GH: Classic Thread

[carolineg]

I really can't find much on Guza from 2003 in the soap press.  Not about personal issues, but just quotes in general.  That could possibly line up if he did take a leave then.  I thought I remembered him talking about the Deadman's hand saga with Sam, but I can't even find that. It's also 22 years ago though and if I was Guza I would have scrubbed that entire story from the internet as well.

[Contessa Donatella]

Ya know that is really a hard thing to accomplish!! 

[AdelaideCate007]

I felt like Laura also suffered from ending up so isolated and tied to Luke. I know some of that was because of Genie coming and going, but it always felt like Luke was everywhere and had stories with everyone. Meanwhile, Laura was just always in stories with Luke or sitting in that house with baby Lulu. That's why I always loved the Nikolas and Stefan story and when Justus let her take the fall for killing Damian. It got her out of that house and a story of her own.

I also wish they'd given Laura some real female friends. I know there was always Tiffany and then she had Mary Mae for a while, but once they were gone, they barely tried outside of her relationship with Bobbie. I know she was never going to be close with the Lucy, Brenda, Felicia, and Lois types, but I always felt like they could have tried harder with somebody like Monica or even Alexis. The Carly and Laura thing at Deception is a blur to me, as is the Mac and Laura flirtation. I remember a lot of Mac and Laura scenes around the time of the Felicia and Luke thing.

Edited March 20 by AdelaideCate007

[titan1978]

I think that isolation was sometimes due to her first in schedule when she had her first child. There is a real change in 1995 with how Laura is used. She was much more part of the action with Luke before that, or fighting the Q’s over the incinerator in their neighborhood. She was pretty central up to 1995. The first year of Guza really reinvigorated her and she was in scenes with more people because her stories were the umbrella stories. After Lucky died in the fire it felt like she was either grieving at her house or on Spoon Island, and nowhere else for like an entire year. Shades of Nikki at the ranch on Y&R.

I bought Laura being that devastated about Lucky, because she lost everything that had been her life for a long time that year. But the show didn’t do anything with it. She could have gone to therapy again, been allowed to actually work with those troubled teens she started to see and then never went back to her GH job. But Genie said they stopped writing for her and they kind of did.

I watch the show today and just bitch and moan about all these back to back paternity stories, and never once complained when Bobbie and Laura were both in them at the same time with Carly and Nikolas. Instead I was glued to the show. Good writing and strong performers can make you forget the sameness.

[Khan]

I'll say this much: I would've taken Luke/Alexis over Luke/Tracy any day.  And you all KNOW how I feel about Jane Elliot.

[titan1978]

I agree. Although moving Luke to the Quartermaine orbit probably saved the family from being fully wiped out. But Tracy begging for Luke to love her was sad viewing.

[Vee]

I do think that and Genie dragging her feet on coming back in '97 was a huge part of it. People today forget or weren't there to remember just how long that went on and it was openly discussed in the press.

[Khan]

I chalked that up to Tracy's incredibly low self-esteem and the fact that most of the men in her life had been nothing more than losers who were after her money.

[DRW50]

I agree it was in character for Tracy. 

What never worked for me was Geary going to the press claiming that Luke loved Tracy. I don't believe he was ever capable of love, especially by that point. 

That's part of it, and I felt like Genie lost a great deal of her passion and focus when she had to return to the show in 1998, before she was comfortable returning. Her work has never really seemed the same to me.

[carolineg]

It really felt like forever and there wasn't a very clear answer on when Laura was coming back either.  And 1997 was kind of a mess overall so Laura's absence didn't help.

I agree with this assessment but was Luke any different?  And she was always going to be second fiddle to Luke/Laura even if the show paints it a bit more even.

[Khan]

Not really, but I think Tracy fooled herself into thinking he was.  Hence that "We don't have to pretend with each other" speech she gave to Laura on one occasion.  (Me: "I don't think Lord Larry or Mitch Williams ever pretended with you, Cookie!")

As I've said in the past, Tracy's life would've been so different had Edward just told her once that she was pretty, lol.

Edited March 20 by Khan

[titan1978]

I think he did that plenty. And what she wanted was for him to respect her ruthlessness and business mind, just like Daddy.

[Vee]

And tellingly, this (timestamped below) is how that ended - still a favorite scene of mine, and wonderful that someone on staff realized this had to happen after Laura left the room.

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I think that's true for the remainder of Genie's second run, but I also think the BTS situation got worse and worse. And I don't think it was any one's fault, nor do I suspect Genie was exempt from blame. I think a lot of constraints may have been put on story for her, but I also think the show didn't handle it or treat her well. But it was so long ago now.

I do think Luke loved Tracy in his way, at that time, as much as he could love anyone who wasn't Laura or his children. I enjoyed Luke and Tracy together early on, I understood the logic of pairing him with the anti-Laura. But the repetitive stories where Luke fúcks Tracy over or disrespects her or smears Laura in comparison ground me down. Luke could never respect Tracy as much as he claimed to, or as much as she convinced herself he did. And any time she realized that and threw him out she'd then take him back again and the cycle would repeat. Tracy was something that made Luke feel he didn't have to change, but change sometimes is essential.

[DRW50]

Most of Tracy's backstory has its logic with David Lewis' Edward as even when he was "loving," he seemed distant. In contrast, John Ingle was outwardly ruder but more of a cuddly figure, so it doesn't register as much for why Tracy became who she was.

[titan1978]

David Lewis was more fun to watch. His Edward was bitchy, nasty, a rascal, charming, and also much darker in his coldness with his children. I grew to love Ingle, but original recipe Edward was the father of a Tracy that would withhold his medication.