7 hours ago, Jdee43 said:

It's too bad that there weren't better writers for Geary's final years with the show, writers that could have done justice and given a proper closure to Luke and the pairing of Luke and Laura.

They wanted to do that. Tony explicitly rejected it (and apparently loved the whole killing his parents thing). There were many problems with the writing in 2012-2015, but their first order of business was reuniting LNL and it was one of the first plans Tony killed (along with addressing Luke's alcoholism, which he subverted as they begin dealing with it by ad-libbing taking drinks at the Q mansion onscreen instead).

In Memory of Anthony Geary AM Chicago 1983 returns to Tony's hometown

On 12/18/2025 at 10:54 AM, Vee said:

They wanted to do that. Tony explicitly rejected it (and apparently loved the whole killing his parents thing). There were many problems with the writing in 2012-2015, but their first order of business was reuniting LNL and it was one of the first plans Tony killed (along with addressing Luke's alcoholism, which he subverted as they begin dealing with it by ad-libbing taking drinks at the Q mansion onscreen instead).

Luke as an alcoholic was one of the Guza era ideas he hated IIRC. And the whole Frank Smith revisit was stupid and he said so on his way out the door. He said Frank was old in 1979! How the hell was he still hanging on? A Carlivati special- resurrect the dead and then kill them off again quickly. Geary did like the flashback idea with their parents, but he didn’t care for the DID stuff either if I remember correctly. It was supposed to be Bill.

33 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

Luke as an alcoholic was one of the Guza era ideas he hated IIRC.

Maybe in principle, but my problem is that Tony's way of dealing it (both before and after Guza left, and during the intervention story no less) was to loudly and repeatedly proclaim in interviews that Luke was not an alcoholic and had full control of his drinking, even after the character had been drinking to abusive excess for years and had just drunkenly mowed down his own grandson. That's just ridiculous. Luke was unavoidably an alcoholic by that point onscreen, and FV/RC had planned to directly address it per his illness. Tony's response was to ad-lib Luke continuing to drink, betting that Valentini would bend the knee and not stop him. He was right and the storyline was changed (along with any LNL plans) to say oh no, Luke isn't dealing with the consequences of his alcoholism, he's just got radiation poisoning from the bad guys.

I could get behind the family reveal, but not as part and parcel of Fluke which was unbelievably bad. I also thought Tony's performance as Evil Tim Spencer, the ghost jabbering away at Luke, was honestly hilarious. The Soup perfectly captured him in their impression of him, right down to the hysterical dialogue. "You're oooollddd Luke! Come join Daddy in hell!"

I will say that Joey Luthman was excellent as young Luke, and that I thought Tony was absolutely right about the terrible Frank Smith revisit. That whole 'final adventure' was cheap and bad. I do wish Luthman had gotten a contract role as Cameron or something, the same way Chloe Lanier got Nelle (which was squandered).

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Vee

33 minutes ago, Vee said:

I also thought Tony's performance as Evil Tim Spencer, the ghost jabbering away at Luke, was honestly hilarious. The Soup perfectly captured him in their impression of him, right down to the hysterical dialogue. "You're oooollddd Luke! Come join Daddy in hell!"

I will say that Joey Luthman was excellent as young Luke, and that I thought Tony was absolutely right about the terrible Frank Smith revisit. That whole 'final adventure' was cheap and bad. I do wish Luthman had gotten a contract role as Cameron or something

That hallucination absolutely was laughably bad. Some of the worst acting he ever did on the show.

I also thought Luthman was incredible and they should have snapped him up.

3 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

I also thought Luthman was incredible and they should have snapped him up.

To their credit, other veteran cast were also quite good. Laura Wright was excellent as Luke's mother in a very different role, and I thought Jason Thompson did an amazing job essaying John Beradino as Steve. He had Beradino's voice down and was clearly taking that responsibility very seriously. Ryan Carnes was pretty decent as the sulking Phil Brewer. (Becky was solid as Jessie but I didn't get too much of the same embodiment from her)

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Vee

50 minutes ago, Vee said:

Maybe in principle, but my problem is that Tony's way of dealing it (both before and after Guza left, and during the intervention story no less) was to loudly and repeatedly proclaim in interviews that Luke was not an alcoholic and had full control of his drinking, even after the character had been drinking to abusive excess for years and had just drunkenly mowed down his own grandson. That's just ridiculous. Luke was unavoidably an alcoholic by that point onscreen, and FV/RC had planned to directly address it per his illness. Tony's response was to ad-lib Luke continuing to drink, betting that Valentini would bend the knee and not stop him. He was right and the storyline was changed (along with any LNL plans) to say oh no, Luke isn't dealing with the consequences of his alcoholism, he's just got radiation poisoning from the bad guys.

Not that it's the same situation, but since Tony and Rob Reiner passed only a day or two apart, his thoughts on Luke's sobriety reminded me of Nick Reiner's complaint that the character in the film based on himself went completely sober, because in so many words you can't really ever go sober, and so on and so forth.

A solution to the Luke mess might have been to reveal that the real Luke was killed back in 1995 in Puerto Rico fighting Frank Smith, and that it was Bill impersonating him the whole time. It would explain Luke and Laura falling apart, Luke having a son with Holly (it was really Holly and Bill's), and Luke turning into such a bastard at the end.

Edited 5 minutes ago5 min by Jdee43