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[alwaysAMC]

I’m up to Jan. 8, 1996 and into a new year!

This NYE masquerade ball has been outstanding soap opera! The jig is up with Marian. Brent stages a dummy in a wig at his apartment, making Cleary think Marian is alone at home all night, but Brent is really dressed up at the ball and stalking Lucy and AM. Meanwhile, Frank is at the docks and finds a wrapped floating body (Nadine) and calls it in.  At the same time, unlucky for Brent, Susan just woke up from her coma and remembers Marian attacking her and tells Nick everything! Nick immediately calls Frank to tell him the news. Back at the party, Brent calls AM, pretending to be Marian, and lures him to her apartment just as Frank and Clearly storm in and they all find the dummy in a wig. Brent, now dressed as Zoro like AM was at the party, grabs Lucy, kisses her, she realizes it isn’t AM, and Brent attacks and drugs her unconscious!  I can’t wait to see how this turns out… except for…

In this moment, in the middle of the ball, a new actor takes over for Brent. So the episode starts with Brent attacking Lucy, but you have the voiceover man say “Today, the role of Brent Lawrence will be played by…” - taking you out of the scene, wondering what in the world happened. I know what happened, but I’m sure if I were watching live in the 90s without internet, I would be gasping. I had no idea the switchover happened mid-ball where you have the entire cast dressed up, working long hours. I have to imagine the stress of it all made Frank Beaty have his mental break, but I wonder how the rest of the cast/crew dealt with it given it happened right in the middle of this ball that everyone was at for multiple episodes. Did they have to delay the filming schedule to find a new actor? The actor must have had zero time to prep for the role, although I’m assuming we won’t see Marian anymore now that she’s been known to be a fake. I want to know all the juicy BTS details haha. But now, Rick caught wind that the police are trying to find Marian at the party and he starts to put the pieces together, given that he’s the only one that knows Marian is really a man. He walks outside and tells AM, Buzz, Frank and the police that Marian is a man and chaos ensues.

Also, Nick finally proposes to Susan in the hospital in a very sweet scene. I didn’t enjoy Susan or this pairing in the beginning, but they’ve really grown on me and I really like how tough Susan is. She was the only one who really caught onto Marian and stood up to her.

Meanwhile, Amanda locks Blake in a bathroom and ends up pulling Roger into a kiss after midnight, which Blake sees after she finally escapes. The girls fight, slap each other, throw food and pies… what a fun time haha.

Reva the diva is in full force and her sweet milkmaid Goshen personality went out the door for good. She makes Alan go to the ball with her, dressed in a sexy red dress, and makes quite a scene. She kisses Josh, they fight in front of the whole party, she breaks down, they scream at each other, poor Annie runs off crying and Reva leaves the party and tries to seduce Alan to make herself feel better. Reva’s performance in front of everyone was pure Reva and honestly the Reva I prefer.  I was so tired of Amish Reva for 7 months, so this is a breath of fresh air. I don’t think it all came together perfectly, and I don’t think Reva nor Josh have made good decisions, but at least the story is now moving forward and I have the old Reva back, for better or worse haha.

I’m a little disappointed in Bridget. She’s very quick to crush on Hart again and she’s almost pining after him at this ball. Vanessa of course isn’t that happy with what she’s seeing. Matt tries to reassure her. Speaking of, Matt is looking really good at this ball - the mustache and hat really works for him (sorry, PJ haha).  Another point about Bridget that bothers me, which is the writers’ fault, but she’s been totally dropped from the Lucy/Brent storyline. They were basically best friends and she was involved in the beginning, but they completely replaced her friend role with Susan/Nick, which I get because she has HIV/AIDs and Bridget may not have worked as well when the story continued along that path.  But still, I wish we could see Bridget checking in on her or be worried for her (same with David).

Finally, a little story is brewing with Griffin and Gilly’s mom, Vivian. She just confronted him and asks if he’s planning to do to her daughter what he did to her long ago.  Interesting…

[DRW50]

@alwaysAMC Great mini-review as always. 

That Gilly story is...certainly one I could not forget...

I imagine a number of viewers were shocked with the temporary recast. It was revealed in the soap magazines, as was the news about Frank Beaty's breakdown, I think. I think Wolf had some statements or an interview at the time but very little. I wish someone could interview him. He did a good job under extremely tough circumstances. 

For some reason I have a vague memory of him in the Marian getup but that's probably not right. 

I'm glad you have appreciated the material with Susan after a shaky start. I always enjoyed her, and she was the only love interest I liked Nick with. 

