I’m up to March 02, 1999.

*On this Valentine's Day, we mourn the loss of Hart Jessup. So sad.

Rick calls Cassie back to the hospital and tells her Hart’s condition has turned for the worse as the bullet is moving closer to his heart. Cassie has to talk to Hart and get his permission to operate. Hart tells the ominous white light nurse that he’s not going to die and then later tells Cassie he wants to have the surgery. She brings him RJ so they can have bonding time before his surgery. They also talk about how he needs to hurry and get better because they have a wedding to plan.

Annie uses her one phone call in jail to Ben and reminds him that he has Lewis Oil to lose if he doesn’t help her. Ben leaves Blake with Ross to take care of the twins and heads to the station. He finds out that Alan is upset with Annie and no longer supporting her, so Ben leaves, telling Annie that without Alan’s backing, he has no reason to help Annie. She stops him though and says she can convince Alan to come back, so she calls Alan and leaves him a voicemail where she’s sobbing and apologizing, which Ben thought was a good performance. Meanwhile, Alan confides in Phillip that he doesn’t know how to kick this bad habit in needing Annie. Phillip pleads with him to stop fighting with the Lewis family and just make peace. David finds the lady that Alan paid off/bribed to steal the real Teri’s body from the spa and bring her to SF, and who also destroyed all the medical files on Teri. He secretly taped her confession and Josh/Reva will use this information to get Alan to give up on Annie and his Lewis Oil takeover. Unfortunately, Alan succumbs to Annie’s pleas in jail and decides to continue supporting her.

Blake and Ross reminisce about their past and they are friendly to each other. Josh then calls the house and tells them they found Holly and she’s safe, which makes them happy. They have a tender goodbye as Ross leaves. Blake laters sees Holly, who is in a padded cell on suicide watch. Very sad scenes here with Blake trying to convince Holly that her life will get better and it’s worth living. Holly doesn’t think it’s possible that anyone will forgive her and she wants to die. Blake then lets the twins wave at Holly before they go, and it seems like it might give Holly some hope. Blake later asks Ross to be Holly’s lawyer since she trusts him. Ben is miffed by this, thinking he’ll be better, but Blake doesn’t think it’s a good idea and he concedes.

Vanessa is still staying quiet on Dinah’s whereabouts, so Billy comes in and thinks he’s the only one who can get her to open up. @P.J. !!! He tells her he understands why she’s doing this and he would do the same for any of his three kids. He then tries to convince her to fight for her marriage (while also saying he can’t believe he’s asking her to go back to the guy he lost her to). It seems to work and Vanessa is ready to post bail and go home to Matt. Meanwhile, Beth is with Matt asking about his thoughts on his marriage. He won’t start divorce papers until she’s out of jail, but Beth keeps pushing him back towards her if that’s really what he wants. He then grabs Beth and kisses her, in an attempt to get her to believe his marriage is over. She says that while they both may be attracted to each other, he’s still in love with Vanessa and needs to focus on that. If the marriage does eventually end later, he can kiss her again. Beth leaves and later, Vanessa comes home and is happy to see Matt and Maureen there, but they quickly get into a tiff when Vanessa hears that Beth was there. Matt gets a little upset with Billy’s support in the moment, but they eventually apologize to each other. They take a night to sleep on whether they want to be together, and they decide to meet at the Towers the next day at 8, and if they both show up, then they have their answer. The next morning, Matt arrives at the Towers with his computer, with a plan to reconnect with Vanessa the same way they did in the chat rooms back in 1997 (so cute!). Lillian shows up to Vanessa’s house and they talk about her situation like old friends, with Lillian giving her good advice. Vanessa says she plans to meet Matt that night and is very excited about it, which makes Lillian happy.

At Spaulding, the lady that David found has arrived, panicked and looking for Alan. Vicky talks to her and realizes that David tricked her by pretending to be a Spaulding employee. He had taken Vicky’s ID card at their last date, which ended in a little tiff. Vicky then calls David, pretending to apologize and wants to have another date at the Towers that night. They later have their date, dance and kiss. He invites her to his room at the boarding house and she gets him to grab a bottle of wine downstairs while she snoops around. She finds her ID card and later allows them both to make out in their underwear in bed, but then abruptly stops before they go all the way and says she has to leave room for more surprises. He’s confused and she leaves, telling herself that was just the beginning.

At the Towers, Matt is waiting on Vanessa and starts to think she isn’t coming. He calls Spaulding looking for her, but starts to think she never planned to meet him and their marriage is actually over. He leaves and heads to Spaulding, while Vanessa arrives shortly after. She’s excited and grabs a special table for them while she waits for him. Matt gets to Spaulding and finds Beth and tells her Vanessa doesn’t want to be with him anymore. Ok, this whole things is frustrating because the timeline is off. Matt is at the Towers all day waiting, while Vanessa is at work, and then Vicky arrives at 8pm to meet with David and Matt has already left well before 8pm which is the time he was supposed to meet Vanessa. Anyway, Vanessa is surprised Matt isn’t showing up, while Matt tells Beth he’s off to have several drinks. Vanessa gives up and walks out, just as Matt enters again from the other door, just missing each other. Vanessa calls Lillian from the lobby and tells her it’s over and she needs someone to talk to. Vanessa walks back through the restaurant to leave, missing the fact that Matt is sitting at the bar. Beth then shows up to talk to Matt and he gets drunk and starts to hit on another woman until Beth is able to stop him. Meanwhile, Lillian convinces Vanessa that he must be in trouble because there’s no way he wouldn’t show up or call. As Lillian calls the hospital, a laughing and drunk Matt and Beth walk through the door, with Matt hanging all over Beth. OH if looks could kill, both Vanessa and Lillian look very unhappy and annoyed. Vanessa lays into them and Beth yaps back, so Lillian forces Beth to leave with her so Vanessa/Matt can talk. Outside, Lillian tells Beth that Vanessa was waiting for him, so Beth now realizes what happened. OH, come to find out, I guess Matt meant 8am for breakfast and not 8pm for dinner. Man, Matt literally stayed at the Towers for 13 hours waiting haha. Beth goes back inside to tell them about the time misunderstanding, but she overhears Vanessa calling her a bitch and they get into it more. Matt has to stop them yelling at each other and he tells Vanessa to go home. She leaves and Beth never tells Matt the truth, and Matt then kisses Beth. He wants more and she resists a bit, but finally gives in and they start taking each other’s clothes off. Just as they’re about to go for it, she stops and says she can’t do this knowing the truth. Beth finally tells him the truth and he feels bad and questions why she wouldn’t have told him. Beth cries and Matt leaves to find Vanessa and Maureen.

