We have discussed this before but I don't think we have any new answers lol. I remember the Bobbie rumor but I just don't know more than that. I do think Pratt had tried to put over a ripoff of his own Melrose Place story (which I clocked the instant it began appearing onscreen) and I am glad Genie allegedly vetoed that. I think elements of the story were worthwhile - a suburban mystery digging back into the town and Laura's pre-LNL past - but it was a ropey sell in hindsight given how much she had already very visibly been through with David Hamilton onscreen in those golden years. There wasn't very much real estate to work with for a retcon (but still more than the terrible ones this team has tried to put over with Cody and Sasha in the last couple years).

I do wonder what the whole Rick/medical consortium subplot, with him repping for a group trying to take over GH, might have led to in the original iteration. What was really insane was 3-5 years later, they casually had Alan and Monica reveal in some C-plot scenes that Monica and Rick had actually briefly picked up their affair again in the summer of '02 entirely offscreen. I choose to ignore that ever happened.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Vee

27 minutes ago, Vee said:

What was really insane was 3-5 years later, they casually had Alan and Monica reveal in some C-plot scenes that Monica and Rick had actually briefly picked up their affair again in the summer of '02 entirely offscreen. I choose to ignore that ever happened.

That was deeply stupid and a waste of time. Now if the full rumored story had happened I could see a Monica/Rick interlude, leading to Alan being a credible suspect when he died. I think the ending was always going to be Rick dead, I just think they were setting it up to be more of a mystery. I could see even Lesley being roped into this mystery (but not as a major player). Scott, Laura, and Luke being set up as the main suspects. I could not bring myself to watch more than the first vid, but even then they were being very heavy handed with Scotty/Rick.

It did feel very Melrose Place Pratt. And I think the Bobbie stuff was maybe the second version of the story that also didn’t fully play out, that she was who Rick was sleeping with. But when they decided Laura (later Scotty) killed that nurse, they shifted away from Bobbie except as a red herring while Laura tried to piece it together. Although JFP was more than willing to destroy Bobbie as a character, I cannot imagine her knowing Laura was molested and keeping it to herself for decades.

In all the retcons, I know they decided Laura didn’t kill Rick. But she did still kill that nurse, correct? Or was that reconned away too?

@carolineg Brenda’s return really saved several jobs, JFP especially. Because they were able to use that as a reset and momentum to carry them out of a real rough patch that had lasted over a year, from the end of Riche to that dreadful first period with JFP. Then they established the big sweeps event storytelling that kept them going for several years.