Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[cassadine1991]

 

[dc11786]

I know its unpopular, but I really think Mary Ryan Munisteri was underrated. The affair storyline between Trucker and Trisha is a bit messy (the source of tension should have stemmed from Trisha's inability to trust Trucker after the lies he kept during the Tommy storyline). The substory that Stacey believed Jack was cheating with Dinahlee, who had been paid by Shana to seduce Jack, was a great way to keep Stacey and Jack in the thick of things without dominating the story. Stacey catching Trucker and Dinahlee together in bed is such a great moment. Matt's storyline was great. It was great how the story intersected with Ceara and Jeremy's. I just don't see why the show felt the need to bring back Jeremy later. Jean LeClerc seemed like an expensive prop.

 

The 1992 episode features that bizarre Stacey is crazy story. Not a favorite of mine. I do think the Ally / Cooper story is strong, but Hannah was such a dead end. I get the purpose of the sweet country girl and that she was tied to the canvas as Dinahlee's sister, but she was such an easy character to dump. 

[Vee]

Depressed to see all the Loving/City 1993-1994 eps I banked to watch got deleted - I guess I'll have to keep an eye out.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Vee

[AdelaideCate007]

I'm going to upload them again soon. I wasn't paying attention to my copyright strikes and got hit with like three in day from some old GH episode so oops lol. But what can you do.

[DRW50]

Oh I never got to watch most of them either. Oh well.

 

It's a shame that GH episodes have joined the list of no-nos in recent years. @AdelaideCate007Archive.org seems to let you upload them.

[AdelaideCate007]

It wasn't from ABC, at least for me. It was because some episode had three Chris Isaak songs playing in the background and I got it with a music copyright thing. I never had an issue with episodes.

 

I'm just going to start another channel and I'll look into the archive.org thing but it might be US only.

[Vee]

 

Thank you for all you did! Keep us posted on them and the GH eps.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Vee

[amybrickwallace]

I watched both "The Ladies" and "The Men" chats. What a charming and fun bunch of people. Hopefully more chats with them are forthcoming. Can anyone tell me the history of Noelle Beck's Trisha? I saw pictures of all her weddings (those gowns!!

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). I'm especially interested in learning about how Jeff Hartman and the wedding in Rome came about. I remember Richard Steinmetz from Passions, but not from here. @dc11786, would you please fill me in? Thank you!!

[DRW50]

With munecojim's channel now gone, so are years of Loving episodes. I didn't save a ton of their channel as I didn't have the space, but I think I saved most of the Loving material. If they don't start a new channel somewhere I will try to upload what I saved, if no one else does.

[dc11786]

I’ll do my best, but, to be honest, the period where Trisha and Jeff are together is one of the periods I’ve done little research into because I’m not a big fan of Millee Taggert and Tom King’s 1988-1991 run. I think it progressively improved in the later half (1990-1991 when Jacqueline Babbin arrived as executive producer), but so much of the earlier material comes off as generic. What has appeared online of this period doesn’t fascinate me either.

 

Trisha arrived in Corinth in December, 1984, when her mother Gwyneth arrived at the Alden mansion for Christmas. Almost immediately, Trisha would encounter Steve Sowolosky, who had also recently been introduced into the series. Steve was Ava’s mechanic cousin, the son of con man Harry Sowolosky who worked as a heavy for Dane Hammond and menaced Shana Sloane during her romance with Jim Vochek. Steve and Trisha were star crossed lovers with lots of trademark Marland elements. I remember reading somewhere that Marland had asked his niece what teenage girls wanted, and she had claimed an older man. So using this (as he had with Kelly Nelson and Morgan Richards on “Guiding Light”) Marland created older man Steve Sowolsky and not even barely legal Trisha Alden. There was also the class element, Trisha was from a blue blood family and Sowolosky was from a family who came from the wrong side of the tracks. Steve’s aunt Kate Rescott literally ran a boarding house on Railroad Street where the train could occasionally be heard passing by. Marland wasn’t around long enough to have Trisha go full Lily and move into the boarding house, but I imagine he would have if he lasted long enough.