Hart goes into surgery and his family/friends are there waiting. We see him in dream sequences in a boxing ring, sweaty and shirtless, going back between Cassie and the bright light nurse. He keeps telling the nurse he’s not following her and he needs to be there for Cassie. Things go south in surgery, and Cassie keeps pushing him to fight and he keeps punching the boxing bag, but he’s getting tired. The nurse tells him it’s ok to stop because she’ll take care of him, but Cassie yells at her to shut up. Sadly, after surgery, Rick tells Cassie and Blake that he went too long without blood to the brain and likely will wake up a different person and never be the same. In the boxing ring, he’s getting really weak and Cassie holds him and they say they love each other, and Hart says he’ll be waiting for her when it’s her time. Hart then flatlines and Cassie cries over him (3/01). I can’t believe Hart is dead. Damn, Dinah! Cassie walks out of the room and tells everyone he died and Blake breaks down when she sees his body. Blake later says she called Roger and plans to call Bridget so she and Dylan can tell Peter his father is dead. At least we got a mention of this and they didn’t just completely ignore Peter/Bridget. Cassie later tells Tammy at the farm that Hart is dead, with their family watching and supporting. Cassie tells Blake that Hart didn’t want a funeral and that his ashes should be spread around the farm land.

Carmen assumes Michelle and Rick called the FBI on their family, so she has the family attorney grill Michelle. Danny tries to defuse the situation and convince them Michelle would never do that. Carmen tells Danny she’ll finally accept Michelle if she puts her through one final loyalty test. She wants to give Michelle information that could hurt the family and wait and see if she’ll rat them out, but Danny says there is no way he’s doing that. He continues to tell Carmen that he believes Michelle and that Mick attacked her. Meanwhile, Michelle sees an older lady that owes the family money and can’t pay, so she gives her money to help her out. She talks to the lady and understands now all about the Santos business and how they make people owe them for protecting them. Ray overhears them talking about Michelle giving her money and later tells Danny about it in front of Michelle, which makes Danny suspicious/angry. He pushes her for more information, but Ray tries to calm him down and she eventually plays on his emotions by flirting with him and kissing him. They almost have sex, but Danny stops it thinking she’s still not overly into it.

@alwaysAMC I had rewatched parts of Dinah's exit, but I can't believe how heavily the Lillian/Van connection is played. On one hand, I get it---other than Reva, there's really no one in town that Van's contemporary (Alex doesn't really count, with Dusay in the role) and at this point Holly's nuts. But it's just frustrating that everything is just kosher between these two. At least to me.

All I can say about ****/Van is that it's just unserious, even by a bad rom-com standard. It's hard for me to understand how the same writers that could write a spot-on scene between Van and Billy, write such contrived tripe for "hero" ****. Then again, tripe would be the only thing that made **** look good. zing

And I'm sure it was meant to be sincere, but picturing Cassie flinging Hart's ashes in manure---kind of a choice.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by P.J.

12 hours ago, Khan said:

Frankly, I don't blame him, lol. Unfortunately, he ended up playing the losing side of the Erica/Travis/Jack triangle on AMC, once it was clear that the writers had done too much damage to Travis and Erica's relationship for them to reconcile.

I know that actors have egos but really, you can't expect to be the "winner" all the time, your an actor, play it. The actor was a very complicated person, and I always felt he just made Kyle seem..unpleasant, he was always going to loose no matter what.

12 minutes ago, P.J. said:

@alwaysAMC I had rewatched parts of Dinah's exit, but I can't believe how heavily the Lillian/Van connection is played. On one hand, I get it---other than Reva, there's really no one in town that Van's contemporary (Alex doesn't really count, with Dusay in the role) and at this point Holly's nuts. But it's just frustrating that everything is just kosher between these two. At least to me.

All I can say about ****/Van is that it's just unserious, even by a bad rom-com standard. It's hard for me to understand how the same writers that could write a spot-on scene between Van and Billy, write such contrived tripe for "hero" ****. Then again, tripe would be the only thing that made **** look good. zing

LOL at the bolded part 😜

So I was wondering about Vanessa and Lillian's past during these episodes. I was just happy that Lillian had more to do than be a background nurse at Cedars. I haven't seen that much Lillian since Beth came back to town, so it was great that she was being so supportive to Vanessa. But, I was curious about their history and how developed their friendship really was. But again, we've talked about GL and their lack of strong friendships. GL really could use an older female character on scene that people can confide in... like AMC had Myrtle Fargate. Meta could be that, but she's really only used for the Bauer family and not the greater community.

