I’m up to November 20, 1998. *What a great Friday the 13th evening! November sweeps were in full effect this month. On a stormy Friday the 13th night, Matt and Vanessa are having a much needed romantic night at home and the Stalker is watching them from outside. This is the first time it can’t be Annie or Ken, since Annie is actively seen with other people and Ken is still in jail. I wonder who people were thinking this was at the time it aired. Anyway, Matt gets a message to meet up with Sean at Millennium, so he leaves a sleeping Vanessa on the couch. The Stalker comes into the house and puts a poisonous spider in her shoe - oh no! They also leave an ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ note about Vanessa falling down. Vanessa wakes up and walks around and then we see her put her foot into the shoe with the spider (cool shot here). The spider crawls up her leg and bites her! She tries to call Matt but can’t get a hold of him, as he left his pager at home. She collapses in pain as her bite wound is getting larger. Matt saves Beth from a bad date with a random guy at Millennium by acting as her estranged husband. They dance and flirt to get him to go away, which they laugh about afterwards. Before things get too awkward, Matt remembers he’s supposed to be meeting Sean and gives him a call. Sean says they weren’t meeting tonight, so he starts to think something weird is going on. He heads back home and finds a crying Maureen but a missing Vanessa. He calls Frank to help him investigate. Frank, being at Millennium at the time with Eleni, happens to tell Beth about Vanessa. A nearby Vicky overhears and convinces Beth to go help Matt (to keep up with Vicky’s plan to get Beth between Vanessa/Matt so she can take over Spaulding from Vanessa). David also overhears this and later calls out Vicky about what she’s doing. They then flirt and kiss. Frank and Beth get to the house and they think Vanessa may have left on her own to try and find help. Matt leaves Beth with Maureen as he goes searching for her. The next morning, the cops find and escort Vanessa back home (who had passed out with fever) and finds Beth there with Matt and Maureen, which doesn’t make her happy. Vanessa thinks Beth might have been behind the spider, since she’s showing interest in Matt and would want Vanessa out of the picture. Beth says it couldn’t have been her because she was with Matt at Millennium which annoys Vanessa. Beth then storms out. The next day, Frank/Teri grill Matt about Beth and his growing friendship with her, which upsets him. He doesn’t like the accusation that Bath is the Stalker or that he’s cheating on Vanessa. He declares he loves his wife and leaves. He runs into Lillian who tells him that Beth is in a fragile state and he shouldn’t be falsely encouraging her by giving her flowers, which annoys Matt again. Elsewhere, Beth meets with Vanessa and they really get into it about Vanessa accusing Beth of being the Stalker. They trade great barbs at each other and Beth says she and Matt have talked about their attraction to each other (ugh!), which Vanessa doesn’t buy. She then says Matt built her this nice new house and she’s never in it, which is something that has bugged Matt. Vanessa doesn’t like that Matt has confided in Beth about that. Beth then tells her to think about the woman Matt has married, the woman that faked her own death, the woman who almost died giving birth to the baby she never sees, the woman who is old enough to be his mother - and SLAP, Vanessa clocks Beth across the face. Beth gets a few more jabs in and leaves. I love this rivalry! So much better than Beth vs. Harley for me. Matt then comes home and Vanessa tears into him for telling Beth private things about their relationship, saying he’s betrayed their marriage. He can’t believe Vanessa doesn’t trust that he’s acted like a gentleman and walks out of the house. Meanwhile, Beth is now crying at Lizzie’s new playhouse that Matt built (I can’t believe they actually constructed this, it’s massive so hopefully they get more use out of it). As she’s talking to herself, we see the Stalker watching her from outside. Matt then shows up and tears into Beth, but she argues back. As she’s passionately defending herself, she gets close to him and it seems like she might kiss him, but Matt ultimately leaves. Danny (Mick’s brother) shows back up at Millennium. The bartender suddenly quits on Drew and Danny offers to work, given he wants to keep an eye on the place in case he gets clues about Mick’s death. Drew relunctantly accepts, since she’s in a bind. He tells her Mick was the oldest brother, and once their dad died, Mick had to take over the father figure role for their family. Jesse/Michelle both think it’s a terrible idea that Danny is working there. Drew tries to come on to Danny in hopes to persuade him, but he’s having none of it and further scares Drew by telling her he knows all about her past. He then talks to Michelle