Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[alwaysAMC]

Ok GL friends - Phillip Spaulding is back! (April 19, 1996)

Quick questions so I can get up to speed:

1) Why does Alan-Michael hate Phillip so much? Amanda put him on the wedding list and A-M got extremely upset and said he's the last person he'd ever want at his wedding.

2) Who is Meredith? With Blake's current pregnancy storyline, Rick and Ed have been talking about how Meredith (assuming Rick's girlfriend) left with Phillip's son (or something like that)? They also keep talking about how Blake/Rick were at odds over Phillip too.

3) They said Phillip left town to do community service and avoid getting arrested, or something to that effect. What did he do and why did he really leave?

Thanks in advance

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Edited 2 hours ago by alwaysAMC

[DRW50]

There was tension between Alan-Michael and Philip because Alan-Michael was sympathetic to Blake (and married her) after Philip left her to chase after an amnesiac Beth, but the show exaggerated that tension when Philip returned.

Meredith was Fletcher's sister. She was a doctor. Rick was married to her. Philip slept with her. She got pregnant with his child. When the truth came out, Meredith lost the baby, and she and Rick split up.

I think Philip had faked his death to escape murder charges (with Rick stealing a corpse to help him). Someone else will remember more.

Edited 2 hours ago by DRW50

[DeeVee]

I can't answer 1 & 3, but I can answer this:

Meredith is Fletcher's sister. She's a doctor. She and Rick fell in love. At one of the Bauer 4th of July BBQs, they had a fight. She ran into Phillip at a bar and the two of them ended up having sex.

Rick and Meredith reconciled and...you guessed it, she turned up pregnant. She didn't know for sure who the father was but she let Rick think it was his. Just before their wedding, he saw a sonogram picture. Being a doctor, he could tell how far along she was and realized he wasn't the father.

He still went through with the ceremony (why, don't ask me) and afterwards confronted her about it. She told him she picked up a stranger at a bar. Rick was bitter about it but he still stayed with her.

Eventually, the secret came out. Rick was furious about Phillip betraying him. Still, he stayed with Meredith (again, why, I don't know). She had a stillbirth and was left barren.

Meredith finally decided to leave him and left SF for good.

Rick was awful to her, including after losing the baby. Just was a creep about it. It was hard for me to ever like the character after this storyline. I don't knowl if one of the writers strikes was going on during this story, but it was so, so bad. Rick and Meredith had no chemistry. The way Rick stayed with her, the way she stayed with him, made zero sense to me.

 

[P.J.]

1) A-M had an inferiority complex when it came to Phillip. Alan had adopted Phillip (his wife Elizabeth had a stillbirth, Alan then had the babies switched) and always favored him. When A-M came to town, he got involved with Blake as his marriage to Harley was disintergrating, and Blake was married to Phillip at the time (but that marriage was crumbling because a) Beth was alive and b ) Blake kept that from Phillip). But by the time Phillip left town in '91, he and Alan-Michael were on good terms. So whatever A-M's referring to is writer laziness to further this plot.

2) Meredith Reade Bauer was Fletch's sister and Rick's ex-wife. Their marriage broke up after she discovered she couldn't have any more children. After a fight, Meredith and Phillip slept together, she got pregnant. Right before they got married, Rick realized, thanks to a sonogram, that he couldn't be the father. I believe Meredith just told him it was a random ONS, and he accepted that. Meredith had complications, and Rick couldn't decide whether to save her life or the baby's. He asked Phillip to decide for him, and Phillip chose Meredith. It wasn't until after that Rick found out that Phillip was the father, and had chosen Rick's wife over his child. 

Not sure why Rick/Blake were "at odds", other than by that time Blake had married Ross, who was Phillip's biological uncle. Phillip's bio parents are Justin and Jackie Marler.

3) Back in '90, Phillip was accused of killing Beth's ex-lover Neil Everest. (Neil was killed by a bomb he planted the night of The Towers opening. He had planned to kill Phillip (and there's some weird twist where Neil had killed his wife and her children in a building collapse or something...but anyway..)  But Gary Swanson (who was plotting with Neil for some strange reason) knocked Neil out and saved Phillip.  Neil had already planted evidence implicating Phillip in the bombing (to make it look like he had been caught in his own trap), so he was charged.  Phillip, Beth and Rick faked Phillp's death. Rick and Phillip planted a cadaver and burned it in a car to make it look like an accident. Beth was pregnant with Lizzie at the time. To divert suspicion, (Mallet was already skeptical that Phillip was alive) Rick and Beth married, which upset Mindy (who was trying to start things back up with Rick) and knew nothing about the plot. When it all came out, Rick, Beth and Phillip were all given community service, and I believe Rick's MD license was suspended. Beth and Phillip went to Arizona, and Rick (I think) first got help from his uncle Mike to start community service out of state. 

 

[Khan]

And then, to finish up the story:

Phillip returned to Springfield several years later to clear his good(-ish) name in some ridiculous retcon that is best left forgotten...Beth couldn't accept that Phillip had returned to his family against her wishes, so she divorced him, went wacko and hooked up with jerk whom their grade school-aged daughter later offed...Rick married and divorced Annie in Chicago, I think, and did some other stuff that I tuned out of (on account of being disgusted with the show) before he realized he couldn't get arrested in Hollywood and came back...and AFAIK, Neil Everest stayed dead, but his daughter did not; and in fact, she went on to become a trailblazing, multiple Grammy-winning artist under the name "Billie Eilish."

[DRW50]

That guy also abused Beth (the one Lizzie killed), which the show probably should have done more with rather than just giving her a split personality and having her do whatever the plot demanded.

[Soaplovers]

Philip, like Reva, were characters that should have remained in the 80s and never been bought back to the soap.