49 minutes ago, j swift said:

The story contains one of the anti-feminist themes that I hate the most.  Mary opts for a quick divorce from Reginald in order to be with Vince.  As an audience we are supposed to applaud Mary's humility at not asking for a settlement in order to be with the man she loves, as opposed to the reality that this guy essentially kidnapped her, took her away from her kids, and owed her some cash for pain and suffering.  I mean at the very least, Mary could have gotten the house in Paraguay... 

 

Also, I agree that Ben makes more sense as a historical character to bring back as a protagonist in the Marley/Jake romance than Dennis.

 

Finally, how far do you imagine Lassiter was from Bay City?  I know metaphorically it was a world away.  Yet, I wonder practically how much contact the Bay City McKinnons had with the Lassiter McKinnons, given their geographic proximity. 

 

Lassiter was a few states away from Bay City. Depending upon where in Pennsylvania Lassiter was supposed to be, it is at least a seven-hour drive from the Chicago area to the Pittsburgh area. I could easily picture the Bay City and Lassiter McKinnons visiting each other in the summer, much like my husband's family did when they were growing up.

 

On 1/27/2018 at 1:34 PM, Xanthe said:

The complexity of her choice wasn't between two husbands -- it was between independence and one husband (and reconciled once she had achieved something like independence and was therefore able to be both independent and have a husband).

Excellent point, Mary's growth is the one part of that story that I can appreciate

 

. 

 

Apparently I had this same conversation two years ago 

 

Edited September 15, 20205 yr by j swift

I was watching old clips based on our discussion of the history of Donna Love and I had some thoughts:

 

(1) This is Donna's first scene - talk about weird ages, were Peter and Donna's date meant to be the same age given their racquetball rivalry?  because the guy looks at least a decade older?  And who's Nancy Thompson?

  

(2) taken from Anna Stuart's return to the role on the day of Jason's murder

  (2a) Why was Iris hosting the birthday party for Felicia?  I don't remember them being friendly enough to be given such an honor

  (2b) Are we to believe that Felicia put in her own extensions?  Because she starts the episode with her iconic hairdo, she then puts on some Carly Simon and emerges with a whole new look.

 

 

(3) Had the writers of AW learned nothing about the use of crumpled photos as red herrings from the triplet fiasco?

Edited September 15, 20205 yr by j swift

17 minutes ago, j swift said:

  (2a) Why was Iris hosting the birthday party for Felicia?  I don't remember them being friendly enough to be given such an honor

I think Iris used it as a way to promote Felicia's new novel for Cory Publishing.

Donna's mention of her 7th grade teacher Mrs Cavanaugh during Felicia's party also got me thinking about whether or not Donna ever graduated from high school. Given that she spent so much time in the secret room under The Love mansion during her pregnancy with the twins, I wonder if she ever achieved a diploma?

 

Also, this episode features a flashback to Iris and Michael's affair (they crammed a lot of story into 40 minutes in those days).  Was this the first time that viewers were told of their affair?  I know Iris returned four months earlier and they set up a Donna/Iris/Michael triangle, but were there any prior flashbacks to the fact that they had actually been in flagrante delicto while living in Europe?  

 

Finally, did Lisa and Felicia have a goodbye scene in the prior episode? Because it seems odd that she's going on a midnight flight to London on the night of Felicia's party, Matt visits her, and yet she doesn't even call Felicia (or Jamie) to say goodbye.

Edited September 15, 20205 yr by j swift

3 hours ago, robbwolff said:

 

Lassiter was a few states away from Bay City. Depending upon where in Pennsylvania Lassiter was supposed to be, it is at least a seven-hour drive from the Chicago area to the Pittsburgh area. I could easily picture the Bay City and Lassiter McKinnons visiting each other in the summer, much like my husband's family did when they were growing up.

 

When Kathleen was researching Mary's past, she had lunch with Jake's mother (then called Helen) somewhere near Chicago. Aunt Helen talked about how she had looked after Mary and Vince's children (including baby Cheryl) so Mary could work for the Loves. So at that time Aunt Helen was in Bay City. Jake's family may have lived in Bay City at that time and moved to PA later so he could grow up with Victoria.

 

 

Aunt Helen rushes off to pick up a friend from the airport, so it seems as if she is likely living not far from Chicago during this period. But she never visited Bay City before or since and seems to be on bad terms with Jake and possibly Vince.

