DeeVee

It was Cindy. Somehow she made Jackie empathetic.

That's because Jackie was a very complex character when the Dobsons wrote her: selfish and immature when she married Justin (which is why he regretted breaking up with Sarah MacIntyre). But Justin was also an @sshat. She walked in on him with another woman. Yeah, she was a horribly selfish person, giving Phillip away just to spite Justin, stalking Elizabeth so she could be close to Phillip, snapping up Alan the minute they go divorced so she could raise Phillip because she assumed Alan would have custody, keeping the secret that she was Phillip's mother even when he was practically dying from a genetic heart condition, contemplating leaving Alan when he lost custody and only staying because she got pregnant, which she did not plan. I'm going to say it again: Marland didn't play the beats. When Elizabeth found out, did she tear Jackie's hair out over all this, as she had a total right to do? NO. She decided Justin and Jackie should get custody of Phillip! And even MORE ridiculous: ALAN, who was indirectly connected to a murder during the first custody fight for Phillip, eventually agrees to it! And Elizabeth, who was portrayed as loving her child as much or more than Alan even did, leaves him and is barely heard from again. He instead turned Jackie and Justin into a couple of holier-than-thou types, totally taking away the complexity and nuances of the characters. For some reason, he potrayed them getting custody of Phillip as the right thing to do, when in fact, it had to be a major reason why Phillip was so completely f@cked up, because the two people he thought were his parents gave him away for no discernable reason. It didn't really become convoluted until Marland took over the story, having all the characters behave in ways that were really inexplicabe.

Strap in, folks, we're taking a deep-dive into this storyline: It wasn't convoluted, not really. Jackie always knew that Phillip was her son, she knew that her child replaced Elizabeth's child because it was going to be stillborn. She was shown discussing this with Elizabeth's doctor, who was also her doctor while she was pregnant. Then after the birth, she befriended Elizabeth and Alan so she could keep tabs on Phillip. When the Spauldings first came on the show, Alan was supposed to be from Chicago. They lived with Jackie while looking for a house. Then someone must have said, "Hey, it's too much of a coincidence that they landed in Springfield, where Jackie lived." So they changed it so that Alan's family was from Springfield and had a mansion in town. If there's one thing that made no sense in this story is WHY Alan did this. He didn't even LIKE Elizabeth. She was never going give him children of his own. Why didn't he just divorce her and marry a woman who could give him children? Or if he could accept an adopted child, why not mourn the child he lost with Elizabeth and then somewhere down the road adopt one? (It's possible this was explained in more detail at the time, but this is what I remember and what I've read in recaps). He claimed he didn't want Elizabeth to have a breakdown, yadda, yadda--but he didn't care about her. Like at all. If she lost her mind he could have parked her in an institution and divorced her. The only reasons he flipped out when she left him was because she did the leaving and she was taking Phillip away. (It's hard to ignore the fact that he was abusive. Not is a physical way, but in an emotional way. He made her life hell. That's why I'm convinced if the Dobsons had remained, he was originally slated to do the same to Hope eventually, which didn't happen until Ryder and Long took over the show). So the thing that was missing here, again, is what was his motivation, other than to create a long-term baby switch storyline? I think it had to do with Brandon. If the Dobsons had stayed, it might have been revealed that for one reason or another (my guess is a trust) he HAD to present Brandon with a male grandchild. He specifically asked the doctor for a male child. Remember, Alan Michael had a trust that he tried to get hold of, and even though that happened under different writers, it not hard to imagine that Alan wanted control of a trust for his first child, too. He would have almost certainly been the trustee and would have controlled it until Phillip grew up. (I also think a possible reason he married Elizabeth is because Brandon commanded it--which would be another reason for him to hate him). He stays with Elizabeth because he falls head over heels for Phillip--come on, Phillip was the one true love of his life; that was the ONE thing that was consistent about Alan though many, many regime changes, right down to the last episode of GL. So much so that he was willing to give up having biological children. He even told Elizabeth after Brandon died and Jackie divorced him that it was unlikely he would ever have more children. It was really Hope who wanted to have a baby, and as we see over the years, AM was never as important to Alan as Phillip was. There were various reasons why Marland didn't want to deal with the story: first of all, he was way more interested in his own characters and stories. That was pretty much true of every story he inherited. He had something against Lezlie Dalton and wanted to get rid of her. And, as mentioned, he just didn't like adopted children stories. Also, he had to tackle ANOTHER paternity reveal dealing with Alan: Amanda being his daughter. What he did there, to make it more interesting to him, I would guess, is that when he created Jennifer, he gave her a teen daughter who he made one of the major players in his central young love storyline. I can see him saying to himself, "Eh, I'll dump Phillip and Freddie in boarding school and deal with this down the road." Even though delaying so much deprived the audience of a lot of the story beats playing out, especially because he shipped off Elizabeth and inexplicably killed off Jackie, I'm glad he did that. NO WAY would he have handled the reveal was well as Long (and Ryder, too, I think) did. I'm just going to say it: he SUCKED at plot reveals and plot climaxes. He didn't know (or didn't care enough) how to have the reveals impact the story AFTER the reveal. Holly is finally free of the threat of Roger and can remake her life, maybe confront her feelings about Ed? Shipped off for years. Alan is reunited with his first love who haunted him for decades? Nothing. They just become polite acquaintances. Amanda loses her child and flips out over the truth about her paternity? Has a brief mental breakdown (but only because Kathleen Cullen was going on maternity leave) then recovers and it's barely a blip. Hope finds out her father was right all along and Alan had been lying to her from the minute they fell in love? Nada. No biggie. She immediately forgives him. On the other hand, it was Long and Ryder who set up the complex adult relationship between Alan and Phillip that played out for the rest of the life of the show. So even though I'm p!ssed at Marland for mishandling the story, by kicking it down the road, he allowed other writers to use it to impact the canvas for the life of the show.

