I’m up to August 28, 1997.
Matt finishes the house and has a housewarming party. This is definitely a ‘Field of Dreams’ storyline where “if you build it, they will come” (he expects Vanessa to come home now). Sadly, Vanessa never showed and all the guests end up leaving. As Matt is alone in the house at night, Vanessa finally shows up! They embrace, kiss forever, and he shows her the finished house. They both can’t believe it all, they’re overwhelmed and they recap everything. Then of course they have sex and the episode ends. Next morning, Vanessa confesses she was falling for a man online, and Matt tells her that was him and they laugh and kiss. Dinah comes over to check on Matt and she sees Vanessa and they have an emotional reunion. Next up is Bill who comes over and embraces Vanessa, which was sweet. Overnight, Matt has a nightmare that he loses Vanessa again which upsets him and he realizes how upset he is at Vanessa for pretending to be dead and hurting everyone. He makes her promise that she’ll never leave him again. The next day, Matt takes her to the diner and she gets to reunite with Nola, Jenna and Buzz. It’s clear that Jenna/Vanessa had a really strong friendship before, during Jenna’s first run on the show. Jenna is crying nonstop. Vanessa meets her son Cooper and strangely Vanessa STILL hasn’t mentioned or asked about Peter. So weird. Ok, finally the next night at Company for her party, Matt gives Vanessa a drawing that Peter made of his family, but it was very much a quick throwaway line, which is disappointing.
Reva/Josh surprise Marah/Shane at Cross Creek with their own personal family “wedding”. They exchange vows and rings, but wasn’t ordained, just a family commitment it seems. Cute. Afterwards, Josh asks Reva to stay married this time, and she says only if he promises not to marry another nutcase because Sonni and Annie were enough trouble for their lifetime (a Sonni reference in 1997!).
Billy’s parole officer is now allowing him to pursue any career he wants now, so he quits Buzz’s diner and asks for a job back at Lewis Oil.
Jeffrey is now gone (went to prison), and Jenna is finally able to be happy with Buzz in Springfield. Because they worked so well together to bring Jeffrey down, Jenna and Harley decide to team up and start their own private eye business, but they continue to butt heads and clash. They have lunch with Reva and Josh and their first job is to help Reva find her sister.
Alan and Annie travel to Chicago to find Cassie. Come to find out, Cassie is a stripper, who wears her mother’s brooch on her jacket in the strip club (LOL - so corny). I cannot believe Laura Wright’s introduction to this show was a (very long) strip tease on the pole! Wow. Her daughter Tammy is in a foster home, but we see Annie/Cassie visiting her and Tammy clearly loves her mom. Alan/Annie get her to commit to taking a job as a receptionist at Lewis Oil, with the goal to sabotage the president of Lewis Oil (Josh) and make his wife (Reva) miserable LOL. Ultimately, Alan gets her an interview as Billy’s secretary. On the morning that Cassie is off to interview, we see Billy, Josh and Reva at the newly renovated Lewis Oil offices. This set is huge, they even comment on how much room they have. Billy doesn’t want a secretary, but he interviews Cassie anyway and he keeps saying she reminds him of someone (duh, Reva haha). However, he tells her no thanks, and she leaves crying. Reva bumps into her and consoles her. Reva goes back to Billy and pressures him into giving her the job. Meanwhile, Cassie bumps into Josh in the hallway and immediately takes a liking to him, uh oh! Billy then brings her back, gives her the job and Reva invites her to Vanessa’s party at Company that night. Cassie first reports back to Alan/Annie and tells them she’s confused because Reva/Josh both seemed nice, which they hate to hear and try to convince her against that. Billy then picks up Cassie and takes her to Company, and Billy/Vanessa slowly hug as they see each other. They introduce Cassie to everyone, which seems so fast for a stranger. Billy, Josh and Reva keep telling Cassie to stay away from Alan/Annie when she asks questions about them, so you can tell Cassie is starting to wonder who she should trust. Cassie then bumps into Hart and you can tell she’s really into him and they start to flirt. Ohh, I could be into a Dinah/Cassie feud haha. Dinah/Hart need something to do anyway, they haven’t had their own storyline in a long time (except Dinah in Vanessa’s story).
Meanwhile, for some reason, Amanda has a problem with Annie, and really wants to know what Alan/Annie are up to. Amanda sabotages her probation meeting by calling the probation office pretending to be Annie, getting her meetings rescheduled so Annie would miss them. Annie misses the meeting she didn’t know about and Frank comes over to arrest her. Annie is in jail and freaking out with her crazy cellmate. Annie assumes Reva did this to her. They explain to the judge that she wasn’t the one that made the call, so instead of putting her back in prison, they put her in the psych ward in the county jail LOL. Reva then visits her, pushing Annie to give her more information on her sister. Annie taunts Reva about it, so Reva takes Annie’s hand and puts it on her chest and pretends that Annie pushes her over a sofa (like Annie did to Reva over the stairwell). The doctors hold Annie while Reva screams for help LOL, which puts Annie in a worse situation at the psych ward.
