alwaysAMC

Ahh bummer, but thank you for checking!!

Oh how funny, I didn't realize they were in a movie together! Very cool, I'll have to check it out.

Wait is this AI or real? I don't remember this at all, but it's LOL!

The August 24, 1998 episode of GL is corrupt and won't play - any chance someone can re-upload or know how to fix it? Also curious if someone has the full August 21, 1998 episode - the one in the Vault is just partial. Thanks as always to everyone! ETA: Tagging @Daveyboy and @BoldRestless since they were able to help the last time *fingers crossed * Thanks again!

And Tamra and Vicki just reunited (all over Instagram). I really expect Bravo to bring Vicki back for Season 20 (and maybe others?)) and I'm hoping it's going to be back to its former days vs. this online blogger BS that ate up this past season.

Ohhh that's great! I've seen the first 3 seasons of Melbourne and thought it was GREAT. Bravo long ago would play both Melbourne and Cheshire on the weekends randomly, so I got to watch for a bit. They also randomly played the first two seasons of Durban a few years ago and that was interesting.

Ahhh ok - that makes more sense, thank you

I’m up to July 10, 1998. Ben’s hearing starts, because he wouldn’t take Ross’ deal to drop the charges in exchange for leaving town. Beth takes the stand in support of Ben, and even says she would re-do the night they had sex if given the chance. Previously, Beth and Blake fight over Ben a bit, with Beth pushing her to tell the truth and support Ben. Blake doesn’t, of course, and Griffin rules in Ross’ favor, meaning Ben can’t practice law again. Afterwards, Beth invites Ben as her date to the Bauer July 4th BBQ. Jesse draws a nude Michelle (taking inspiration from the recent Titanic movie at the time, it seems), and Drew/Bill show up. Drew finds the drawings and takes them. Reva gets to reunite with Marah/Shane when Rusty brings them home, which was sweet. Meta, Abby, and Selena get things ready for the annual Bauer 4th of July party. Buzz shows up with food and runs into Selena. He tells her she reminds him of his ex-wife, Nadine, and could be a sister of hers. Hmm. After a while, everyone shows up, including a rarely seen Vivian and Charles Grant. Everyone is upset that Beth brought Ben, and when Blake/Beth are alone, Beth accuses her of being jealous that she had sex with Ben. Vanessa/Dinah get into it and Vanessa tells her she wouldn’t be surprised if Hart isn’t the father of her baby. The new Bill seems to all of a sudden be interested in being Dinah’s brother now, and he vows to not let Hart screw her over. Reva and family show up and it was nice to see Abby/Reva finally reconnect. Jason goes missing for a bit and everyone starts to panic, but Ben realizes he fell into the hot tub and saves him. Blake thanks him and hugs him. This scene was pretty silly because Ben pulls the boy out of the hot tub and the little actor isn’t screaming, scared or anything, he just looks happy and smiling LOL. In Cassie’s dumbest decision to-date, she decides to trust the clone to stay put in the pool house while she goes to the BBQ. Of course the clone disobeys her and wants to be part of all the fun, so she heads to the BBQ too. She watches the egg toss, where Reva and Marah are having a blast and she gets jealous. When Reva goes inside, where she thanks Matt for helping Josh find her, the clone decides to step in and do the egg toss again with Marah in front of everyone. Marah asks how she changed her clothes so quickly, because of course she’s wearing pink while Reva is wearing white. They end up winning the contest and are awarded prizes, just as the real Reva sees them from the house. Reva pulls her off to the side and asks her what she’s doing and the clone says she’s being a better Reva than she is. Marah tells Josh about how Reva quickly changed clothes and seemed to have a different personality throughout the day, so he rushes off to find Reva. The clone/Reva argue about her life and Reva starts feeling sorry for how the clone’s life is meaningless and she has nothing to live for. The clone leaves, Josh finds Reva and finally Reva lashes out at Josh for putting them all in this situation. This makes sense to me for Reva to be angry at Josh for playing God and putting their family through this mess. They work through it and eventually kiss and embrace each other. Later, there is an auction to raise money for the Second Chances club, and Abby bids on Rick and they go upstairs immediately to have sex, which was odd but nice to see them have some physical scenes haha. Then, Buzz presents a wrapped painting, which he unwraps in front of everyone and shocker, it’s Jesse’s nude drawings of Michelle. Ed and Michelle are horrified, and Meta tries to calm Michelle down by saying they’re tasteful and she even posed nude back in her day for art classes. Jesse suspects Drew did this, which she did, and Michelle goes off on her. The next item is a pin that Blake told Ross she really loves, so Ben of course bids on it and won’t let Ross win. Ben ends up winning and gives it to Blake, but Blake gives it back to the charity as a donation. Later, Holly receives a telegram from her brother Ken wishing her and Fletcher a happy wedding anniversary, which stings, as Holly tells Ed and Ross that she still has no idea where Fletcher and Meg are. She mentions her brother is in the hospital, she