P.J.

Yes, Diane knew about Henry having an illegitimate son and that he was keeping it from Vanessa. I'm not sure if Diane knew about Vanessa's faked suicide attempt, or about her having Joe steal the letter from Rita in Alan's apartment and sending it to Ed. I know Diane had visited Andy in jail to buy the information that he had, but I'm not sure she ever directly threatened Vanessa. Vanessa knew that Diane was threatening Henry because he changed his position on a business deal. Carrie wound up with Diane's briefcase full of blackmail (either she took it from Diane's or she took it from Joe's, I forget) bits. There were tapes of Alan's confessing he'd helped Roger or something, stock that Henry had signed over to Diane, etc. Vanessa later found out about Quint when she was helping Ross pack up Carrie's things. A note fell out of Carrie's wallet mentioning Henry's illegitimate son. Vanessa was devastated. And that "accident" stuff never made sense. One is an accident. Two is not.

Phillip also ended up in a psych ward. Once when he thought Beth was alive and Blake had him committed to keep him from finding her (he was also doing crazy things like digging up her grave to prove she wasn't in it.) and then after Alan shot him and faked his death. Phillip was acting crazy and I think he kidnapped his kids and Jude (Rick and Harley's son) and Alan stopped him. (don't worry, it doesn't make sense to anyone either, but GA was leaving the show.)

I'm wrong--Quint must have bought the shares Diane amassed before her death, and not Amanda's. Diane died in '81, and Amanda still had her shares while she ran Spaulding in '82. Vanessa tried blackmailing Quint for his proxy in December of '82. So I guess I'm not exactly sure what happened to Amanda's shares. Whether Diane's scheme to have Phillip disinherited was just her jealousy lashing out at someone Alan loved or she thought she could somehow get those shares, I don't know. I wish more of that era was up, because it would be fascinating watching Sophia Landon Geier weave Diane's web. The loose ends in general drive me crazy. Granted, some of them might be tied up in episodes not available (or that I just haven't watched for whatever reason.) But mostly I think writers just decide the fallout from "tidbit A" isn't juicy enough to explore. And when "story X" needs to affect more of the canvas, then characters D, E, and F are just thrown back in regardless.

These stock situations never add up. Brandon wouldn't have had any Spaulding stock in 1984, Alexandra had just forced Quint and Henry to sell the Chamberlain stock to her. She became the majority stockholder. Phillip and Alan-Michael should've been the only other shareholders (Amanda had sold her stock to Quint to start LTA.) When Kyle comes on, at some point (I believe it's after Lujack's death) Kyle went to NY to talk to Hope and try and buy Alan Michael's shares. I believe he said that Hope had gotten the Spaulding Foundation in the divorce.

God, I loathed Gus. OMG, I never knew that about Alex. It makes it even more chilling that she confronted Mindy in her wedding dress before the wedding to Nick. Well, the idea of Alan needing to marry someone "appropriate" would've made sense. But at some point, Brandon stopped controlling Alan's life. Why stay married to that limp dishrag? Although I guess it's easy to presume that Alan had affairs all along, and that the fiction of his "happy family" projected the image he wanted.

Re Vigard: it's not hard to see the parallels between Kelly/Morgan and GH's Scotty/Laura. Was Kristin the world's greatest actress? No. But she did project all the virtues of a young heroine, the same way Genie Francis did. Kelly and Morgan were popular, even if it's harder to see why now.

Reva's time traveling nonsense is just that---nonsense. I could justify Brandon not leaving anything to Lujack though. He'd always favored Alan over Alexandra. Of course he'd see Alan's progeny as stronger than Alex's. The very choice to have a child with a pianist would taint Lujack in Brandon's eyes. (Were she and Eric even married, or were they simply living together?) With that thinking, it might have even contributed to Alan arranging to replace his dead child with Phillip. To give Brandon a male grandson. C'mon...with his history, do we really think Alan cared about Elizabeth's mental health? But yeah, in 1979, there was no Alex or Lujack. Another example of why bringing on people as single children is just kind of short-sighted. Some family member is always bound to show up.

