officer on Monday, May 18th, and is immediately called upon to make an arrest.

Jonathan Bennett Makes His General Hospital Debut

Port Charles has been short on detectives of late, as Dante (Dominic Zamprogna) has been made acting police commissioner in Anna’s (Finola Hughes) absence, while Chase (Josh Swickard) has been demoted to a uniformed beat cop. Even Detective Nathan West is not who he claims to be. He is really Nathan’s twin brother, Cassius Faison (Ryan Paevey), so that means Nathan is dead and the man fighting crime in his place is not really a cop at all.

Enter Detective Joe Fitzpatrick, who Bennett brings to life starting this week. Bennett marks his return to ABC soaps with his GH debut, having played JR Chandler on All My Children from 2001 to 2002. “Daytime is where I learned to act,” Bennett said in an interview with TV Insider. “It’s where I learned what this business was. The opportunity to come back to where it all started just felt like the right thing to do.”

In 2004, Bennett landed his breakthrough role in the hit film Mean Girls, which led to him enjoying a prolific career on both the small and big screen for 20 years. Bennett has appeared in numerous TV shows and movies, including Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Romantically Speaking, Do You Take This Man? and Fantasy Island, per IMDb.

When he steps back onto the daytime screen as the newest member of the Port Charles Police Department, he’s immediately called on to break up a fight at the Metro Court Gardens, according to People. As fans know, Friday’s episode ended with Curtis (Donnell Turner) landing a punch on Isaiah (Sawandi Wilson) after an altercation about Jordan’s (Tanisha Harper) car accident and Portia’s (Brook Kerr) pregnancy. It looks like the new cop in town is about to read a former cop his rights.

General Hospital airs weekdays on ABC and streams each weeknight on Hulu.