17 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

I know that actors have egos but really, you can't expect to be the "winner" all the time, your an actor, play it. The actor was a very complicated person, and I always felt he just made Kyle seem..unpleasant, he was always going to loose no matter what.

Yeah, he obviously had some issues. I think Terrell Anthony, who played Rusty, said Malloy was threatened by him and made comments about how he was the male star and don't get in his way, or something like that.

I will be forever p!ssed at him because if he hadn't left GL, Alan never would have been pulled into Reva's orbit. I wonder, since they had mentioned both Rita and Hope during that era, if they would have brought one or both of them back into the story if Reva hadn't needed someone to worship her during the Sonni story.

19 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

But again, we've talked about GL and their lack of strong friendships. GL really could use an older female character on scene that people can confide in... like AMC had Myrtle Fargate. Meta could be that, but she's really only used for the Bauer family and not the greater community.

Also, Ina, on OLTL. Who ran a boarding house, like Bea Reardon did. They really made a mistake, IMO, when they got rid of Bea. The boarding house was the perfect place to have disparate characters flow through it every now and then and where they could use Bea as a sounding board and dispenser of wisdom. As it was used during the 1980s. It's where Beth and Lujack fell in love, for instance.

1 hour ago, alwaysAMC said:

I’m up to March 02, 1999.

*On this Valentine's Day, we mourn the loss of Hart Jessup. So sad.

Rick calls Cassie back to the hospital and tells her Hart’s condition has turned for the worse as the bullet is moving closer to his heart. Cassie has to talk to Hart and get his permission to operate. Hart tells the ominous white light nurse that he’s not going to die and then later tells Cassie he wants to have the surgery. She brings him RJ so they can have bonding time before his surgery. They also talk about how he needs to hurry and get better because they have a wedding to plan.

Annie uses her one phone call in jail to Ben and reminds him that he has Lewis Oil to lose if he doesn’t help her. Ben leaves Blake with Ross to take care of the twins and heads to the station. He finds out that Alan is upset with Annie and no longer supporting her, so Ben leaves, telling Annie that without Alan’s backing, he has no reason to help Annie. She stops him though and says she can convince Alan to come back, so she calls Alan and leaves him a voicemail where she’s sobbing and apologizing, which Ben thought was a good performance. Meanwhile, Alan confides in Phillip that he doesn’t know how to kick this bad habit in needing Annie. Phillip pleads with him to stop fighting with the Lewis family and just make peace. David finds the lady that Alan paid off/bribed to steal the real Teri’s body from the spa and bring her to SF, and who also destroyed all the medical files on Teri. He secretly taped her confession and Josh/Reva will use this information to get Alan to give up on Annie and his Lewis Oil takeover. Unfortunately, Alan succumbs to Annie’s pleas in jail and decides to continue supporting her.

Blake and Ross reminisce about their past and they are friendly to each other. Josh then calls the house and tells them they found Holly and she’s safe, which makes them happy. They have a tender goodbye as Ross leaves. Blake laters sees Holly, who is in a padded cell on suicide watch. Very sad scenes here with Blake trying to convince Holly that her life will get better and it’s worth living. Holly doesn’t think it’s possible that anyone will forgive her and she wants to die. Blake then lets the twins wave at Holly before they go, and it seems like it might give Holly some hope. Blake later asks Ross to be Holly’s lawyer since she trusts him. Ben is miffed by this, thinking he’ll be better, but Blake doesn’t think it’s a good idea and he concedes.

Vanessa is still staying quiet on Dinah’s whereabouts, so Billy comes in and thinks he’s the only one who can get her to open up. @P.J. !!! He tells her he understands why she’s doing this and he would do the same for any of his three kids. He then tries to convince her to fight for her marriage (while also saying he can’t believe he’s asking her to go back to the guy he lost her to). It seems to work and Vanessa is ready to post bail and go home to Matt. Meanwhile, Beth is with Matt asking about his thoughts on his marriage. He won’t start divorce papers until she’s out of jail, but Beth keeps pushing him back towards her if that’s really what he wants. He then grabs Beth and kisses her, in an attempt to get her to believe his marriage is over. She says that while they both may be attracted to each other, he’s still in love with Vanessa and needs to focus on that. If the marriage does eventually end later, he can kiss her again. Beth leaves and later, Vanessa comes home and is happy to see Matt and Maureen there, but they quickly get into a tiff when Vanessa hears that Beth was there. Matt gets a little upset with Billy’s support in the moment, but they eventually apologize to each other. They take a night to sleep on whether they want to be together, and they decide to meet at the Towers the next day at 8, and if they both show up, then they have their answer. The next morning, Matt arrives at the Towers with his computer, with a plan to reconnect with Vanessa the same way they did in the chat rooms back in 1997 (so cute!). Lillian shows up to Vanessa’s house and they talk about her situation like old friends, with Lillian giving her good advice. Vanessa says she plans to meet Matt that night and is very excited about it, which makes Lillian happy.

At Spaulding, the lady that David found has arrived, panicked and looking for Alan. Vicky talks to her and realizes that David tricked her by pretending to be a Spaulding employee. He had taken Vicky’s ID card at their last date, which ended in a little tiff. Vicky then calls David, pretending to apologize and wants to have another date at the Towers that night. They later have their date, dance and kiss. He invites her to his room at the boarding house and she gets him to grab a bottle of wine downstairs while she snoops around. She finds her ID card and later allows them both to make out in their underwear in bed, but then abruptly stops before they go all the way and says she has to leave room for more surprises. He’s confused and she leaves, telling herself that was just the beginning.