[alwaysAMC]

Thanks! 

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Uh oh, is this the Gilly storyline everyone seemed to hate? We'll see how I feel, but for now, I'm just glad Vivian and Gilly have screen time!  They've been sorely underused in 1995. I noticed in the end credits recently that the actress playing Vivian is on contract while her husband is recurring. I haven't warmed up to the Griffin character, as he's quite pushy and not overly endearing yet.

I'm not quite sure if Wolf dons the Marian getup, I'll let you know, but I'm going to doubt it. They've all now realized Marian is a man, and Brent left his wigs/clothing at the house and he now has Lucy hostage in the lighthouse as Brent.

I actually found an interview from 2023 that Frank Beaty did with this online Italian group who are big GL fans. I was quite shocked and happy to run across this! Frank seems to be a really nice man. The interview is a bit of a slog, because half of it is the co-host translating back and forth. But here are some pretty fascinating facts that Frank mentions:

-He originally auditioned for the role of Matt Reardon, but didn't get it. The producers remembered his audition and offered him the role of Brent Lawrence later. How interesting!

-He was offered a second year on the show, but declined. He wanted to find meaning in life, research his faith and start a new chapter in life. He said declining the second year was ultimately one of his biggest regrets. The storyline offered to him was Brent's rehabilitation in a facility that Amish Abigail was going to work in and help him with, and she and Brent were going to become friends... how interesting that could have been!

-He was very close with Rick Hearst and Sonia Satra, almost like the three musketeers.

-Makeup for Marian took 3 hours each time. Between the time commitment of that, the pressure of the show, and his personal life which was going through some really hard times, he said he had a nervous breakdown and couldn't continue functioning on set. He was very complimentary of Mark Wolf replacing him.

-Frank is currently getting back into acting and is excited about his future (although 2 years later now, curious to see if anything came out of this). He's dating a woman in Paris, long-distance. Honestly wasn't sure if Frank was gay or not, but I guess this helps give insight there.

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[P.J.]

You could see some kind of Rita/Vanessa showdown being set up, whether it was over Ed or Alan in 1981. (as Vanessa/Henry used the affair to blackmail Alan) But it doesn't seem like Ed/Vanessa were given a lot of time to work, when they only entered each other's orbit in March after Vanessa's "suicide" attempt. Rita's gone by June, it seems and Mart was fired.

OG Vanessa seems to be the negative-reverse of Rita. Rita made unfortunate and selfish decisions, but she was never malicious or scheming. 

In '87, Alan just seems like the irritant in Vanessa's relationship with Ross. Alan's only real interest in Vanessa was her Chamberlain stock (as he's involved in the weird art forgery/Valere mess and had kicked Phillip and Alex out of Spaulding) and Vanessa and Reva seem more invested in egging each other on than in Alan. When she leaves for Venezuela, Vanessa explains to Reva she wasn't in love with Alan, but thought she could be in a "modern" marriage and enjoy the power that came being Mrs. Spaulding (or something like that). But she realized when Billy called that he needed her , while all Alan needed was a "suitable" hostess. She also tried warning Reva from getting further involved with Alan, but of course, Reva ignored that advice.

They even seemed to be setting up another go round between Ross and Vanessa on her exit. They have a tender goodbye, while Alan arrives too late to make an appeal for her to stay. 

[DeeVee]

It's too bad they didn't see it through. Alan and Van could have married for all the wrong reasons and ended up caring for each other, with Ross in the wings and possibly Rita, too, to cause trouble.

Rita was a LITTLE BIT of a schemer. She was kind of the Nola of her era, without the goofy personality. She deliberately went after Ed because she thought he would give her the lifestyle she wanted. She could do malicious things, i.e. cooly seduce Evie's crush (who was played by Jordan Clark, btw) and string him along until she was sure she had Ed.

While Rita claimed to be deeply in love with Alan at the time she departed, part of the attraction for her was his money and power. As well as sharing aspects of Nola's character, she was also a more subtle version of Reva-she grew up poor and always wanted more than she had.

[alwaysAMC]

Ok nevermind, Wolf is in Marian's getup on the Jan 9th episode. Lucy wakes up at the lighthouse and it's now Marian, drinking tea, and sounding like an old British woman a la Mrs. Doubtfire 

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 Wolf is actually doing a good job as Brett, but I don't think they made him look like a believable Marian - its too clown/drag, but also creepier - and Wolf has a large nose they couldn't hide. I guess at this point, it didn't matter since she was unhinged and revealing him/herself anyway.

Edited 20 minutes ago by alwaysAMC