True, there had been a very brief but memorable recast soon after Stefan's appearance in Port Charles two decades after the original incarnation. Though onscreen for a scant two scenes, the transitional Cassadine matriarch did serve to push forward the image of Helena from vengeful widow to the spider-like Black Widow into whose bed Luke crawled to do battle. Unlike Taylor's Helena, this bedridden ruin was short on beauty and long on craft and guile. Supposedly at death's door, she still projected a convincing aura of menace and power. As an added fillip, Luke himself had grown into a more worthy adversary for the most deadly Greek mother since Medea. In his one meeting with the ET Helena, Luke's flesh crawled at her touch. With TempHelena, we sensed that this was a woman he could best, or die trying. It was an excellent, if transitional, effort, and in the months that came and went with no sign of her reappearance we missed the prospect of a sure-to-be titanic rematch.

But Constance Towers? She was so...nice. Anna to Yul Brynner's King. Soignée matriarch of a political dynasty on Capitol. She sings! It was hard to imagine an actress who has played countless supportive mothers on the big screen giving evil life to one of the legendary evil mothers of soap history. What could she bring to the role that would not be a step down? Well, as it turned out, quite a lot.

Towers's Helena is still elegant, still arrogant, still fiercely devoted to the memory of the husband who died at Luke Spencer's hands and still the implacable enemy of Laura Spencer. She is as deadly as her temporary predecessor, and as fond of cloaking her deadly intent with a steely dose of sexual allure. Towers manages to acknowledge our memories of her antecedent Helenas while imbuing her own version with several telling differences. Vive la difference!

Elizabeth Taylor's "Madame Cassadine" swept into Port Charles with an extensive entourage that included a majordomo, several personal assistants, and various maids, masseurs, a personal chef, and countless personal effects. She brought her own linens. She flew in Sterling roses. In order to survive a mere week in such a provincial city, Helena needed to transform her surroundings into a reasonable facsimile of the world in which she was accustomed to move. Even so, she made sure to do her waspish business quickly and depart: she came, she cursed, she left. Our Helena, by contrast, has been roughing it in Port Charles for over a year, attended by a single (well, serially single) manservant and eating, when necessary, mere hotel food. She has grit.

The Helena of old relied on intermediaries to carry out her deadly orders. Towers's Helena not only exhibits a positively American passion for do-it-yourself action, she prefers it. We have learned that her very own manicured hand wielded the knife that slit Natasha/Alexis's mother's throat. She "endured" Texas to put the finishing touches on Lucky's conditioning. Who could doubt her intense pleasure in administering to her despised son Stefan the last of her beloved Mikkos's prize Port, liberally laced--she thought--with poison? And she has patience. Just think of all those weeks she spent in true paralysis, followed by yet more weeks of careful fakery. (If there is ever an honorary Emmy awarded for best performance by the eyes alone, Towers would win uncontested.)

Best of all, in Constance Towers's hands, Helena is funny. Her mordant sense of humor is delicately arch and unerring. Here is where her musical comedy training serves her best, by tempering the horrendous content of her speech with truly delicious delivery. Taylor's Helena would never have stooped to comedy but it is almost impossible to think of Helena today without this leavening agent we have come to expect as fundamental to her character. Elegance, yes. Horror, yes. Giggles? You bet. Anna Leonowens, step aside. Constance Towers is the essential, the quintessential, Helena.

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