P.J.

Blanche does show up. This is her with Anna Stuart's Vanessa. But IIRC, there was supposed to be some big deal about her and Quint knowing each other, which is why he spirits Nola out to Hollywood, but I don't ever think that was explained (as well as Trish thinking she'd met Quint in Europe) There's also a running joke about one of Wanda's boyfriends, Lowell who we never meet, although they did shoot him from the back when Billy comes back to town.

Fletch was adopted? The Lemays (Daisy/Susan's) adoptive parents have another child in '89. But when Jim shows up in the late '90's, I don't think they ever mentioned it. Vanessa's first husband, Gerald something-or-other, never stormed into town. Neither did the mysterious Dietrich Lindsey, yet Holly kept his name.

Billy and Marah are honkin' adorable. It's really hard to believe that that was scripted.

I hadn't realized (or maybe I forgot), but all four Musketeers lived at the Lighthouse. Rick/Meredith, Phillip/Beth, and then Mindy/Nick. It's so weird, in an interview, Grant says that they said "blue skies and Palamino ponies" so much they got sick of it, and I remember it, but I couldn't find them saying it in any of the episodes that are up.

Oh, the return of Vanessa's huge hat syndrome! Van used to love hats back in the early '80's.

lol...okay, today's **** nickname....Shrimpy McNutter. No, Van wouldn't melt at the idea of **** moving on, and she wouldn't have left her kids. The sun rose and set on Bill when he was young.

Ouch...on rewatch, Van doesn't call Nadine a hothouse flower, she said Ross likes hothouse flowers. Which isn't exactly a compliment on his taste. But Nadine is less than a hothouse flower, she's ordinary. LOL.

@alwaysAMC I hope you keep on with your recaps. In part because I'm fascinated with guessing how far you'll go. Sometimes I try to refrain on commenting because I don't want to rain on your parade, and not having rewatched, I don't have much to add other than finding another insulting name to call ****. lol I did recently rewatch some of Vanessa's rehab in Switzerland. I liked Peter Herrmann in the role of Michael Burke. And Vanessa seemed to regain some of her spunk away from ****. It's a little disheartening to see that TIIC had her speak some bilge about not having anything to live for if **** had moved on. There's no way Vanessa would speak that with her kids in Springfield. SMH. That's another thing I admire about '89-'93 GL---the adults aren't acting like lovesick teenagers.

In a choice between Nadine and Buzz....I'll plead the fifth! And any other show would've recognized the talent and gone with it. She was this show's Tricia Cast.

I think the first half of '93 is dang good. But Buzz's hijinks are already wearing thin in the first three months, being shoehorned in on the biggest plot going--the Peter reveal--feels forced. I kinda wish it had simply been Vanessa finally getting the goods on that bleach blonde hussy all by herself.

Thanks! Yeah---I remember Rocco, but not any other guy Donna hung around with.

No, Billy never tried to get back with Vanessa after he returned in '97. Part of it is timing, Maeve is in and out for the next 2-3 years, and I don't think TPTB really trusted Jordan enough to give him a major storyline. Billy kind of flits in and out of Springfield the way HB had. For instance, Billy seems to be out of town for most of the CloneReva story. They did occasionally interact. Billy tells Vanessa that HB had died. Billy comes to Van's rescue when she's arrested for helping Dinah escape, but he pushes her back in Matt's direction. Billy shows up when Van's dying (he seemed to be the only one who hasn't given up hope that she'll pull through). And then after Matt squirrels Van away (after he realizes that Van shot Ben and Michelle has gone to jail) it's Billy who helps convince him that Van needs to tell what happened and free Michelle. Personallly, I don't think TIIC were interested in revisiting Billy/Vanessa in any way, shape or form. Mattressa fans were not to be angered. One of the few right things Wheeler/Kriezman did was reconnect Billy and Vanessa. And honestly, had Jerry ver Dorn stayed, that probably wouldn't have happened. Dinah needed a parent in town. Matt was virtual dead weight. Hello divorce, buh-bye parasite. There's a cute little short GL at the end about Billy and Van's wedding. Maeve is so sweet--she says that Billy and Van have missed each other, and now (with the marriage) they don't have to any more.

