General Hospital Readies Emotional Farewell to Soap Legend Anthony Geary After His Passing
General Hospital will honor late daytime legend Anthony Geary by re-airing his emotional farewell as Luke Spencer, inviting fans to relive nearly four decades of Port Charles history after his December 14 passing.
General Hospital is doing the right thing here: ABC is bringing back Luke Spencer's final episode on January 1 to honor Anthony Geary, the eight-time Daytime Emmy winner who died on December 14. If you watched this guy run Port Charles for decades, this is going to hit.
What ABC is re-airing and when
On January 1, ABC will rerun the July 27, 2015 episode that served as Luke Spencer's farewell (per TV Insider). It's the full hour that closed out Geary's long, twisty run and let Luke walk off into the unknown. Geary popped back for a quick cameo in 2017, but this 2015 episode is the official goodbye.
Luke and Tony: the quick timeline
- 1978: Anthony Geary debuts as Luke Spencer.
- 1983: He exits the show.
- 1991–1993: He returns as Luke's lookalike cousin, Bill Eckert.
- 1993–2015: Geary is back as Luke until his retirement.
- 2015: The farewell episode airs on July 27.
- 2017: Geary makes a final cameo.
- 2022: Tracy tells everyone Luke died in a cable car accident in Austria, with Victor Cassadine implicated.
The 'Fluke' era, explained
If you lost the plot for a minute around 2014, you weren't alone. Luke's behavior suddenly swerved into full-on menace, and fans started calling the guy we were seeing 'Fluke.' The big question was whether Bill Eckert had somehow resurfaced, because the actions were that off-model.
Key beats in that arc: a bomb planted on The Haunted Star, a stay at Shadybrook, and a slow-burn reveal that this wasn't an impostor at all. Luke's darkness traced back to buried trauma — the accidental death of his mother and killing his abusive father in self-defense. Once the show laid all that out, the 'why' behind the chaos finally clicked.
How Luke bowed out
After the mask came off, Luke reconnected with Laura (Genie Francis), and the two jumped into classic high-stakes rescues to save loved ones from Helena Cassadine (Constance Towers). Back in Port Charles, the personal and legal mess hit a breaking point. The goodbye itself was quiet by comparison: Luke returned to his childhood home, confronted what made him, and chose to leave town alone, future undefined. It felt right for a character who never did tidy endings.
Why this matters
This rerun is both a tribute and a reminder of how much Geary shaped the show. Nearly 40 years on and off the canvas, Luke Spencer helped make General Hospital the daytime juggernaut it is. If you want the greatest-hits version of why people still talk about this character, this hour delivers it.