and tells her he went to Springfield U, and he and Mick took opposite paths in life. They seem to get along, which Drew notices. The next day, Drew tries to convince Michelle to butter him up to help them and help Jesse, because they assume Jesse will be the suspect given his history with the police. At the diner, Danny surprises Michelle by telling him it’s very odd that the people that worked with Mick (Drew/Jesse) didn’t even show up to his funeral, which Michelle stutters over. Annie once again drugs Josh and reinforces the idea that he needs to sleep with Cassie, so he turns into a creep again and tells Cassie he wants her and needs to have sex with her while grabbing her arm. She locks herself in her bedroom to get away from him. She calls Hart, who just got home with Dinah from the hospital. Hart/Dinah are kissing when she calls and starts screaming in the voicemail for Hart to help her get away from this man. Hart rushes over, with Dinah in tow, since she gets angry with him about choosing Cassie over her again. Hart arrives and bangs on the door screaming for Cassie. This makes Josh snap out of it, as Cassie comes downstairs and accuses Josh of sexually abusing her to Hart/Dinah. As he’s confused and denying it, Reva and the kids come through the door and ask what’s going on. The kids leave and Cassie tells them everything that Josh has been doing, but Josh denies it and Reva can’t believe it, but is visibly upset that Cassie would accuse him, but also potentially that she may be telling the truth. Dinah pipes up and says Cassie is making this all up to get Hart away from Dinah. Josh says he did try and get into her bedroom to help her, but he would never abuse her. Hart can’t figure out who to believe, while Reva says this is all Hart’s fault for putting Cassie through this mental stress. Cassie takes Tammy and leaves for the night. Dinah finds Cassie’s broken bracelet on the floor and takes it. Meanwhile Alan visits Teri (Annie), bringing her flowers for being kind to Annie for visiting her grave. She flirts with him and offers to have dinner with him, but he sees the truth serum drug she’s been giving Josh and she freaks out and tries to take it out of his hands, but accidentally spills it all over her. She tries to quickly get him out of the house, but the drug starts working and he tells her to sit down, thinking she needs to calm down a bit. She starts to talk about how he was always so nice to her and he questions why she keeps bringing up the past like that. He demands that she tell him the truth and she tells him she’s Annie Dutton! He doesn’t believe it nor understands what she’s trying to say, but he’s weirded out by it. She gets him to leave, and the drug starts wearing off as Annie realizes what she’s done and said to him. Alan comes back and Annie backpedals her story. Later, they discuss the former Annie and Alan mentions she was barren/couldn’t have kids, but would have made a great mother. This gets to Annie and she cries saying she wishes she had children. She then kisses his cheek and leaves, which warms Alan’s heart. Annie puts the drug in Josh’s aftershave, so she’s able to control him as he continues to apply the drug daily (so dumb haha). While on the drug, Annie lures Josh to the park and tells him to leave Reva and to find Teri irresistible. Meanwhile, Reva is starting to think something is wrong with Josh too, and then Dinah comes over and tells Reva she can prove that Josh was hitting on Cassie. She reveals Cassie’s broken bracelet, which he ripped off her when trying to get her to sleep with him. The next morning, Cassie stops by and apologizes to Reva, who then shows Cassie the bracelet and begs her to tell her the truth. Cassie backtracks and starts denying everything, saying she was making it up, but Josh (on the drug) interrupts and says he did it. Jenna gets a letter from Jeffrey, telling her he knows she got married to Buzz while having a baby, which scares her because she’s afraid he’ll find out that Rocky is his son. Ugh, we’re going back to the Jeffrey thing? She tells Harley about it who encourages her to tell Buzz, so she does. Buzz gets upset, but they promise to stick together. Buzz calls the prison and gets Jeffrey’s writing privileges revoked, which relieves Jenna. Phillip and Harley plan to escape town and elope, but they run into Lizzie, who reminds them how excited she is to be their flower girl in the wedding, so they pause and rethink eloping. Phillip confides in Rick about eloping, and Rick randomly mentions that he got a letter from India (a character on the show from long ago). Beth shows up and Phillip asks if they can take Lizzie to New York so they can elope with Lizzie in tow, and Beth gets angry and says no, enraging Phillip. But, Phillip and Harley head to NYC and it’s a calamity of errors: flight delayed 5 hours, lost luggage and wedding dress, Harley’s heel breaks, hotel can’t find their reservation and it’s sold