Dion

Was it Monty who did the storm? I thought that was in September 1977 and Monty's episodes didn't start til January 1978.

Port Charles is located in Upstate New York, most likely on Lake Ontario, somewhere near Rochester. The map below is one possible location. It is about 32 miles north-west of Rochester, about 24 miles north of Batavia and about 47 miles north-east of Buffalo. I believe the show had already been using Rochester as a stand in for establishing shots for years before actually shooting on location there for Luke and Laura's return story in 1993; however Rochester has been mentioned as a separate city (and indeed, Lesley was being held captive in a house there immediately prior to her 1996 return).

I should add - if you haven't seen the videos yet - that "unholy alliance" wasn't a description I came up with, but what the characters themselves described it as. And it sums up their situation at the time - and even now to an extent - quite neatly

I can't find anything of them directly interacting either; Olivia was there at Sonny and Brenda's wedding but even at the wedding they don't seem to have had any direct interactions.

Since Cynthia Watros took over as Nina. I like their "friendship", but as always some of their past conflicts have pretty much been glossed over such as Ava's affair with Silas, Nina kidnapping Avery, Ava drugging Sasha back when Nina thought Sasha was her daughter etc etc. I guess you could say that a line was kinda drawn under all that after Nina got her revenge by publishing a scandalous expose on Ava in Crimson (their only significant clash during Watros' tenure), only to be quickly brought down to earth herself when she found out Sasha wasn't her daughter. Anyway, the story goes is that not long after the Crimson expose, Ava had a mental breakdown - stemming from issues over Kiki's death, Ryan and seeing Nikolas alive - and ended up in Shadybrook; there she was tormented by the recently back from the dead Nikolas. Ava had recently bought a portrait (from Dev, of all people lol) of Helena that contained a codicil to Mikkos' will that disinherited Valentin and Nikolas wanted Ava to tell him where the portrait was, so he pretended to be a ghost and told Ava that he would be stuck in hell with Kiki is she didn't tell him where the portrait was. Meanwhile, Nina was playing a long-game. She had known all along that it was Valentin who had hired Sasha to pretend to be her daughter and wanted revenge. Valentin eventually told Nina about the codicil and that Ava had somehow gotten hold of the portrait. Seeking answers, Nina went to visit Ava at Shadybrook and was shocked at the state that Ava was in. Ava explained that ghost Nikolas had told her that Kiki was in hell. Nina ended up finding Nikolas' ring and realized that Nikolas was actually alive, so the two teamed up in an unholy alliance against both Nikolas and Valentin. After that played out (with Nina exposing Valentin at the altar and Ava forcing Nikolas to marry her), the two have basically been friendly ever since.

Oh god, I'm dying! 🤣🤣

That's a good point. One of the reasons the John and Marlena affair was so successful in my mind was because of the sex scene on the plane while everyone else was gathered at the house to celebrate Roman and Marlena's anniversary.

Lol...I knew that Robin was briefly harassed by a bully as part of Faison's plot to kidnap Anna (I think Anna went to confront the bully's mother but was met by Faison instead), but never knew the bully was played by Tobey Maguire. He must have actually been in a number of episodes spanning a few weeks.

yes that's the one. Nikolas crashed his car on the way to save Emily from Zander and ended up amnesiac and in the care of Mary, who told Nikolas he was her presumed dead husband Connor.

I don't know much about what happened with Angel and Sonny, but I do know it happened with Nikolas and Mary...

In 2008, Jason actually refused to give the organization back, so Sonny joined the Zaccharas and ended up in that arranged marriage to Claudia. They reconciled post toxic-spheres and Jason handed the organization back over. If/when they do get her back, Kassius could play Brenda's son. Dev's death left room in the teen set afterall. ---- Oh and back to today, I was very happy to see Lesley back already. Wasn't too sure about her comments about having had affairs with lots of married men at first, but I think she was making a bit of a sarcastic joke about it since she initially didn't put it together that Cyrus was referring to Gordon (I mean seriously Laura, I love you, but you told Carly about Cyrus being your brother before you told your own mother?).

was that this time (1998 - 99) though, or was it the time in 2006 when Jason took over the organization after Sonny was dating Emily 🤮, or the time in 2008 when Jason took over after Michael got shot?

The names (and actors change) but the basic characterization stays the same! It was Sorel who had the annoying daughter. I think she was the one who ended up killing him. Yes, I find that summaries will often make a storyline seem more coherent and exciting. I think it's because the day to day factor is removed; you don't have to watch something uninteresting play out over months, it's just neatly packaged into a concise summary lol.