Didn't they make Amanda and Dinah mean girl buddies when Poser came on the show? I seem to remember them making fun of people together. Yes Amanda was in the same age range as Vanessa. She and Hope were close friends. They implied she was close to AM as an older sister when he was growing up. Then she comes back and she's around his age. Another roadblock to bringing back Hope, who would have had to have beeen way older than her.

Yes, you're right. Basically, they made AM closer to Phillip's actual age when they SORASed him. When AM was born onscreen, Phillip would have been around 12 or 13, I think. Then there's the dicking around they did with Amanda's age when she was reintroduced. She was in her early 20s when she was introducedaround 1978. She should have been mid to late 30s when she came back and they made her in her 20s. Yeah, there's no figuring this out by dates, LOL.

They would have had to retcon that because I can't think of one female character on GL who fits that description. A teen widow? Wasn't he a Vietnam vet? Sounds like she could have been one of his comrade's wives, though that once again would make Lucy a lot older than AM. Honestly, making Brandon Amanda's father makes more sense than that. I can believe that creep raped a teenaged girl. But Sarah having an affair and giving the kid away? NOPE.

They tried hooking him up with pretty much every woman on the canvas (and they failed every time, so they had to literally import one). I'm NEVER surprised to find out, "Oh, yeah, Frank was briefly paired with so-and-so." Of all the possibilities, Jackie is the one I REALLY can't imagine hooking up with Buzz. She may have had that "boho" thing going on, but she was also a society lady. Kind of like Alex, though not as rich and arrogant about it.

Can't be Lainie, unless, again, Lucy was older than AM. Lucy got married and left for Chicago, I think around 1981, the year AM was born onscreen. She appeared once or twice after during the Carrie Todd story, which would have been 1982. She was pregnant at the time but all indications were she was in love with her husband. Can't be Jackie. She lost a baby by Alan, then not that long after reunited with Justin and became pregnant with Samantha. Not long after that they killed her off. The other thing to take into consideration is which of these women would have been interested in sleeping with Buzz? Narrows the field, I think. 😂

Here's a couple of more ideas: It was HEAVILY implied when Claire came on the show that she had had a baby and gave it up for adoption. That connects Lucy to the Bauers through Michelle, as she would be her half-sister. The other possibility that occurred to me is India. Never quite understood her maternal impulse for Dory. If she'd had a baby and abandoned her with her father, that might explain it. Maureen being involved with Buzz is plausible because they grew up near each other. Though I have a hard time believing she would keep him being alive a secret from his kids.

Every time I come up with an idea of who Lucy's mother could be, it turns out she would be older than AM. 😭 I thought possibly Trish Lewis (though she wasn't on the canvas then). Maybe she met Buzz during the time her husband Andy Norris was making her life hell. Since he was abusive, that would have been a reason to let Buzz keep Lucy. Then Lucy is a Lewis and becomes Josh and Billy's niece. If they DID want to do an incest story, Hope was off the canvas for almost a year before Elvera Roussel took the part. Hope wasn't totally a goody-two-shoes, she had a history of having affairs with older men, even before she met Alan. She could have met Buzz, got pregnant, and left the baby with him. But, alas, (or thank GOD), that would again have made Lucy a few years older than AM. Maureen, maybe? She wasn't declared infertile until after her miscarriage. But was she dead by then? If so, doesn't add much drama, especially since so few Reardons were around. I'm out, LOL.

If Tangie could be accepted as Lucy's mother, then I would have MUCH preferred Marcy Walker had come on the show as Hope. I think Walker was just way too young for either possibility. She would have been a fantastic Hope; but that couldn't happen because, again, AM was aged way too fast. If we're looking for who Lucy's mother could have been, I would think it had to be someone where the revelation would cause the most drama/conflict. Other than incest, PLEASE, so no connection to AM! So that leaves out Bauers and Spauldings. I'm not 100% clear on who was on the canvas then.

