1 hour ago, P.J. said:

From the '80's? They go from enemies to almost friend-adjacent In-Laws. They are never overtly friendly (as Reva marrying/dating through the Lewis/Sampsons makes Vanessa distrust her) but they also never go out of their way to hurt each other either. There are significant moments when they put their cards out on the table with each other. Vanessa warns Reva that Billy is out to get her (when Josh is paralyzed)  before she walks out on Billy. Reva tries to get Van to see she's addicted to painkillers after Bill was born. They tussle over Alan briefly, which isn't as much against each other as trying to get Alan to mean what he says to either of them. It's Vanessa who realizes that Reva is more than "being Reva" when her PPD strikes. They're more friend-ish if they're both involved with Billy and Josh. 

If they're not in the Lewis' sphere, they aren't seen interacting as much. Even when Maeve returns in '06(ish) they barely interact. Reva has an ITL where Maeve has a brief cameo, which is cute. But otherwise, I don't think they have a lot to do with each other until the final month when Billy and Van are including Reva in their wedding.

Josh and Vanessa are much more friends than Vanessa and Reva are.

Thanks as always - very helpful, and most of it was what I expected, so no surprises  

The show would've called them friends, but with a few notable exceptions, I don't think GL did friendships well.

10 minutes ago, P.J. said:

The show would've called them friends, but with a few notable exceptions, I don't think GL did friendships well.

For sure. It was most obvious whenever they did a wedding and the wedding party would be made up of people the bride and groom were hardly friends with. Or they had no wedding party. Or their kids would stand up for them.

8 hours ago, P.J. said:

The show would've called them friends, but with a few notable exceptions, I don't think GL did friendships well.

8 hours ago, DeeVee said:

For sure. It was most obvious whenever they did a wedding and the wedding party would be made up of people the bride and groom were hardly friends with. Or they had no wedding party. Or their kids would stand up for them.

This is something I've noticed too, just in my 3 years of watching now. Spot on with the bridesmaids/groomsmen comment - it's laughable how obvious or random the selections are (or aren't, because it's no one). 

I also don't think they do goodbyes well when an actor leaves the show. So many cases where there is barely a goodbye, or in a random scene, they say they're moving and we never see them again. I'm more used to a storyline dictating their exit or a reason that involves storyline.

I’m up to January 02, 1998.  Another strong month (Dec '97) and another year down for me!  

Annie agrees to marry Alan if he gives her a percentage of the Spaulding fortune. Amanda overhears the conversation and is outraged they’re going to marry. Annie later meets Beth in the mansion and starts to meddle in the Beth/Phillip/Harley triangle by warning Beth about Harley. She wants to get Phillip/Beth back together as revenge for Harley playing her in the mental ward a couple months ago. Annie also takes a strong liking to Lizzie haha.

Later at the Towers, Annie gets Dinah to set up a taped WSPR special where she announces to Springfield that she will be the next Mrs. Alan Spaulding. Reva and Josh happen to be there and Annie wants to get them enraged by the announcement, but Reva gets the upper hand by spilling everything Annie has done on tape, which pisses off Annie and she freaks that the taped segment will actually air. It eventually airs and Annie starts to spiral again.

Hart and Cassie randomly have to deliver a baby at Lewis Oil for one of their employees. The experience brings them closer and they admit they both want to kiss, but they know it’ll lead to more if they allow themselves to go there. Dinah teams up with Annie (double trouble!) and they scheme to get Cassie out of Springfield. They plan a surprise birthday party for Hart and Dinah pressures Cassie to go.

Abby goes to Roy’s casket and apologizes to him, and his mother arrives and screams at her and they both cry over what happened. Roy’s friends show up and threaten Abby, but his mom tells them to leave her alone because the whole thing should now be over. But his mom then tells Abby to burn in hell and they all part ways. Later, Ben reveals to Rick and Abby that he’s Ross’s brother and Rick gets upset and thinks Ross’s state of mind during the trial was clouded by his feelings over Ben. Blake convinces Ross to resign as DA so he can take on Abby as her private laywer. A woman comes forward to Abby/Rick and shares that she was raped by Roy and it gives Abby the courage to fight for her freedom vs. accept her fate in jail for several years.

Jenna tells Harley about Jeffrey being the baby’s father. Later, Buzz starts to fall in love with Jenna all over again and they sleep together. Meanwhile, Nola is still in love with Buzz and still thinks she can win him over. Buzz continues to hate the idea of living and dying at the diner, he wants to do something in his life beyond the diner.

