DeeVee

That scene was wild, and not in the way you would think. She's peeling potatoes and asking two guys about someone named Barney. I know porn is not known for great writing, but wow. 😂

He Americanized his real name (Guillermo Ibarra to Will Jeffries). There's an early scene between Josh and Will after they get to SF where Will says something like, "Don't you wish we were back in Venezuela drinking margaritas and eating huevos rancheros?" Those are not Venezuelan, they're Mexican foods. Now, sure, you can get those things in Venezuela--by going to a Mexican restaurant in Venezuela. But I thought at the time that was the writers showing Will as a kind of Ugly American who knew nothing about the country he had been living in. I gave them too much credit. They just didn't know the difference between Mexican and Venezuelan food. 😂

I'm thinking it had to be for real because Reva later willingly gave Billy the divorce without asking for more money. If it was a fake she could have just told him. They already knew about Alan's involvement. That's what broke up her and Josh, IIRC. Good question! I don't think it was his health at that point since he came back later. It could have been as simple as he'd done heavy front-burner stories for 7 years and wanted a break. Maybe he didn't like working with Kobe. (She was gone by the time he returned). Maybe he asked for more money and they said no. Anyone have any intel?

Aha! I could not remember why Bernau left in 1984, if it was his choice or if they wrote him out. (Which would have been a crazy thing to do, but Kobe pretty much decimated the cast she inherited). Thanks for confirming. LOTS of people didn't/don't like Kyle/Malloy, but I think the canvas could have withstood two powerful men, especially since Kyle was entrenched with the Lewises. They could have had a Josh/Reva/Kyle triangle and kept Alan out of Reva's orbit. It was likely a money thing or Malloy didn't want to share the spotlight or both.

Alan, yes. (I think that's why he slept with her 🤢). Alex, I'm not so sure. She was constantly bleating about what a great friend Sonni was to her. Roger wasn't exactly in a position to be judgemental about something like that.

LOL, that would have been from the time Reva was first introduced. Reva's accent was WAY heavier in the beginning. She was wearing fur because as Billy's ex she squandered a lot of her divorce money.

Nope. Josh finds some of the porn movies later on. Those are episodes I saw in English. So the reveal was Sonni did those as the Solita personality. That does not explain how she was falling off a cliff on her honeymoon with Josh around the same time, as was implied in the 1988 episode. When Sonni met Roger, she would have had no memory of any of this.

OMG, OMG, OMG...I'm just finding out what a mess this story became. I've been simultaneously watching the early 1988 part of the story--just before the writer's strike started--and the 1989 wrap-up. The story makes ZERO SENSE. The ending has Sonni turning out to really be Sonni, who took on Solita's persona because it was her fault Solita killed herself when they were 14 years old. Her memory of the time after she first married Josh and all the things she did with Will is wiped out. I just watched a flashback from early 1988 of Will and Solita--who isn't dead, she's making porn in Argentina (and being criticized by the director for being a bad actress, you can't make this stuff up, folks). Will tells her Sonni fell off a cliff and has died, so they plot to have Solita take her place so they can scam Josh. THEN, Reva decides to show Josh some photos she took of "Sonni" and Will kissing. He bursts in on them, goes completely apesh!t, but Sonni and Will convince him that he is mistaken, that they were just pretending to have an affair because Sonni was testing to see if she could still work as a psychiatist. (I don't understand that, either, possibly I misunderstood because the translation from German was not clear). Whatever story they told him, JOSH BELIEVES THEM. (Josh has to be contender for biggest dumb-dumb on soaps, ever). This is the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things that were changed/dropped/forgotten. Sonni's appearing and disappearing parents, Will's mother who was perfectly sane the first time we see her, then she's a nutjob for no apparent reason. Somehow Will went from becoming a Venezuelan defrocked priest to a psychiatrist to Josh's buddy who sounds like he grew up in in the USA. Mess doesn't even begin to describe this story. The scabs can't be blamed for this!

The Bells were the only ones who were powerful enough to resist this kind of pressure. And, surprise, surprise, they weathered the storm and survived while most other soaps sunk. I'd say there was plenty of blame to go around. The writers, the network, the sponsor, even some of the fans. A perfect sh!t storm.

@Paul RavenThanks for posting this interview. It confirms what I have long suspected...that most of the wacky storylines, like the clone, were brought to the writers from the network or P&G in an effort to compete shows like GH and DOOL. Are the writers here useless hacks totally responsible for GL doing poorly? I think that's a tad unfair. Claire Labine, who I don't think was a hack, came in after them, and wasn't her tenure on GL also very unsuccessful? Sometimes writers write bad stuff they think will be great. (Labine defended the gorilla story on Ryan's Hope the rest of her life). And sometimes they want to keep their jobs and do what their bosses tell them to do. At any rate, it's really interesting to hear their side of it.

To be clear about what I said about Reva: I would have actually been fine with her being the kind of character who refused to be put on a shelf because she aged. But KZ wanted to be the show's main romantic heroine, the STAR. A great example of an actor who played a woman who refused to be put on a shelf as she aged was Jeanne Cooper on Y&R. But the difference is, she understood she was part of an ensemble cast. She never was the focus of the show. (There's a certain male actor on the same show who never quite understood the assignment, LOL). I think because KZ had to be accommodated in this way, it dragged the show down.