 

In the final months of Marland’s tenure, Trisha and Steve were trying to get together, but were mostly kept apart by the age issues and by Trisha’s status conscious mother, Gwyneth Alden. Gwyneth was a social climber who had been raised by a minister and his wife but had elevated herself through marriage into the Alden clan. At the time, Gwyn may or may not have murdered her husband, Clay, Trisha’s father, but she was sure she wouldn’t see her daughter get pulled down. In her own personal life, Gwyn was moving in on Dane Hammond, her sister-in-law Ann’s new husband. Through Dane, Gwyn became acquainted with Harry Sowolsky, Steve’s low life father, and Gwyn used Harry to keep Trisha and Steve apart.

 

I believe Trisha was pretty much presented as a wide eyed doe type unaware of the troubles of the world. She used preppy Rich Elkins as part of a ruse to convince Gwyn that she and Steve weren’t really a thing. When Harry ended up in jail for one of his many crimes, Gwyn agreed to get him out of prison if Harry could keep Trisha and Steve apart. At some point, Cecilia Thompson, the daughter of the owner of the garage where Steve worked entered the story. She became a longterm foil for Trisha. Cecilia was also young and in love with Steve, but more seductive. When Trisha wouldn’t put out, Cecilia did, but when Steve didn’t stick around, Cecilia and her father had statutory rape charges brought against Steve. With Steve in prison, Trisha was left alone.

 

By this point, Bill Levinson assumes control of the story after a brief solo stint from Agnes Nixon. Levinson definitely plays things on a larger scale and begins the sort of attempt to make the show a mix of “Dynasty” and “General Hospital.” In prison, Steve is taunted by Spider, who is a criminal up for parole. Spider threatens to get to Trisha when he gets out, which gets Steve all out of sorts. Spider is released and goes after Trisha. I think Steve somehow escapes prison and ends up saving Trisha from Spider’s grasp. Steve, now a fugitive, goes on the run with Trisha, and the couple ends up in Montreal where there is a final showdown with Spider before he’s either carted off to prison or is killed. Of course, Steve still escaped from prison so back he goes. I think he gets out because he agrees to marry Cecilia or something along those lines. Anyway, Steve marries Cecilia and clearly things were not going to be happily ever after.

 

While Steve and Cecilia live out their domestic misery, a lonely dejected Trisha becomes easy prey for sleazy casino owner Nick Diantos. Nick had mob ties and had set up shop in Corinth. With Trisha involved with a lowlife, Steve became concerned, which, in turn, pissed off his already frustrated wife Cecilia. Nick gets Trisha involved in drugs to keep her complacent and Trisha briefly marries the man to get his hands on her money. After a year plus of this madness, writer Bill Levinson is shown the door and Ralph Ellis is brought on. In Levinson’s final days, he sets up a murder mystery involving Nick Diantos with a slew of suspects, including Trisha. It’s pretty quickly revealed that Cabot Alden shot Nick for what he was doing to his granddaughter without any ramifications. Ellis seemed to want to brush past the plot. Instead, he had Cecilia and Steve divorce quickly, and Trisha and Steve unite.

 

Cecilia realized she was pregnant and used the baby to hold onto Steve even though Steve and Trisha agreed to raise the child. Cecilia eventually miscarried and confided the whole mess into her new bestie Ava Rescott, Steve’s cousin who was involved with Trisha’s father Clay after having married both Trisha’s brother Curtis and her cousin Jack. Eventually, the truth comes out and Trisha marries Steve. Meanwhile, Cecilia begins a romance with Rick Stewart, Trisha’s long lost brother.

 

Under Ellis, Trisha and Steve would marry in a big wedding in the summer that would nearly be interrupted (or was interrupted) by country bumpkin Eban Japes, the common law husband of Trisha’s sister-in-law, Lotty. This seemed to be an omen of things to come. Trisha and Steve’s happiness was incredibly shortlived. They married in August 1987 and by November 1987 Steve was held hostage in a bank robbery with Stacey Forbes and her young son J.J. Steve agreed to stay with the robbers if they freed the others, including Stacey and J.J. During the stand off, Steve was shot and later died with Trisha by his side at the hospital. Cece was also dropped around this time.

 

Trisha, from what I recall reading, was pretty much sidelined for the next few months until Jeff Hartman arrived in the spring of 1988. The big stories at the tailend of Ellis’ run were Lily Slater’s “Fatal Attraction” obsession over Jack Forbes, the revelation that Randolph Mantooth’s Clay Alden wasn’t the real Clay but an imposter, and I believe some spy plot involving Shana and Jim Vochek and Dan Hollister who was somehow tied to the insanity revolving around Alex taking over Clay’s life.

 

When Jeff Hartman is first introduced, Trisha’s mother Gwyneth Alden wants to hire him for a position in the television production division of Alden Enterprises before she and Jeff become lovers. The not so merry widow Trisha takes a job in the production division as well as soon she and Jeff are falling for each other. Initially, Jeff is not a bad guy. He comes from a wealthy family who had a large media conglomerate, but Jeff struck out on his own without his family to make a name for himself. I believe this was something Trisha admired as she so without an identity. When Trisha and Jeff start dating, Jeff hides the fact that he once went to bed with Trisha’s mother.

 

Jeff and Trisha become a thing during the summer of 1988 during the writer’s strike. Casting for Jeff becomes problematic and within short order you have three actors hired to play Jeff in less than a year. When the strike ends, Millee Taggert and Tom King are hired to write the show and they set out to put the story in a different direction. Jeff’s father, Charles Hartman, was introduced late in the strike (August 1988) and appears to be positioned as a new love interest for Gwyn as well as a potential rival to the Alden family. King and Taggert abandon this and quickly kill off Charles in a car accident in December 1988, while I believe Jeff and Gwyn hit the sheets again, get caught on film, and then continue to hide the affair from Trisha. I think “the tape” is a big story for quite some time. It’s around this point that Jeff starts to spiral out of control and Trucker is introduced in February 1989. Trucker’s backstory is convulted as f^%$. He’s the former chauffeur for Clay and Gwyn when they lived in Maine and where he bedded Gwyn. Later, Trucker went to prison for a crime that Clay committed because Clay paid him off and Trucker had medical expenses due to his ill sister Amelia “Rocky” McKenzie. Trucker and Trisha grow closer.

 

Anyway, somewhere along the way Trisha and Jeff become engaged, there’s a big party, and the tape of Jeff banging Trisha’s mom gets played for the entire company. Trisha and Jeff split. Trisha and Trucker get together, but then there’s a car accident or something and Trisha is presumed dead. Jeff finds her and whisks her off to Rome. Trucker learns the truth and goes to save her. There’s a sword fight. I’m sure it was suppose to be exciting and Trisha and Trucker have a following, but this all seems plot heavy as anything. I do know that some of the later Taggert / King run material isn’t groundbreaking, but is well played. This all just seems amazingly bad.

 

Also, somewhere along the way you have a past lives / flashback storyline where Robert Tyler plays an Alden family servant accused of stealing something. Not “Loving” at its finest.

 

When Jacqueline Babbin is lured out of retirement by Nixon, Trucker and Trisha’s story seems more grounded in emotion, if not less over the top. Jeff ends up institutionalized, Trisha and Trucker marry, and life moves on. I’m not necessarily sure of the order of that, but whatever.

 

While Trisha is involved with Trucker, Trucker’s sister Rocky is involved with Trisha’s brother Curtis in two ill fated triangles (one with Egypt’s hunky but forgettable brother Todd Jones and another with Rocky’s future husband Rio, brother of Amourelle model Abril Domeq). Under Babbin, King and Taggert develop a rather expansive tale with Trucker and Trisha at the center which had the potential to cause longterm conflict between Trisha, Trucker, and Trisha’s father Clay. Clay beds down with Abril Domeq and knocks her up. Meanwhile, Trisha and Trucker are expecting their first child, but Trisha goes into premature labor and their son, Benjamin, does not survive. Abril decides she isn’t ready for motherhood and agrees to give the baby to Trucker and Trisha. Trucker and Abril are keeping their own secrets with Abril claiming lowlife Monty is the father, while Trucker is secretly paying for the baby (I think). Trisha is completely kept in the dark because she is unemotionally unstable after losing the baby.

 

Anyway, the story has other threads. Abril befriends Ava Rescott’s sister Carly who she works with in the Alden Enterprises daycare center. Carly has her own baby issues; she was knocked by Ava’s current beau Paul Slavinski in high school and gave the baby up. Carly marries Clay, unaware that he is the actual father of Abril’s baby, while also still carrying a torch for Paul. Monty, Abril’s faux baby daddy, develops an attraction for Rocky, which causes problems in her marriage to Abril’s brother Rio. This whole byzantine storyline has the potential to go on for sometime, but, instead, Babbin leaves after her year is up (a deal is a deal) and Fran Sears is hired as her successor. Sears quickly nixes the storyline letting go Abril, Clay, Rocky, and Rio after a brief murder mystery involving the short term villain Monty.