Good soap opera:

Michelle and Jesse are fully in love and spending a lot of time in the lighthouse making out haha. Jesse asks Michelle to marry him and she’s very excited, and they decide to secretly elope. Jesse gives her his mother’s ring which later infuriates his father of course. The father riles up the local goons to stop Jesse/Michelle. Meanwhile, Rick/Abby/Reva are decorating the Christmas tree at Reva/Abby’s house.  Rick sees a light on at the lighthouse and leaves to see what’s going on. He finds Jesse there, who is waiting on Michelle so they can go elope. Rick finally gets the truth out of Jesse that they’re getting married, and while upset at first, he realizes he can’t change their minds and asks Jesse to take care of Michelle forever and always. Michelle stops by the house to say goodbye to Abby, who is now upstairs taking a nap. Michelle doesn’t want to wake her, so she stays to write her a note. While she’s writing, she has a vision of Maureen again at the Christmas tree where she talks to her about marrying Jesse. Maureen gives Michelle her blessing and it makes Michelle so happy. Meanwhile, the goons are outside and first turn off the electricity and lights to the house. Then they throw a Molotov cocktail into the house, which hits Michelle inside and lights up the entire house in flames! Michelle falls to the ground and screams. Reva is upstairs when the lights go out; she starts to investigate and falls down the stairs and goes unconscious. As the house is burning down, Annie walks up with presents for all the kids (which Alan told her not to do earlier). She freaks out, goes inside and Reva wakes up. Reva tells Annie to get Abby out of bed, so she does and runs Abby downstairs and out of the house, saving her life. Annie goes back in and Reva can’t move because of her leg. Annie leaves Reva, goes back outside and is stopped by a fireman asking if anyone else is inside. Annie pauses and doesn’t say anything, but then Abby screams out that Reva is still inside.

Meanwhile, Josh gets a call about the house being on fire and leaves the diner where the Coopers and kids were having a Christmas party for Buzz. Josh and Frank show up to the house, as does Rick after visiting Jesse. Josh runs through the burning house to get Reva. He finally finds her and they both jump from the top of the house to safety. Later, Reva accuses Annie of trying to kill her since she walked over her and left her to die after saving Abby. Annie denies it, but Reva believes Annie started the fire.

Unfortunately no one knows Michelle is still in the house since Reva and Abby assumed she already left well before the fire. Jesse gets worried because Michelle hasn’t shown up, so he heads to the Bauer house and runs into Ed. He tells Ed the truth that their travel plans were a ruse, but doesn’t mention the wedding yet. He then runs to Abby’s house and sees the fire and screams out for Michelle. He asks Reva if she’s seen Michelle and Reva starts to realize she may not have left yet before the fire. Jesse tries to run into the building but is stopped by the firemen. Rick notices Jesse is there and starts freaking out and convinces the firemen to look for her, but Rick goes in there too which scares Abby. They thankfully find Michelle, get her out and rush her to the hospital. Buzz shows up and the fire makes him remember the 5th Street fires.

At the hospital, Michelle is saved but when she wakes up, she can’t see anything!  Such a sad cliffhanger scene where she cries with Jesse supporting her. Meanwhile, Frank takes Annie to the police station for questioning since everyone assumes she started the fire. The next day, one of the goons actually turns himself in and rats out the others and they realize Annie wasn’t involved. While Michelle is blind and recovering, many people come to visit her, including J, which finally they’re acknowledging their friendship again. J has barely been on in months and he tells Michelle and Nola both that he got a photography job offer in California that he wants to take. Later, Michelle’s bandages are off and she’s able to see a bit, so things are better, but not totally normal. But we find out she was faking it and she breaks down and confides in Rick that she can’t see. She doesn’t want Jesse to know, while Jesse is still pushing to marry Michelle there in the hospital, which Ed tries to talk him out of that.

Phillip leaves the Christmas party at the diner early to pick up Lizzie. When Phillip arrives at the mansion to get her, Beth says Lizzie doesn’t want to go anymore and she’s secretly convinced Lizzie that they should have a quiet night in with just the three of them (you can tell Beth is starting to fall back in love with Phillip). Beth is looking at old wedding photos in front of them and Lizzie eventually puts mistletoe above their heads and forces them to kiss. They later talk about how it had to be a pretend Christmas kiss, but they acknowledge they both thought each other put more into the kiss than just pretend. Phillip eventually gets Lizzie to go to the diner where they see Harley. Harley asks about Beth and Lizzie exclaims she saw her mommy and daddy kiss each other tonight. Harley isn’t thrilled and Phillip explains what happened, but a seed is planted.