At the Towers, Matt is waiting on Vanessa and starts to think she isn’t coming. He calls Spaulding looking for her, but starts to think she never planned to meet him and their marriage is actually over. He leaves and heads to Spaulding, while Vanessa arrives shortly after. She’s excited and grabs a special table for them while she waits for him. Matt gets to Spaulding and finds Beth and tells her Vanessa doesn’t want to be with him anymore. Ok, this whole things is frustrating because the timeline is off. Matt is at the Towers all day waiting, while Vanessa is at work, and then Vicky arrives at 8pm to meet with David and Matt has already left well before 8pm which is the time he was supposed to meet Vanessa. Anyway, Vanessa is surprised Matt isn’t showing up, while Matt tells Beth he’s off to have several drinks. Vanessa gives up and walks out, just as Matt enters again from the other door, just missing each other. Vanessa calls Lillian from the lobby and tells her it’s over and she needs someone to talk to. Vanessa walks back through the restaurant to leave, missing the fact that Matt is sitting at the bar. Beth then shows up to talk to Matt and he gets drunk and starts to hit on another woman until Beth is able to stop him. Meanwhile, Lillian convinces Vanessa that he must be in trouble because there’s no way he wouldn’t show up or call. As Lillian calls the hospital, a laughing and drunk Matt and Beth walk through the door, with Matt hanging all over Beth. OH if looks could kill, both Vanessa and Lillian look very unhappy and annoyed. Vanessa lays into them and Beth yaps back, so Lillian forces Beth to leave with her so Vanessa/Matt can talk. Outside, Lillian tells Beth that Vanessa was waiting for him, so Beth now realizes what happened. OH, come to find out, I guess Matt meant 8am for breakfast and not 8pm for dinner. Man, Matt literally stayed at the Towers for 13 hours waiting haha. Beth goes back inside to tell them about the time misunderstanding, but she overhears Vanessa calling her a bitch and they get into it more. Matt has to stop them yelling at each other and he tells Vanessa to go home. She leaves and Beth never tells Matt the truth, and Matt then kisses Beth. He wants more and she resists a bit, but finally gives in and they start taking each other’s clothes off. Just as they’re about to go for it, she stops and says she can’t do this knowing the truth. Beth finally tells him the truth and he feels bad and questions why she wouldn’t have told him. Beth cries and Matt leaves to find Vanessa and Maureen.

Hart goes into surgery and his family/friends are there waiting. We see him in dream sequences in a boxing ring, sweaty and shirtless, going back between Cassie and the bright light nurse. He keeps telling the nurse he’s not following her and he needs to be there for Cassie. Things go south in surgery, and Cassie keeps pushing him to fight and he keeps punching the boxing bag, but he’s getting tired. The nurse tells him it’s ok to stop because she’ll take care of him, but Cassie yells at her to shut up. Sadly, after surgery, Rick tells Cassie and Blake that he went too long without blood to the brain and likely will wake up a different person and never be the same. In the boxing ring, he’s getting really weak and Cassie holds him and they say they love each other, and Hart says he’ll be waiting for her when it’s her time. Hart then flatlines and Cassie cries over him (3/01). I can’t believe Hart is dead. Damn, Dinah! Cassie walks out of the room and tells everyone he died and Blake breaks down when she sees his body. Blake later says she called Roger and plans to call Bridget so she and Dylan can tell Peter his father is dead. At least we got a mention of this and they didn’t just completely ignore Peter/Bridget. Cassie later tells Tammy at the farm that Hart is dead, with their family watching and supporting. Cassie tells Blake that Hart didn’t want a funeral and that his ashes should be spread around the farm land.

Carmen assumes Michelle and Rick called the FBI on their family, so she has the family attorney grill Michelle. Danny tries to defuse the situation and convince them Michelle would never do that. Carmen tells Danny she’ll finally accept Michelle if she puts her through one final loyalty test. She wants to give Michelle information that could hurt the family and wait and see if she’ll rat them out, but Danny says there is no way he’s doing that. He continues to tell Carmen that he believes Michelle and that Mick attacked her. Meanwhile, Michelle sees an older lady that owes the family money and can’t pay, so she gives her money to help her out. She talks to the lady and understands now all about the Santos business and how they make people owe them for protecting them. Ray overhears them talking about Michelle giving her money and later tells Danny about it in front of Michelle, which makes Danny suspicious/angry. He pushes her for more information, but Ray tries to calm him down and she eventually plays on his emotions by flirting with him and kissing him. They almost have sex, but Danny stops it thinking she’s still not overly into it.

It’s funny how memory is-my recollection was that the Danny/Michelle relationship became a real marriage munch faster than it actually happened. But I was largely just reading synopses at this point since I was in college and didn’t have my own VCR at this point, and my roommate who owned the TV/VCR was a Days fan haha

So, appreciating the thorough recaps!

I was studying abroad most of summer of 99 so I definitely wasn’t watching. I feel like I mostly stopped watching regularly around this time until I’d heard things were getting better again in 2001.

2 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Yeah, he obviously had some issues. I think Terrell Anthony, who played Rusty, said Malloy was threatened by him and made comments about how he was the male star and don't get in his way, or something like that.

I will be forever p!ssed at him because if he hadn't left GL, Alan never would have been pulled into Reva's orbit. I wonder, since they had mentioned both Rita and Hope during that era, if they would have brought one or both of them back into the story if Reva hadn't needed someone to worship her during the Sonni story.