I wasn't watching at the time but from reading SOC recaps it seems Jason got spooked by a car bombing that almost killed Robin (shades of Sonny and Lily). So he made a deal with Moreno to let Moreno take over his organization, provided that Moreno left Jason's men in place as insurance so that if anything happened to Jason, Jason's men would be still embedded and able to avenge him. However, as @full hearts says, Jason was still targeted by Moreno's mob, though indirectly through Jason;s family and friends. Johnny, Jason's former bodyguard, had left the business and was trying to run a new restaurant but Moreno tried to force him into his protection racket in direct violation of his agreement with Jason; Moreno had Johnny beaten up when he resisted. Now this next part is slightly off-track, but I think it's an important subplot to the story. At this time, Felicia was renting a room on Cortlandt Street, the bad part of town, in order to do research for a book she was writing. Alan, who was an addict and had been kicked out by Monica, was renting a room across the hall. Moreno found out about Felicia and planned to have Felicia drugged in order to obtain compromising photos with which to blackmail Mac, but this plan failed and it was Felicia and Alan's friend Tammy who was drugged. Alan's drug-dealer was killed and planted in the bed with Tammy; Alan found them and tried to get rid of the corpse, only to be discovered by Taggert. Alan was arrested for murder. Felicia eventually figured out what had really happened and that she was the intended victim of a blackmail scheme and detailed all of this to Jason. Alan was cleared and underwent a rapid detox. Just before Christmas 1998, Jason went to visit Sonny (who was drunk and grieving over Brenda) in Puerto Rico. While there, Jason got word that Moreno had targeted The Outback on the night of a performance by the band Chicago (nothing specifically to do with Chicago of course, just an interesting tidbit), that resulted in Mac being shot. Jason failed to persuade Sonny to go back to Port Charles, so sent Mike to look after him over the New Years period. Eventually Sonny was persuaded to return and he started building a new organization to rival Moreno's. Sonny had Jason cut ties with him for a while so Jason would be in a stronger position to fight for custody of Michael (as AJ had just learned the truth from Robin). Jason eventually returned to being Sonny's right-hand man. Later that year, Moreno was assassinated by his henchman Sorel on the same night that they had ambushed Jason (and the same night Sonny and Carly had "hate sex"). This led to nearly two years of Sonny vs Sorel. After Sorel was murdered, Sonny pretty much took over the territory, though one of Sorel's men, Rosco attempted to make a name for himself and became a rival of Sonny's. Rosco was eventually killed and his widow Faith took up his mantle, while Sonny also faced new threats from first Luis Alcazar and of course later his brother, Lorenzo. **I think I got a bit too carried away detailing the history of the mob in Port Charles TLDR: Jason gave mob to Moreno in return for Moreno not targeting him, Moreno reneged, Jason got Sonny to return, Sonny built new organization while Jason preoccupied with Michael battles, Sorel killed Moreno, Sorel murdered, Sonny wins the mob.

Hmmm...Victor was actually in hiding at this time after the Coronation Massacre and had been presumed dead, spending his days plotting revenge against Kate. It was actually Chloe's discovery that Victor was alive (and that Phillip knew) that caused Chloe to freak out and mislead Craig and Nancy into believing she had been raped. Of course, once Chloe calmed down, she recanted her allegation, but Nancy refused to believe her until Chloe underwent a gynecological examination 😬 After Victor's revenge scheme against Kate went awry (landing Lucas in a coma after the Kiriakis Mansion burned down), I think Victor may have softened in his attitude towards the Wesley's as Victor had realized he was partly to blame for the situation. Victor and Chloe even apologized to one another and Victor respected Chloe for keeping quiet that he was still alive. However, Victor still didn't want Phillip and Chloe together. Shortly after revealing that he was still alive to the rest of Salem, Victor enlisted Brady to break them up...

Likely a device to save the testimonies for the trial itself.

Lesli Kay played the Lois recast in 2004. I think Lois is one of those unique characters who can really only be portrayed by the original (in this case, Rena Sofer) and it certainly didn't help matters that Lois spent half her time in 2004 haranguing Brook Lyn and the other half pursuing Lorenzo Alcazar. He would have been wrapping up his Y&R stint around the time that Julia returned to AMC.

And along comes this snafu to prove your last point... https://www.mylondon.news/whats-on/whats-on-news/eastenders-viewers-spot-major-blunder-19536591

In 1987 when (recast) Bill returned to Salem, it was revealed that Laura had been institutionalized. Not sure what they said during this time (whether they said it was a relapse or whether they said she'd been there all along), but until that point Jennifer had believed her mother was in Europe. But I think basically in '93 they could've just made it clear that everything that happened with Kate Roberts happened *after* this point in the Days "timeline" causing Laura to have a relapse, but they instead chose to muddy the waters a bit...i'm not sure.

I've just finished episode 4 and agree with everything you've said. Gillian Anderson doing a great job as Margaret Thatcher too.

Nicole and Maeve are now married And actress Theresa Healey has returned to the show, nearly 25 years after her iconic character Nurse Carmen Roberts was killed off on Christmas Day 1995 Though she is not playing Carmen, she is playing Maeve's mother.

Somewhat. He was introduced in 2010 as the unknown son of Chris and his third wife Alison Raynor. Alison had recently drowned so his uncle decided it was time Phoenix got to know his father. Alison had kept Phoenix's existence a secret as she and Chris had a messy divorce shortly before Chris returned to the show in 2000 (Hence in the timeline of the show Phoenix would have been born around 2000/2001 but they SORASed him and made his birth year 1995). Anyway, it took a while for Phoenix to settle in at the Warner house as he was moody and still mourning the loss of his mother. Harry also resented Phoenix as he wasn't the only child anymore (Harry didn't know about the triplets at this point!). But after a while, Phoenix settled into the teen gang that developed around Evan and Jasmine Cooper and Ula Levi and dated Jasmine for a year or so. In 2012, Phoenix developed a crush on his teacher Hayley. However, she was obsessed with Chris and led Phoenix on in an effort to get Chris, making Chris believe that Phoenix was stalking her. When Chris rejected her, she framed him for being abusive and ruined his professional and personal life. Hayley was eventually murdered in the 20th anniversary episode and Chris was framed for the crime. Phoenix eventually helped prove it was Hayley's ex who had killed her. Phoenix then faded into the background over the next year, before leaving to go to art school in Berlin in late 2013.

Unfortunately it looks like Jack's return stint has already wrapped up, with Phoenix's death being the final straw to make him cut ties with Shortland Street - a bit ridiculous since he and Phoenix never had any sort of friendship, though I guess seeing his dad's best friend lose his own son could be triggering. Michelle's great. Hopefully Chris makes her wife number 6 and Lisa Chappell stays for years.

I'm pretty sure Critchlow's Mike once talked about her with Carrie, but I could be wrong.

Speaking of the NZ election: