AMC: Pratt Is History...

[All My Shadows]

It was Marcus who OD'd and went to the hospital. Well, actually, JR and co. just sort of...dropped him off in the ER parking lot. You know, so an ambulance could come and mow his ass down.

I also vaguely remember the SOS fire. It didn't happen off screen, though, didn't it? Weren't Gabriel and Bianca trapped in it somehow? I remember them being in there with the smoke and such, but I don't remember much aftermath. I do know that I loathed Rosa's whole "I wanna go to public school and hang out with the cool kids!" thing that lasted a few episodes. She was extremely annoying, and Gabriel wasn't much better. IIRC, he and Binks became friends after the fire and Binks invited him over to the house. Erica had some kind of fancy French meat hors d'oeuvres for Bianca, but Gabriel thought it was dog food and lost his mind all over the place.

I only remember this crap because that's when I started watching. I have a certain fondness for it...

[R Sinclair]

Like I said, I don't really remember that period because nothing was making any sense and was extremely hard to follow. It was just a weekly catalog of "Hmmm... what if this happens in this episode?!" that had nothing even remotely related to anything else the rest of that week. And then the next week, it would start all over again. I can't remember any "storyline" to it.

[bellcurve]

OH LORD. Don't remind me of that! LOL.

Do you remember when Greenlee and Carlos slept together on the Fusion floor and they used some sexed up, instrumental version of that tune? LOL.

[DeeeDee]

The Fusion Girls fighting over him was the stupidest thing ever.

[bellcurve]

I wish clips of Mary Smythe being a totally racist bitch to Carlos were on YouTube. It was so wrong on so many levels, but Max Alexander was so dreadfully awful as Carlos, you couldn't help but to enjoy Mary putting on her best Archie Bunker.

[All My Shadows]

What was even stupider was how Greenlee decided that he was "for" her, and all of the other girls just backed off because Greenlee claimed dibs on him first. These were grown women! Running a company!

[Vee]

I see everyone has already covered the horrors of the Passanante Era - Alex, Anna, poor Samantha Eggar, Alex showing off her Anna-like spy skills to Edmund during a RANDOM HOSTAGE SITUATION AT THE SHOPPING MALL...Gabriel the servant's kid, who lived in a cage...Eileen Pringle, "Incredible Dreams" producer/black ops assassin...Jesse McCartney's truly terrible performance as JR on Ecstacy, including one very iffy scene at the Inn with David and the Gut where I swear to God I almost thought they were going to make out...it just goes on and on. Oh, and I seem to recall them trying to test Bianca with Gabriel, even though she was already gay. Oh, God.

Still, Rayfield and Cascio were worse. The show was impersonal, soulless. Whereas Passanante was sort of gleefully incompetent.

[DRW50]

This was the Rosa who looked about 30, wasn't it? The one who didn't want to go to school? I kept thinking, "No wonder. She graduated in 1988."

Vee, I also thought they were chem testing Bianca/Gabriel. Gabriel was the WORST story idea ever. A cage? It was just horrible. I was worried they were going to start redoing plots from Mandingo.

This was also when Laura was sexually confused, and she or Greenlee or Bianca got knocked off the yacht.

I did like the scene where Bianca talked about how much she wanted to talk to her father, and the ghost of Travis was watching her, saying he was there. That was one of the only parts of the whole ghost return visit I thought worked. I remember being annoyed they brought Natalie back after they had decimated her entire family. I kept hoping she would comment on it or something, in a sarcastic way. Like refusing to eat candy canes.

Was this also when Hayley got a split personality and part of her became Arlene?

[Vee]

The Devane family mythos Passanante concocted also made absolutely no goddamned sense. There was something about having brainwashed Alex and/or kept her in a mental asylum for years as a ringer for Anna, and then their mom was a superspy, and THEN we learned that the sisters' dad had had an affair with the nanny or something, producing Gabriel, which then led to Mom offing Dad and Nanny in some carriage ride...I mean, it was ridiculous. I tried looking it all up on Soapcentral once for clarity. It runs a close second in confusing incoherence to another story on GH, that of Summer Holloway, con woman/Laura impersonator.

And yes, I believe this was the period where Hayley had her five-minute DID. Which cleared up pretty fast. With no real trouble.

Also, I think this began the era of St. Laura, who suddenly wanted Leo more than life. Or a heart.

[DRW50]

Summer was the one who was thrown off the cliff by Stefan?

They had Arlene decide to just go completely nuts during that awful Libidizone party and climb into bed with arm-grabber Mateo, which naturally made Hayley go insane and strangle her, or was it Mateo who strangled her? But wait, Arlene wasn't really dead...she's back, we see her walking. No, wait, that's Hayley in a wig, and people get them confused, even though Hayley came up to somewhere around Arlene's midsection. But wait, Arlene really isn't dead after all, and Hayley's fine!

I think this was also around the time Leslie and Tad slept together and Leslie hit him in the head with a shovel.

I don't remember any of the Devane origins. I do remember that nailfiling girl they used as comic relief back then, Marilyn or Tiffany, singing "Doctor's Orders" with Becca and someone else to celebrate the Alex/Edmund engagement. At the time I thought, "Do Alex or Edmund know any of these people?"

And I think there was something about a music box or a plane going down or something. I don't remember.

[Vee]

This was around the time Leslie and Dixie had that catfight as well, during which I swear to God, Leslie farted on-camera. That character became so ridiculous and you could see it coming from the start. I believe that was also when Ghost Jesse used his heavenly powers to save Tad from being hanged, using time travel.

Yes, Summer on GH was offed by Stefan.

[DRW50]

I think Leslie came in as some sort of professional woman; I can't remember if she was scheming with David from the start. They did seem to make her into a psycho very early on. Didn't she have one of those crazy wedding dress moments? Or not? I can't remember.

I loved Colleen Dion on B&B but the years she spent in one horrifically written guest role after another (I think the last was as the woman on GL who was married to a psycho vet and who paid Ben Reade for sex before he killed her) did tarnish some of my memories. I started to dread any appearance she made because it was just awful, awful.

[Jonathan]

She farted on camera? How many times did you rewind the tape? I liked Leslie Coulsen. She was nutso.

I thought Kelly Ripa did great work during this time as well when she was "acting" like Arlene. She definitely nailed Olivia Birkelund's mannerisms.

[SFK]

Who was the girl Gabriel had a budding little fling with, I can't recall... I remember them going to some event and they freshened him up, cornrowed his hair and put him in a suit. Geesh, come to think of it, he probably had a total of five pages of dialogue his entire run, wasn't he mute for weeks? I see Eric Dearborn (Gabriel, in case you forgot) all the time in the Kohl's circulars. His aunt is Sue Simmons, a local celebrity here in NY, an NBC anchorwoman for years. She gained notoriety a few months ago for dropping an f-bomb live on a commercial bumper:

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[DRW50]

I can't stop watching that clip. So many people use that word now but it doesn't work unless you have that anger and emphasis. She sure has it. Get her an acting job!

Was Gabriel involved with Rosa briefly?