-1/2/52 thru 1/31/52. Bruce helps Meta not to put her repressed memories back into her subconscious. Meta tells Bruce that she’s married and Bruce says that the marriage is a mistake and if Meta decides to end it, he’ll be there. Kathy has met a boy, Dick, while visiting a friend in San Francisco and is interested enough in him to attend Stanford. Joe, tired of Kathy trying to push him and Peggy together, tells Kathy that he’s married to Meta. Kathy becomes hysterical and screams to Joe that she hates him. Before Bruce heads back to NYC, Meta tells him that though the jury found her not guilty, she will forever have the stain of having killed someone. Kathy and Peggy discover that the boy Kathy is interested in is Peggy’s cousin. Margaret and Dick’s mother, Laura, are estranged sisters. Dick comes to Los Angeles to be with Kathy. Joe brings Meta home and the children make her feel unwelcome.

-2/1/52 thru 2/29/52. Ray and Charlotte are moving to New York City and Bert wants to move into their house but Bill protests. A reporter finds out Joe and Meta are married and Ted’s murder is brought out in print again, causing Kathy and Joey to be even more fearful of Meta and to become pariahs in the community. It also causes Bert to question Meta’s sanity and if her unborn baby will inherit the same tendencies. Bruce shares his concern about Meta with Clyde and Trudy. Bruce thinks Meta could snap again with all the pressure she’s under in the Roberts home. Clyde, who dislikes Meta, says that both Bruce and Trudy should stay away from Meta and her problems. Meta fears she will never be free of the past. Ready to get away from home, Kathy goes to San Francisco to celebrate her 18th birthday and to see her best friend Louise and Dick Grant. Laura Grant, Dick’s mother, tries to get Dick to stop seeing Kathy.

-3/3/52 thru 3/31/52. Joe and Meta discuss Joey going away to a boy’s school. Meta thinks Joe is sending Joey away because of her and she proposes that she leave instead. Joe thinks Meta is looking for an excuse to leave to be with Bruce Banning. Charlotte stops by to say goodbye to Meta on the eve of her and Ray’s departure from Selby Flats and Meta lets it be known how desperate she feels. Meta freaks Joey out by hysterically begging him not to go away. Meta fears she is losing her sanity again. Joe slaps Kathy when she becomes more defiant and starts sneaking out. Meta fears Kathy is going to make the same mistakes she made as she is the same age Meta was when she left home and has the same defiant attitude. Bert worries that if Meta is mentally ill, her child could inherit it. She thinks Meta is becoming unbalanced again and could possibly kill Joe like she did Ted. Bill, per usual, thinks Bert is overreacting. Bill and Meta discuss their closeness, her desire to try to reach Kathy and Bill’s lingering feelings for Gloria. Bill reports that Gloria married Sid Harper. Meta tells him not to idealize Gloria as she is in danger of doing so with Bruce. Meta receives a letter from Bruce and Bert pries into the situation. Bert goes into labor with Mike and Meta is haunted by memories of Chuckie. The birth of Mike Bauer. Meta has a hard time sharing the joy as she grieves Chuckie.

-4/1/52 thru 4/30/52. Bert’s joy of her baby’s birth is quickly marred by jealousy when she finds out Bill is producing a TV show featuring Gloria. Meta, staying with Bert to help with the baby, isn’t sure she’s going back to Joe. Bill wants to name the newborn William Jr. but Bert, resentful of Bill for working with Gloria, names the baby Michael which Bill does not like. Joey starts to warm up to Meta and tells Joe he misses her. Dick’s sister, Karen, talks to Dick about the love of her life that she lost because she let their mother come between them and how now she feels she is settling with Laura’s pick for her, Charles. She warns Dick not to allow the same thing to happen to him. Bill refuses to call his son “Michael” and calls him “Butch” instead, resentful that Bert didn’t name him after himself. Bert tells Bill she won’t believe him that he’s not interested in Gloria anymore unless Bill stops working with her. Meta talks to Sid about the Bill/Gloria dilemma and Sid tells Meta that if Gloria’s TV show gets picked up nationwide, he will move to New York City with Gloria. Bert dotes heavily on Michael to the exclusion of Bill. 

-5/1/52 thru 5/30/52. Sid, out of concern for Gloria and not jealousy, pleads with her to forget about Bill as he’s married with a child now. Gloria agrees to move to New York. Clyde will be on a business trip for a month and Meta decides to go stay with Trudy while he’s gone so she can get away and decide if she and Joe should divorce. Kathy tells Meta she can do whatever she wants because she’s just ready to move out and start her own life now. Dick announces he doesn’t want to study medicine and tells Laura to quit trying to control him. Bill has to go to New York to work on Gloria’s show for a month and Bert wants to go along because she doesn’t trust Bill to be alone in New York with Gloria. Bert’s claws come out when Sid and Gloria stop by for a visit after dropping Bill home and Bert later regrets her behavior and gives Bill her blessing to go to New York alone. 

