Hmm.... Hard to say.  A rich corporate raider doesn't scream Labine, but he was intended for Lois/Rena, so I think the entire characters trajectory changed.  I think the Brenda/Jax stuff was Guza but it was more of a happy accident than anything and Guza was into for awhile, but his complete lack of interest in Jax over the years makes me think he only cared about Brenda/Jax and not the Jax character himself.

I think Jason's accident was Labine.  But, yikes, it was a lot of tragedy in a matter of months.  Stone died like a month earlier?   Could be Guza?  Idk, I think I heard before that Clink Boom was actually in Labine's outlines for Lily/Sonny and Guza just ran with it.  Not sure.

3 hours ago, carolineg said:

but his complete lack of interest in Jax over the years makes me think he only cared about Brenda/Jax and not the Jax character himself.

Or Carly/Jax.

1 minute ago, amybrickwallace said:

Or Carly/Jax.

Did he care about Carly/Jax?  The actors sparkle together, but is it really anything more than a Brenda/Jax/Sonny redux when you couldn't afford Vanessa Marcil?  I like CarJax, but it's really just a redundant pairing trying to re create Guza's best hits.

I think CarJax was mainly about Carly having this brand new post Sonny life with a new man more than anything else. The fact that it was Jax who had a prior history with Sonny was an added bonus that they could mine but if LW had not sparkled with IR and had instead sparked with someone else ( Lorenzo and Nikolas were also potenital love interests or Carly could have been the main spoiler for Patrick/Robin) then Jax would have been left right out in the cold and probably written out years earlier than he eventually was (in 2011).

8 hours ago, carolineg said:

Did he care about Carly/Jax?  The actors sparkle together, but is it really anything more than a Brenda/Jax/Sonny redux when you couldn't afford Vanessa Marcil?  I like CarJax, but it's really just a redundant pairing trying to re create Guza's best hits.

It just shows me that no matter who the writers are, Jax is only important in his romantic pairings and not as a character on his own.

1 hour ago, amybrickwallace said:

It just shows me that no matter who the writers are, Jax is only important in his romantic pairings and not as a character on his own.

And Jax generally plays second fiddle in his own romantic pairings too.   None of his romantic relationships gave him the main point of view.  The only time I thought the writing was with Jax was in 1998 when MB was gone and they re-paired Jax/Brenda.  That's the one time the writing seem to be on his side and gave him a solid point of view. He mostly sat back and waited for the girl to cheat on him with Sonny.  Jax has been a character with wasted potential for years, but Ingo is lucky he made a 25 year career out of being the third wheel in a Sonny triangle.

3 minutes ago, carolineg said:

And Jax generally plays second fiddle in his own romantic pairings too.   None of his romantic relationships gave him the main point of view.  The only time I thought the writing was with Jax was in 1998 when MB was gone and they re-paired Jax/Brenda.  That's the one time the writing seem to be on his side and gave him a solid point of view. He mostly sat back and waited for the girl to cheat on him with Sonny.  Jax has been a character with wasted potential for years, but Ingo is lucky he made a 25 year career out of being the third wheel in a Sonny triangle.

Exactly. The only other time I remember him getting his own story was the dreaded "dead man's hand" that led to the introduction of Sam in 2003.

2 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

Exactly. The only other time I remember him getting his own story was the dreaded "dead man's hand" that led to the introduction of Sam in 2003.

That and the mixed married stuff is the only non Brenda/Carly stories I can think of.  His only non-Sonny related pairings are Skye and Chloe.  It's weird they never re-paired Skye/Jax after VM left.  I appreciate he is one of the few characters to be able to call Sonny/Jason out on the regular, but Jax needs to re-evaluate his life and maybe go find Skye or Miranda and hook back up with them.

21 minutes ago, carolineg said:

That and the mixed married stuff is the only non Brenda/Carly stories I can think of.  His only non-Sonny related pairings are Skye and Chloe.  It's weird they never re-paired Skye/Jax after VM left.  I appreciate he is one of the few characters to be able to call Sonny/Jason out on the regular, but Jax needs to re-evaluate his life and maybe go find Skye or Miranda and hook back up with them.

