NIKOLAS AND EMILY
TYLER | NATALIA
Shocking Exit For Zander
Soap Opera Weekly
March 30, 2004
It's the end of the line for General Hospital's Zander when the character meets his demise for real this week in a finale that actor Chad Brannon promises will leave viewers awestruck.
"It was the first script that I've gotten in a long time where I literally sat down and cried when I read it," confides Brannon. "Actually, the last two shows I have are really sad and well-written. I was very pleased. I think the audience will be, too, in a bittersweet way."
Alone in a cottage with Emily, a desperate Zander threatens to harm Nikolas if she doesn't make love to - and run off with - Zander. "He's starting to lose his marbles," explains Brannon. "He wants everything to be the way it was in his mind, and it's chipping away at him."
Fearing for Nikolas' life, Emily agrees to Zander's demands, but he can't bring himself to take advantage of her. Zander apologizes, and she forgives him. "Zander gets what he needs, which is closure and to know that Emily, somewhere in her heart, loved him," shares Brannon. "Once he finds that - and that's all he ever [wanted] in his life, to be loved - then, it's like, 'Well time for me to go.' "
Emily convinces Zander to surrender to the police surrounding the cottage, and the two emerge side by side. "There's a lot of chaos. It's nuts," hints Brannon. Indeed, Zander ends up dead. "It's a sad, but fitting ending; very Shakespearean," sums up the actor. "Zander was a tragic character in the first place, and it ends in that fashion."
Brannon insists that he was ready to call it quits as Zander. "After your character gets beathen up emotionally and physically so often, you feel so badly for him that it's almost like you want him to die," Brannon admits. GH's decision to write off Zander worked out. "I've been framing this for a while. I got a new manager in November. I was soon to say, 'I'm gone.' So it was perfect."
Now the plan is to "pound the pavement...search out what God wants in my next lfe. I'm excited."