Beth confides in Lillian that they kissed and she would be open to exploring whether she wants to be back with Phillip or not. Lillian gets a bit giddy about it, but warns her to be careful since hearts will be broken. Later, Harley tells Beth that Phillip is hers and she better back off.

I gotta say, the casting for Beth and Lillian is impeccable as mother/daughter. I don’t know who joined the show first from years ago, but these ladies really do favor each other and have very similar voice and mannerisms.  Also, little Lizzie (Hayden Panettiere) is such a cute little ham. I can see how she became popular and had a big career in TV/films (I loved her in Nashville!).

After the fires, Hart offers Cassie and Tammy to stay on the farm with him and she flip flops but ultimately decides she can’t. Hart’s surprise birthday party at the farm starts and the surprise was spoiled on accident by Blake and Buzz. They all take it in good stride and the country hoedown party at the barn begins! Pretty much the whole town is there, with Reva/Cassie being especially upset that Annie is co-host with Dinah. Vanessa introduces Michael to Alan, asking if he has a job for him. Alan says no, but I feel like this wasn’t just a throwaway scene, hmm. Buzz overhears Harley and Vanessa talking about Jeffrey being the father of Jenna’s baby, which upsets Buzz and he walks out of the party and can’t be found. Harley tells Jenna what happened and she’s furious, but Nola seems happy. Harley then pours a bowl of water on Nola. Ben announces he’s the new DA since Ross resigned. Dinah then announces her big surprise as the cake comes out. She brings out a pastor and announces that she and Hart are getting married right there at the party! Hart is resistant but Dinah keeps pushing things along, and everyone starts to congratulate them. Hart keeps wanting to talk to Dinah about not doing it, but she rushes upstairs to get into her dress. Meanwhile, Reva/Blake are urging Cassie to stay and fight for Hart. Hart tries to talk to an upset Cassie, and explain to her he feels a duty to marry Dinah (because of his prior conversation with Vanessa where she asks him to take care of Dinah for life given Vanessa may die when having her baby, which Dinah won’t handle well). So Hart proceeds with the wedding and the ceremony starts, with Annie standing as Dinah’s only bridesmaid (LOL). Mid-ceremony, Blake screams out and pretends to have stomach pains. Dinah suspects she’s faking and gets angry, while Blake asks Hart to go to the hospital with her. Dinah asks him not to, but he feels obliged as her brother. In the car ride to the hospital, Blake tells Hart he can thank her for giving him the time to think about the decision he’s making and says “Merry Christmas little brother” LOL. That ends the party and we’re onto Christmas.

Buzz is missing in Chicago and the Coopers are spending Christmas Eve without him. He finds a random baby that was left behind and talks to a priest about it.

Phillip is forced to spend Christmas Eve at the Spaulding mansion with Beth and Lizzie, along with Lillian/Alan/Annie/Dinah/Hart (no idea why Dinah/Hart are there haha). Harley of course is very upset that Phillip isn’t with her, which I find selfish considering he should be with his daughter. Beth gives Phillip his old writings as a gift and eventually cries to him that she still wants them to be together, but Phillip says it’s too late and walks out of the room. I have to say, this scene made me like them as a couple. The music and connection was really strong here. Later, Phillip ends up surprising Harley at the Cooper’s, while she’s in a Santa outfit since Buzz isn’t there to be Santa. He tells her what Beth gave him, but that she is his past and he wants to start a new future with Harley. This was also a sweet scene and now this Christmas Eve episode actually has me fully caring about this triangle. Next, Buzz shows up and everyone is so happy and Buzz/Jenna kiss. I’m not really sure what the baby really was all about, but here we are.

Alan gets Annie a big ring for Christmas. Dinah starts pressuring Hart to get married that night but he finally gets the courage to tell her he doesn’t want to marry her, they haven’t been happy in a long time, and their relationship is over. Finally! Dinah of course cries like crazy, begs him to stay and he walks out. I don’t even feel sorry for her one bit, she’s been awful these last few months.

The Bauer’s and Marler’s are together for Christmas Eve and Rick brought Michelle home. With Rick’s help, she continues the ruse that she can partially see.