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Victoria Wyndham, who took over for Robin Strasser as Rachel on AW. She and George Reinholt had serious chemistry. But then Harding Lemay decided he didn't like him and killed him off. But Wyndham then had lots of chemistry with Doug Watson. In fact, she had chemistry with pretty much everyone they put her with. Trying really hard to think of another example and I just can't.

Hold on...after she and Josh broke up after Marah was born, circa 1986-87, she 1) "worked" as a photographer and 2) became Alan's "assistant." I don't think I need to explain the quotes, LOL. Did they EVER mention her photography again? They kind of did the same thing with Harley, where she was a supposedly an ambitious fledgling fashion designer. That got dropped and then she became a cop--a totally believable employment trajectory. 😂 But at least Harley had identifiable employment. He ended up being RJ Winslow. I guess Richard adopted him. Liz has talked about how hard a time she had being accepted by the fans after Stringfield left. I thought she was fine, but fans loved Stringfield. But I don't know how anyone could have believed, even at the time, that she was going to stay on a soap opera for more than a couple of years.

I DID see the Phillip/Beth history in real time and I was good with the Phillip/Harley pairing more than Phillip/Beth. Frankly, they always had a weird vibe between them, even fairly early in their story. Phillip was just too obsessed with her and Beth was too dependent. That's why I think the Lujack/Beth story played so well to the audience even when Phillip/Beth was THE young love couple back then. And the funniest part is, when Harley was going to marry Alan Michael, Phillip tried to break them up by making it look to AM that something was going on between them. The audience immediately picked up on Aleksander and Ehlers' chemistry. So it was kind of inevitable that they would put them together as long as the actors were on the show.

This is a gripe I've had for years. Don't get me wrong. I'm child-free and happy about it. In real life people should absolutely make that decision if it's right for them. But making it the main conflict between a couple on a soap is BORING. Now, if Abby had been a character like Erica Kane, who gets pregnant and sneaks off to have an abortion behind her husband's back--THAT'S a soap story that could potentially reverberate for years. But she wasn't that kind of character. The same thing is going on at Beyond the Gates. The most boring couple, Naomi and Jacob, never talked about anything other than other characters. So they "juiced" them up by giving them this conflict. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It makes a great magazine article, but as a soap story, it sucks.

I remember soap critic Carolyn Hinsey HATING on Hart and Cassie in her columns at the time, just for this reason. Are we not going to talk about how they named their baby Roger Joshua? Like, WHY? Another example of the insane soap tradition of naming kids after someone else in the story. Did Hart even like his father? Who names their kid after their brother-in-law?

I have to say, neither excites me. Interesting that they did see it through with Olivia later on, and it not being unrequited love. WHY were SO many characters cops during the late stage of GL? I would have loved for a grown-up Stacy to come on the show at last, but why would they need yet another cop on the show? The other problem is that most people Stacy was connected to: her mother, her father, her stepfather, her grandmother, her grandfather (Henry thought of himself that way), her aunts--were all gone. Who was she going to reveal herself to?

More and more I'm starting to believe that Paul Avila Mayer was the one who really made the first years of RH shine.

Yeah, I heard that, too. But lest we forget...she did write a mob story on RH, with a core family member who marries into a mob family.

Oh, GAWD, me, too! The funny thing is, I quite liked Cole when he played Richard. If Richard, Edmund, and Olivia had blown into SF as displaced Eurotrash, I think it would have worked. Maybe friends of India helping her with her latest desperate scheme to get money out of the Spauldings? Anything would have been better than the island crap.

It's never good for a soap opera to have a second location. It splits the show's characters and it makes it close to impossible to do umbrella stories. Agnes Nixon did it with her soaps with Center City and NYC, but had the characters tethered enough to the original locations to make it work. Not everyone is Agnes Nixon, LOL. And worse, they eventually brought them all to SF. It was idiotic to have big music industry people in SF back in the 80s, but royals? So silly.

I would assume they picked the name "Santos" because that translates to "saints," an ironic commentary on a family full of criminals. So that shows at bit of thought. But other than that when it comes to the Santos family? Pfft. SO disappointing to me as someone who is part Latina. I hate mob stories to begin with, and trying to make Latino mobsters one of their core families was a huge mistake, IMO.

You could say the same about Fletcher. They threw nearly every female character at him, too. With exception of Reva, who never became more than his friend. (I guess they had to have ONE guy who wasn't in love with her, LOL).

Another possibility is they created his character especially for him and then they grew a whole family around him. If they let him go, they would have had to admit they were wrong.

There was a short time when they tried to make Frank and Sam a thing, and it came across as EXTREMELY creepy. We have frequently speculated on here why Frank D. had such a long career on GL. He was a good looking guy, but did not have much of a screen presence or much chemistry with his pairings. Clicking with Melina probably saved his GL career. His casting story is also very interesting. He was originally supposed to play a Bauer. They were trying to create a new branch of the Bauer family. He was going to play the oldest brother. The attempt flopped, so they created the character of Frank for him instead. The reason the Coopers are Greek American is because he is.