hasn’t heard from him in years and was sent away for shooting Ed in the past. Hmm. Charles doesn’t feel well and Rick takes him to the hospital, thinking maybe he’s having a heart attack. Come to find out, it was a stroke and he’ll need to be taken care of for a while. Vivian mentions that Gilly is on assignment in London, but that David will be coming home soon. Ohh, if true, interesting! Dinah faints so Hart/Cassie take her home and then later to the hospital. The three of them argue about Dinah not taking her pregnancy serious enough, which Dinah is very upset about. Dinah gives Hart an ultimatum, either his baby and her or Cassie, but Cassie gets her to agree to let them both take care of her while she’s pregnant. They continue to fight over the week and Dinah threatens Hart that she’ll terminate the pregnancy so he can’t have the baby, which is just really gross but par for the course with Dinah. She later apologizes and says she could never get rid of her baby, she was just lashing out, which tracks. Later, Rob calls Dinah’s house and leaves a voicemail saying he’s back in town for a night and wants to recreate that night they had. Later, she plays the message with Hart in the room but stops it quickly and Hart grills her on why she’s still talking to Rob. I am curious why Buzz and Jenna are at the BBQ, but no mention of Frank, Eleni and their kids. We haven’t seen Eleni in forever it feels like, and I really want to know why. Also, O’Leary does SUCH a great impression of Grant Aleksander. He did it again in front of Harley and Beth, and Ehlers even cracked, because he clinches the jaws and extends his bottom teeth like Phillip, it’s so funny. Phillip wasn’t at the BBQ, he’s at camp with Lizzie, but contemplating his relationships between Harley and Beth. He calls Rick and tells him he’s made a decision and wants to get married. Rick later tells Jenna and she asks which girl he chose, just as Harley/Beth walk in. The call dropped so Rick didn’t know who he picked, leaving everyone speculating and Beth assuming it’s her. Later, Phillip shows up and Harley sees Phillip/Beth talking so assumes he picked her. She and Jenna prepare themselves that she needs to move on, but Phillip surprises her by saying he chose her and wants to get married. A sad Beth breaks down at the Bauer house with Meta. After the BBQ, Drew tries to convince Bill that she didn’t expose Jesse’s drawings of Michelle. She tells Bill that Jesse is jealous of him and rich people and that he did it to show the town and her family that he ‘has’ their little girl. Jesse/Michelle show up and Bill stands up to Jesse and they fight before Selena (who is randomly working at the diner now), breaks them up and realizes Drew is causing trouble yet again. Later, Jenna shows up and Buzz introduces her to Selena. Selena tells Jenna she has nothing to worry about, she’s not interested in Buzz and Jenna agrees, she wouldn’t be worried about her. Hmm. This reminds me, we haven’t seen Nola in forever which is sad. Griffin and Vicky go on a date and he tells her to be careful with Alan Spaulding, but she assures him she can handle him. They head to the hospital so she can meet with a doctor, and Vicky says her full name is Vicky Brandon (hmm, Brandon Spaulding?). Griffin runs into a distraught Vivian and they hug. She asks about living wills just as David Grant arrives! A new actor is playing him, gosh we haven’t seen David since early 1996. He berates Griffin and says he knows what he did to both Gilly and Vivian, which is why he quit working for his company back then. Vicky introduces herself and David is frosty towards her too, and she thinks he’s a jerk. David then sees an unconscious Charles and starts crying, asking him to wake up and be ok. Later, David stops by the diner and reunites with Buzz and Frank (guess I missed their relationship prior to 1995, because I don’t remember them having much of one before David left). He asks about Lucy (you’d think they would have stayed in touch), and then mentioned Mallet when Buzz says Harley is back in town. Vicky shows up and she and David continue to spar. Sean and Reva have a reunion and Josh shows up and thanks him again. Reva and Josh try to convince Sean to stay so they can help exonerate him, but he refuses. Cassie arrives and alludes to the clone being in the pool house. I really think Cassie/Sean have good chemistry, they should put them together. Alone, Sean voices his frustrations to Cassie about Josh wanting to keep the clone around, thinking he should send her packing immediately. She then lets it slip that the clone and Josh had sex once, and that pushes him over the edge with anger. Ben makes a cryptic comment to Ross and Blake about Kevin’s parentage, which confuses them. Ross thinks there’s something he’s holding over them now, and it upsets him that Blake put them in this position. Ross throws flowers at Blake and walks out, and Blake decides to watch the tape of her and Ben. Meanwhile, a distraught Beth seeks out Ben for comfort after Phillip decided to marry Harley. Ben tries to console her, but she wants sex and he refuses because he wants to keep trying with Blake. Beth gets upset and tells him she hopes he loses Blake like she lost Phillip and storms out. Later we see a crying Beth on the Towers rooftop, teetering over the edge - oh no! Thankfully Ben finds her and saves her before she jumps.

