3 minutes ago, P.J. said:

There is an annoying tendency the show had of making anyone named Spaulding entitled to run Spaulding. Amanda was a music student with about two seconds of business experience before she just pushed her way to the Presidency when Alan went to jail. Phillip had a semester of college (although Alex does spend some time grooming him), and Alan Michael (at this point) had already been Roger's patsy once before Alex sets up a competition between Van and "the runt" (Van's words, not mine) for the Presidency. Vanessa was a businesswoman when A-M was born, FCOL. Now maybe it was just Alex's way of testing A-M's mettle, and maybe she knew Van wouldn't let the youngster win...but it's insulting on levels that Vanessa has to continually prove herself. Meanwhile, all a Spaulding needs is the name.

(There's also Nick and later Lizzie, but you get my point.)

There's also Van's loyalty to the Lewises at play at times, but still.

I think the stuff with AM was partly the fact that if Alex holds the Roger situation against him, it shines a lot on her because she set Roger up to be AM's mentor against Phillip's protestations and AM had the whole ridiculous Scooby Doo story of those crazy kids of AM/Harley thwarting his plans for a long time with the password shenanigans. (That plot did amuse me that it got to the point where Roger's Not Leo fixer had to drug Harley to get the password out of her, and AM was smart enough to not even give it to Roger.) Roger also gets thwarted when he assumes he can slowly steal but AM (with Blake's help lol) shoots for the moon with the Daniel St Jean robotics thing and almost pulls off all the Foundation money getting tied up, again getting beat by those silly kids. It was a fun scene with Roger both being slightly proud of Blake but seething at the same time. It was amusing watching Roger squirm when Blake is beaming with pride in all the great work she is doing for AM who Roger is "mentoring."

I always got the impression that Alex in true Spaulding fashion the best way to learn is through dog eat dog competition (especially because she consistently acts like she thinks AM coloring outside the lines is bad when she's talking to Vanessa/Maureen but to AM privately expresses pride and gives reminders the key is not getting caught) and that she has no intention of making AM president yet but wants to both appease him and also keep the carrot dangling. She's not grooming him just to be President, but to be a true Spaulding.

The AM situation is sort of funny because he's arguably the most qualified Spaulding heir apparent in comparison to past Spauldings they slid in there so you sort of see his point in feeling affronted, but also once they place Van in the picture it really makes no sense that there even is a competition at that point. There is the point where AM does actually come accept it and is going to focus on Eleni while he shows patience but then Nick is revealed to be Alex's son and Alex is ready to anoint Nick so he has to go crazy again.

Obviously, even if you groom AM to take over at say 25 or something, in a sane company you would give Vanessa a two-year contract and tell AM he should learn everything he possibly can from Henry/Vanessa with increased responsibilities, but that's not fun soap viewing haha

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by GL95

@alwaysAMC

and about a minute into this clip

19 minutes ago, GL95 said:

and tell AM he should learn everything he possibly can from Henry/Vanessa with increased responsibilities, but that's not fun soap viewing haha

lol...I complain, but I get it. And the Van/AM rivalry pushes them both to uncomfortable points and stirs up the drama (AM sabotages Van's negotiations and she ends up in a bidding war with Billy and ends up sleeping with a client which is part of her spiraling after getting dumped by Billy, and winds up with Jack Kiley's attempted rape)....and leads to so much intertwined story.

And just before Alex leaves, AM has had it and tells her off about her subconsciously pitting people against each other the same way Brandon pitted her and Alan against each other, and he's got a point. It's one of the best scenes with RH and BM.

39 minutes ago, P.J. said:

There is an annoying tendency the show had of making anyone named Spaulding entitled to run Spaulding. Amanda was a music student with about two seconds of business experience before she just pushed her way to the Presidency when Alan went to jail. Phillip had a semester of college (although Alex does spend some time grooming him), and Alan Michael (at this point) had already been Roger's patsy once before Alex sets up a competition between Van and "the runt" (Van's words, not mine) for the Presidency. Vanessa was a businesswoman when A-M was born, FCOL. Now maybe it was just Alex's way of testing A-M's mettle, and maybe she knew Van wouldn't let the youngster win...but it's insulting on levels that Vanessa has to continually prove herself. Meanwhile, all a Spaulding needs is the name.

(There's also Nick and later Lizzie, but you get my point.)