Also, Ina, on OLTL. Who ran a boarding house, like Bea Reardon did. They really made a mistake, IMO, when they got rid of Bea. The boarding house was the perfect place to have disparate characters flow through it every now and then and where they could use Bea as a sounding board and dispenser of wisdom. As it was used during the 1980s. It's where Beth and Lujack fell in love, for instance.

It’s sort of funny that the boarding house was used this way pretty heavily once Bridget took over as far as disparate characters passing through (it was fun to see things like Dinah trying to be a compassionate human when she finds Lucy crying after the rape, etc as you get interactions you wouldn’t expect.) But then they largely dropped this when Nola arrived as it became more about the Reardon clan plus David there, which you’d think Nola could’ve slid into a quirky matriarch role more with different characters passing through.

What was weird about the boarding house in that Bridget era is that big plots would happen there with basically no crossover. For instance, Brent was on the run when Dinah was “kidnapped” and there wasn’t even a thought that this crazy sexual predator might have been involved. (Dinah working with Victor to pin her “abduction” on Brent would’ve actually been an interesting twist to keep plots from being on these islands.)

2 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

I’m up to March 02, 1999.

*On this Valentine's Day, we mourn the loss of Hart Jessup. So sad.

Rick calls Cassie back to the hospital and tells her Hart’s condition has turned for the worse as the bullet is moving closer to his heart. Cassie has to talk to Hart and get his permission to operate. Hart tells the ominous white light nurse that he’s not going to die and then later tells Cassie he wants to have the surgery. She brings him RJ so they can have bonding time before his surgery. They also talk about how he needs to hurry and get better because they have a wedding to plan.

Annie uses her one phone call in jail to Ben and reminds him that he has Lewis Oil to lose if he doesn’t help her. Ben leaves Blake with Ross to take care of the twins and heads to the station. He finds out that Alan is upset with Annie and no longer supporting her, so Ben leaves, telling Annie that without Alan’s backing, he has no reason to help Annie. She stops him though and says she can convince Alan to come back, so she calls Alan and leaves him a voicemail where she’s sobbing and apologizing, which Ben thought was a good performance. Meanwhile, Alan confides in Phillip that he doesn’t know how to kick this bad habit in needing Annie. Phillip pleads with him to stop fighting with the Lewis family and just make peace. David finds the lady that Alan paid off/bribed to steal the real Teri’s body from the spa and bring her to SF, and who also destroyed all the medical files on Teri. He secretly taped her confession and Josh/Reva will use this information to get Alan to give up on Annie and his Lewis Oil takeover. Unfortunately, Alan succumbs to Annie’s pleas in jail and decides to continue supporting her.

Blake and Ross reminisce about their past and they are friendly to each other. Josh then calls the house and tells them they found Holly and she’s safe, which makes them happy. They have a tender goodbye as Ross leaves. Blake laters sees Holly, who is in a padded cell on suicide watch. Very sad scenes here with Blake trying to convince Holly that her life will get better and it’s worth living. Holly doesn’t think it’s possible that anyone will forgive her and she wants to die. Blake then lets the twins wave at Holly before they go, and it seems like it might give Holly some hope. Blake later asks Ross to be Holly’s lawyer since she trusts him. Ben is miffed by this, thinking he’ll be better, but Blake doesn’t think it’s a good idea and he concedes.

Vanessa is still staying quiet on Dinah’s whereabouts, so Billy comes in and thinks he’s the only one who can get her to open up. @P.J. !!! He tells her he understands why she’s doing this and he would do the same for any of his three kids. He then tries to convince her to fight for her marriage (while also saying he can’t believe he’s asking her to go back to the guy he lost her to). It seems to work and Vanessa is ready to post bail and go home to Matt. Meanwhile, Beth is with Matt asking about his thoughts on his marriage. He won’t start divorce papers until she’s out of jail, but Beth keeps pushing him back towards her if that’s really what he wants. He then grabs Beth and kisses her, in an attempt to get her to believe his marriage is over. She says that while they both may be attracted to each other, he’s still in love with Vanessa and needs to focus on that. If the marriage does eventually end later, he can kiss her again. Beth leaves and later, Vanessa comes home and is happy to see Matt and Maureen there, but they quickly get into a tiff when Vanessa hears that Beth was there. Matt gets a little upset with Billy’s support in the moment, but they eventually apologize to each other. They take a night to sleep on whether they want to be together, and they decide to meet at the Towers the next day at 8, and if they both show up, then they have their answer. The next morning, Matt arrives at the Towers with his computer, with a plan to reconnect with Vanessa the same way they did in the chat rooms back in 1997 (so cute!). Lillian shows up to Vanessa’s house and they talk about her situation like old friends, with Lillian giving her good advice. Vanessa says she plans to meet Matt that night and is very excited about it, which makes Lillian happy.

At Spaulding, the lady that David found has arrived, panicked and looking for Alan. Vicky talks to her and realizes that David tricked her by pretending to be a Spaulding employee. He had taken Vicky’s ID card at their last date, which ended in a little tiff. Vicky then calls David, pretending to apologize and wants to have another date at the Towers that night. They later have their date, dance and kiss. He invites her to his room at the boarding house and she gets him to grab a bottle of wine downstairs while she snoops around. She finds her ID card and later allows them both to make out in their underwear in bed, but then abruptly stops before they go all the way and says she has to leave room for more surprises. He’s confused and she leaves, telling herself that was just the beginning.