 

Sears hires Mary Ryan Munisteri who takes newcomer Dinahlee Mayberry, one of Taggert’s last new creations, and sets out to have Dinahlee seduce Jack Forbes at the bequest of Shana Vochek and Clay Alden. Dinahlee fails to bed Jack, but seriously pisses off his wife Stacey Forbes, who has no problem whining about her marital unrest to her best friend Trisha. Meanwhile, Trisha and Trucker’s marriage is suffering from their different backgrounds. Trisha tries to return to the business world, but her cousin Jack Forbes rejects the idea of hiring her on the basis of neopotism alone so Trisha becomes involved in the curation of the Alden family art collection which is being housed at AU. Trucker, a mechanic by trade, and Trisha, a patron of the arts, are now at odds with each other. The tension boils over as Giff Bowman is brought to town to work as a professor at AU. Giff befriends both Trisha, Trucker, and Dinahlee, who works as a nude model in his class. Giff is commissioned to build a statue for the lobby of Alden Enterprises and hires Trucker to do the fabrication. This brings Trucker into Dinahlee Mayberry’s orbit.

 

As Trucker and Trisha grow apart, Dinahlee and Trucker become closer. When Jeremy Hunter arrives in town, Trucker is convinced that heavily pregnant Trisha (who wasn’t suppose to get pregnant but since Noelle Beck is pregnant again, surprise Trisha’s pregnant) wants to bed Jeremy. Trucker and Dinahlee have sex in Giff Bowman’s studio where a temporarily homeless Dinahlee has been staying. Stacey Forbes, convinced that Dinahlee and Jack are going around behind her back, finds Dinahlee in bed not with her own husband but her best friend’s husband. Eventually, the truth comes out, and Trucker decides that once wasn’t enough and goes back to bed with Dinahlee again.

 

Anyway, Trisha decides to forgive Trucker despite the fact that Gwyn’s back sniffing around trying to cause problems in Trucker and Trisha’s marriage. Gwyn has begun dating Giff, who thinks that Trucker’s just a guy who made a mistake and shouldn’t be forced to suffer for it for the rest of his life. Trisha wants to make her marriage work even though she is hurt by what Trucker has done. Dinahlee wants Trucker, but can’t have him. When Gwyn tries to pay her to leave town, Dinahlee takes the check and uses it to purchase the bowling alley, Pins, putting down roots in Corinth.

 

In January 1992, Mary Ryan Munisteri is out and Addie Walsh is in. Walsh has the unfortunate task of writing out Noelle Beck for her second maternity leave in a little over a year’s time. Trucker and Trisha, who have mostly been happy, have a blow up when Trisha gives birth out of state while on an art buying trip with Giff, who has broken up with Gwyn because that’s what happens to Gwyn when a new writer comes on the scene. Walsh has a furious Trisha storm off into parts unknown with her baby, who I don’t think gets a name until Beck returns from maternity leave.

 

1992 is a cluster of a year and it’s the last full year Trisha is on the canvas. Beck films a couple of phone calls that a dispersed over several months to Richard Cox’s Giff. Initially, all the stuff with Giff and Trisha is innocent and friendly. Cox’s Giff was initially a very care free and laid back dude. He had a series of failed marriages, and a kid by each wife. When Walsh arrives, Giff now has a tragic backstory involving the death of his wife Alise in childbirth. Giff finds Trisha in the little community where his wife was buried and this is where Giff runs into his son Revel (now calling himself Casey) for the first time in some time. Trisha’s return has Trucker heated and Trucker believes that Giff has purposely been keeping Trisha and Christopher away from him. It’s not a good look for Trucker.

 

As the year progresses, rumor has it that Walsh leaves the writing staff when new EP Haidee Granger nixes her sexual molestation story involving Michael Weatherly’s Cooper Alden, Trisha’s second cousin once removed. Anyway, Trisha and Trucker have a custody battle over Christopher, which Trisha wins. Overnight, Giff is crazy and suddenly needs to get rid of Christopher because Christopher is what is keeping Trisha in Trucker’s orbit. After Christopher’s kidnapping, Casey begins to realize his dad is bonkers. It’s too late though; Giff kidnaps Trisha and takes her to the AU belfry.