There's also Van's loyalty to the Lewises at play at times, but still.

"but it's insulting on levels that Vanessa has to continually prove herself. Meanwhile, all a Spaulding needs is the name."

It certainly is, and it's how the world works. Phillip had no acumen either - he was a writer (and Beth a painter). In any event, not having the family name likely would cause problems for Vanessa in decision making and execution. Without having anything to do with acumen or intelligence. Rather than say, "I'm just going to do this", Vanessa might ask herself, "Would a Spaulding do this?" The board may ask the same questions. The pitfalls of working for a family-owned company.

It's a card that Guiding Light could have played and played well.

2 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

The board may ask the same questions. The pitfalls of working for a family-owned company.

It's a card that Guiding Light could have played and played well.

Point taken. And the Presidency is a step below the Chairman, which is always (mostly) in Spaulding hands.

8 minutes ago, P.J. said:

lol...I complain, but I get it. And the Van/AM rivalry pushes them both to uncomfortable points and stirs up the drama (AM sabotages Van's negotiations and she ends up in a bidding war with Billy and ends up sleeping with a client which is part of her spiraling after getting dumped by Billy, and winds up with Jack Kiley's attempted rape)....and leads to so much intertwined story.

And just before Alex leaves, AM has had it and tells her off about her subconsciously pitting people against each other the same way Brandon pitted her and Alan against each other, and he's got a point. It's one of the best scenes with RH and BM.

One of my favorite scenes is when Billy is running all over town furious about AM stealing the Lewis Oil client and Alex tells AM she approves of being underhanded so long as there's no paper trail without actually saying it. It's clear AM gets the message-but Alex gets to keep. her hands clean and let AM build the bad reputation.

I think during almost all this arc it's interesting how two things can be true: AM is largely acting like an entitled, petulant brat but he is also completely right about how he is being treated in comparison to everyone else in his family. Alex truly treated Phillip as a second son but AM is close family to her only when it's convenient/there's no one else. Poor AM has so many scenes with both Bev/Marj where Alex talks about being alone with no family and he's like, "Seriously, am I invisible?"

It's funny because I generally sympathize with AM even when he's being terrible and acting out because it's clear he basically just needs a hug haha. (On the Locher Room RH spoke pretty diplomatically about how his acting choices differed from RR's, and how he would've played Alan as having some vulnerability under it but that he respected how RR played it. You can see the difference onscreen-I never felt like AM fully believes the lies he tells himself. )

It would be terrible drama but I'd have enjoyed AM actually having backed off and let himself get taken under Henry's wing to be mentored by someone not actively trying to screw him over. (There was that one time Henry tried and AM blew him off, but Henry basically said of course I am on Vanessa's side but you're clearly in line at some point so it benefits me if you're actually good at this.) They float the idea of AM going to Lewis Oil a couple of times (HB even tells Alex once that he'd snap him up in a heartbeat) and while they were rivals Billy/AM working together could've been interesting for awhile as I'm not sure AM would know how to deal with someone who just is clear about how they feel.

21 minutes ago, GL95 said:

It would be terrible drama but I'd have enjoyed AM actually having backed off and let himself get taken under Henry's wing to be mentored by someone not actively trying to screw him over. (There was that one time Henry tried and AM blew him off, but Henry basically said of course I am on Vanessa's side but you're clearly in line at some point so it benefits me if you're actually good at this.) They float the idea of AM going to Lewis Oil a couple of times (HB even tells Alex once that he'd snap him up in a heartbeat) and while they were rivals Billy/AM working together could've been interesting for awhile as I'm not sure AM would know how to deal with someone who just is clear about how they feel.

Henry and AM do work together when AM uncovers Roger's embezzlement. And Henry mentored all the Spauldings (Alan before they all came to town, Amanda, Phillip and AM a little bit) but he was never going to chose them over Van.

Billy never trusted the Spauldings, and never, ever would've allowed them into Lewis. There's a point where a Lewis-Spaulding merger is floated (when Phillip is taking over Spaulding) but Billy is offscreen for that and HB and Alex's romance (which would've put him on the defensive as well). The only Spaulding he partially trusted was Nick, and that soured over time.

And I loved AM as well. Even when he was a stinker.

Edited 26 minutes ago26 min by P.J.

4 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

LOL - That was fast! You sure got drawn in quicky, didn't ya?! Good.