At the Towers, Matt is waiting on Vanessa and starts to think she isn’t coming. He calls Spaulding looking for her, but starts to think she never planned to meet him and their marriage is actually over. He leaves and heads to Spaulding, while Vanessa arrives shortly after. She’s excited and grabs a special table for them while she waits for him. Matt gets to Spaulding and finds Beth and tells her Vanessa doesn’t want to be with him anymore. Ok, this whole things is frustrating because the timeline is off. Matt is at the Towers all day waiting, while Vanessa is at work, and then Vicky arrives at 8pm to meet with David and Matt has already left well before 8pm which is the time he was supposed to meet Vanessa. Anyway, Vanessa is surprised Matt isn’t showing up, while Matt tells Beth he’s off to have several drinks. Vanessa gives up and walks out, just as Matt enters again from the other door, just missing each other. Vanessa calls Lillian from the lobby and tells her it’s over and she needs someone to talk to. Vanessa walks back through the restaurant to leave, missing the fact that Matt is sitting at the bar. Beth then shows up to talk to Matt and he gets drunk and starts to hit on another woman until Beth is able to stop him. Meanwhile, Lillian convinces Vanessa that he must be in trouble because there’s no way he wouldn’t show up or call. As Lillian calls the hospital, a laughing and drunk Matt and Beth walk through the door, with Matt hanging all over Beth. OH if looks could kill, both Vanessa and Lillian look very unhappy and annoyed. Vanessa lays into them and Beth yaps back, so Lillian forces Beth to leave with her so Vanessa/Matt can talk. Outside, Lillian tells Beth that Vanessa was waiting for him, so Beth now realizes what happened. OH, come to find out, I guess Matt meant 8am for breakfast and not 8pm for dinner. Man, Matt literally stayed at the Towers for 13 hours waiting haha. Beth goes back inside to tell them about the time misunderstanding, but she overhears Vanessa calling her a bitch and they get into it more. Matt has to stop them yelling at each other and he tells Vanessa to go home. She leaves and Beth never tells Matt the truth, and Matt then kisses Beth. He wants more and she resists a bit, but finally gives in and they start taking each other’s clothes off. Just as they’re about to go for it, she stops and says she can’t do this knowing the truth. Beth finally tells him the truth and he feels bad and questions why she wouldn’t have told him. Beth cries and Matt leaves to find Vanessa and Maureen.

Hart goes into surgery and his family/friends are there waiting. We see him in dream sequences in a boxing ring, sweaty and shirtless, going back between Cassie and the bright light nurse. He keeps telling the nurse he’s not following her and he needs to be there for Cassie. Things go south in surgery, and Cassie keeps pushing him to fight and he keeps punching the boxing bag, but he’s getting tired. The nurse tells him it’s ok to stop because she’ll take care of him, but Cassie yells at her to shut up. Sadly, after surgery, Rick tells Cassie and Blake that he went too long without blood to the brain and likely will wake up a different person and never be the same. In the boxing ring, he’s getting really weak and Cassie holds him and they say they love each other, and Hart says he’ll be waiting for her when it’s her time. Hart then flatlines and Cassie cries over him (3/01). I can’t believe Hart is dead. Damn, Dinah! Cassie walks out of the room and tells everyone he died and Blake breaks down when she sees his body. Blake later says she called Roger and plans to call Bridget so she and Dylan can tell Peter his father is dead. At least we got a mention of this and they didn’t just completely ignore Peter/Bridget. Cassie later tells Tammy at the farm that Hart is dead, with their family watching and supporting. Cassie tells Blake that Hart didn’t want a funeral and that his ashes should be spread around the farm land.

Carmen assumes Michelle and Rick called the FBI on their family, so she has the family attorney grill Michelle. Danny tries to defuse the situation and convince them Michelle would never do that. Carmen tells Danny she’ll finally accept Michelle if she puts her through one final loyalty test. She wants to give Michelle information that could hurt the family and wait and see if she’ll rat them out, but Danny says there is no way he’s doing that. He continues to tell Carmen that he believes Michelle and that Mick attacked her. Meanwhile, Michelle sees an older lady that owes the family money and can’t pay, so she gives her money to help her out. She talks to the lady and understands now all about the Santos business and how they make people owe them for protecting them. Ray overhears them talking about Michelle giving her money and later tells Danny about it in front of Michelle, which makes Danny suspicious/angry. He pushes her for more information, but Ray tries to calm him down and she eventually plays on his emotions by flirting with him and kissing him. They almost have sex, but Danny stops it thinking she’s still not overly into it.

I remember being shocked when Hart was killed off. I didn't read spoilers back then and had only started my SOD collection. Wendy Moniz was perfection as Dinah but I always felt the writers went OTT to put her into a corner to prop up Cassie/Hart. Gina Tognoni really did a Herculean effort making the character viable again. (I'm not sure if you have gotten to her performance yet or if you watched in real life.) Dinah could've been a cartoon in less capable hands. Later, her and Jonathan were fun together but she went on an Edmund rabbit hole and maybe backstage issues prevented a full blown romance. And there was also more rooting value and interest in Jammy. But I loved them for what they were.

OG Danny and Michelle will always have my heart. The chemistry between Paul Anthony Stewart and Joy Lenz was so easy and the story really supported their growing attraction and love. Carmen was a nice spoiler, at first at least.