-6/2/52 thru 6/29/52. Clyde wants Trudy to be completely separate from the Bauers for her own well-being. Clyde, who doesn’t like Meta, thinks she’s stringing Bruce along. As her New York debut looms, Gloria gets stage fright and Sid tries to break her of her emotional dependence on Bill. Meta and Gloria meet and hit it off. Sid tells Bill to stop working on Gloria’s program and not come back to New York. Kathy admits that though she broke things off with Dick, she’s in love with him. Bunny gets engaged to Charles but feels like she’s settling thanks to Laura’s interference. Laura intercepts a letter from Kathy to Dick, Karen finds it later and confronts Laura. Bert goes to Bill’s boss and asks him to take Bill off of the account. Kathy graduates high school. Since she didn’t get a return letter from Dick, she decides not to go to college and gets a job in a department store with plans to move into an apartment with another girl, determined to prove that she doesn’t need anybody else. 

-6/30/52. First television episode. Meta is staying with Trudy in New York while separated from Joe. Trudy tries to convince Meta to call Joe but Meta feels there’s no hope because Kathy hates her. Back in Selby Flats, Kathy tells Joe that she’s moving out and getting a sales job at a department store so Meta can move back.

-7/1/52-7/31/52. Sid tries to keep Bill and Gloria apart. Meta, visiting Trudy in New York, tells Bruce that she’s decided to go back to California and to her husband Joe. Kathy moves into an apartment with a girl named Alice. Bert is jealous of Gloria and wants Bill to stay at home. Knowing Joe and Meta have money, Alice introduces herself to Meta and tries to butter her up to get money out of her by lying that it’s for Kathy. Gloria starts drinking again. Bob wants to get serious with Kathy and talks marriage to her but she tells him she wants to hold on to her newfound independence. Kathy confesses to Alice that she’s still hung up on Dick, who hasn’t spoken to her in months. Gloria visits Meta to express her concern that Bill will start drinking again. 

-8/1/52-8/29/52. Meta is haunted by her past and blames herself for Kathy’s leaving home. Bob feels like his social inferiority is the reason for Kathy’s ambiguity about their relationship, not knowing that the real reason is Kathy’s physical attraction to Bob yet emotional attachment to Dick. When she finds out Dick is thinking about interning at Cedars Hospital in Los Angeles, Laura forbids him to see Kathy. Karen threatens to tell Dick that their mother destroyed Kathy’s letter to Dick. Gloria’s laryngitis may be psychosomatic and she wants to go away to a sanitarium for a rest. Sid is put out with Gloria’s lingering feelings for Bill. Sid calls Alice to replace as the singer for the show while Gloria is away for a month. Kathy strings Bob along because she’s lonely and he’s willing. Bob is inpatient to marry Kathy. Peaceful now that she’s at the sanitarium, she tells Sid during his visit that she’s not going back to the TV show and tells Bill, during his visit, that she can’t keep working with him because of her feelings for him and that he belongs with Bert. With inner doubt and reluctance, Kathy elopes with Bob and immediately regrets getting married. Kathy tells Bob she wants to keep the marriage secret for the time being. 

-9/1/52-9/30/52. Meta is starting to be suspicious of Alice. Alice likes Bill and Bert is jealous of Alice. Joey visits with Kathy for the first time since she moved out and has a surprise run-in with Bob, oblivious to the fact that he’s Kathy’s husband. Kathy and Bob park along the ocean during a foggy night. Kathy tells Bob that she doesn’t love him, has always loved Dick and that she wants an annulment. A hurt Bob drives speedily away with Kathy in the car and crashes. Bob dies in the crash and Kathy leaves the scene of the crash. Later, Kathy tells Alice what happened and Alice persuades her not to tell anyone she was in the car. Dick confronts Laura about Kathy’s letter to him that Laura destroyed before he could read it. He tells Laura that she won’t interfere in his relationship with Kathy anymore and he plans to marry her. Dick goes to Kathy and explains about the letter and the two get engaged. Mac tells Joe that a woman’s lighter was at the scene of the crash and Joe suspects Kathy was in the crash.

-10/1/52-10/31/52. Dick pressures Kathy into marrying quickly to spite Laura. Kathy tries half-heartedly to tell Dick about Bob but fails to do so. Kathy tells Meta that she secretly married Bob, was with him when he died in the car crash and that she’s pregnant with his baby. She guilt-trips Meta into silence by suggesting it’s all Meta’s fault. Bill tries to fire Alice for a contract violation and she tells him what she knows about Kathy and blackmails him into keeping her on contract. Crane is snooping around trying to find out who owns the woman’s lighter found at the crash. Dick and Kathy get married. Joe asks Kathy if she was in the car when Bob died and Kathy lies and says she wasn’t. 