 

Trucker and Casey manage to rescue Trisha, but not before Trucker and Giff fall from the belfry killing Giff and wounding Trucker. Suffering memory loss, Trucker believes he’s in love with Trisha’s best friend Stacey.

Around this time, Noelle Beck decides she’s done with the show. She wants to pursue other opportunities, but agrees to extend her contract so that they can properly wrap up Trisha’s story. The Stacey / Trucker angle is quickly nixed. Trisha and Trucker marry in a rustic wedding in November 1992 and prepare to settle down with Christopher and Casey as an unofficial ward. In her final months, Trisha mostly acts as tertiary character in the crazy Stacey plot worrying about what might happen to her friend. When Millee Taggert and Robert Guza arrive, Trisha has two minor arcs that really go nowhere. Recurring comic relief Arthur Davis, an AU student who works at the bike shop, falls for Trisha despite her being married to his boss. Steffi Brewster encourages him to go for it and Arthur does manage to get a kiss on the cheek from Trisha. When her brother Curtis returns home, Trisha learns that her father Clay plans on dismantling Alden Enterprises, and Curtis and Trisha plan to overthrow their father. This never happens.

 

In Trisha’s final days in Corinth, Trisha becomes entangled with mysterious Buck Huston who arranges to Trisha attacked so that he can play hero and worm his way into Trisha and Trucker’s life. Trisha and Trucker invite Buck into their home, which infuriates Curtis because he has a past with Buck in Kuwait. Trisha learns that Curtis and Buck know each other before driving off to meet Trucker at the cabin. On the way, Trisha is carjacked and shortly after the car careens off the road. Trisha, again, is presumed dead.

 

All of Corinth mourns Trisha’s passing while Trisha wakes up, stumbles into a bakery truck, and ends up at a greasy spoon on the outskirts of Corinth. Trisha’s picture is plastered over the paper, but no one seems to notice. In need of work, Trisha gets a waitressing job just as Jeff Hartman is released from Dunellyn, the mental hospital. Jeff stops by for breakfast at the diner before his plans to depart the States for Italy. He spots Trisha, is led to believe that Trucker has been beating her, and runs off to Italy with her while her family thinks she is dead. And with that, Trisha leaves Corinth in April 1993.

 

Trucker never really gets over Trisha completely. In late 1993, when Curtis has been kidnapped, a psychic is brought to the Alden mansion by Gwyn to find her son. The psychic, instead, picks up on vibrations about Trisha, which everyone dismisses. Later, in 1994, Trucker gets signs that Trisha is alive, which sends him on a chase to Italy when newlyweds Shana and Leo Burnell find Jeff Hartman living in Rome. Buck realizes the truth; Curtis has been leading Trucker to believe that Trisha is alive. Dinahlee rushes off to Rome to stop Trucker from confronting Jeff. Dinahlee gets to Trucker and Trucker believes it is all a coincidence. In 1995, Dinahlee wants Trucker to resolve his feelings once and for all. An exhumation reveals the body in Trisha’s grave isn’t hers (it was the carjacker’s) and Trucker goes to find Trisha. Dinahlee brings the Aldens a letter saying Trisha is alive, has no memory of the Aldens, and has no desire to look back on a life she doesn’t remember.

 

As the show wraps up in the summer of 1995, long time cast members are killed off left and right. Trisha is suspected to be the culprit. She returns from Rome to Corinth to see if she can remember anything (I think), but it’s all a bust. Later, Trisha slinks out of town and ends up in London I think.    

[Franko]

Holy crap, @dc11786. If that was "I'll do my best," than I think we mortals could not possibly comprehend the results if you were absolutely going for it. Amazing work.

[amybrickwallace]

@dc11786, you are the world champion. Many thanks!!!!

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[OzFrog]

 

I’m so down for this reboot! 

[amybrickwallace]

@dc11786, would you please give us the histories of Stacey and Ava when you get the time? Thanks!!

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[Lust4Life76]

Aw, thank you OZ, dc11786 has been helping me, when I don't go AWOL, I hope we can collaborate and maybe create something - the objective would be to send a script or two to Chris Marcantel, maybe to be read by some cast members/fans? You never know...