I remember being amused when Josh and company's boat left Springfield for the island. I guess SF is on the coast now. 🤪

2 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Phillip and Harley prepare to take their baby home from the hospital, but first visits Alan one more time in his room. They introduce their baby to him as Alan Cooper Spaulding, his namesake, which genuinely surprises and pleases Alan.

Another case of GL writers later having baby naming remorse. How the heck did he end up being called Zach?

2 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Josh, Billy, Jim and Matt call Danny over and tell them about their plan to rescue Reva.

All the men going to rescue Reva. Of course. 😂

4 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Another case of GL writers later having baby naming remorse. How the heck did he end up being called Zach?

All the men going to rescue Reva. Of course. 😂

I believe Zach came from a novel Phillip wrote.

snort I could've been alright with one fatal casualty...****.

@P.J. Thanks for reminding us about Maeve's birthday. Forever one of the best and most beautiful on soaps. I'm glad she still seemed to be doing well in her last Locher Room appearance.

Ah yes....Nadine! A shame how Nadine was marginalized for years, pining needlessly after the useless, weasel-like Buzz.

Nadine should have been paired with Carroll, the truck driver, albeit in late 1993 and not late 1994. A lot could have been done there. I've long thought that the two together makes sense, being that both share the same blue-collar background and life, with the added plus that Carroll was a decent, grounded man who showed considerable patience and understanding.

To make their pairing more interesting, have him woo her somewhat to her dismay. AFTER winning her over and the two getting married, have him bring her to a truck show (where merchants try to sell their semis and other vehicles) and have him whip out a checkbook and purchase maybe 3-4 semis on the spot. Such vehicles cost a minimum of $200-300,000 each. Nadine instantly learns that Carroll actually has SERIOUS money. It turns out he owns his own trucking firm company and has tens of millions on cash. Yet no one would know this just by looking at the guy, where he lives, or how modestly he lives.

Rather than being angry, Nadine is both impressed and (surprisingly) thankful. Thankful that he requires little from her other than to be herself, and to be truthful and loyal.

Meanwhile, as our own MLH suggested, Nadine obtains a realtor license and begins hawking properties. Carroll supports this as he knows she enjoys gossip, hobnobbing with elitists, wearing fancy clothes, country club lunches, etc. Carroll is good with all of this, provided that Nadine never compromises his trust, their marriage or his business. Hmmm....

(I'm good with Nadine being a realtor as it keeps her solidly where she belongs - on the periphery of Springfield goings-on - yet she knows what's up AND it doesn't require her to compete intellectually in the business world). It's an excellent fit. And Carroll's trucking business is a business that is highly complementary to Lewis Construction, so it'd be easy to have Carroll become part of the Lewis family sphere. An additional thought may be to have Carroll become an advisor/uncle type of figure to Harley and Frank, which would alienate Buzz, though I still prefer that Buzz get hauled off to a funny farm after accidentally putting a bullet through Lucy's head during a Vietnam-induced fit of PTSD rage. I digress...

Lastly, over time, it could be that Nadine discovers that she isn't all that enamored with money, flash and Hollywood after all. Perhaps what she really wanted all along is acceptance, stability and security. Perhaps she realizes that she "went Hollywood goofy" in response to Buzz' behavior and long-term absence.

BTW, did we ever learn anything about Nadine's parents or of any siblings?

When the time came to write Nadine out of the show, you could have her leave town with Carroll in a surprisingly touching send-off. Have her last days in town be a decent, satisfying end to her evolution as a character. Have her depart on a high.

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

@P.J. Thanks for reminding us about Maeve's birthday. Forever one of the best and most beautiful on soaps. I'm glad she still seemed to be doing well in her last Locher Room appearance.

I take my fangurling seriously. :) I hope she's still doing well.

21 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

BTW, did we ever learn anything about Nadine's parents or of any siblings?

Nah. We were talking about how they never gave her any depth. That would have helped a lot.

Also, we've previously discussed they never gave the Coopers and the Reardons a backstory, as they lived a couple of streets over from each other. I like to think that Nadine and the older Reardon girls (Mo and the never seen sister) went to Catholic school together and maybe even were rivals. That the eldest brother Sean (who I think they mentioned went to Vietnam, like Buzz) was Buzz's best friend. It's just wild that no writing team thought to connect those families, seems like a no-brainer to me. Certainly made more sense than Buzz having a backstory with Alan, Ed, and the Lewis brothers.

On 5/31/2026 at 8:25 PM, P.J. said:

I believe Zach came from a novel Phillip wrote.

snort I could've been alright with one fatal casualty...****.

That's funny, since in December blake would be naming her daughter after her novel character. Clarissa was based on Holly, in GL tradition the child is named after someone.

Any reason for Beth naming her daughter (with Alan) Peyton? Indianapolis Colts fans? Also, was a reason given for Jude Bauer. It seemed like GL always needed "reasons" for names.

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by Spoon

2 hours ago, Spoon said:

Any reason for Beth naming her daughter (with Alan) Peyton? Indianapolis Colts fans? Also, was a reason given for Jude Bauer. It seemed like GL always needed "reasons" for names.

I think Beth did name Peyton after Peyton Manning, but I'm not 100% sure.

Jude, I remember EXACTLY how he got his name. Harley was moaning she couldn't think of a name. So Gus said to her, "What's you're favorite song?' Harley: "Hey, Jude." Lightbulb.

So he's named after the Beatles song. Which, frankly makes absolutely no sense. I know there are Beatles fans in every generation, but Harley was too young to remember the Beatles when they were still a band, and I doubt they had her "favorite" song. But that happens a lot--writers imposing their own generation's taste on younger characters.