-11/3/52-11/28/52. Kathy tells Dick that she’s pregnant but lets him believe the baby is his. Dick and Kathy tell Richard and Laura the news about the pregnancy. Laura is upset over the news and doesn’t trust Kathy. Crane finds evidence that Bob and Kathy were married and posits that Kathy might have killed Bob. Papa, Bill, Bert, Joe and Meta celebrate Thanksgiving. 

-12/1/52-12/31/52. Joe finds out from Mac that Bob and Kathy were married. He confronts Kathy about the marriage and she confesses but continues to lie about the night Bob died. When the newspapers drag the Ted White murder story out again, Laura is mortified and suggests to Kathy that she and Dick move to San Francisco and into her house to get away from it all. Kathy jumps at the chance to escape her problems but Dick refuses to be under Laura’s thumb. Meta blasts Bert for sticking her nose into the Kathy situation. Meta tells Joe the whole story about Kathy. Joe tells Crane the truth of what happened but Crane isn’t ready to drop the story. After a blow-up with Joe, Kathy goes to San Francisco and Meta goes to New York City. Kathy finally lays into Laura about her controlling behavior and Laura’s claws come out. Out of a job and with Crane breathing down her neck, Alice moves to New York. 

-12/25/52. Bill, Bert and Papa talk about how great it was to see Michael’s first Christmas through his eyes. Papa talks about the meaning of Christmas.

Thanks @Reverend Ruthledge

I guess that Trudy appearance in the surviving 1952 episode is just about it for her on TV. I don't know if Clyde ever appeared. The way they talk about Meta is so different from how she is even in the surviving 1953 episodes - she's already mostly in matriarch mode in those.

Even now I'm still shocked at how horribly Bert behaves in these years.

Was Meta pregnant?

I can't remember if Dick's sister is ever in the TV show.

6 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks @Reverend Ruthledge

Was Meta pregnant?

I think I know the sentence you are referring to and I may not have worded that well. Bert was worried that her own baby (who would be Mike) might inherit the same Bauer trait that caused Meta to be a murderer. Meta was not pregnant. Bert was pregnant with Mike at the time.

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Reverend Ruthledge

9 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I can't remember if Dick's sister is ever in the TV show.

Yes, she is.

3 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

I think I know the sentence you are referring to and I may not have worded that well. Bert was worried that her own baby (who would be Mike) might inherit the same Bauer trait that caused Meta to be a murderer. Meta was not pregnant. Bert was pregnant with Mike at the time.

Thanks. I see now.

Funny as I think the Bauers may be one of the only long-running core families who never killed anyone...unless you count Michelle killing her attempted rapist...or all the patients Rick killed...

3 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Yes, she is.

Thanks. Hopefully another episode from Dick's run will pop up and she may be in it.

1 minute ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks. I see now.

Funny as I think the Bauers may be one of the only long-running core families who never killed anyone...unless you count Michelle killing her attempted rapist...or all the patients Rick killed...

Well, Mike killed Karl Jannings in a fight although he didn't mean to kill him.

2 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks. Hopefully another episode from Dick's run will pop up and she may be in it.

By the way, another thing that might be confusing is that Dick's sister also goes by the name "Bunny". So if you see the name Bunny and the name Karen, they are interchangeable. Bunny was a nickname.

9 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Well, Mike killed Karl Jannings in a fight although he didn't mean to kill him.

Oh that's right. Thanks. So no premeditated killings.

8 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

By the way, another thing that might be confusing is that Dick's sister also goes by the name "Bunny". So if you see the name Bunny and the name Karen, they are interchangeable. Bunny was a nickname.

Thanks. Of all the times for Laura to disapprove this was one of them...

That Kathy was a fast worker - 2 marriages in a matter of months.

I think Kathy's non stop drama kept viewers hooked and then her daughter Robin followed in her footsteps.

Is the Alice mentioned here Alice Holden?

Must have been quite an adjustment for those actors to move to TV. Probably their first TV roles. Were there any cast changes as a result?

Were there any actors who couldn't cope with the demands of TV or just didn't work out onscreen?

45 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

That Kathy was a fast worker - 2 marriages in a matter of months.

I think Kathy's non stop drama kept viewers hooked and then her daughter Robin followed in her footsteps.

Is the Alice mentioned here Alice Holden?

Must have been quite an adjustment for those actors to move to TV. Probably their first TV roles. Were there any cast changes as a result?

Were there any actors who couldn't cope with the demands of TV or just didn't work out onscreen?

I wonder if that is why Jone Allison left (although she is on ATWT in the mid '60s as one of the Claire Lowells). She has such a distinctive presence on radio and still does in the surviving episode from 1952. I wonder how Meta would have been if she'd stayed, as her Meta seems much more ready to jump out of her own skin.