Brandon was almost always some kind of all-knowing, all-seeing evil master manipulator. He tore Alexandra's son from her arms (apparently being his flesh and blood grandchild didn't matter.) He knew about another grandchild (Amanda) and had her raised by his exlover. Or he slept with his son's lover and fathered her child, letting Alan think he was. He was mentally abusive to his children. He cheated on his wife, he ruined business rivals, and generally stepped on anyone who got in his way. (I can't remember if he ruined Jenna's father, or if that was some fiction of Roger's. Ditto for burying some expose of Kip McHenry's.) Re: HB's morals, unlike the kinder, gentler old coot they turned him into after getting dumped by Reva, when he's introduced, it's heavily implied that he had many mistresses during his marriage to Martha. BIlly and Josh are constantly talking about HB's "infamous" disappearances and salaciously speculating he's with "Miss Sally" (which is rather twisted since they later made Billy her son). It's not exactly a secret either, because not only does Vanessa assume that "Rosalie" is some kind of low woman that he brought home while Billy was young (Rosalie turns out to be a horse that Billy tames), when Billy's presumed dead, she blames HB and calls him a dirty old man. They're always a little cagey with character's ages. But why they felt the need to make Alan the older brother is nonsensical. What difference did it make if Alan was older? The point of the story was that he protected Alex's cat, which she loved very much. LOL..I'm only surprised they didn't end up making Reva the youngest Shayne child.

And Maeve is pregnant in real life. I can't imagine how uncomfortable she was.

Wasn't the show celebration in '87 built around Founder's Day?

But he did. Before she started at Spaulding in '83, she was a part owner in a restaurant and disco. That's it. She had never been a part of Lewis Oil before that (as you might've expected her to be). While he may never have intended to make Trish a Vice-President, he did take her under his wing and show her the ropes. (Vanessa had been fired by Alan at this point.) While I'm sure none of it was ever altruistic, he only "lent" her to Ross' campaign for appearances' sake after several incidents that left tongues wagging. I think he intended to advance Trish after the campaign was over, except Vanessa swooped in and nabbed it for herself after Henry's heart attack in August. (Vanessa and Billy had an argument, and she boasted that Alan gave her the VP job before she had even talked to him about it. They made a bet, so she came up with a plan to "force" Alan to. Billy told Trish that Vanessa had gotten the job, leaving Trish angry thinking Alan had broken his promise. She confronted him, which tipped him off to Vanessa's upcoming demand. Vanessa and Quint banded together, and as the Chamberlains owned controlling interest in Spaulding, she told Alan she'd start making waves with the stockholders if she didn't get the VP position. Alan agreed, but only because Vanessa and Billy being on the outs suited his purpose. When Trish later finds out that Van really was made VP, she confronted Alan again, and he told her that he was happy to use Van to get back at Billy, and that he was going to "teach" Vanessa a lesson by leaving her in charge of Spaulding while on a business trip, and then sabotaging all of her decisions and make her look like a fool. It's at this point Trish really understood that Alan would use anyone, and the fact that he was going to hurt both her brother and her bestie sickened her. Trish really tells Alan to drop dead after he set Ross up on cocaine charges on NYE and had him photographed in bed with a hooker, ruining his campaign.

Josh is not the fighter in that family. Heck, even Trish once landed a solid punch to Ross' jaw. Josh looks like a preteen flailing helplessly. You almost expect Kelly to grab ahold of his head to keep him far enough away that he's only punching the air.

i'm not sure they even seriously tried to find Bev a love interest, even in stable times (which we know GL did not have in the "80's). In one way I understand some of it, Alex's issues with her father left her unable to trust most men. But after the transactional relationship with Warren, they really should've tried harder to find someone other than HB. Although he is completely non-threatening, and maybe someone she could trust. The writer's strike had a lot to do with keeping Will on the show. I've forgotten nearly all of the twists and turns, but I think Long always intended for Will to be a villain. (Let's face it, nearly every outsider who came into their lives ended up "the villian".) Maybe losing Chris Bernau added into the equation too. LOL...let's put it this way---imo, Vanessa would've made every guy think he was the best she'd ever had. Across the tracks, every guy is hoping to bang Josh out of Reva's mind. I didn't exactly mean that Alan lacked for sex, but more that pursuing and nailing Reva was addictive for him. So much so, he ignores all of Vanessa's protests and warnings about how it'll affect their potential relationship. And Alex's. And he doesn't see the signs that Phillip's setting him up for a fall. I'm not sure I'd agree Alan never indulged a woman her fantasies. He bought Hope an island. He's treating Rita like a queen, whisking her off on spur of the moment trips and illicit trysts. He made Trish into a corporate executive. I'm not sure how ice skating figures into Reva's fantasies, but he's putting some work in.