I agree, I've really come around to them as a couple this week. Martin can be such a d!ck sometimes, ugh.

I'm really enjoying the Martin/Kat scenes and the Nicole/Smitty/kids scenes, good family stuff today. Nicole is so great with her grandkids. Enjoyed seeing Pamela twice this week!

Aww poor guy, I'll have to watch his Locher interview this weekend. He got a long time after Budig joined though - over 2 years! She started Dec 1995 and he left late Feb 1998.

I am SO excited for this, I've been wanting to watch it for years!

I was so happy to see that tribute too. I remember he was included in Michelle's graduation storyline in mid-1997 when they commemorated the AIDS/HIV garden that she spoke at... which I think is why they had Michelle talk about him to Jesse, because you're right, otherwise the other characters from 1995 were gone by then. I'm at work now, so don't have my personal computer, but I feel like we saw him one other time post-1995 and Lucy/Susan's HIV storyline, but maybe it was still tagged to Lucy before she left in '96. I'll have to check when I'm home.

Oh my, that's odd. I now understand some of the frustration haha. Thank you!

I can't say much now until I see it, which won't take me long as Budig leaves in late 1998 from what I've read, but I'll remember this so I can think about it as I watch. I always wonder what happens behind the scenes... like did Buffington ask to leave/pursue other opps, did Budig?... did they always plan to move Michelle to the Santos world (from my very limited understanding), meaning was Bill ever going to get the chance with her regardless of who played those characters? They really hinted at a Michelle/Bill/J triangle during the summer of '07 after they graduated, but it sort of fell through quickly. I wonder who made that decision and why. I wonder once they knew they could get Ellen Parker back for some scenes, they decided to go the heart transplant route and ditch the Bill/J thing, but there could have been some great story there with connecting Michelle/Bill during that time. He could have been her rock while she had these visions and looked for Jesse, leading to a good Bill/Michelle/Jesse triangle, but again, maybe execs didn't think Buffington looked old or 'sexy' enough to make it exciting or believable?

Oh wow!! Sad it didn't work out. It's interesting because I'm coming up to the part where Dolly dies (recaps coming later), and this is finally where I feel like it's about character. Michael dies, Dolly gets emotional because he felt like her father/creator and she's never experienced death before... and then she essentially commits suicide by taking the aging drug. Finally I feel for Dolly, the emotions are there, the character-driven dialogue is there... just as it's coming to it's 7-month end.

Yesterday is probably the first time I've seen them together or recognized this character, but I've seen a lot of grumblings about her here. What's the quick 15 second background on her? She seems fairly new... any current family members, and how did Sonny get attached to her so quickly - just bc of her DA title to position himself?

I loved seeing her again and so happy she had the opportunity. Was it the best story or idea? No, but that is ok for me. I can't believe tomorrow is already her last day!

So far, I totally agree. Interesting casting choice...

Since I'm almost through the clone storyline, and the behind the scenes is being talked about, I went back through my notes I kept while reading Kim Zimmer's book and this is what she said about the storyline, which is interesting and a good reminder: She said fans hated the human cloning storyline, but she didn’t hate it because it creatively intrigued her and stimulated her as an actress. She also got a bump in salary during that time for playing two characters (interesting!).She explains the whole story in detail (which wow, I need to go watch that crazy mess), but she said the network and P&G execs actually came to Rauch and told them they needed to do that story. Usually, GL isn’t known for outlandish stories like that (which Rauch was used to at OLTL - Vicki goes to heaven/Clint goes back in time and Eterna). However, the network got tired of the story and told the writers to give her an aging drink so the clone will die and they can get out of this. Kim said she always believed a story like that should have been on DAYS or OLTL, but not GL because GL was a show about family and social interaction. That story was exhausting and required her to memorize 70 pages of dialogue a day, film every scene twice; the other actors who had scenes with both Reva and Dolly hated it because they had to film everything twice and then wait around for Kim to change clothes and makeup.

Oh no, Anna! That was an intriguing ending. Seems like Gio is able to really talk sense into people, he's a cute kid. The family Halloween scenes were nice today!

