All My Children Tribute Thread

[ellabelle]

Erica definitely tried with Kendall. Right after she found out Kendall was her daughter, she went into protective mother mode. She did her best to avoid telling Kendall that she was the product of rape, she told Kendall she wanted to get to know her, that she would like to try to be a mother to her. Erica was the one who insisted on telling Bill and Alice Hart who she really was, and Erica had Kendall listed as her daughter in her and Dimitri's wedding announcement.

She wasn't really estranged from Mona, but she was seriously pissed off that 1) Mona held Kendall as a baby and never mentioned that to her, 2) Mona suspected Kendall was really Erica's daughter but never told her, 3) Mona told Nick Davis about the rape and asked Nick to look into Kendall's background. Nick in turn then hired Charlie and Haley who were told the truth, and Nick then got busted snooping around Kendall's room. Erica felt that Mona should have come right to her in the beginning when she suspected who Kendall was, and that Mona had no right to share such personal information with Nick, Charlie and Haley. Plus by that point Erica knew that she'd inadvertently said a lot of things that were hurtful to Kendall, without realizing who Kendall was, and that if Mona had just come to her in the first place, she could have avoided hurting her daughter.

[DRW50]

Thanks. It all sounds so sad - the relationship being damaged, even though Erica did try. I never knew she tried as much as she did. That adds more layers. I wish they'd kept them in a somewhat damaged but somewhat loving relationship, instead of having Kendall become Erica's enemy.

[ellabelle]

http://youtu.be/UMJWskbhNWg

This is the first of five clips in which Kendall gets pissed off at Erica and spits the truth out in her face. Erica responds by not believing her and thinking that she's a crazy stalker. By the time Erica is able to admit the truth, Kendall has moved out of Myrtle's and disappeared. Charlie and Haley are brought in to find Kendall, and throws a hissy fit at Mona over Kendall, which Jack and Laurel overhear.

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This is the first of two clips in which Erica goes to see Kendall at the Pine Cone motel after Charlie and Haley track her down. Kendall talks about how thrilled she was to find out her mother was Erica Kane, but now she hates Erica. Kendall assumes Erica must have been a slutty teenager and wants to know how she got pregnant, why she didn't have an abortion, and who her father is. Erica tries to avoid the subject but finally gives Kendall a very short version of the truth and tries make her understand she was immature, naive, incapable of being a mother, and that it wasn't a personal rejection of Kendall as a human being.

IMHO, Kendall comes across as very much a teenager in these scenes, and not a 20-something who has some life experience (and the basic math skills to know that her birthmother was 14).

Edited January 1, 2012 by ellabelle

[DRW50]

Thank you for sharing all these clips. You're right - she does seem younger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyFectYuP2g

[DRW50]

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[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giZHcg2ZuiA

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[DRW50]

Erica's dress in that August clip is the same dress she had on when she and Brooke argued at Brooke's place in 1991. Never let it be said Erica always wore a different dress.

I wonder if Mona had this cancer story around the same time Frances had cancer.

[DRW50]

The scenes in the August 94 episode with Bianca and Erica are so beautiful and so tender.

What was going on with Adam and Stuart at this time? Ugh I hate that Charlie being in the middle of it, dressed like Wonder Bread.

Why did Larkin Malloy not return at this time?

[ellabelle]

IIRC, he was in Rome shooting something and couldn't be there, so they used another actor. I think Larkin did come back as Travis during Bianca's anorexia storyline.

[Angela]

There was a period where Kendall was living with Erica and Bianca. Erica tried, they all tried for a bit. But between Bianca's rebellion, Kendall's ability to overhear conversations that were negative through her snoopy nature and then her general impulsiveness in reactions, and Erica haven't not really dealth with the rape it was always set to get ugly fast.

Kendall would be in listening range whenever Erica would say something to Dimitri like "everytime I look at her I can only see her father." It became almost joke worthy how often this scenario would happen. Erica wouldn't know this of course unless Kendall would confront her. There were also smaller perceived slips. This is why Kendall developed a sort of crash on Dimitri. He'd notice those things too and encourage Erica to try harder. He was initially very in tune with Kendall's feelings, more so than Erica was.

Me too, but I'm also fine with what they did although I was annoyed by the story during the last year with Gellar in the role. I think the extreme rift was becaue of the relationship between Lucci and Gellar. That enabled the show to give the actresses far less scenes together.

[DRW50]

Yes, I remember him returning then, and for one day when it was confirmed that Kit was Christine.

I wasn't sure if there was some other issue. I like Daniel Hugh Kelly but it's weird seeing him as Travis. I wish they'd cast him in a new role.

[DRW50]

I wonder if the show was ever toying with a Kendall/Dimitri relationship.

I think Dimitri being in the middle was more interesting than later on when various characters mostly just stand around telling Kendall to stay away.

In one of the 1992 clips that is up, Angelique is brunette. For some reason I thought she was a blonde.

[Angela]

A romantic relationship? No, not IMO. I don't think they ever thought lets really try to do that. They really did bring Kendall in as a mid-range teenager and SMG did look her age for the first half of that run.

Angelique was definitely a blond (at least at some point) unless my memory has gone bad with age - which it probably has.

[DRW50]

I was just wondering because in the shorter August 1992 clip, Dimitri is leaving the hospital holding the hand of a brunette woman in a wheelchair, and Erica looks on uneasily. Was that Angelique?

That clip also had a bit of the Carter Jones story I wish I could see.

[Angela]

That's definitely Angelique (looking without volume) but I have no memory of her as anything other than a blond for some reason. I think that's partially my age at the time (school and I didn't get my first VCR until 1993), the years that have gone by and the fact that I was probably not very interested in the character.

If I remember correctly Carter became a very, very scary mofo but he's another one of those characters I only remember so much of which is not much.

Sigh, I loved Brooke and Edmund together.