I'm in late August 1992 and Bev is at her tail end. I'm trying to decide if I want to skip forward a month or so to get past this period where a lot of the table is being set but knowing mostly what's coming it's a bit of a slog to view.
I'm a bit curious how this Eleni/Frank/AM story was received at the time but I find how they decided to frame it both fairly unpleasant to watch while also boring at the same time somehow. I feel like the more interesting choice would've been to go ahead and have AM choose Eleni over Spaulding like he was going to pre-Nick reveal to give some actual stakes to the Musette reappearance/reveal where maybe there was a chance for the marriage but for this initial deceit. I feel like the desire to keep Frank/Eleni "good" versus AM being clearly "bad" as far as toeing the adultery/affair line wins out over interesting story. (In fairness I think knowing what happens later makes this story annoying to watch because Frank takes about 30 seconds of supposed neglect before he starts trusting Julie over Eleni, but I do't understand having this story not really be a triangle for a pretty long period. They are also spending a lot of time on Fletcher/Vanessa/Billy (the show is still trying to convince us Vanessa actually wants to be with Fletcher over Billy-this is just before Nadine's "pregnancy") and Julie/Dylan Innocent Young Love that is not exactly thrilling viewing.
I just had to watch Vanessa grovel to Fletcher about how she really wants to be with him and definitely knows she doesn't want to marry Billy again (haha).
Also had another Zas appreciation moment: They had that bad Roger backup player in for an episode that had plotting with both Jenna and AM and wow those expository scheming scenes are boring when an actor can't convey well that they're not saying what they really mean. What's great about Zas is the audience knows when he's conning someone but he's so charming that you don't think anyone who believes him is a moron. (here's usually also JUST enough truth/insight into the other character mixed in with Roger that you can see how he's so convincing, but you can have the same lines with a different actor and it just falls flat.
Before I discovered the vault I had decided to start my revisit/gap filling in fall 1993 and went through 1997 before going back to July 1990, so I know there's some stuff coming up I want to watch where the ground is being set: The Lillian/Ed affair/fallout(I'm post blackout kiss with Ed just letting this build for an amazingly long period), Crazy Eve, finally figuring out Gilly's bad history with Roger (not asking-I'm still watching), Bridget in the attic, etc. I'm interested in Buzz's original arrival and was actually fairly surprised how close together Buzz/Lucy showed up because there was already surprisingly little tension with Buzz by the time I picked up in fall 1993. Nadine is objectively terrible throughout my 1990-1992 viewing, but how Frank and Harley throw her briefer period of leaving in her face constantly versus how it seems like water under the bridge pretty fast for Buzz making them think he was dead for most of their lives is something else.
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GL95 ·
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