1 hour ago, DeeVee said:

He set her up! It was a very sh!tty thing he did to her. It had to do with some phony emerald mine. Alan ended up blaming her and believing she colluded with Phillip to get him out of Spaulding.

I actually wish more of that story were up. Phillip's scheme to get Alan out of the company involved setting up a fake merger with Lewis and that fake emerald mine. The fake merger ends up scuttling the HB/Alex romance (well, no biggie), but I don't quite get the mechanics of it. Or how Alan had kicked both Phillip and Alex out on his '86 return.

2 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I always thought Josh was kind of a prick, but they didn't openly admit this, so the lack of friends does stand out. I suppose this is a consequence of being so tied to all-consuming Reva.

I'm actually surprised they didn't have any stories where a long-lost friend tries to bed Reva.

snort ... well, technically, Ed's kinda a prick too, but he had Ross.

They might've given Josh some long lost friend who tried to bed Reva....if the show hadn't been so obsessed with making all of the Josh/Reva conflict Reva stories.

33 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I always thought Josh was kind of a prick, but they didn't openly admit this, so the lack of friends does stand out. I suppose this is a consequence of being so tied to all-consuming Reva.

I'm actually surprised they didn't have any stories where a long-lost friend tries to bed Reva.

When Josh was first introduced, he was a total creep. Later, he had Billy to talk to as a friend, even when they were in conflict.

The lack of friendships on soaps becomes REALY obvious every time there's a wedding. Who's going to stand up with the bride and groom? It gets awkward sometimes. If they have a sibling of the same sex, no problem. Sometimes they have no one because they can't scrape anyone up.

I saw a picture a while back of Alan and Beth's wedding. RICK was Alan's best man!

WHAT? WHY?

Because he has no friends, and in this situation he couldn't ask Phillip.

But even so...that is SO weird. Like couldn't they have invented a golfing or racquetball buddy for Alan to stand up for him?

21 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I actually wish more of that story were up. Phillip's scheme to get Alan out of the company involved setting up a fake merger with Lewis and that fake emerald mine. The fake merger ends up scuttling the HB/Alex romance (well, no biggie), but I don't quite get the mechanics of it. Or how Alan had kicked both Phillip and Alex out on his '86 return.

I wonder if the scab writers even knew. They had Phillip do a lot of yelling during this period, maybe to cover up the fact that not much that was going on made sense.

Yeah, Alan comes back after two years of faking his death, running away from the Federalistas, then setting up an art smuggling ring in Europe, before easily waltzing right back into Spaulding.

I know white collar criminals get away with a lot, but I'm supposed to believe the stockholders would be O.K. with this? Uh-uh.

The ONE thing they explained was that Alex had a tape of Alan confessing to the Dreaming Death caper. That's how she forced him out in the first place. She planned to use it to keep him out of Spaulding when he returned. She was practically having an aneurysm over it. But like an idiot, she taped over it, and by doing that had nothing to hold over Alan's head anymore.

(1986 was such a baaaad year).

12 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

When Josh was first introduced, he was a total creep. Later, he had Billy to talk to as a friend, even when they were in conflict.

But even so...that is SO weird. Like couldn't they have invented a golfing or racquetball buddy for Alan to stand up for him?

I wonder if the scab writers even knew. They had Phillip do a lot of yelling during this period, maybe to cover up the fact that not much that was going on made sense.

Yeah, Alan comes back after two years of faking his death, running away from the Federalistas, then setting up an art smuggling ring in Europe, before easily waltzing right back into Spaulding.

I know white collar criminals get away with a lot, but I'm supposed to believe the stockholders would be O.K. with this? Uh-uh.

The ONE thing they explained was that Alex had a tape of Alan confessing to the Dreaming Death caper. That's how she forced him out in the first place. She planned to use it to keep him out of Spaulding when he returned. She was practically having an aneurysm over it. But like an idiot, she taped over it, and by doing that had nothing to hold over Alan's head anymore.

(1986 was such a baaaad year).

I'm not even positive Billy was ever Josh's best man at any of his weddings. Even the big Cross Creek one.

re: Alan---or even some skunk lawyer.

I knew about the tape Alex had that blackmailed Alan out...I didn't realize there was such a sloppy explanation of what happened to it. Couldn't Alan at least have stolen it back?

Yes, '86 is a bad year. The year of the summer camp. SMH.

14 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

I wonder if the scab writers even knew. They had Phillip do a lot of yelling during this period, maybe to cover up the fact that not much that was going on made sense.

Yeah, Alan comes back after two years of faking his death, running away from the Federalistas, then setting up an art smuggling ring in Europe, before easily waltzing right back into Spaulding.

I know white collar criminals get away with a lot, but I'm supposed to believe the stockholders would be O.K. with this? Uh-uh.

The ONE thing they explained was that Alex had a tape of Alan confessing to the Dreaming Death caper. That's how she forced him out in the first place. She planned to use it to keep him out of Spaulding when he returned. She was practically having an aneurysm over it. But like an idiot, she taped over it, and by doing that had nothing to hold over Alan's head anymore.

(1986 was such a baaaad year).

Wasn't the story started before the strike? I remember during Amanda's visit in December 1987, Phillip was asking for her voting shares.

I think the story got warped/ended quickly because of the strike. It caused the end of Chelsea's relationship with Phillip, caused the end of Phillips friendship with Reva, and caused him to hook up with Meredith eventually when she was on the outs with Rick.

Watching even more of the strike episodes, it's funny that Blake is basically a floater character hanging with Johnny, trading barbs with Chelsea, working with Phillip, friendly with Alex (that doesn't last LOL), and even getting Fletcher/Maeve to be leery of her. In addition to her random phone calls and going to a playground a lot in a sad mood. Not only viewers were curious she is was, but as it turned out.. Pam Long was curious as well as the scab writers LOL

The Sonni story was confusing, but I think it made it more interesting. And after doing some research, it is plausible for Sonni could realistically be played by Michelle Forbes and be Venezuelan. After all, Venezuela has around 40 to 45 % white people of European descent and it's possible maybe Sonni's family might have been European and adapted to the culture hence the father's name and Solita's name.. while Sonni could be an ancestral name from Europe.

I say this because my father was born to European descended individuals and lived there till he was 14/15 years old before he came to the United States.. and he had a European name, but knew Portuguese and English.

17 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

And after doing some research, it is plausible for Sonni could realistically be played by Michelle Forbes and be Venezuelan. After all, Venezuela has around 40 to 45 % white people of European descent and it's possible maybe Sonni's family might have been European and adapted to the culture hence the father's name and Solita's name.. while Sonni could be an ancestral name from Europe.

Forbes is Latina. I believe she is Mexican-American.

Joe Breen, no. But there were a lot of Irish people who settled around Latin America. So not crazy (though he should have been able to pronounce the name Guillermo correctly, lol).

After the Haitian revolution the Spanish crown wanted to avoid more uprisings, so they encouraged Catholic Europeans to settle in Puerto Rico and Cuba. This is why a lot of people there have Irish, French, and Italian surnames. Some probably ended up in other parts of South America as a result.

How do I know this? My father's family is from Puerto Rico. When we did the Ancestry thing, we found out we were mostly Italian/French descent because our family came from Corsica. We looked up the history. They were part of that migration.