 

I remember when Jake first showed up MJ and Kathleen commented that when they had last seen him he was fat and homely, so obviously they were not supposed to have seen him very recently.

 

 

For no particular reason, here's Reginald falling to his death from the Love Tower.

(Karma's a bitch, Reg.)

 

6 hours ago, j swift said:

This is Donna's first scene - talk about weird ages, were Peter and Donna's date meant to be the same age given their racquetball rivalry?

 

In my experience people mingle with other players of various ages in intra-club racquet sports, so I don't think we were supposed to interpret Donna's escort as being a contemporary of Peter's, especially since they didn't include any details about the other lawyer attending school at the same time.

 

6 hours ago, j swift said:

Are we to believe that Felicia put in her own extensions?  Because she starts the episode with her iconic hairdo, she then puts on some Carly Simon and emerges with a whole new look.

 

I may be misremembering, but I thought that at the end of the previous episode they actually showed Felicia taking the clips out to let down her long hair, and that Linda had actually been growing her hair out (and wearing it up until the dramatic reveal) for the change. But it's possible that I was simply naive about hair extensions and made a lot of assumptions.

6 hours ago, j swift said:

I was watching old clips based on our discussion of the history of Donna Love and I had some thoughts:

 

(1) This is Donna's first scene - talk about weird ages, were Peter and Donna's date meant to be the same age given their racquetball rivalry?  because the guy looks at least a decade older?  And who's Nancy Thompson?

  

(2) taken from Anna Stuart's return to the role on the day of Jason's murder

  (2a) Why was Iris hosting the birthday party for Felicia?  I don't remember them being friendly enough to be given such an honor

  (2b) Are we to believe that Felicia put in her own extensions?  Because she starts the episode with her iconic hairdo, she then puts on some Carly Simon and emerges with a whole new look.

 

 

(3) Had the writers of AW learned nothing about the use of crumpled photos as red herrings from the triplet fiasco?

As a Broadway fan, I'm getting a kick out of the song. It's "Sleight of Hand," which was the theme to the short-lived play of the same name. The clip fades out *just* before Carly sings "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" (no, really).

1 hour ago, Xanthe said:

I may be misremembering, but I thought that at the end of the previous episode they actually showed Felicia taking the clips out to let down her long hair, and that Linda had actually been growing her hair out (and wearing it up until the dramatic reveal) for the change. But it's possible that I was simply naive about hair extensions and made a lot of assumptions.

I share your naiveté with regard to hair extension, but I clearly recall Linda wearing the extensions on her talk show Attitudes, and one day during a segment where she hung upside down one of them started falling out. 

 

Here's a clip from earlier in the episode when Mitch is gifting Felicia some lingerie and she has the shorter hairdo.  It looks like she was growing out the sides to attach the clips, but there are clearly extensions because her hair was not that long all the way around.  I also found it funny that Mac and Cass never remarked on Felicia's hair at the party.  Perhaps they were too embarrassed to ask why she was wearing a wig?

 

To me this clip also proves that Mitch was never meant to be Felicia's long term romance because they were not a good match: (1) Who gives a woman lingerie for her 40th birthday? (2) Felicia Gallant iconically wore peignoirs with marabou trim, not lacy teddies.

1 hour ago, Franko said:

As a Broadway fan, I'm getting a kick out of the song. It's "Sleight of Hand," which was the theme to the short-lived play of the same name. The clip fades out *just* before Carly sings "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" (no, really).

I Googled the musical, odd that it was written by John Pielmeier of Agnes of God fame.  Also, an odd choice of music because while it sets a mood, the lyrics don't fit with the scene very well. 

Edited September 16, 20205 yr by j swift

1 hour ago, Franko said:

For no particular reason, here's Reginald falling to his death from the Love Tower.

(Karma's a bitch, Reg.)

No wonder Peter was so screwed up.  Reg is talking about the new beginning with his dead grandson from Donna and completely ignores any reference to Peter (or Peter's son with Britney (which maybe wasn't Peter's but Reg didn't know that for sure), or Scott, or even his great grandson Stephen). 

 

P.S. - From Kevin Thatcher to Britney's son, Caitlin Ewing was always game to raise some other guy's kid (unless Britney's son was his, but I recall that he was Peter's progeny).

 

Also, I totally forgot that Reginald threw himself off of the roof, I guess to preserve Michael's innocence as a character. 

Edited September 16, 20205 yr by j swift

1 hour ago, Franko said:

For no particular reason, here's Reginald falling to his death from the Love Tower.

