I think juniorz1 may have meant a stunt in terms of again hiring the actress who had replaced ED the first time.

Yep. "Honoring history" and such.

Honestly I don't think Ashley was ever popular as a character based on her romances, aside from Victor. I just think she was someone who was understood by Bill Bell and hasn't been understood by anyone since.

Right on the mark. I started watching Y&R right as Abbotts came on board. I always viewed Ashley as an intelligent, sensitive, but strong woman with a good moral compass. Mistake #1 was the abortion fall-out (not the act itself), but making her go crazy. (That was so wrong.) Mistake #2 Sperm Pig - Diane, yes. Ashley NEVER. Mistake #3 continual theme of Ashley going crazy (like carrying the blanket and thinking it was her baby. Really?) and now everyone is worried she'll go crazy again because of Tucker. It's really insulting and I guess that's why I feel the show won't lose much because the Ashley character has been maligned even more than Sharon.

The only reason I bring up the DAYS/Y&R deal is that I hope that ED is treated by enough respect by Sony for all the years she has given to both shows.

I wasn't watching a lot of Y&R during that time but I thought having her go nuts and losing another baby again after the cancer was just so miserable and a bad choice.

I think in a lot of ways the reason I always seemed to prefer BE's Ashley is that she had little of the material which seemed to put Ashley in such a dark place.

Neither Diane or Ashley would have ever taken Grambo's sperm.

Ashley going crazy was never the problem. The problem was Y&R using it as a crutch.

Ashley had a ton of things happen to her during Brenda's run that should have caused another breakdown for Ashley but didn't since Y&R was writing the character to suit her.

If Ashley stayed on the show what would you do with her?

She would dump Tucker & focus on working with Jack to make Jabot a real family company again by pushing the rest of the Abbotts into the family business) to honor John's legacy.

She would dump Tucker & focus on working with Jack to make Jabot a real family company again by pushing the rest of the Abbotts into the family business) to honor John's legacy.

That sounds great. Maybe it can happen someday, with regime change.

She would dump Tucker & focus on working with Jack to make Jabot a real family company again by pushing the rest of the Abbotts into the family business) to honor John's legacy.

That is exactly what I have been hoping and waiting for the writers to follow up on since ED returned. When Brad gave Ashley controlling shares -- the writers failed to follow up on this. When Tucker gave Ashley leeway to run Jabot and when she was running things for him when he came out of a coma -- same again. Ashley and ED are tailor-made for this strong, woman-running-a-business role. Ashley is a chemist with tons of business experience and acumen; physically, she looks like those powerful, Amazonian supermodels of the 1980s.

As you say, the Ash-is-crazy routine was always a crutch to fall back on stemming from Bill Bell's original story. Ashley went nuts for a while after aborting Victor's baby when he went back to Nikki. She was a young girl and Victor had been her first, truly serious love affair. Whatever my personal issues with the story (Ashley "being punished" for having an abortion), a young ED rocked that whole story and those scenes were her calling card to jobs on Santa Barbara and Days thereafter. However, just as Bill Bell devoted time to showing Ash's mental breakdown, so he also devoted time to her recuperation and growth as a woman in equal detail. It was Jack Smith who fell back on the Baby Blanket nonsense.

FTR, I don't see Ashley going nuts just because Tucker cheated on her again. Jack and Billy's attitude to her supposed mental fragility was condescending and grating to say the least. If she could come to terms with Faith being taken away from her, Ashley can definitely deal with her trifling husband.

Ashley going crazy should have ended after Victor dumped her in the aftermath of Blanket Robert.

It was fine that she went crazy then because it was in character but she had grown so much as a character before that that it was ridiculously regressive for her to do so again.

And Ashley her going crazy about Tucker wouldn't make sense anyway because (other than Victor) she never lost her mind about any of her other relationships (a couple of which she loved much more than Tucker).

Edited May 21, 201213 yr by DeeeDee

Whatever my personal issues with the story (Ashley "being punished" for having an abortion)

I never felt she was punished though. I would have felt if she decided to have the abortion for the reasons most women do and she had the breakdown then it would seem more like a punishment. It made sense that she would breakdown for two reasons. First, when Victor found out about the abortion he ripped into her big time, and second, Ashley wanted the baby but chose to abort the pregnancy for all the wrong reasons. She was overjoyed to be pregnant but didn't want to come between Victor and a dying Nikki and their family and also didn't want the baby to grow up not knowing his/her parentage as she did, so she rejected Matt's proposal, she felt it was the best decision, but not one she really wanted to make.

The breakdown was gradual and Victor tearing her apart in the rain after she had had the abortion was really a big catalyst to her breakdown. I have to say the scenes shot on location at the ranch a few months later between Ashley and Victor are some of my favourite of the entire series. Just so beautifully written, acted and shot. This is why I loved Eileen in the role, the intensity of emotion and the grey area of her character made such a complex and interesting woman when Bell was writing her and Eileen was playing her.

Edited May 21, 201213 yr by will81

She would dump Tucker & focus on working with Jack to make Jabot a real family company again by pushing the rest of the Abbotts into the family business) to honor John's legacy.

And if that doesn't work? Patty can come back with her face & stash Ashley in the basement.