The young lady opposite David in the diner is Katherine Speakes, Hamp's daughter. Better known as Kat and portrayed by Nia Long. Their conversation is great here - especially that underplayed bit where David says he got something nice for X-mas..."you came by to see me." I also like to short interaction with Lillian...she didn't just get up and leave the diner as purely background fodder.

Kat and Bridget are good buddies.

You're going to witness plenty of underplayed yet surprising effective/significant moments in your early 1990s viewing. Lots of friendships, too, a few of which are surprising. All with plenty of chaos and complications to go around.

Perhaps you'll bring CrazySexyQ with you for the ride!

LOL - it drew me in so quickly! I have to confess, I had too much wine last night and it shows in my posts LOL. Oh well :)

So I'm going to stick with my current 1999 viewing for now. I want to get to at least August - I want to see the remote location shoot and then see how Annie leaves the show. I know she leaves in July 1999, but I don't know how and am curious to at least end that story arc. Then I think it'll be time to go back to the early 90s, which I'm very excited about!

I started watching GL last March of 2025, so I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary which is wild how much time flies! I bet by next month, I'll be to my goal of August 1999, which means I'll have watched Feb 1995 - August 1999 all within a year, with no fast forwarding or skipping episodes. Quite the accomplishment :)

2 hours ago, P.J. said:

Wait till you see Hamp's bachelor party. The entire episode is the guys, it's hilarious.

The girl Hamp is with is his daughter Kat, played by Nia Long. I loved Hamp.

Vanessa isn't overdressed---although coming from the era you've watched, I can understand your reaction. Vanessa was always dressed to perfection in the before times. Right now she's president of Spaulding. Though this is kind of the start of the "let's turn Van into a JFP clone" era and she starts being swathed in extra fabric. Van didn't usually do turtlenecks. And YES...Vanessa is still a bit jelly when Henry lavishes attention on his substitute daughter figures. She did not take the news of Henry claiming to have fathered Jenna well----at all.

I see there's a bit of tension between Fletch and Billy. It's after Van dumped Fletch. :D and fun fact---that gathering? Aside from Hamp, Van's had all of them.

The Reva-less Era? PERFECTION. It's not even until Buzz shows up that it ever feels like one character is eating the show.

Thank you! I remember hearing about Kat last year, so this makes sense. I can't wait to see that bachelor party episode you mentioned. And I should have caught myself re: Vanessa's outfits, I know you've told me before how she dresses, so it makes a lot of sense.

To be honest, I need a Reva break haha, especially this current sanctimonious soccer mom version I'm currently watching.

3 hours ago, GL95 said:

And of course the Reva Amish storyline that still somehow dragged out for months even after Reva comes to Springfield where she is "revealed" at a ball.

So technically most people found out Reva was alive when Alex walked into Josh and Annie's wedding and announced it because of the diner's grainy camera taping Reva and Buzz dancing. They couldn't believe it, but they eventually did and then at the ball, that's where Reva came out in her red dress and purposefully got into it with Josh in front of everyone.

8 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Henry and AM do work together when AM uncovers Roger's embezzlement. And Henry mentored all the Spauldings (Alan before they all came to town, Amanda, Phillip and AM a little bit) but he was never going to chose them over Van.

Billy never trusted the Spauldings, and never, ever would've allowed them into Lewis. There's a point where a Lewis-Spaulding merger is floated (when Phillip is taking over Spaulding) but Billy is offscreen for that and HB and Alex's romance (which would've put him on the defensive as well). The only Spaulding he partially trusted was Nick, and that soured over time.

And I loved AM as well. Even when he was a stinker.

I think the thing about AM that Rick Hearst does a pretty good job of is showing AM at his worst clearly hates himself and doesn't seem to believe the lies he tells himself fully. Alan (at least RR's Alan) is relentingly remorseless for the most part (it's something RH mentions in his Locher Room interview when asked about RR. He's very diplomatic about it, but says he would've chosen to play Alan differently but respected that RR was committed to Alan not showing vulnerability.)

@alwaysAMC any idea where you'll start when you go back? Roger's Return in 89? Reva's exit in 90? January 1990 and complete the decade?

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

@alwaysAMC

and about a minute into this clip

Now THIS is the Vanessa I like haha. She looks fabulous in that purple dress with the longer hair.

I didn't realize men used to wear formal gloves like Billy is during their wedding.

Thanks for posting these :)