This weekend, I watched a couple of late June 1993 episodes.
The show has decent energy in all the stories, even in the news I don't like (Victoria / Bill / Holly). In my opinion, the strongest material surrounds Karen and Jagger. It should be clear to the audience by now that Ray Conway sexually abused Karen as a child. That dramatic tension builds nicely in scenes. I appreciate the work that was done to make Rhonda a human being compared to the cariacture we were introduced to in 1992. Rhonda has a bad history with men, exhibited by her experiences with Frank (Gary Hudson) the cop during the May episodes. I can see why Rhonda (foolishly) wouldn't understand why Karen wouldn't want to see Ray after explaining how so many guys she went out with bolted the minute she revealed she had a kid.
Rhonda's relationship with Alan Quartermaine is also so much more complex than I would imagine. Two broken people looking to connect with an undercurrent of sexual tension that both, in previous lives, would have acted upon. In these episodes, Rhonda was gushing about how Alan had popped by Karen's graduation party. It's these relationships that make the little episode by episode moments rich.
There is tension between Karen and Jagger due to Karen's secret, who, like Rhonda and Alan, are also two broken people hurt by the past.Jagger's broken home (he has located Gina, but she wants nothing to do with him). There is a little moment where Jagger is showing Ruby the newspaper ad for the fight and how he was hoping that Mike would see the ad and contact him. It's a tender moment and Ruby reassures him it's still possible. Karen's neuroses involving the men in her life seem grounded in her abuse and her inability to process this. There are a lot of little moments I appreciate where Karen tries to explain why she has abandoned Ray's locket (a graduation present) and trying to maneuver Rhonda so that she doesn't have to be alone with Ray.
In other stories, there is nice movement. Sean confronts Jessica about the possibility of Jessica being pregnant with Jessica saying she doesn't want to know whether or not she is. Andreef plays it less as an act of manipulation, but rather a realization this could upend her world in so many different ways involving both Sean and her career.
With Tracy on the run, Jenny starts to feel guilty about keeping the truth about Tracy's role in the accident secret. There is a nice scene with Jenny and her visiting mother, Angela, talking over Jenny's decision regarding the secret citing how she had ruined her marriage to Ned because she just didn't tell the truth. I know people don't have much use for Paul and Jenny, but it was one of my favorite scenes in these episodes. Carol Lawrence plays all the versions of Angela Eckert so well, but I do love this sorta social climbing menace who meddles in her kids lives the most. Bill also got harassed by her in her visit, which gave some nice insight into the Bill / Sly dynamic.
The Bill / Victoria / Holly stuff is of little interest to me. I don't know what the long-term plan was here had Genie Francis not returned as the Summer in Provenance stuff had been going on since October, 1992, and I think they revealed the Victoria angle by February. With that said, the script writing is stellar and the calculating moves by both Victoria and Holly to win Bill is well done, but would have been better suited for Katherine / Scotty / Lucy.
There was a little bit of Katherine planning on returning to New York and Scotty wanting to go with her. Lucy, of course, is jealous. It's all a nice continuation of Scotty's grief and the pregnancy, but I do wonder what would have happened with Katherine had Levinson stayed.
There was a lot of stuff about the boxing match coming up between Jagger and AJ. I don't necessarily understand where any of this is going. The summer had a lot of animosity between A.J. and Jagger as I seem to recall (or at least I imagine there was issues with Jagger and the Q boys when they were slut shaming Karen). Maybe they were heading for some sorta of Jagger / Brenda / AJ / Julia / Ned scenario with Karen and Stone/Mike. I don't know. The rivalry is decent, but I am often left wondering if A.J. doesn't want Jagger for himself. Also worth noting, I saw some scenes before Paul and Tracy's wedding from 1991 where Gerald Hopkins' A.J. was putting the moves on Julia, pre- Nancy Eckert.
May sweeps was so strong and so much story climaxed that there is a bit of a lull as the new stories are being set in place, but I still find it all very interesting.
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dc11786 ·
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