(Karma's a bitch, Reg.)

 

 

Why in the world didn't they add some ambient traffic noises and some wind in the earlier scenes?   They're on the top of a skyscraper out in the open air, for God's sake!  Finally, after Michael is holding Reginald by the arm, there is a bit of noise, and a little wind.   It couldn't be a matter of expense, because the wind would have been free and the traffic noise effect may have had a small royalty charge.  Somebody in the special effects department was clearly asleep at the wheel.  

 

And I wouldn't say Reginald threw himself off the roof.  He was trying to attack Michael again, but Michael stepped out of the way, and Reg's momentum carried him off the roof.  It wasn't a suicide, I'm my opinion.   

 

Edited September 16, 20205 yr by Neil Johnson

34 minutes ago, j swift said:

I Googled the musical, odd that it was written by John Pielmeier of Agnes of God fame.  Also, an odd choice of music because while it sets a mood, the lyrics don't fit with the scene very well. 

An instrumental version would have worked well, but maybe they wanted to use Carly since she had a (different) hit song at the time, "Let the River Run" (which would have been all kinds of strange playing against Felicia's makeover).

 

9 minutes ago, Neil Johnson said:

And I wouldn't say Reginald threw himself off the roof.  He was trying to attack Michael again, but Michael stepped out of the way, and Reg's momentum carried him off the roof.  It wasn't a suicide, I'm my opinion.   

If we haven't already, we should do a list of soap characters who died (or "died") while attempting to kill others. Reginald, James Stenbeck (the plane plunge in '83), I swear it happened to Carl once or twice ...

On 9/14/2020 at 3:28 PM, Neil Johnson said:

 

It's interesting that some folks find it surprising that Donna, Michael, and Rachel are around the same age.  I always assumed Donna and Michael's age lined up with that of Rachel, Russ Matthews, and Alice Frame. I'd put Sharlene in the same age-bracket, because she and Rachel had both been married to Russ Matthews.  I suppose, if you want to be literal, then Jamie Frame's SORASing does throw-off Rachel and Russ's age a bit. But that sort of thing happens on every soap, and it's usually best to ignore it.  The really hard-to-swallow age retcon for me was that of making Jamie and Dennis contemporaries with Marley and Vicki Hudson -- and by extension, Nancy McGowen.  If I'm not mistaken, when Nancy was born, Jamie was being played by Bobbie Doran, who was around 10 years old.  And Jamie continued to seem about a decade older than Nancy.  So when Vicki Hudson hooked her claws into Jamie, I thought it was a little creepy.  Especially, since the age difference was never mentioned in any of the dialogue.  They just started pretending they were the same age.   

 

I never thought about this til Halloween 1989 when Cecile returned to the show.  They had scenes with Cecile, Vicky, and Donna.  Both Cecile and Vicky were married to Jamie, but Cecile was always a contemporary of Donna in the same age bracket. Cecile was clearly a decade older than Vicky, as was Jamie.

 

 

8 hours ago, j swift said:

1) This is Donna's first scene - talk about weird ages, were Peter and Donna's date meant to be the same age given their racquetball rivalry?  because the guy looks at least a decade older?  And who's Nancy Thompson?

One last thought from Donna's introductory scene - I really liked Jennifer Runyon's Sally. 

 

I am more familiar with Mary Page Keller's performance because that was the period that I watched the most, but in re-watching this scene I admire Ms. Runyon's take on the character.  Runyon's Sally is spunky and had the chutzpah to spare with Donna.  Keller's Sally was a good heroine/damsel-in-distress but she lacked some of the spark that connected Sally with her history as a troubled teen.  It is akin to DAYS Hope wherein later writers forgot her subversive nature as a teen and only wrote her as sometimes sleuth and misbegotten Mom. 

 

My interpretation was that Donna's disapproval of Sally was motivated by snobbery and protecting Peter, versus any real animosity toward her.  Sally's time with Caitlin was written as he was a bad boy and she was this sweet and innocent girl.  To me, Keller's Sally lacked the wit and self-assurance to battle Donna on her own.   However, if I remember correctly, Sally had already been married, she went through a rebellion period, and she wasn't always nice to those Hobson boys.  So, writing her as a wilting flower forced to choose between Peter and Caitlin was a bit of a character change for such a powerful young woman.  In hindsight, I wish they had stuck with bratty Sally. 

Edited September 16, 20205 yr by j swift