I don't think anyone understand the HB/Alex relationship. Mindy/Will seems really forced. Sex. Does anyone know why Bev was gone from about mid-May of '89 to October? It was double her usual eight week vacation.

Vanessa should've cleaned her clock. I love tempermental Van!

No, HB didn't find out that Reva was working for Alan until after Billy and Vanessa got married. After B&V got married, Reva and Josh went to Cross Creek and he proposed. They made that announcement and HB confronted her privately and gave her 2 weeks to tell Josh. That was like midMarch.

While we're talking about it, does anyone know what the deal was with Billy and Reva's divorce? Reva comes to town claiming it's not legal, and that's not her signature. Billy looks at it and knows it's not her signature. Was there ever an explanation about it? Did Alan just forge some documents and Reva went along with it? Re the porn tape...I think Alex knew about it because I think she took it with her to Venezuela after Sonni shot Alan. But I'd have to rewatch the eppy again.

I think both Alan and Alex knew about it before Josh. Bonita Solita.

LOL...sometimes the voices in my head take control of my fingers. It's funny...'97 is when my full-blown obsession with ATWT's Jack and Carly starts. No wonder, if GL was written by these douches. And I remember Melissa Salmons (who spent years on GL) writing some of the best scripts for them. They have a lot of the same sparkage that Van and Billy do.

Ugh...like Reva was ever ever EVER a loyal wife to HB. She bounced around braless "helping" poor Josh by practically smushing the funbags in his face every chance she got. She flippin' slept with his son hours after he left town. She then either lied or just plain "forgot" that Kyle brained a defenseless Billy from behind with a 2x4, and patted herself on the back for not just leaving him in some podunk hospital in Idaho. UGH. the Sonni promo isn't much better. It's weird...I remember loving the ATWT promos around the same time. Maybe if they hadn't tried to shoehorn Reva into everything, it would've felt more natural.

No doubt they could've hired someone with real talent if they hadn't had to pay Kim and Justin Deas' salaries. *Oh, to dream...*

Right? Reva always should've been the outsider, no matter who she married or what respectability she tried to earn.

While I'm impressed GL got an ad---what a bad Harlequin romance novel cover. Who put that look on Kimmy's kisser? Reva never would've looked as nauseously forlorn as that EVER. That should've been reversed. Or simply focused on Alan and the mayhem he'd cause.

So E&B are who I should be blaming for the awful pairing of Vanessa and the himbo? Where she ends up having the exact same fights she had with Billy and Ross about working (or working at Spaulding...) Where the moron who's never raised a child (and ghosted his own family) lectures her on family values? And these are the morons who gave her some brain-eating incurable disease and had her fake her death approximately six months after Henry died? (Because apparently, simply divorcing ****'s ass after finding out he'd been a speedo wearing himbo and lied about it wasn't dramatic enough.) I know I'm drifting...but I really needed to get a mini**** rant out. And are these the people who brought that loudmouth Laura Wright to this show? Another thing I could thank them for. NOT. Oh, and re: Phillip and Beth and that secret assignation---Phillip's flippin' leg was also broke. I know that would really put me in the mood to bang my bordering on psycho ex. Sorry, not sorry---I LOVED Phillip/Harley.

Yes, Alan is in jail when Vanessa returns to town in July. Daniel Pilon makes occasional appearances until at least November but it's connected to the Beth being alive plot. I mean, I guess I get not wanting to dredge up a brief engagement, especially as it was with Chris Bernau's Alan. But it's not like the audience hadn't been reminded that Vanessa left town to help Billy several times.