All My Children Tribute Thread

[SFK]

Indeed! Good point. VW was in fact critical of Erica's lack of evolution (her Rachel sharing Agnes Nixon's prototype) going so far as to call such people who don't evolve "psychotic" IIRC.

[Khan]

Ironically, I think Erica was evolving. This was especially true after she had given birth to Bianca and reunited with Eric. That's why I don't necessarily buy Agnes Nixon's explanation that Erica never could be happy (I'm paraphrasing, of course), because she was on the road toward that and in fact, Nixon herself was heavily involved in the stories that put her there!

Moreover, I'm with Victoria Wyndham when it comes to characters not evolving. Not only is it a sign of psychosis, but (more importantly) it's very limiting to play and very tiresome to watch.

Edited December 4, 2011 by Khan

[DRW50]

They seemed to mature Erica again and again and undo it again and again for dramatic purposes. I sometimes wonder if they would have been better off giving the character some long breaks, so they wouldn't have to regress.

[Khan]

Why did they have to regress? Regression, IMO, is never a good thing, especially on soaps.

Many will disagree, of course, but I think AMC would have been better off "listening" to their characters, allowing Erica to evolve (and yes, mature), and slowly positioning Bianca to become the new (and perhaps lesbian) Erica. (Imagine Mona's reactions to Erica's constant struggles with a daughter who gave her as much hell as she (Erica) had given Mona.)

[ellabelle]

I think Erica did evolve in a lot of ways, especially after she had Bianca. I know the whole rape storyline with Kendall and Richard Fields was controversial, but I personally liked it, and I thought it explained a lot of Erica's issues. It wasn't just that she felt abandoned by her father, it's that she was abandoned by him, and then he left her alone with a pedophile who raped her and impregnated her on her 14th birthday. That could screw up even the most well-adjusted of people. Because yes, if it was "just" that she felt abandoned by her father, then I can see how she could be seem as perpetually immature, but she'd suffered far more than that.

Rewatching the scenes right after Kendall (SMG) tells Erica she's her daughter, when Erica goes to see her at the Pine Cone, you can see just how much Erica has grown up: she tries to keep the ugly truth from Kendall to avoid hurting her, and she tells Kendall that she'd like to try to be a mother to her. The Erica of the 1970s and 1980s absolutely would not have done that. Erica circa 1993 and early 1994 bent over backward to try to be a mother to Kendall.

Then once Kendall came back to PV, you had the growth of their relationship and Erica finally being able to love her daughter for who she was, to forgive and forget all of the bad things Kendall had done. By the show's end, they had a close and loving mother-daughter relationship, and Erica went to extremes to protect Kendall and her sons.

Plus there's the whole evolution of how Erica views Bianca. She went from wanting her daughter to be a miniature Erica to struggling to cope with her daughter's sexuality to eventually accepting it and loving Bianca for who she is. In the scene where Caleb comes to Pine Valley for the first time, he asks Erica who Bianca is, and she smiles brightly and says proudly, "My married lesbian daughter," to shock him, but she's clearly proud of Bianca. She was even supportive of Bianca being with Marissa, despite her intense dislike of Krystal.

Erica has absolutely matured over the course of the show, but she did so in a way that stayed true to who the character was. Erica has always been self-centered and selfish, she's always chewed through men like they're kleenex and viewed life through her own skewed moral compass, but we saw her grow as a mother, and eventually embrace being a grandmother, even if she doesn't use the word "Grandmother."

No, she never managed to have a long-lasting really good romantic relationship with a man, but as she told Jeff Martin back in 2006, she got used to living alone, and maybe she's not meant to be married. It takes a lot of self-awareness and maturity to figure that out! I think her telling Jack in the last episode that she didn't want to marry him just to make him feel better was a HUGE sign of her emotional growth. Back in 2003 when Jack wanted her and Chris was out of the picture, Erica didn't want to marry him... until he was shot and Mary shared the news that Greenlee was his daughter. Then she couldn't wait to run down the aisle for all the wrong reasons. But by the end, she'd figured out that there were problems in the relationship, and she wasn't willing to marry him "just because."

[DRW50]

I think she did grow, but sometimes they seemed to tell stories just to regress her, like the baby snatching story. I thought it was a pretty good story, but I also feel like if you have to basically tell viewers that the point is for Erica to learn a lesson and grow up and so on, then what was the point of the years of character growth.

[Khan]

Oh, I don't buy the show's b.s. about that kidnapping. Erica's evolution as a woman was the furthest thing from their minds when they developed that story. To this day, I believe that story was like GL's "Clone Reva" saga: the result of some network bottom-feeder trying to one-up NBC's shows in flashy, trashy, headline-grabbing plots. Unfortunately, Erica got creamed where Reva and DAYS' Marlena didn't.

Edited December 4, 2011 by Khan

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM6doty2HAc

[DRW50]

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

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

[DRW50]

Watching this stuff again, I still can't stand anything involving Noah, Julia, Taylips, or most of the Santos family, really. I'm not sure if it's just old opinions not going away or if it's still how I feel. Surprisingly enough I am most drawn to Anita - I did not care for her at the time. I think my deep loathing of Bobby got in the way. She and Shane McDerrmott's Scott have a sweet chemistry, as he does with Laura. So of course he gets fired

I'd totally forgotten Laura had feelings for Mateo.

Edited December 5, 2011 by CarlD2

[ellabelle]

I disliked the whole Santos clan. Julia was tolerable as a nurse, but I never cared about her and Noah. Maria was so freaking self-righteous all the time. I'm still bitter that Edmund didn't marry Brooke.

[DRW50]

August 1977 TV by Day

[SFK]

Carl, where do get all this great stuff?

Look at those eyes, so beautiful. She really favors Elaine Princi in some of these pics.

Eleven hours of sleep?? If only...

Edited December 6, 2011 by SFK

[DRW50]

It just gets backed up and I throw it around at random times, probably long past when someone would care. Fortunately I know there are always a few devoted Robin fans here...

She does look gorgeous (aside from the one with the oven mitts which for some reason looks like what they do for people who are burned).

The cocoa butter story was...informative. I love the end of that - "Is that enough beauty tips for you?" Kind of like a polite "get out." I love that edge - I guess it was starting to show in interviews around this point.

[Paul Raven]

In later years,it seems Robin's beauty tips could be narrowed down to one sage piece of advice 'get some good work done'