GH: Classic Thread

[carolineg]

I know there were a few, emphasis on few, scenes with Rick and Monica that were either flirty or hinted something might happen back then.  I have to think they intended to play that beat and Rick's entire story short when GF left.

I 100% think they were going with a Rick molested Laura story in the beginning

[Vee]

I assume Genie and then maybe the network vetoed it. That's just shameful.

[Khan]

Sorry, I misread the question.

That's all Chuck Pratt knows: sexual traumas in attics, and secrets involving high school girls being murdered.

I think so, too.  If you remove Theresa Carter from the story, it certainly looks that way.  But I knew we were in trouble almost immediately, when Lesley intimated how Rick was a serial cheater throughout their marriage.  (No, he wasn't.)

[Vee]

I think a story about some dark secret in suburbia at the Webber house was a good idea - Laura, Lesley and Rick's life together was not a bed of roses, as the plethora of '70s episodes now blessedly available to us on YT from '77 through '80-on makes abundantly clear. I also loved, loved, loved that there was still so much location history on the show in 2002 that the Jones girls were living in Laura's old house and she could still visit it and talk to them about it. That's the kind of thing soaps can do generationally that other shows just can't.

I don't think that secret had to involve molestation or Laura killing Rick's mistress. Nor do I think Rick was a saint, but he wasn't jumping into bed with every woman - mostly just Monica. (There was also the beat of Monica telling Lesley she was too maternal and frumpy and/or barren to satisfy Rick, a fear Lesley held onto for a long time before Monica said it to her face in those famous scenes, so it's possible he could stray.)

Edited February 22, 2022 by Vee

[Khan]

But wasn't the insinuation that Rick WAS jumping into bed with every woman and not just Monica?  Or did I misunderstand Lesley's statements?

Either way, I just don't believe that Rick was that much of a cad, or even that Lesley hated herself so much that she put up with it for as long as the 2002 retcon suggests.  The Webber household might not have been perfect, but suggesting decades later that there was something even more sinister lurking underneath all the drama that unfolded on-screen back in the late '70's...?  Nah, that's just not playing fair with the audience.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Khan

[Vee]

Yeah it was, and that is bullshit.

I think the Webber house was a place where they tried very hard to build a picture-perfect, happy life and largely succeeded on the balance, but still had a lot of stuff seething under the surface - not just the David Hamilton trauma which made Laura a town pariah for a time onscreen, or Rick's own past with Monica which eventually came roaring back, but also Lesley's dark past with those other men and maybe even Laura's commune days.

I think there are secrets you can still retcon in there, because retconning is often the nature of soap opera for better or worse. But I think a finer balance had to be struck with a family the audience knew so well and loved dearly, with three very popular characters in their heyday. Maybe something related to the Hamilton case, or Cameron Faulkner or Gordon Grey's family, that Rick helped cover up re: Laura, who was volatile back then.

[Khan]

I can't argue with you here.  I, myself, have always wanted GH to explore Laura's commune days further.  (Although the revelation of another, long-lost child is probably out of the question.)

And I can't really argue with you here either.  But, again, I don't believe you can contradict what the audience saw for themselves, or suggest/imply that what was happening in your retcon happened simultaneously with what happened on-screen.  The latter was my particular issue with the Theresa Carter/Secret in the Attic storyline: those events (leading up to and including the murder) supposedly happened alongside the David Hamilton storyline (or maybe immediately after, I can't remember which at the moment).  To me, that flies in the face of my firm belief that audiences are essentially like flies on the wall, observing every moment in characters' lives.  You tell them once about something that they logically should have seen and didn't, and pretty soon, they'll start to wonder what ELSE has their show been withholding from them -- and once that level of trust is gone....

[titan1978]

Wasn’t there a scene when Laura is in the attic with Robin and Lucky early in their return to the show under Labine that she got the chills looking around?  I wonder what was going to come of that, and I was surprised when it came back up and was revealed to be this mess.

[Vee]

I doubt it was the same thing. I vaguely recall a scene like that, but I think it was the shock of recognition after being gone so many years.

I think the mistake (aside for, in GH's case, the secret itself) is in doing at a point when they were so frontburner. If you can fix on a point in the characters' onscreen lives where they were not, say, in frontburner A-story, then retconning new stuff into a past era is not a big deal IMO. This was not the case for the Webbers at that time. Same goes for, say, Viki and Jessica and the disgusting molestation retcon Higley wrote for Jess on OLTL - Viki, Clint and their family were frontburner almost nonstop during Jessica's childhood years in question. Even if the retcon were somehow acceptable, which it wasn't, it would not be possible.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Vee

[titan1978]

One of the reasons the Cassadine return story worked with Nikolas for me was just that- it was a window with plausible deniability in what the audience would know.  And in watching those scenes recently, they match up pretty well with the story they told.  Laura did act like she was maybe not going to say anything to Luke.  She seemed more mature and sad, which was expected with what she had been through.  But Nikolas also easily fits there emotionally and story wise.  And as Genie used to say- Laura does have a off switch when things get too hard to handle.

This story with Rick was just ill fitting all around.  I almost wish that if it had been molestation memories resurfacing she was mistaken, and ultimately discovers the memories are not about Rick and the Webber home but something that happened when she was with the Vining family.

Edited February 24, 2022 by titan1978

[Vee]

The Cassadine retcon was meticulously designed and executed. I went back not long ago and rewatched the scenes where Laura lays out in detail for Luke how she almost told him but learned of Lesley's 'death,' where and when they were when she found out, etc. and it's clear someone had mapped the timeline out - it's brilliant.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Vee

[j swift]

Time-wise wasn't Laura dating Scotty and then they married within a year or so of Rick marrying Leslie?  To me that's the part of the retcon didn't hold water.

Although, it also never made sense to me why Rick adopted Laura in the first place and made her a Webber, when she was almost 18.  Did Laura really need to be adopted a second time in her young life?

[Vee]

I think the show really wanted to cement the ready-made Webber family in those years. I did find it odd how quickly she took to Rick being her father, but Laura was very young and had already had a very tumultuous life.

[Franko]

See also, Scott and Heather being Franco's parents, with the conception taking place circa 1980-81. It's. Just. Not. Possible.

[Vee]

No? Why not? I'm not challenging it, I'm genuinely curious; I was under the impression they were schemers and fuckbuddies somewhere in that span. Heather got out in late '80, right?

Edited February 24, 2022 by Vee