Kane

It's strange because Isabelle doesn't really have any story from 1983-1989. Cabot is involved in plenty of stuff, but Isabelle seems to be used mostly as a talk to for various members of the Alden family and for about a year from mid-1987 to mid-1988 Dabney is taken off contract and I think only shows up for big events like weddings. Then comes 1990 and she gets a bunch of story (in addition to the face cream plot, there's also a plot where she thinks Cabot is having an affair with Ava), and then she's part of the exodus of characters written out in 1991, only to be brought back at the end of the year with a new actor in the role.

The story where Isabelle was burned with face cream was during Dabney's tenure, when Amourelle/Clay was battling Tempest/Jack & Alex. Clay stole the formula from Tempest, not realizing that it was an old rejected formula that Dane had planted for him to steal. He rushed the face cream into production and gave a jar to Isabelle, who got disfigured using it and then for some reason blamed Jack instead of Clay. This was then used to give Isabelle a motive so that she could be a red herring in the "who shot Jack?" story. Barry took over the role when Isabelle was in the hospital after having a heart attack. Holm played the initial part of that story and was in the role when Isabelle convinced Clay and Gwyneth to remarry as her "deathbed" wish, which in turn caused about five scenes worth of conflict between Clay and Dinah Lee before Clay and Gwyneth's hasty remarriage and hastily annulled. Dabney is the only Isabelle for me, too. If they wanted to bring on Holm, they should have brought her on as a new character, Isabelle's sister, maybe, or maybe Cabot's sister who, having lost all her money, invites herself to move back into the family home and starts driving Isabelle crazy by playing lady of the manor. A little easter egg: while watching All My Children on Pluto TV I caught a inter-episode snippet of an interview with Agnes Nixon where she tells a story about once seeing a psychic named Mrs. Quackenbush. During her 93/94 tenure writing Loving, Nixon has Ava see a psychic named Mrs. Quackenbush to try to help her sort out the visions from her trip to heaven, and to perform a seance to try to contact Trisha only to be told that Trisha isn't on the other side.

Thank you! Amazing!

Man, I remember watching these episodes when they originally aired when I was an impressionable pre-teen. It's wild watching that rough Alec/Arlene sex scene today, when shows have gotten so chaste. Loving the stuff they're showing in between episodes. They just showed part of an interview with Agnes where she talks about her time at Guiding Light and how she got pushback P&G over a black character going to a white character's front door and ringing the bell, and how that experience informed how she approached her deal with ABC when she was creating One Life to Live and the Carla storyline.

I think that was Wendy Moniz and Frank Grillo having sex in a dressing room. If I recall correctly, Hunt Block alluded to it in an interview when he was on GL.

Bo and Nora are my favorites. Viki, Dorian, Marty, and Jason are also high on my list and I enjoy Asa a lot, even though he can be jerk.

That would be absolute icon Elaine Stritch. Nice to see your recaps back. I've been digging into this era recently myself (I'm in October '93 right now) and I've really enjoyed your perspective and enthusiasm for the show.

Thanks for the tag!

Wasn't Rocky just a nickname? I think his legal name was Ian.

The only thing I remember about Juan Pablo is an outtake where Rebecca Budig cracked up because his accent made it sound like he was calling her "a work of fart."

Don't forget the other two members of the trio that was going to shake things up at AMC: Braden and Raquel. All three crashed and burned, but 30-some years later I can still remember that promo.

Yes, her husband was a war buddy of Buzz's and Buzz met her when he went to report to her about her husband's death. I might be confusing the details, but I think Buzz may have been accidentally responsible for his death and the army covered it up by giving him a medal. Lucy was born in 1973, as she has her 21st birthday onscreen in 1994.

Notwithstanding that retcons happen all the time, when Buzz tells Nadine about Lucy's mother he describes her as being a young widow, like 19/20-ish. Her being young and unable to take care of herself is part of his justification for why he stayed with her.

I'm not sure if it's true or just a rumor, but I remember hearing that leaving wasn't her choice, but a punishment for her speaking out about Michael Zaslow's firing.

Yes, near New Year's 1993, Alan-Michael asked her what her resolution was and she told him that her resolution was to marry him. This freaked him out a little and led to him sort of ghosting her on NYE, but by the time it hit midnight they had made up and rang in the new year by making out. @alwaysAMC Like you, I got drawn into the show in 1995 (except in real time). I enjoyed the Lucy/AM story and when it was over I stumbled across someone who was selling edits focused on their storyline from 1993 through to Rick Heart's departure (back in the days when you'd get the edits on VHS). I think you'll enjoy the first go-round of their relationship in 93-94. There's some cute, romantic comedy type stuff in there.

You weren't lying; it's like Ann is coming to visit her at summer camp. Not often that prison takes the edges off a person. Thanks for the tag!

Cheers to you and everyone else at SON!

She was a gem when it came to promoting soaps. Out of curiosity I looked up the guests from her first season and in addition to Susan Lucci (3 times!), she also interviewed Erika Slezak, Deidre Hall, Genie Francis, Robin Mattson, Darnell Williams & Debbi Morgan (who were on The City at the time), Anthony Geary, Linda Dano, Peter Bergman, Robert S. Woods, Vanessa Marcil, Ruth Warrick, Michael Knight (twice), James Mitchell, Peter Reckell, and Maxwell Caulfield.

As I recall, Susan Lucci was also one of the guests in the show's premiere episode. I have no idea what season it aired in, but I remember an episode where Peter Bergman was a guest and he told a story about going to the theater in New York sometime after he had transitioned over to Y&R. People in the audience kept recognizing him and calling him "Jack" and Rosie, who was a few rows back, stood up and irately announced, "His name is Dr. Cliff Warner."

I think his last scene was him meeting up with Trina at Kelly's and then after she left, he took a flask out of his pocket and took a swig.

Some Loving material in the latest round of mixtape uploads: At around the 51 minute mark of the above there's some footage from Jim & Shana's second wedding, following which there's a short scene with Michael Maguire's short-lived Jeff. This one features clips from early in Lisa Peluso's run as Ava:

Their FAQ says it's because ABC owns the viewing rights in the US. I gather this means that ABC doesn't own the international rights.

I feel like they brought her back just long enough to establish/re-establish who the character was for viewers so that afterwards anytime Ross and Blake or Holly and Fletcher were busy doing things on screen they could have a throw away line of dialogue explaining that she was looking after the twins or Meg off screen.

Parts of that set also turn up in the remodeled version of The Tides.

Shana miscarries this baby after a patented soap opera fall down a flight of stairs, which leads to her and Jim divorcing (pointlessly, IMO, since they end up getting remarried less than a year later). Jimmy is born off screen, between Shana's two runs on the show. This really struck me as well. I thought that the conversation she and Jack have when she's considering whether to pursue the modeling contract was particularly strong, with her articulating that her trauma (both her abuse by her father and the more recent incident where a date beats her up) makes her afraid of being objectified or doing anything that could invite attention to herself. I wonder if Jack ever expresses any insight regarding how he's pushing her into this in order to give her a consolation prize to make himself feel less guilty about cutting her loose.