alwaysAMC

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

The Halloween talk today reminded me that they're still a few days off from the baseball games in Sept. Did Martin and Laura ever know each other before Martin showed up in town? I can't quite tell if they like each other or tolerate each other haha. She must have some sense of loyalty to him since she's willing to get him off these charges. And they live together, although she just said he has to move out today.

I love that someone else enjoyed Lucy I will say she got boring/too sweet with the A-M recast, so maybe she was 'boring' before the Brent/A-M storyline (I don't know yet)... but 1995 to mid-1996 with Hearst, she was pretty much leading lady with big storyline (as you know)... so part of me wonders if they would have kept her if Hearst would have stayed. The recast wasn't very strong and once he joined, it felt like they didn't have a desire to write for them anymore. Had Brent (Beaty) stayed on too, surely she would have stayed longer. I think there was potential in having both Lucy and Harley on the scene together. So many 'what ifs' haha.

Hayley to Randy: "Like you could seriously get someone like me!" 😂 I really can't believe they're having this conversation at Joey's casino though, how dumb haha.

The Beverly Hills trailer is here! This season looks good and refreshed! The new girl might be a scammer, but I'm here for her feuding with Erika! It doesn't seem like anyone is safe this season haha. I'm expecting good things. https://deadline.com/gallery/the-real-housewives-of-beverly-hills-season-15-cast-photos-bravo/kyle-richards-2/

Great questions! Favorite couples so far: Jesse/Michelle, A-M/Lucy, Rick/Abby, Holly/Roger, Blake/Ross (although she makes some of the dumbest decisions and is too afraid of him to say the truth, even when he gives her the opportunity, consequence-free). Nick/Susan (but way too short). I do like Matt/Vanessa too I also thought Phillip/Annie had great chemistry, if not romantically, at least friendship-wise, until they just wrote Annie off the deep-end (which was fantastic too). I also really loved the Josh/Annie romance from the beginning, but in hindsight, I could see how that might have gotten boring without some curveballs thrown their way. Least favorite couples: Holly/Fletcher (boring, and especially what Fletcher did to her on his way out), Gilly/Griffin/Vivian (whole thing was gross), honestly the Beth/Harley/Beth triangle doesn't do much for me, but I don't hate it or them, Alan and anyone because he's so gross, Reva/Buzz was awful, Roger/Dinah in the beginning was great, but once Lonatrat happened, it was awful how they treated each other. I see potential in Hart/Cassie, but honestly I dig Dinah/Hart more because of their history. I just don't feel like the writers gave Hart/Cassie enough material early on to really make me fall in love with them. I mostly blame the fact that Cassie kept having to spend time in Reva's storylines, that she just wasn't given the chance. It took them months to even have sex for the first time, and then right after was the insta-triangle with Dinah, so the build-up wasn't as satisfying for Hart/Cassie. Favorite characters - I love a lot and my top 5 fluctuate based on the storylines that happen. Roger, Lucy/A-M, Brent/Marian, Holly, Blake, Ross, Vanessa, Matt, Josh, Annie, Gilly, Frank, Rick/Abby, Michelle/Jesse, Bridget, Alex have all rotated in and out. I loved Henry, but didn't get to see enough of him to really place him top 5 anywhere. Least favorite characters - again, some have had redeeming qualities and rotated in and out of my bottom 5, but generally Alan, Fletcher, Buzz, Vivian, Griffin, Marcus, the first J, Quint, Drew (so far, it's early), and Dolly the clone haha. Characters I love to hate - Dinah, Amanda, Ben (he sucked in the beginning, but he has great chemistry with Blake and their emotional love affair is really intriguing and hot; and he's a great friend to Beth, which has been nice to see).

I love this - can't wait to see which show she's on!

Oh wow - I hadn't heard that yet - how awesome!

Haha yes! MEK put some of Tad's old humorous mannerisms into today's show, which made me laugh. I've only been watching for about a month or so now, so I don't know if Tracy really deserves the house or not, but that final scene really made me happy for her. After all this Ronnie mess, it really seemed like wonderful redemption for Tracy.

Ok that ending - that was Sharon right? I wouldn't buy for a second that Vernon is cheating on Anita with her, like they're suggesting. It's gotta be a Winter Fest surprise they're putting together for Anita, I'm sure.

Great scenes with Eva and Leslie today. Even Leslie is honest about how inconsistent and crazy she is when she said something like she'll tell the truth today, but don't count on tomorrow haha. With all this lead up and slightly boring prep scenes for the Winter Fest, I'm expecting big things!

Ok the dog bit was ridiculous haha. As cute as that pup was, it's silly such a friendly little guy couldn't be caught. But, I was wondering how they'd kill time before Tracey comes over with the real will, and I guess that was their solution LOL.

You're welcome! Yeah, the clone storyline loses its way here and there and I think the writers were doing so much, they missed a few loose ends that ended up not making sense. It's probably easier seeing those mistakes now when I can watch multiple episodes at a time vs. day to day, back then. I'm such a big Jesse/Michelle fan, that Drew is not doing it for me haha, but I'm excited to hear the actress gets better and develops in the role. I just got to the July 4th BBQ where she exposed Jesse's nude drawings of Michelle in front of everyone and then denied it like crazy. She's... not my favorite haha. I also just got to the new David Grant! He goes off on Griffin for the things that happened with Vivian/Gilly 2 years ago (which seems a bit odd since the Grant family has rarely been seen since then). Griffin seemed to have been relegated to the stock judge role whenever they have court scenes, but seems like they are using him more again, going on a date with Vicky and feuding with Charles/David. Marcus/Dahlia are still barely on though.

Oh yes, that 9/24/92 montage is a good one. It's so good to see Lillian have more of a presence back in those days too. Enterprise is worth a watch, it got really strong in it's final two seasons LOL!