23 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

I think Beth did name Peyton after Peyton Manning, but I'm not 100% sure.

Jude, I remember EXACTLY how he got his name. Harley was moaning she couldn't think of a name. So Gus said to her, "What's you're favorite song?' Harley: "Hey, Jude." Lightbulb.

So he's named after the Beatles song. Which, frankly makes absolutely no sense. I know there are Beatles fans in every generation, but Harley was too young to remember the Beatles when they were still a band, and I doubt they had her "favorite" song. But that happens a lot--writers imposing their own generation's taste on younger characters.

So much truth. I think it was it was mostly tone-deafness from P&G, but they had their "current music" moments on ATWT with mentions of Pearl Jam. No one explained the band name.

I remember an unintentionally hilarious '70s episode of Another World when Rachel walks in on teenage Jamie listening to loud music, and he turns it down.

I remember doing that in the 1970s. Bowie. Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd.

But it wasn't because I was listening to the "it's a car!" music from The Price is Right.

12 hours ago, Spoon said:

That's funny, since in December blake would be naming her daughter after her novel character. Clarissa was based on Holly, in GL tradition the child is named after someone.

Any reason for Beth naming her daughter (with Alan) Peyton? Indianapolis Colts fans? Also, was a reason given for Jude Bauer. It seemed like GL always needed "reasons" for names.

I think either one of the writers was a Manning fan, or they were trying to be more "hip" with kids names. There was some drawn out explanation about Beth wanting her daughter to be strong (blah blah...coming from a woman having a child with her former father-in-law, it made my eyes roll so hard they hurt..) and having watched some late night sports documentary.

Maybe for Clarissa, it was just too hard to come up with a directly adjacent name to Holly. God knows if the show was still on, some poor Bauer granddaughter would wind up with Edwina.

More of the old Peapack interviews from summer 2009 are being reuploaded. (there's another with Rob Bogue and Mandy Bruno).

I wish she'd been right about GL coming back, although I think at that time some of us were clinging onto delusion.

She was right that they should have brought back the twins.

@alwaysAMC She says a few things in here you may be interested in. The whole twins with two fathers story was her favorite. She says she never believed that Ross was Kevin's father because it was just Annie's word and she thought that would be a good story idea for the future. She also said that falling in love with Ben was her least favorite story, as she felt Blake falling for him was much too rushed. She said that only happened because another story fell through.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by DRW50

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

More of the old Peapack interviews from summer 2009 are being reuploaded. (there's another with Rob Bogue and Mandy Bruno).

I wish she'd been right about GL coming back, although I think at that time some of us were clinging onto delusion.

She was right that they should have brought back the twins.

@alwaysAMC She says a few things in here you may be interested in. The whole twins with two fathers story was her favorite. She says she never believed that Ross was Kevin's father because it was just Annie's word and she thought that would be a good story idea for the future. She also said that falling in love with Ben was her least favorite story, as she felt Blake falling for him was much too rushed. She said that only happened because another story fell through.

This was great, thank you for posting and tagging me

That's interesting about a story that fell through - I wonder what that could have been. Because Ben came in from the beginning as Ross's half-brother set on bringing him down. I wonder if maybe they planned to get someone from their family to join and casting fell through?

I was sad they retconned the twins and Rick being Kevin's father, and I like that she loved the storyline and had fun with it. She sadly has this wrong though... Annie did switch the results, which Ben knew about and told Rick. But, from my notes here, it was proven through DNA testing that Rick wasn't the father (August 1998):

Rick secretly does bloodwork with Kevin at the hospital and does a paternity test. With Abby, he reads the results and breaks down because Kevin isn’t his son. This was a great performance by O’Leary; so very sad.

She probably just forgot since she wasn't included in the actual scenes.

Based on what she said, I love hearing that Blake was still one of the lead characters at the very end of GL.

On 5/31/2026 at 7:17 PM, DeeVee said:

Another case of GL writers later having baby naming remorse. How the heck did he end up being called Zach?

All the men going to rescue Reva. Of course. 😂

Haha I know, I was expecting the name to be Zach and was surprised when it wasn't... but maybe that comes later after Alan pisses them off again or something

And of course, Reva and all the men... Jim all of a sudden having this big military/spy background seemed way too random yet convenient to me too (unless that was established way back when before Jim and Susan came back to town in the late 90s during my watch).

8 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

This was great, thank you for posting and tagging me

That's interesting about a story that fell through - I wonder what that could have been. Because Ben came in from the beginning as Ross's half-brother set on bringing him down. I wonder if maybe they planned to get someone from their family to join and casting fell through?

I was sad they retconned the twins and Rick being Kevin's father, and I like that she loved the storyline and had fun with it. She sadly has this wrong though... Annie did switch the results, which Ben knew about and told Rick. But, from my notes here, it was proven through DNA testing that Rick wasn't the father (August 1998):

Rick secretly does bloodwork with Kevin at the hospital and does a paternity test. With Abby, he reads the results and breaks down because Kevin isn’t his son. This was a great performance by O’Leary; so very sad.

She probably just forgot since she wasn't included in the actual scenes.

Based on what she said, I love hearing that Blake was still one of the lead characters at the very end of GL.

I did remember that from your recaps, but I guess they could have just ignored it.

Sadly, Blake is not that big a character by the end of GL, but she is much more present in that last year than she was before (I think - someone can correct me - at one point she was in a coma for a year).

I wonder if the story with Ben tormenting Blake/Ross was meant to happen, but they weren't actually meant to be paired up. Maybe they originally planned a Ben/Beth pairing which we never quite got properly.