Santa Claus left the Lewis family a note in the hotel with clues that lead them on an adventure. The clue leads them to a fully decorated home with a note that Vanessa/Matt left which gifted them this new home.  How convenient, a Christmas miracle LOL. This was Van/Matt’s old house before they moved into the lake house that Matt built. Josh then surprises Reva/Cassie with something he found in the ashes of their burned home, and it was their mother’s cameo (that damn cameo! LOL).

Hart gets back from seeing Peter in Minnesota for Christmas and immediately goes to Cassie and they talk about how they can’t keep their eyes off each other. Hart says he has feelings for her and wants to explore them and they kiss. Vanessa arrives soon after and realizes they want to be together and ultimately gives them her blessing and apologized to Hart for making him feel like he was pressured into marrying Dinah. In walks Dinah seeing the three of them together and she flips out. She tells Cassie to get out of Vanessa’s home, but Cassie says no, this is where she lives now. Vanessa tells Dinah how they gifted the home to the Lewis’s and she continues to flip out about it. After scorching earth and telling everyone to F off, she calls Matt and drives to the lake house to talk to him. She invites herself over for NYE, and later says to herself that it’s time to get even with her mother (oh brother, what could she do now). On NYE, she keeps getting Matt to drink more and he’s drunk. Vanessa, being pregnant, can’t drink and retires to bed. Matt envisions his future with Vanessa and their baby and slowly falls sleep on the couch. Dinah comes down, turns out the lights, puts on Vanessa’s robe and slinks into Matt’s arms. She kisses him and when he awakes, he jumps up and asks her what’s happening. Vanessa then comes back downstairs and says she couldn’t sleep after all, and Matt ushers Dinah out of the house and she happily leaves. Matt is now very suspicious of Dinah though. I hope Matt can stay strong and faithful here!

Michael visits Matt and confirms he’s working as a researcher at Spaulding, and reports directly to Annie. Interesting…

Annie and Beth plot to pair Ben Warren up with Beth on a date to shove it in Phillip’s face so he’ll be jealous. They know Phillip and Harley will be at the country club, so Beth takes Ben there. As they walk in, Phillip gets upset and says “What’s that jerk doing with my wife”, which upsets Harley. Phillip tells Beth not to be around Ben because he’s a bad guy. She later tells Phillip she’s taken a job in Springfield (she’s lying) and will be staying in town into the new year.

Michelle tells Jesse that she doesn’t want to get married now because they need time, which disappoints him. She tells him she still loves him, but she wants to explore life more (secretly she wants to go to a brail school, which she confided to Rick). He comes back later, and Michelle assumes it’s Rick and starts talking about her sight, and Jesse realizes she can’t see. But, Rick shows up and Rick/Michelle convince Jesse that her eyedrops give her a blurry vision and she’s ok.

Overall, another excellent month of GL, and another year down - bring on 1998!

@Spoon - hope this helps fill some missing pieces  

1 hour ago, alwaysAMC said:

I gotta say, the casting for Beth and Lillian is impeccable as mother/daughter. I don’t know who joined the show first from years ago, but these ladies really do favor each other and have very similar voice and mannerisms. 

Tina Sloan joined the show as Lilian first, with original Beth Judi Evans Luciano.

@alwaysAMC CBS reran both the 1997 Christmas episode and where Abby killed Roy during the holidays either in '98 or '99.

1 hour ago, SadPim8696 said:

Tina Sloan joined the show as Lilian first, with original Beth Judi Evans Luciano.

Tina Sloan and Beth Chamberlin clicked really well.  I really bought into their Mother/Daughter relationship.  I loved how Beth was an artist & how her Mom bragged about it to Roger. How were Tina and Judi together?

That is why I was mad when the show got rid of Phillip, Beth and Rick all at the same time.  I really liked Beth and Mindy's friendship and Beth wasn't around for Mindy's wedding...just horrible to me. 

22 minutes ago, MLH said:

That is why I was mad when the show got rid of Phillip, Beth and Rick all at the same time.  I really liked Beth and Mindy's friendship and Beth wasn't around for Mindy's wedding...just horrible to me. 

If you are talking about 1991 - both Grant Alexander & Michael O'Leary elected to leave the show on their own accord. With Beth Chamberlain, Pam Long felt it would cheat the audience to split up Phillip & Beth, yet again. Pam opted to write a happy ending for Phillip & Beth, and write them off together. 