Sugar Hill thinks Dahlia is a distraction for Marcus and his potential, so she needs to go. Marcus thinks Sugar likes Dahlia, so he’s mad and jealous. Blah. Sugar keeps referencing a Drew Jacobs on the phone to someone, and it’s clear he doesn’t want her around. Sounds like another new character coming to me. Anyway, Dalia magically books a room at the Towers for them to finally have sex. This is odd because 1) she can’t afford a room there and 2) we’ve never heard them talk about sex or her being a virgin until now, out of the blue. Yep, Drew shows up to Marcus’s show at the Towers and it’s revealed that she had a romantic past with Sugar, but he wants her to leave. Drew’s dad is also a producer big wig who is there to assess Marcus during his show. Marcus is running late because his car breaks down, so Dahlia sings a song to keep the big wigs there before they storm out upset. They’re amazed by her performance and then Marcus shows, he plays his sax, and the big wigs are happy. Drew’s dad tells Dahlia she could be a big star and Sugar then offers Dahlia a contract. The label decided to go with her instead of Marcus. Dahlia pushes Sugar to give Marcus the deal instead, and ends up giving both of them a deal as a duo.
Michelle has another vision with Maureen and talks to her about Jesse, which was sweet. Jesse/Michelle are both into each other now and Michelle continues to teach him how to read. Because of this, Michelle now changed her mind about college and wants to go to a local school vs. going to Maureen’s alma mater. This pisses Rick off big time and he confronts Jesse about it. Michelle has another vision of Maureen and she tells Michelle to do what makes her happy, and if that’s staying to explore her relationship with Jesse vs. going to her college, then that’s fine. Jesse’s dad keeps yelling at Rick and Michelle, and Rick/Lillian find medical records that prove Ed didn’t kill Jesse’s mother, but Jesse’s dad doesn’t believe it. Michelle takes Jesse to the lighthouse, which amazes him. There, they profess their love for each other, which makes her get over the memories she had of Zachary at the lighthouse. Which now this makes me wonder who owns the lighthouse now. Michelle mentioned her family does, so I guess Zachary restored it and just sold it back to Ed? They didn’t acknowledge that…
Meanwhile, Abby goes to Point Lester to find Michelle and she’s attacked at Jesse’s home by one of his goon friends. He tries to rape her, but she screams, tries to knock him out, but he ends up knocking her out cold instead! Poor Abby. The police mention a woman screaming at an address that’s Jesse’s over the scanner system, which Rick and Lillian hear at the hospital. Rick takes off, thinking it might be Michelle in trouble. The goon wraps an unconscious Abby in a big carpet, the police arrive but they don’t see Abby and the goon leaves with the cop. Jesse then arrives, finds Abby and panics just as Rick walks in and sees him holding her. Rick assumes Jesse attacked her and takes her to the hospital and operates on her. After Rick and Michael operate on Abby, Rick gets the police to arrest Jesse. Michelle screams that Jesse was with her and he couldn’t have attacked Abby, but they cart him off anyway. Reva rushed to the hospital to see Abby, which I thought was great. That’s one relationship they haven’t forgotten or given up on, which I appreciate. Abby finally wakes up, but can’t remember details of the attack, and Reva has to tell her they have to run tests because she may have been raped (she wasn’t). She starts to have flashbacks and confirms it wasn’t Jesse, so he’s able to get out of jail. There is a scene where Reva tells Alan about Abby and he literally doesn’t care and keeps pushing his Annie agenda. Typical Alan, which is not endearing at all. He then pays off one of the psych ward employees to make life easier for Annie, but the employee allows Annie to take his hospital jacket and escape!
Amanda tells Roger she wants a baby, blah.
Mallet (off camera) calls Harley and tells her it’s officially over, he has a new girlfriend and they are giving up their shared apartment. She cries to Philip, all the while those two are having flashbacks of their ‘pretend’ sex and their feelings over it all. Clearly setting them up for a coupling here. Days later, Philip pushes Harley to find a new apartment and even brings her a dog (that looks just like Harold from AMC LOL). They end up having sex again, blah.
Vanessa and Matt meet with a doctor who gives her a new test medication that will prolong her recovery and reduce any further symptoms from her disease. She takes a pill after feeling light-headed, which really gave me the suspicion she may start to get addicted to them, but we’ll see. Meanwhile, Dinah has fears that Vanessa’s disease is hereditary and she may face the same future. This prevents her from getting closer to Hart and living a future life with him and potential kids.