out, Phillip’s wallet is missing. Harley calls Jenna for moral support while Phillip calls Rick asking him to wire them some money. They eventually get arrested for squatting in the hotel laundry room and are taken to city hall. OMG, Alex Spaulding (Marj Dusay) shows up and bails them out (11/20)! What a complete and wonderful surprise to me, I wasn’t expecting her back! I didn’t think she returned to GL until after her time at AMC. Alex mentions that Nick, Susan, A-M and Lucy are all doing well and send their love (love the shout-outs!). Confused why she’s there, Phillip and Harley press her about why she’s in NYC and then everyone comes out and surprises them: Rick, Abby, Alan, Vicky, David, Buzz, Jenna, Frank, Eleni, Marina and Lizzie. They have Harley’s wedding dress and it appears they plan to get married right then and there with everyone in attendance. It’s amazing (and expensive I would think for the Coopers) to get everyone to NYC that quickly haha. Maybe they used the Spaulding private jet. Ross and Blake’s custody hearing starts, with Anita representing Ross. Ben doesn’t show up for Blake, so she represents herself. Anita grills her on the stand, bringing up Holly’s drinking, Blake sleeping with Ross’s brother, etc, which makes Blake break down. During a break, Blake calls Ben and leaves a voicemail begging him to help her and apologizing for anything she did to him. After she calms down, she takes the stand again and says Ross is a good man and the best father in the world. Anita grills her more but Ross interrupts and says it’s enough, just as Ben walks in and takes his seat to support Blake. Ross is on the stand next and Ben brings up the loaded gun and shooting Blake. He questions how Ross can raise two kids in a hotel room while working full-time. Ross then also admits that Blake is a wonderful mother. The judge then rules in Blake’s favor and she gets to keep the kids temporarily. Blake tells Ross he can see the kids whenever he wants and they can work something out. She then thanks Ben, but he’s cold to her and says she’s just another nameless client and he’ll send her a bill, which stuns Blake. Later that night, Blake is confiding in Meta at home when Ross stops by and asks to see the kids. They are friendly and discuss what happened in court and it seems very cordial. Blake says their love is too strong and maybe having to go through this court process is what they needed to realize that. Ross, sadly, says they can’t get back together, but kisses her and says thanks for the memories. Later, as he enters his hotel room, he’s surprised to see India von Halkein there (11/20)! Finally on 11/20, the Nursery Rhyme Stalker is revealed to be Holly! She’s looking through photos of kids/parents in her basement and then walks in front of her camera and films herself admitting that she tried to get to Beth tonight, but was interrupted by Matt. She says Beth needs to be taught a lesson and pay for spending too much time with Matt and not enough time with her little girl Lizzie. She said all the women need to be taught a lesson to always put their children first. If they don’t change, they will end up like her and Meg, where their children are taken from them. Wow, she’s gone off the deep end and to think Fletcher is really the cause of all this Stalker chaos (haha). While I knew Holly was going to be the stalker because of spoilers, the reveal was quite shocking and I wonder if people had been suspecting her in real-time. I do wonder how they redeem Holly going forward.
Haha yes, this drug is so ridiculous. It was introduced as an experimental truth serum, but they've gone above and beyond that now... it can be a persuasion drug, etc. Reminds me of DAYS yet again. It's a liquid form that you just have to get on your skin, anywhere on the body, and you're instantly under its spell. She put it in Josh's aftershave, so now he's applying it daily LOL. I know nothing of India, so this is good to know and odd they would use Rick and Ross if she weren't in their orbit previously. My guess is this is a romantic interest for Ross while he and Blake are separated... but we'll see. She and Ross did just arrive to the Spaulding mansion for Thanksgiving dinner, and she and Alex had a very icy exchange, so now I'm getting more excited about her return. I'm torn. On one hand, I think the storyline has been very interesting, clever and entertaining. It uses almost the entire cast as a large umbrella story, which I love. But on the other hand, as you say, it's so far fetched to believe that Holly would go this crazy. Like I said, I'm curious to see how she'll be redeemed, but it seems so out of character for Holly from what I'm seen.... no matter how drunk or desperate she gets. I know this is a soap, but if I were her, I'd be using all this energy to track down Fletcher and Meg and make things right. She's just wallowing away in SF like she has no options but to sulk about Meg basically being kidnapped.