I have hit a bit of a wall in my binge as I’ve gotten to mid 1993, so I’ve been checking out random old episodes YouTube pushed. I watched a Founder’s Day episode from 1984 today that was interesting (warning there’s a few technical issues on the video)

There’s a lot in the episode. First it’s one of those giant events with a bunch of extras. Reva is married to HB but Billy is suspicious of her and Josh while he’s married to Van and she is very pregnant. The guy Billy has spy on Reva/Josh (he’s in the wheelchair which I sort of vaguely have read about) gets caught by Van and she’s pissed and she gives an epic speech. You can see some of the Reva/Josh chemistry here. Phillip is reeling over LuJack and Beth (and I think a little over sharing attention in the family) and is an absolute raging, unrepentant jerk. Ross lectures him and he never really feels bad about anything-it sort of reminded me of Holly trying to explain basic human decency to Blake at times. GA doesn’t seem all that youthful in the young Phillip years but then barely ages-it’s like he was a 35-40 year old man for 25 years. Random thing I noticed with LuJack and Beth in the closeups is their teeth are clearly imperfect, and it’s something I like about GL even into the 90s that it’s filled with attractive but still human looking people. (So nice compared to anything today where everyone is supposed to look the same!)

Anyhow, here’s the link for anyone interested. (There’s also a Fletcher subplot involving him romancing some random woman I don’t understand haha). https://youtu.be/Z6Esmijjakg?si=RHj7Qpl6K7rOsk7b

21 minutes ago, GL95 said:

It’s sort of funny that the boarding house was used this way pretty heavily once Bridget took over as far as disparate characters passing through (it was fun to see things like Dinah trying to be a compassionate human when she finds Lucy crying after the rape, etc as you get interactions you wouldn’t expect.) But then they largely dropped this when Nola arrived as it became more about the Reardon clan plus David there, which you’d think Nola could’ve slid into a quirky matriarch role more with different characters passing through.

Bridget and Nola were the wrong characters to take that role in the boarding house. Bridget was too young, and Nola HATED the boarding house when she was young. All she wanted was to get away. Making her the wise matriarch, quirky or otherwise, would have been a waste of her character. She needed to be doing things, not talking to others about what they were doing. Same with Bridget.

You can understand why some actresses would have pushed back against playing that role (i.e. Zimmer). Back in the day, Charita Bauer was probably happy to still be a vital character on the show, even though she was no longer embroiled in central storylines. But by the 90s, actresses, especially those who had been really popular, didn't want to slide into that role. And I can't totally blame them. But it caused some serious holes in soaps once the actresses who filled that fuction started dying off.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by DeeVee

17 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

LOL at the bolded part 😜

So I was wondering about Vanessa and Lillian's past during these episodes. I was just happy that Lillian had more to do than be a background nurse at Cedars. I haven't seen that much Lillian since Beth came back to town, so it was great that she was being so supportive to Vanessa. But, I was curious about their history and how developed their friendship really was. But again, we've talked about GL and their lack of strong friendships. GL really could use an older female character on scene that people can confide in... like AMC had Myrtle Fargate. Meta could be that, but she's really only used for the Bauer family and not the greater community.

Just from what I remember, Van and Lillian never interacted that much. An interesting tidbit---when Dinah first popped into town (before she knew Van and Ross were her parents) Dinah and Lillian were close. I believe Lillian had taken her in (Dinah believed herself an orphan, I think, and her guardians were with a carnival) around the time Beth went missing and was believed dead. Lillian's sister Calla was dating Ross, realized that Dinah was Ross and Van's daughter, and tried to keep them from finding out who their daughter was.

I'm not sure that was ever brought up when Moniz assumed the role.

Van and Lillian were also tangentially connected through Mindy (Van's stepdaughter) and Beth being besties for years.

The sticking point is Maureen. When Vanessa came back to town in '89, she and Maureen became close. Their kids (Bill and Michelle) are friends, Van kind of leans on Maureen in trying to deal with Billy's drinking, and they wind up working together at Spaulding. Mo is also there for her when she presses attempted rape charges against a client. Mo even manages to be both a supporter of Van/Fletch, while holding out some kind of truth about the chem still existing with Van and Billy. (There's a hilarious scene between them where they get sloshed and smack talk Nadine like real buds would do. )

When Mo died, Van is one of the few who knew about the Ed/Lillian affair. Lillian skips the church service, but shows up at Ed's afterwards, but is reluctant to go in. Van finds her outside and rips her a new piehole, telling her to get her ass inside and play the devoted friend of Mo's that everyone believed her to be. It's not about Van trying to humiliate Lillian, but about her wanting to keep the day focused on Maureen, not letting gossip start wondering why Lil was MIA.

After that, I don't think they really interacted outside of Lillian's duties as nurse.

So it just seems weird to me that Van would take Lillian into her confidence on any level.

15 minutes ago, GL95 said:

(There’s also a Fletcher subplot involving him romancing some random woman I don’t understand haha)

Fletch was ALWAYS romancing some random woman. 😂

That was Susan Piper. This epsisode was The Founding Day celebration, which kicked off the rather dreadful Barbados storyline. She was the villainess in that story.

35 minutes ago, GL95 said:

It’s funny how memory is-my recollection was that the Danny/Michelle relationship became a real marriage munch faster than it actually happened. But I was largely just reading synopses at this point since I was in college and didn’t have my own VCR at this point, and my roommate who owned the TV/VCR was a Days fan haha

So, appreciating the thorough recaps!

I was studying abroad most of summer of 99 so I definitely wasn’t watching. I feel like I mostly stopped watching regularly around this time until I’d heard things were getting better again in 2001.

Glad you're enjoying them and they're helpful! The Danny/Michelle story is a little tedious for me, but I'm open-minded. We're about 4 months into Danny and the storyline, but it might have seemed that way because they feel so isolated and we rarely see Michelle in SF anymore. With the Michelle recast and the isolation, it did feel like Michelle/Jesse were cut off quickly.

