Khan

Should we ask the mods to merge the two threads? Alrighty then. Mods, would you please? I'll say this much and then move on: To the right-wingers out there who, at the moment, are expressing outrage, disdain and ESPECIALLY moral superiority over this turn of events, would you please have not just a seat, but the whole damn sofa? Because, to be perfect and frank, you forfeited your right to say boo about Weinstein and his ilk the moment you heard about and/or saw the evidence that cast you-know-who as a p***y-grabbing sexual predator and then said, "Nah, I'd still like him to be my president." kthanxbye

And again, we have ourselves only to blame. I truly believe this is all our reckoning for not appreciating civility and restraint in leadership when we had it. I mean, it no longer matters to me what Obama did or didn't do for "his people" or any people while in office. The fact remains that at no time during his administration were we ever on the brink of total disaster as we are right now. Mama Khan was right: sometimes, we get the leader(s) we deserve.

We're on the cusp of nuclear war, but it seems like all folks care about is whether or not a bunch of football players stand for the national anthem. So, you know, whatever happens to us, we had it coming.

Yup.

"Best" part of all, though, was that even GL itself couldn't decide WHEN the events leading up to Maryanne's death had occurred. Supposedly, she died in 1977 -- at a time, I should add, when neither the Lewises nor the Coopers were visible, and when Alan and Ed WERE visible and heavily involved in story -- but different characters kept saying it happened over 30 years ago. (Ellen Weston was HW from 2003-04. So, you do the math.) Moreover, even though the mess allegedly occurred in the late '70's, flashbacks to the night in question, as well as some weird sequence involving Marah, Marina, Michelle and their respective love interests, made it seem as if the murder had, in fact, occurred back in the '20's. And then there were the whispers that Carrie Nye was hired not to play Maryanne's sister, but Maryanne herself, back from the dead and out for revenge. Which might sound awesome, except, at age 67, she was seven years older than Peter Simon, the oldest of the five actors at the center of the story, and looked even older than that. Honestly, it would have been more believable just to resurrect Susan Piper. And I'd believe it. Apparently, Conboy and Weston go way back -- back, at least, to when he hired her to play Suzanne Lynch on Y&R -- so it would not surprise me to hear that the two cooked up the initial idea for MAC.

I never bought any of her performances on daytime, and I'm not gonna start now.

Remember when Kreizman and Ellen Wheeler finally decided to kill off Roger Thorpe? People think Peter Simon's (Ed) refusal to return to the show in 2004 is why Kreizman's alleged big storyline for Blake, Holly and Sebastian tanked. But even if PS had returned, does anyone really believe that a story that is supposed to tie up over three decades of history for Roger's ex-wife, daughter and nemesis, but somehow becomes all about Tony and Michelle and Michelle sucking some poison out of Tony's bare chest in the jungles of Santo Domingo will turn out to be anything but a dud? To me, Gus and Harley's non-wedding and the start of "Spaulding BAD, Cooper GOOD" sentiment was the warning sign that Kreizman would be a terrible HW. But the Blake/Holly/Sebastian/Tony/Michelle mess...? That told me David Kreizman (and Ellen Wheeler) would be the one to trip over the cord and accidentally pull the plug on GL's life support machine.

I'll say this much: Weston might've had the idea to tie those five men into some "Ghost Story"-esque plot. But that's all she probably had: a one-liner, based on a movie she remembered from years ago. The actual blood-and-guts of the story, the parts that seemed to come from the previous tales, came from Kreizman and Hurst -- and probably because, they couldn't think of any other way to make it work.

Personally, I think it was either David Kreizman or Jill Lorie Hurst. Someone who knew enough about GL's history, or at least had read all the coffee table books enough times to be able to rehash it all for MAC. At the time, I was active on several soaps-related boards; and on at least one of those boards, an insider (unidentified, but someone who was credible) revealed how Weston never played as much of a part in the writing as fans had been led to believe. Even the stuff that HAD originated from her was sketchy, leaving her team of breakdown writers with the task of connecting all the dots and filling in the blank spaces (sound familiar, Dena Higley haters?). Which is why, to this day, I defy anyone to make sense of Brad and Marie Green, or the Antimonious [!@#$%^&*].

I realize this isn't quite the same thing, but I always experience similar feelings whenever I see actors like Susan Lucci praising Agnes Nixon (even though she didn't have anything to do with it) for writing the original story that introduced Erica's never-before-heard-of daughter, Kendall, on AMC; or DAYS' Deidre Hall going on and on about the "delicious" material HW's such as James E. Reilly and Ann Marcus have given her and her character to play. (In case non-DAYS fans are reading: Reilly had Dr. Marlena Evans possessed by the devil, and Marcus had Marlena's twin sister kidnap her and take over her life while Marlena languished in a mental institution -- two stories (out of many) that longtime DAYS fans probably wish had never happened.) "Well, I'm glad YOU had some fun with it," I always say, "but those of us out here who grew up with these shows and these characters and know what they would and would not do better than they probably know themselves? Not so much."