I never quite understood the mixed married thing, except it had something to do with money Chloe may or may not get from her aunt (Donna Pescow). I do recall fans referring to Jax and Chloe as "Ken and Barbie" back in the day. 😂

6 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

I never quite understood the mixed married thing, except it had something to do with money Chloe may or may not get from her aunt (Donna Pescow). I do recall fans referring to Jax and Chloe as "Ken and Barbie" back in the day. 😂

It's stupid, but Chloe got her company's money left to her by her uncle but she had to get married within a certain time frame to keep the money.  Since Chloe was falling for Jax she decided to marry Ned instead to not put pressure on a still grieving Jax.  I am pretty sure Ned/Chloe are low key related and I am not sure why he agreed to this since he was with Alexis at the time.  Anyhow, something happens when Ned/Chloe try to get married (I think the aunt shows up?) and Jax/Alexis get married instead and then Ned/Chloe later get married.   Chloe gets run down by a car that Helena was driving and gets a tumor or blindness or something and Jax/Ingo leave her for a cameoing Vanessa Marcil/Brenda.  And then Chloe gets strangled by Stavros.

Listen, the story was dumb af, but it gave us our first glimpse of Jax/Alexis which was a favorite non-pairing/friendship of mine and I totally think the show should have gone there with them.  I also enjoyed Ned/Jax.  They were a cute foursome, but Jax/Chloe did look like Ken and Barbie.  

I think it was a little too much too soon for Jax/Sonny as we got Chloe/Hannah at almost the same time and they didn't go over well with an audience still missing Brenda, but it is quite possibly the only the story Jax had that had nothing to do with Sonny.

I've said it before, but I always liked Chloe despite everyone (myself included) wanting Jax and Alexis at that time. Tava Smiley had a lot of grace and warmth. I even liked the abortive Stefan pairing. Chloe deserved better.

I thought the mixed marrieds story was a reasonable success at the time. People were talking. The problem was they didn't follow through on the major value, which was Jax and Alexis, which Guza wanted and Riche didn't. So that was part of the era Guza was invested in Jax. By the time he returned I don't think he cared at all.

Wasn't Ingo against the Jaxis pairing as well?  Or am I just projecting Ingo being difficult even in the 90's?

I have always thought Jax/Alexis were great together and it's a shame it will never happen.

I liked Chloe much better than Hannah.  I liked her with Stefan too and Jax really did her dirty so I always felt bad.  Leaving her for the ghost of Brenda was mean.  Jax wasn't wrong, but he doesn't learn that til a few years later.  I wouldn't have killed Chloe off.  She was a likable, basically normal heroine and Tava Smiley was a charming performer.

On another note, I am not sure if it was unspoiled or I was just unspoiled, but I flipped my [!@#$%^&*] when Vanessa appeared to say those couple of lines to escort Ingo off the canvas.  I was not expecting that at all even though the anvils were there.  I just figured Jax was gonna chase after Eva Longoria's fake Brenda off screen.  I'll give Guza/Riche credit, that was pretty good.

18 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Wasn't Ingo against the Jaxis pairing as well?  Or am I just projecting Ingo being difficult even in the 90's?

That was a big rumor, yes. After recent years  I don't have a problem believing it.

I never heard that but lately it wouldn't surprise me.

19 minutes ago, carolineg said:

On another note, I am not sure if it was unspoiled or I was just unspoiled, but I flipped my [!@#$%^&*] when Vanessa appeared to say those couple of lines to escort Ingo off the canvas.  I was not expecting that at all even though the anvils were there.  I just figured Jax was gonna chase after Eva Longoria's fake Brenda off screen.  I'll give Guza/Riche credit, that was pretty good.

I remember that well. I could swear "Mr. Alcazar" was even mentioned at the time but I may be way off.

57 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I am pretty sure Ned/Chloe are low key related and I am not sure why he agreed to this since he was with Alexis at the time.  

They were. Chloe Morgan was a distant relative on Lila's side of the family.

12 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

That was a big rumor, yes. After recent years  I don't have a problem believing it.

Same.