This was a really strong scene and Freeman got to shine, best acting from him yet! Any bets on whether Ted/Leslie go to the Winter Fest together? Today's dialogue about Ted getting a +1, and Leslie wanting to chase Ted, really makes me think it'll happen haha.

I’m up to June 30, 1998. *The ending credits of Friday 6/19 show a Ryan Brown portraying Bill Lewis. Hmm, we haven’t seen Bill in a long time, and they published the recast’s name before he premiered. Sad to see Bryan Buffington go without any sort of farewell shot. I think the last we saw him was at the hospital when Vanessa almost died and gave birth to Maureen. Jesse and Michelle go to their special place at the lighthouse and talk. She tells him she wants to pursue her medical degree and become a doctor. She reveals that Wyatt, the HIV/AIDS counselor at Cedars passed away while she was at the blind institute, and he was a reason she wanted to go that route. I loved that they brought up Wyatt again, but was shocked to read that the real actor passed away in early ’98, so this was a nice homage to his character. At the end of the 6/16 episode, they had a special ‘In Memory of Our Friend - Keith Christopher…’ note with his birth/death dates. Anyway, Jesse and Michelle end up making love (yay!), which Michelle has her vision for (she was blind their first time). Later, Michelle takes Jesse to a pre-med student/college party, which is full of richer/stuck-up kids, which makes Jesse feel uncomfortable. Ok, in the 2/26 episode, the new actor playing Bill shows up mid-way through the episode, appearing a bit older. He’s at the party, which has Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy is Mine” playing in the background (LOL - I love that song and this era, but that song itself feels out of place at this party). I wonder if the producers just didn’t think Buffington would ever look the age they wanted him to be at this point in the show and they finally let him go? Anyway, Jesse and one of the preppy students get into it and Jesse leaves the party upset. Michelle follows him and tries to reassure him that she loves him for who he is and she doesn’t want a guy like those at the party (or Bill, as Jesse insinuates). Blake is getting ready to come back home. I guess Keifer might have been pregnant in real life? She’s been gone ‘traveling’ for a couple months now, so I figure that’s the case. Ross and Holly head to the airport to welcome Blake home, while Ben and Beth discuss his feelings for Blake. I actually really like that Ben has a friend in Beth. He plans to go to the airport to welcome Blake back too, but Beth cautions him against it. He decides to not go, but then gets a mysterious phone call. He kisses Beth goodbye in a hurry and leaves. At the airport, Ross and Holly watch the passengers get off the plane, but Blake isn’t there. The agent tells them that a Blake Marler wasn’t on that flight. We then see Ben enter his apartment and Blake is there! She says she got an earlier flight and had to see him first, oh gosh. While he’s excited, she tells him she left to get him out of her system and it finally worked. This is all very flirtatious and seductive, which is exciting, with Ben pushing her about seeing him first vs. Blake saying she’s got to get him out of her life. She then shows him a restraining order that she put on him, but he vows to get it overturned. But she says she knows about Beth and how he got fired, but he says he’s not finished here. She later goes home, makes up a story about a flight change, and embraces Ross with a big hug/kiss and they go to bed. Meanwhile, Holly, having a suspicion that Blake went to Ben first, shows up to his apartment and sees the restraining order. He shows her the video he has of Blake and him in bed and Holly vows to stop him. The next morning, Holly confronts Blake with the truth. She continues to make comparisons between Ben and Roger and how Holly and Blake are torn about them, but Holly is pushing Blake to not make the same mistakes she did with Fletcher/Roger. I think that’s an interesting comparison, I wonder if Ben was GL’s way to ‘replace’ the Roger character since Zaslow left (and later passed) and they wrote out the character, hmm. So Blake is poised to tell Ross the truth about Ben so they can move on, but in true Blake fashion, she chickens out. Holly then breaks into Ben’s apartment in attempts to steal the tape, but Ben catches her. Blake shows up (shocker) and the two ladies argue about the situation while Ben revels in it. Later, Griffin tells Ross that Blake filed a restraining order against Ben, which surprises/upsets him since she didn’t involve him. He asks Holly about it and assumes Ben must have physically abused her if it was serious enough for a restraining order. Holly tries to stop him from going to Ben about it, but he goes anyway. He shows up knocking at the door, as Blake, yet again, is there with Ben trying to get the tape back. Blake hides, overhears the guys argue, and then Ross leaves. Ben finally decides to give Blake the tape, but taunts her about knowing she’ll watch it over and over again, because she can’t get enough of him. At home, she puts it in a drawer (dumb), and Blake gets Ross to understand why she couldn’t go to him about the restraining order and they make up and go to bed together. It’s interesting with Holly, in many recent scenes