Spoon

Gus was similar to Nick McHenry as the more regular Joe Spaulding who was raised "blue collar."

Re: Hope. They should've snagged Robin Mattsen to reprise the role when she was on the East Coast for AMC. Sorry @alwaysAMC Alan-Michael was basically replaced by Gus, whose mom they should've made a factor instead of a dayplayer nun. Fans said at the time that Rita should've been his mom.

Gotta love the disregard for continuity, iirc a large part of Jenna's backstory was that she had NO living family. 😆 That's why she bonded with Henry and Vanessa as a surrogate family.

Does Reva even have a job in 1998? I believe her next job is her stint as a tv host? I remember she was advocating for the underprivileged like Ruth and later Catalina.

@alwaysAMC i meant beth, not india. don't know why I typed it out that way. lol

@alwaysAMC You're well into the GL baby craze period. The Pharley baby really put Harley on more of an even level with Beth. Do you like Phillip better with Harley or India? Have you warmed up any to Cassie and Hart? Other couplings that you're liking or potential couplings that intrigue you? The next week is really good, looking forward to your reaction.

4 things... Marah and Tony having hot sex Big mob gunfight. Romeo kills Catalina and frames Tony Mae the Cigarette girl/undercover cop. Labine has said that practically everything she pitched was turned down.

with GL it was ridiculous, you'd have folks traveling back and forth from the island like it was the diner. Per the Island people, i think Olivia and Edmund assimilated the best. Especially once Alex returned and Edmund was basically her new warren/hawk or buzz type-task person. Michelle married to the mob would've been the perfect opportunity to bring in Uncle Mike from DC to crackdown on racketeering, but alas we GL fans couldn't have nice things. Worse than the mob and the island people was Jeffrey. As they said in mean girls, the producers tried to "make fetch happen." He was shoved down the audiences' throats so hard, it should've been criminal. Rumor was that they considered making him a Bauer, which I would've welcomed because if were stuck with him at least give us some lip service towards series lineage. Personally, he should've been Alan/Rita's son if anything. Makes you wonder where the show would've gone if the Dinah/Hart actors were convinced to stay or if the Teri/Annie character wasn't such a flop.

@DeeVee only Carmen and maybe the grandma were really bad. Danny wanted to get out, Tony was a little more gray but his brother, Father Ray was generally portrayed positively. They gave up quickly on Pilar, which GL did a lot around that time. Here's a question, who did more damage to the DNA of GL- the mob or the Island people?

I do remember them talking Dinah up for a while. I'm glad they chose Wendy, I don't know about Sydney's AMC work but I think she had an unimpressive stint on B&B.

Re: rivalries. Rauch era really pushed Carmen v Michelle. Too bad Sandra Santiago went to the "Ron Raines" school of "whiplash curling." Couldn't stand her, the execution was poor. The Alex/Mindy feud was one of the show's better feuds, even despite the recastings.

@alwaysAMC if you do go back, we'll fill you in on any loose threads for. IIRC, the first half of 1999 is really good. We actually get another location shoot during the Summer of '99, so try to stick around that long if you can.

I can't imagine this mob stuff with budig's Michelle. The last Michelle was one of the clandestine actors the show ever had. They actually hired a new Michelle in 2009 but scrapped her before filming because the show was canned. Also, Martha Madison (belle, days) was planned to be a recast Marah and that was also scrapped. She auditioned for the role years before, but lost out to Lindsey McKeon.

@AlwaysAMC just wait until the island people take over in the summer. Oooo-boy.

@alwaysAMC I'm surprised Sean is still around in Dec. It seemed like tptb lost interest in him rather quickly.