OH MY GOD...who Donna sleeping with? He's GORGEOUS. My other question---who takes the time to do this back in the day?

Honestly, had Jordan Clarke still been with the show, I'd screw up my courage and rewatch. To clarify, I did watch it originally. I'm just not interested in rewatching it now. Too many changes, too much the wrong focus, characters eating airtime that I dislike (and I do mean more that Matt, there's a host of them, Buzz, Jenna, Reva's eventual return, Eve, Nick and fauxMindy...*sigh*)

LOL...that's a good one too! It's so refreshing to have characters talking to each other like they remember more than the last five minutes of their history. The only thing missing in that Vanessa/Phillp conversation is Van dropping India's name to remind him how bad it can get trying to get out of a marriage.

Um...I will say I am surprised that the Vanessa/Nadine rivalry just pretty much stopped dead in it's tracks after the Peter reveal. Of course, I don't watch past mid-'93, so maybe there's moments that I don't know about. But per Jean Carol's perspective, she stopped working with people she'd worked with for years, so I guess they booted her to the Cooper storyline. However, I don't think there was a way they could've ever gone back to Billy/Nadine. Nadine had committed two unpardonable sins---she'd hurt Vanessa and then she was complicit in hurting HB. He wouldn't have gone back to her after hurting Van except for the baby. He may not have hated her, but there was no way he was ever going to trust her again.

August 22 1989. See also for fabulousness the entire Van/Holly exchange. FYI, the reason Van calling anyone a hothouse flower is an insult---when HB first met her, he called her a hothouse flower. And she hated it.

OMG...I love finding episodes in English! Vanessa called Nadine a hothouse flower! OMG!! Yes, I know it sounds old-fashioned and barely more than meek description, but if you know Vanessa's history, that's the equivalent of a mike drop. *twirls*

There is something to be said for the refocusing on characters the audience knew and cared about. There's a period where the canvas had become bloated with characters that didn't work (and there are examples of that going back to at least '84 with Kyle). Shows have had trouble reintroducing one fan favorite without ruining the balance of characters. GL brought back six in a little over a year.

I would definitely count Blake as a major recast. Yes, Blake became a bigger piece of the canvas with Sherry, but Elizabeth wasn't lacking for story. I guess three successful recasts in a year is a coup. I'm stuck on who else they'd be referencing. I don't think they'd include Samantha or Bill, who'd last been seen as children.

Re: 1989, I'll say that it improved remarkably the last half of the year. I find the first half clunky.

Not that I'm defending the tribute to Charita---but had any other show really ever done some kind of tribute when an actor had died? With the constant backstage upheaval, I could understand the stunted creativity. But I'm not sure they have any kind of "roadmap" to follow either. I mean, this is a show that wasn't doing much in the way of a couple montage. They're still using some hoky blue-tinged framing to denote a flashback until like '88-'89. Obviously, the tribute didn't spark some kind of backlash at the time---they used it again at Christmas.

Both actors were in their late 70's-80s in the 90's. (Gates was born in 1915, Roerick in 1912). At some point, Gates began suffering from memory issues, according to Robert Newman. And Bill Roerick doesn't look well in '93 at Van and Billy's wedding where he's zipping around in a golf cart.

Mike and Justin were friends? The Dobsons had such Bob/Carol/Ted/Alice round Robin going on, it's hard to keep track of who was zoomin' who when and who they were really in love with. And was Mike leading Jackie on? It sounds from recaps that Jackie was using Mike to make Justin jealous.

Not an unfair assessment. But with few exceptions, women were friends with their sisters or sisters-in-law. (I can only think of Jackie/Eve and Hillary/Katie around that time that don't fit that paradigm.) Van isn't necessarily seeking out friendships with men either---not the way Reva buddies up with Fletch, Phillip, or even Hamp, say. Overall, it's either Josh or Mindy who's Vanessa's "best friend". Although I do think she and Mo were friends. Van's dsilike of the Reardons hadn't been a thing in years at this point, and she and Mo had a fair amount in common. Their children were about the same age, they were married to alcoholics, and they were working women.