Frankly, I don't believe Ellen Weston was responsible for the Maryanne Caruthers mess. I KNOW she was HW then, but I just don't believe she wrote that particular story. Because, even though it contradicted everything we knew about Alan, Ed, Billy, Buzz and Josh's collective and individual histories -- something a newbie HW with no knowledge of a show's history is liable to do -- every, single bit of the MAC story was a blatant rip-off of other, past GL stories. Right down to the casting of Nye (in a role that was, essentially, Miss Piper with a new name) and the "Hall of Mirrors" climax. So, if the MAC story WAS Weston's, then either it was a big, honking coincidence how it seemed to pay homage to GL's history (while simultaneously contradicting and retconning it), or EW knowingly pilfered from the show's history to "write" the "new" story and she thought she would get away with it. Yep. Unfortunately, James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten set THAT precedent when they had Lizzie, then played by Hayden Panettiere, kill Carl. That might've given Ellen Weston all the motivation she needed to try and turn Crystal Hunt's Lizzie into a psychotic teenager out of some warmed-over Lifetime movie. Again, though, I'd argue that Weston knew nothing about GL or its history (aside from when she worked on the show as an actor) before taking the gig. Honestly, I think GL all but died under the watch of Weston and John Conboy. Everything that happened afterward -- Ellen Wheeler, David Kreizman, Peapack -- was merely P&G putting off pulling the plug.

DEFINITELY agree. It feels like the days of examining carefully a difficult subject such as child molestation have passed even on primetime TV. Now, it's just another Shocking Twist You Never Saw Coming.

It's sort of like this episode of "The Jeffersons"...

Especially when the motivation for his descent was insulting to REAL victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Yeah, I'm with DD, Vee and Wendy. Nullifying the election sounds nice, but it'd also be too much to hope for. NK's plans DO sound unsettling. However, Trump's been known to talk big without really following through. Ergo, if NK goes through with their plans, then the U.S. will be one big-ass sitting duck.

Unfortunately, the right will find some way to discredit these findings and continue pushing the narrative that the Obama administration waged battle against the Tea Party and other conservatives.

I suspect they wanted to de-age Tom a bit since, by that point, it seemed as if Tom was pushing forty. IIRC, though, then-EP Fred Bartholomew wasn't all too keen on casting Deas until Betty Rea showed him Deas' audition tape.

I guess I'm the rare individual who enjoyed all the Toms (well, except for Jason Kincaid) and Margos (including, yes, Glynnis O'Connor). I think it's due to the fact that they never cast either character with obvious himbos or bimbos. For the most part, Margaret Colin, Justin Deas, HBS, Gregg Marx, Scott Holmes, and Ellen Dolan were all intelligent actors capable of doing more than mere "hair modeling."

It's almost like watching an old episode of Y&R, isn't it?

Oh, yeah, lol!

I'll probably get into some trouble for saying this, but speaking as someone who (unfortunately) toiled for a season at Gorsuch's alma mater, Columbia University, it REALLY doesn't surprise me to see him grandstanding. Students at Columbia have a tendency to grandstand.

Suppose the homophobes are correct and homosexuality is a psychological disease like, say, bipolar disorder. If that were true, then wouldn't it be more prudent to treat the disease (which practitioners of that abominable "conversion therapy" say they are doing) than to execute or even incarcerate those afflicted? You wouldn't put to death or lock up someone who was bipolar JUST for being bipolar, would you? Even if their disorder led to their committing criminal acts, you might confine them for a period of time at facility, but you'd also seek treatment for them (drugs, therapy, a combination of the two). You might even declare them "not guilty due to diminished guilty or defect" and then rehabilitate them. So why, then, are gays and bisexuals criminalized and stigmatized for behavior that, by the homophobes' own implications, they couldn't help? Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud.

Oh, I'm sure we worked out some sort of backroom deal with the Saudi Arabians. Something like...we vote the same as they do, and in turn, Trump gets to build another gaudy, phallic shrine to himself overseas.

SMDH. Again: SMMFH. Don't you know? It's because, in THIS country, we regard homosexuals as being no better than pedophiles. Lock up your children, America! Before The Gays snatch 'em and brainwash 'em with their godlessness and their man-on-man sex!

So much for hating the sin and not the sinner.