she’s ordering a drink from the bar, which leads me to believe she might develop a drinking problem soon. Another episode, Rick shows up to her house, where she’s supposed to babysit Kevin/Jason, but notices she’s been drinking, so he takes the kids back with him. Vicky goes to Michael’s apartment and tries to steal his cloning research papers, but Michael catches her. He gets so mad at her, but she keeps pressing him about needing to work with Alan and get funding. Michael tells her to go to hell, he wants nothing to do with them and then physically removes her from his apartment. Michael then burns up all his research papers in the fireplace and says it can never fall into the wrongs hands, but we later see Vicky with some papers and she said she can never let anyone destroy her dream. She goes to Alan and tries to convince him to help her because she’s ditched Michael and is determined to take over cloning. He buys into her confidence and welcomes her to the Spaulding team. He then tells her about Annie, how Josh ran her away, and how he will do anything to get her back. He then tells Vicky the first person he wants to clone is Annie LOL - oh boy. Later, Griffin runs into Vicky and recognizes her. He finally puts it together and realizes she attended one of his guest lectures last year and at the cocktail party, she kept asking questions about SF and the Spaulding family. Hmmm. Cassie runs into Matt and Josh and they tell her Reva is still alive, which she doesn’t believe. Meanwhile, Josh has the clone believing they’re getting married, so she’s very excited and thinks the real Reva helped get them there. The writing gets sloppy and inconsistent here, because Josh randomly starts to believe again that Reva is dead, but is resolved to make the clone happy since it wasn’t her fault for being in the position she’s in. So, he reluctantly now agrees to marry what he thinks is the clone in hopes to just make her happy. They plan to marry in Cross Creek and spend 2 weeks there with the family. The clone leaves the real Reva locked up in the pool house with now no more food, so essentially leaving her to die while they’re in Cross Creek. The letter the real Reva wrote to Sean arrives at the prison and he fights to get out to save her. He lures the security guard, disarms him and escapes. He finally makes it to SF right as the family heads to Cross Creek. He gets to the Lewis house, which is dark and empty, and sees the note on the door that says to hold deliveries for 2 weeks. He manages to get into the house and Cassie catches him and freaks out. As he’s trying to convince her he’s there to help, she knocks him out. He wakes up and tells her everything and she cries and can’t believe her sister is really alive. As Josh/the clone are driving, she says something that makes him pause, so he decides to turn around and go back to the house. He finds Cassie and Sean and realizes Reva is alive, while the clone runs to the pool house in attempts to move her before they find her. While Reva was locked up, the clone gave her a little TV and tapes to watch, so she secretly filmed a message to Josh. The clone took the tapes back home a while ago, and Josh happened to think to watch the tape that the clone said has home videos of the kids, and sees Reva’s message and realizes she’s in the pool house. He runs to save Reva and finds both Revas fighting. Josh and Cassie save the real Reva, just as she passes out from dehydration. They call Michael to come help her, who is amazed that Reva is alive. Reva wakes up and settles into the home, taking a much needed bubble bath and Josh takes care of her like a loving partner. Meanwhile, Frank got an alert about Sean being on the loose and starts searching the home and property, since Cassie had called the cops earlier when she knocked out Sean. Not knowing what to do with the clone, Cassie takes her to Harley. Before this, Cassie and Harley became chummy commiserating over their relationships with Phillip/Hart. Cassie hired Harley to take her case on with the clone, so she would stay silent. Harley of course doesn’t believe it for a while, but comes around after talking to the clone. Meanwhile, Michael goes to church and apologizes to God, asking him for forgiveness by trying to play God with his cloning efforts. Dinah continues to lash out at losing Hart to Cassie and when Vanessa suggests she move on, she lashes out hard towards Vanessa. She tells her she can get any man she wants, including Matt. Vanessa gets stern with her, asking why she’s talking that way. Dinah viciously tells her about New Years Eve and says Matt kissed her, which was passionate and consensual (it was not, she forced it, he was in a drunken fog, thinking it was Vanessa since Dinah put on her robe, and then realized it was Dinah and lashed out at her). She said Matt wanted to make love to her and Vanessa then SLAPS her. So happy to see that, very much deserved! I love to see Dinah be put in her place and Vanessa really did that here. Dinah is a character I love to hate, primarily because Wendy Moniz is such a great actress. Later, Vanessa tells Matt about her fight and what Dinah said, and Matt tells her how the night really happened, which Vanessa appreciated.

Thanks, Annette! I definitely will and I can't wait.

Oh my, I'll have to read up on the serial killer brother now! Haha. Thanks as always