Vee

We'll see!

If this is actually some Faison microchip nonsense where RP is playing NuFaison with some magic USB in his head or something again I am out lol. I didn't watch that crap in the late '10s with Drew and Franco and I'm not going to now. I can absolutely see Frank and CVE trying to do a last minute saving throw retroactively in future blaming Britt's most extreme bitchery here on 'the chip' too lol, but I think they just think this is more of her 'layers' of low self-esteem, defense mechanisms and la la la and that the rest will be blamed on the bad guys threatening her. Like they're writing for Sarah Brown in 1996 lol. This is what you get when you try to put over an aggressively divisive character with an actor with a very limited range, a merely serviceable writing staff and a meager fanbase who's already done terrible things to popular characters (even if the EP doesn't currently favor them). You can't put someone as acid yet superficial as Britt over the way you could in the '90s or 2000s when they were backstopped by some big onscreen personalities and some of the best in the business still on dialogue.

Whether or not Britt is doing this to push Rocco away for his own good out of fear of her 'mystery' boss, it's a disgusting look. The show had already tried to excuse and whitewash Britt's actions with Dante and Lulu weeks before her onscreen resurrection. By the time they get around to the reveal unpacking Britt's latest ugly behavior no one is going to care. I've said it before, this crap Frank, CVE, etc. are pulling (because I do not believe Liz Korte gives a damn about Britt lol) is what will sink KT this time around.

We'll see.

Kimmel is back tomorrow night.

That is lovely. I'd kill to see her back.

Oh, man.

I think saying the show is doing 'misandry' is a bit much. I do think it's an overcorrection from GH and B&B and most of the men need real work. I actually think Martin has gotten a lot stronger since the reveal as opposed to being a histrionic, loud authoritarian (but without a degree of histrionics he wouldn't be Martin!), and is one of the other compelling and layered males on the show. He was a strong axis of support for both Smitty and the kids last week. Smitty himself is decent. But they seem so overcautious about either valorizing hypermasculinity or promoting stereotypes with the rest that instead you have a series of other guys who are either ciphers, wusses or both. We've already talked about what needs to be done with Andre, but I think they are terrified of playing into stereotypes about Black men with Andre if he is actually depicted as a jetsetting player or making him unpalatable to audiences (or Ashley) so instead you have this milquetoast in loud fits who only comes alive in Dani's bed.

If Ashley and Derek absolutely have to continue to exist on canvas I would've recast both long ago. Someone like Josh Kelly could've only made Derek work so far if he wasn't such an idiotic simp on the page, but he could at least add some spice on his own. I'd sooner just see them cut these two and introduce other people.

I know Riche and Jane clashed over a story in this period - some social issue about abortion or Jenny's past or something? I don't remember the specific angle but it was something Jane didn't agree with Tracy being against.

The First Lady of Llanview is in this week's GH promo.

They have indeed dropped Erika Slezak in fast. She looks good.

These 90s clips are great. In keeping with the spirit of things I decided to go on what I thought might be a more difficult quest and find a half-decent, nuanced scene with Tracy and Monica in recent years. Too often in the 21st century they would go from either being at each other's throats all the way up to 11 to being totally anodyne and bland or characterless. These scenes, from 2017 (a dismal period I wasn't really watching), are pretty amiable albeit nowhere near as layered as the earlier stuff. They're also very breezy and fun as there's a sense Jane and Leslie may not be totally sticking to the script. Particularly in the second clip with Tracy reading Larry's letter.

We should be so lucky.

This is great. They don’t cut flashbacks in like this anymore*, but I’d just put most of this scene as an opening teaser with no preamble during one of the Monica memorial eps. Just a cozy flashback to Alan and Monica in their prime being who they were to each other, and showing how things really got going with her and Jason. No, no one was there to see it so it's not technically a flashback but just put it in at the beginning. *(to their credit, they did let some longer flashbacks run during Bobbie's memorial eps and I expect they will this week)

That is a great scene. I can't remember the next time I saw them like that.

I was pissed when Peter Reckell came back as a kid lmao. RKK was the hottest thing on two legs at the time, and fiercely intelligent onscreen too. Suddenly I tune in one day and I'm like 'who is this hick?' I had no idea who he was. I grew to like him of course, but it was a shock!

No, I was the same as you at the time - I only started watching GL during the Annie years. I just found Beth so pathetic for so long, and it was so obvious she was the two-dimensional Bad Ex-Wife in the story for ages. The Judi Evans character I read about seemed like night and day. BC did earn my respect through years of very strong performances despite often dreadful material. I do agree with your analysis of the character.

I've always been fascinated by her return in this period and the circumstances and shifts. Did she want to rebuild Josh and Reva her way? RN had only been back since late '86, right?

I always felt the Beth that Rauch brought back (at least initially) might as well have been a new character. The version I saw him create was basically just a shrewish, neurotic ex as an obstacle for Phillip and Harley, who was also a horny buxom blonde eager to make trouble for other happy couples. It was right out of his '80s work, or a short term character on a primetime Spelling soap. But I don't remember much of the Ben relationship, where he always just seemed to be a stock villain to me. They softened and evolved her a bit over time when circumstances changed and she had real chemistry with DAM, but she still stayed sort of a pathetic, damaged creature for a long while for me. I think it was BC's talent that kept her around - she was smart, smarter than her material, incisive and underrated. (I wouldn't hate her as Carolyn Webber on GH tbh)

It helps.

I'd forgotten about Sam and Blair, oy. I do remember her tangling with Max both early in the year and late. It just was a bad time for her period. You'd think Long would cotton to Blair and Kassie, but who knows. I think she was there when they broomed the unpopular Chelsea out on GL.

I have said it before but John and Marlena's exit story was so hasty, slapped together and demeaning. The firing should never have had happened, nor should the story. I think bringing back Carly and CC could've worked. Dena Higley was never the writer for it. Steve and Kayla have come and gone many times so I understood it but I am glad they're there today.

I usually do too, haha. Just ask the GH threads. But I am simply not well-versed enough in the period to wax as rhapsodic. I'll have to check around if anyone has a vault.

Skipping ahead a bit, we might as well move this discussion from the GL thread into here. We were talking about a bit about legendary GL HW Pam Long's brief stint under JFP in 1998. Long has indicated it was troubled, and James DePaiva and I think others said Jill ran Long off. IIRC JFP then spent most of '99 without a HW until ABC forced her to hire Megan McTavish. I do think Long could've done well at GL, but she inherited a pretty messy situation with Jill's stamp all over it from the start and various sacred cows Jill made more than one HW push heavily (first and foremost Kale Browne's Sam Rappaport, who McTavish later said she was required in to write in 3 days a week).