20 minutes ago, CrazySexyQ said:

I remember being shocked when Hart was killed off. I didn't read spoilers back then and had only started my SOD collection. Wendy Moniz was perfection as Dinah but I always felt the writers went OTT to put her into a corner to prop up Cassie/Hart. Gina Tognoni really did a Herculean effort making the character viable again. (I'm not sure if you have gotten to her performance yet or if you watched in real life.) Dinah could've been a cartoon in less capable hands. Later, her and Jonathan were fun together but she went on an Edmund rabbit hole and maybe backstage issues prevented a full blown romance. And there was also more rooting value and interest in Jammy. But I loved them for what they were.

OG Danny and Michelle will always have my heart. The chemistry between Paul Anthony Stewart and Joy Lenz was so easy and the story really supported their growing attraction and love. Carmen was a nice spoiler, at first at least.

Oh gosh, I would have been shocked too. Especially losing both Dinah and hart within weeks of each other, it had to be a blow in real-time. That's why I largely dislike spoilers because it takes any surprise out of it. When you're surprised, you tend to have more of an emotional reaction to it that you'll never forget.

I too thought Dinah became OTT after a while. I liked her in 1995 and then she lost me during Lonatrat, but then really lost me in the Cassie/Hart triangle. I haven't seen any of GL except what I've watched over the last year (1995-early 1999), except I did watch the series finale a few months ago. So, I'm curious to see how the new Dinah actress is and how much they discuss her history from this era and how she's been redeemed or not. Like I would think eventually she'd come back and have to face charges for killing Hart, unless too much time has passed and the characters who would care aren't really in her orbit or even on the canvas (Cassie, Blake, etc).

I do like PAS, but I'm still warming up to Joy as Michelle. Sometimes I keep thinking back to her being Reva's young adult clone (since I've been binging so quickly)... and I miss Budig of course. I just really got invested in Michelle/Jesse as a couple, so it's taking time for me to warm up to Danny/Michelle.

7 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Just from what I remember, Van and Lillian never interacted that much. An interesting tidbit---when Dinah first popped into town (before she knew Van and Ross were her parents) Dinah and Lillian were close. I believe Lillian had taken her in (Dinah believed herself an orphan, I think, and her guardians were with a carnival) around the time Beth went missing and was believed dead. Lillian's sister Calla was dating Ross, realized that Dinah was Ross and Van's daughter, and tried to keep them from finding out who their daughter was.

I'm not sure that was ever brought up when Moniz assumed the role.

Van and Lillian were also tangentially connected through Mindy (Van's stepdaughter) and Beth being besties for years.

The sticking point is Maureen. When Vanessa came back to town in '89, she and Maureen became close. Their kids (Bill and Michelle) are friends, Van kind of leans on Maureen in trying to deal with Billy's drinking, and they wind up working together at Spaulding. Mo is also there for her when she presses attempted rape charges against a client. Mo even manages to be both a supporter of Van/Fletch, while holding out some kind of truth about the chem still existing with Van and Billy. (There's a hilarious scene between them where they get sloshed and smack talk Nadine like real buds would do. )

When Mo died, Van is one of the few who knew about the Ed/Lillian affair. Lillian skips the church service, but shows up at Ed's afterwards, but is reluctant to go in. Van finds her outside and rips her a new piehole, telling her to get her ass inside and play the devoted friend of Mo's that everyone believed her to be. It's not about Van trying to humiliate Lillian, but about her wanting to keep the day focused on Maureen, not letting gossip start wondering why Lil was MIA.

After that, I don't think they really interacted outside of Lillian's duties as nurse.

So it just seems weird to me that Van would take Lillian into her confidence on any level.

Ahh interesting, thanks for the background! And no, they never touched on that when Moniz was there as Dinah.

Lillian seemed to really be a flawed character in some ways, or at least had some grey to her. You would have never know if you started watching GL when I did. She just seems like a lovely lady that everyone in town loves haha. But yeah, given that background, especially with the Mo stuff, I too would find it odd that Vanessa/Lillian were supporting each other in that way. I guess that's what happens when writers don't know the backstory and you're limited with characters when you want to get certain plot points across vs. connect to the backstory of characters.

10 minutes ago, P.J. said:

So it just seems weird to me that Van would take Lillian into her confidence on any level.

I hate when soaps have that kind of amnesia. No way would Van ever be friends with Lillian. She may not have been directly responsible for the death of the only real female friend Van ever had, but she hurt her deeply. Van would not forgive that.

Not only were Dinah and Lillian close, she almost became like a surrogate daughter to her. Lillian was heartbroken when Dinah found out she was Ross and Vanessa's kid and left to go live with Ross.

Again, amnesia.

55 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Also, Ina, on OLTL. Who ran a boarding house, like Bea Reardon did. They really made a mistake, IMO, when they got rid of Bea. The boarding house was the perfect place to have disparate characters flow through it every now and then and where they could use Bea as a sounding board and dispenser of wisdom. As it was used during the 1980s. It's where Beth and Lujack fell in love, for instance.

Never understood that either..the BH was a place to introduce new younger characters to the show and audience and Irish Mom Bea would have been perfect (though during the Holly/Ed thing I wanted Mo to move out and take over the BH and tell purse lipped Ed to stuff it.) I do wish they had brought Meta back earlier (someone mentioned brining in MS right after Search ended) and she could have taken over the BH as a favor to Mo while her Mom was apparently endlessly baby sitting Tony and Annabelles kid.

I am a fan of Svengoolie and he just did an interview with "horror icons" Joe Dante and Barbara Crampton and she looks GREAT.

And yes, Kyle makes more sense then Alan to prop Reva...but the role did not hinge on Malloy (who I never found interesting since the early days of his Edge run) they could have recast him and at that time, Kimmer really did have chemistry with a lot of guys.