57 minutes ago, TheyStartedOnSoaps said:

If you are talking about 1991 - both Grant Alexander & Michael O'Leary elected to leave the show on their own accord. With Beth Chamberlain, Pam Long felt it would cheat the audience to split up Phillip & Beth, yet again. Pam opted to write a happy ending for Phillip & Beth, and write them off together. 

It's kind of remarkable that they were able to get all these actors back multiple times over the years. Along with Kim, Robert, Maeve.

I think someone mentioned once after GA came back to replace Bolger, the show saw him as key to the show's success and refused to recast with another actor.

Obviously, they were never going to recast Kim, and the only time they recast Maeve was for her maternity leave.

It's interesting to contemplate who they considered irreplaceable. Some important ones were replaced because of illness/retirement/death (i.e. Roger/Alex/Alan). Some were killed off rather than replaced (i.e. Jerry).

I like O'Leary, but I think he could have been replaced. Unless they thought the chemistry between him and GA was too valuable.

5 hours ago, TheyStartedOnSoaps said:

If you are talking about 1991 - both Grant Alexander & Michael O'Leary elected to leave the show on their own accord. With Beth Chamberlain, Pam Long felt it would cheat the audience to split up Phillip & Beth, yet again. Pam opted to write a happy ending for Phillip & Beth, and write them off together. 

I still wish Beth stayed. Mindy had no real friends after all 3 left. 

@DeeVee I try not to think about how they treated Michael Zaslow and the character of Roger Thorpe. Maybe, there were just too many characters that they just really didn't know what to do with (including Holly). 

Edited September 16Sep 16 by MLH

4 hours ago, DeeVee said:

It's kind of remarkable that they were able to get all these actors back multiple times over the years. Along with Kim, Robert, Maeve.

I think someone mentioned once after GA came back to replace Bolger, the show saw him as key to the show's success and refused to recast with another actor.

Obviously, they were never going to recast Kim, and the only time they recast Maeve was for her maternity leave.

It's interesting to contemplate who they considered irreplaceable. Some important ones were replaced because of illness/retirement/death (i.e. Roger/Alex/Alan). Some were killed off rather than replaced (i.e. Jerry).

I like O'Leary, but I think he could have been replaced. Unless they thought the chemistry between him and GA was too valuable.

I think they did see Grant as tough to replace, but another factor may be Alan being gone. Philip was so defined by Alan. Maybe they had to wait for Grant to finish with AMC before they got him back, but the character did seem filed away for most of the first half of the '90s.

They could have recast Rick, but they probably didn't see a need. Michael O'Leary was seemingly well-liked by viewers and had served well enough as a B-hero. The issue is that without Ed Rick could not serve as a Bauer patriarch...but then Peter Simon's Ed never fit that role either, as he was too haunted and terse. Maureen did a lot of heavy lifting, and then Meta did when Labine focused on her in that aspect in her 00-01 stint. (one of the few things I'll praise Labine's GL for)

42 minutes ago, MLH said:

I still wish Beth stayed. Mindy had no real friends after all 3 left. 

She did have a few nice moments with Harley, although JFP took most of that away, as always. 

I do think Beth should have been there for Nick's return. 

10 hours ago, SadPim8696 said:

Tina Sloan joined the show as Lilian first, with original Beth Judi Evans Luciano.

Ahh gotcha, thank you! Then they hired a great recast Beth.

10 hours ago, Spoon said:

@alwaysAMC CBS reran both the 1997 Christmas episode and where Abby killed Roy during the holidays either in '98 or '99.

Oh good! Then you got to see some good stuff back then  

Was it Christmas 1998 or New Year's Day 1999 that the classic was MZ Emmy winning episode? MG gave the intro where she mentioned MZ had passed away.

Edited September 17Sep 17 by kalbir

On 9/14/2025 at 1:00 PM, alwaysAMC said:

That would have been interesting, in what capacity? Another vision giving her advice, or a ghost, or some evil twin? 

I remember E & B talking about bringing Parker back as a tough woman who got Mos heart who changed her face after hearing how loved she was...(okay.) Since boring useless Jessie got heart they couldn't do that, but they may have been thinking of bringing her in as the Selena role...now if they made her Mos sister that could have been interesting ..and better then Selena and Buzz..uggh.I wonder if Parker said no or Rauch got piseed that Parker stood up to him about the smoke machines when she was ghost Mo with Van after the baby.