The show would have chugged along just fine without her. No Goshen/Alan obsession redux, no San Christohell, no clone, no time travel. She subtracted more than she added to the show, IMO.

Wasn't Alan on the way out the door by the time she came back? His relationship with Reva was over by then, too, so I can see why they didn't want to dredge all that up. Besides, he was too busy trying to gun down Roger for no apparent reason. 😂

That is one of those things that was REALLY bad for GL, but very good for the actor. If they had built him up into a major soap star, as they should have, one wonders if Bomer would have had the career he's had up to now. They made some really great discoveries of young actors back then. Besides Bomer, Aubrey Dollar, Laura Bell Bundy, Bethany Joy Lenz, and while I hated his character, Tom Pelphrey turned out to be quite a good actor with a solid career. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

Few will disagree with you here. And as long as we're talking about Vanessa...unfortunately, after JC left the first time, Vanessa was pretty much used in service of the Reva story. TWICE Long tried to convince us that Alan would want to marry Vanessa, but I never bought it, even if it was just for a marriage of convenience. Alan wanted to dominate his wives (that's why his engagement with Reva and marriage to Olivia also didn't fly...but it made total sense for him to want to marry Annie. If it wasn't so cringy, his marriage with Beth would have made sense for the same reason). He was never going to dominate Vanessa, but Long likely chose her as the third side as a contrast to Reva. Poor, born into nothing Reva, going up against the snobby nepo baby. Some may argue that Billy dominated Vanessa, but that was different because she was in love with him. Never, ever, would I believe Vanessa falling for Alan's line (or not immediately ejecting Alan's rent-a-whore Elise from his house). It made Vanessa look foolish. While it was terribly sad when Maeve left at that point, it did cut that part of the story short, which is not a bad thing.

TBF, Marland never really seemed to know what he wanted to do with Vanessa. At first she mostly dropped her mink in front of Ross, vamped Alan and Ben just for the hell of it, had that ill-advised affair with Ed, slummed with Tony, pouted while Ross dated Eve and married Carrie. . .at least Long gave her a love story and worthy screen partner. Getting caught up with Matt and being at the mercy of couples fans was what hurt the character the most, IMO.

I vaguely remember that they connected in some way. What I am much more certain of is Henry dating Barbara Thorpe. He mentioned to Mike that she reminded him of Stephanie Ryan, Sean's (Quint's) mother.

Right, he's too sick. I believe that's the way they wrote India out of the show the first time.

We did, actually. (I can't find the name of the actor, unfortunately). He was introduced during Alan's return in 1986. Alan was making his plans for his return to Springfield while hanging out at the Von Halkein castle with his brother-in-law.

They had so many mysteries going on with Quint. It could have been as simple as they just forgot.

The whole Hayley pregnancy story makes no sense to me. Dani immediately pronouncing the pregnancy a fake seemed like just another part of her obsession with Bill. But then she turns out to be right? Why? Why would Hayley lie about being pregnant? She had already landed Bill. When they were first married and she thought she might be pregnant, both she and Bill acted at first like it was unwelcome news, that neither was really interested in having kids. MAYBE when she first thought she was pregnant she went to the doctor and the doctor told her not only are you not pregnant, you can't ever have kids. And she cooked this up to make it look like it's Dani's fault that she'll never have kids? But if that's the case, why the whole thing about her tripping on the box when Dani wasn't even around? I'm out. 😂

Yes! I remember. She was played by Jennifer Leak, who once played Olive on Another World (she caused John Randolph's death in a fire).

Also, the sin they committed of making Chelsea the youngest Reardon child when it was clearly stated many times that Nola was the youngest. In fact, she resented her older siblings for leaving SF so she was stuck in the boarding house helping her mother.

This just made me realize something: If Marland gave an unseen character an unimaginative name (Gerald, Herbert, Jennifer's husband Walter) you were never going to see them on screen. Interestingly, there were many references to unseen Mona Enright, who DID show up eventually. But I doubt she would have shown up on screen if Marland hadn't left and new writers decided to make the woman Quint was hiding in the attic said Mona. In fact, while Marland was writing the show, I believe the plan was to reveal eventually that Mark had killed her. (BTW, no insult meant to anyone with these names, my beloved grandfather was named Walter, but they aren't what you think of as soap opera names).

I thought of another! When Mauren first hit town, she had just gotten divorced by some guy named Herbert. That's how she and Ed became simpatico, because they were both going through similar situations. Strangely, they never brought back Herbert (why would you, that name...) but they did bring back and old boyfriend of hers (I think his name was Matt). Ed had asked her to marry him but she demured, and for a while took up with Matt again. Later she decided all she and Matt had in common was sex, so she went back to Ed. (Which doesn't make Ed look very good, especially since a lot of his problems with Rita were sexual). Mitch and I have an alternate universe story going on for the 7th Reardon, a woman who apparently was once mentioned as Lana Reardon. We don't like the name, so we refer to her as NotLana, and imagine her as one of Alan's long-lost loves.