-1/2/62-1/31/62. Paul comes back from the Benedict Christmas early as he was feeling like an interloper. Henry gives Anne a personal burglar alarm as a Christmas gift. Concerned about the effect jealousy is having on his client Alex’s ulcer, George asks Mike to his office to make sure Mike didn’t come back for Robin. Mike doesn’t tell him the real reason he’s back but tells him he doesn’t have to worry because he’s numb inside to care about Robin. Mike meets George’s secretary, Julie Conrad, who wonders if he’s married. Henry tells Paul to get a gun for his house. The test results come back and Bert definitely has uterine cancer and she wants the surgery right away so that Mike doesn’t have to wait around Los Angeles too long. George offers Mike a job. Bert’s surgery is a success. Bert talks Anne into being kind to Doris by reminding her that she has nothing and Anne has everything and that Paul’s mission in life is to help those in need. Anne invites Doris to dinner. Doris puts in her notice with Paul.
-2/1/62-2/28/62. Paul hopes Doris and Anne can become friends when they have Doris over for dinner. Anne is surprised that she and Doris have very similar backgrounds and the two start to get friendly. Doris decides not to quit her job. Henry is appalled to find Doris babysitting Johnny. Henry dismisses her and when Paul finds out about it, he hits the roof. He’s even more unhappy to learn that Henry and Helene are moving to Los Angeles. Paul gets a call from his half-sister, Jane Fletcher. She has finished nursing school in Boston and is coming to Los Angeles for a visit and perhaps to try to get a job at Cedars. Everyone is encouraging Mike to forget about Robin but it’s easier said than done.
-3/1/62-3/30/62. Mike and Robin say goodbye at their old hang-out, the Student Union, as he prepares to go back to Caracas. Mike tells her he’s still in love with her and will be there for her if things don’t work out with Alex. Julie tells George that she’s eager to get married and asks him if Mike is available. She’s disappointed to learn he’s going back to Venezuela. Mike gets a call that he’s been laid off of his job in Caracas just as he’s preparing to pack. One of Paul’s young patients is killed in a knifefight in the neighborhood and a young hoodlum stops by the house later to warn Paul not to say anything to the police. This scares Anne enough for her to reconsider Henry’s suggestion that she keep a gun in the house. Mike decides to stay in Los Angeles which causes Bill and Bert to worry about him being around Robin. Alex’s anxiety immediately comes back when Bruce lets him know that Mike is staying in Los Angeles. While Paul is adamantly opposed to having a gun in the house, Anne says she won’t live in the house unless there is. Doris lets Anne know that she had been planning on trying to get the divorce Alex got from her in Mexico invalidated as revenge but now, since Paul has helped her, she feels healed enough to let the bitterness go.
-4/2/62-4/30/62. Jane comes to Los Angeles and moves into the Fletcher home. She says she left Boston because she’s recently had her heart broken by a man. Though Mike says he’s just interested in the job of hydraulic engineer, everyone else thinks he took George’s work offer just to be around Robin since George is Alex’s friend and lawyer. Anne gets a letter from Marie saying that Dick got a position in a hospital in Zurich and so they’re staying there. Anne gets her gun.
-5/1/62-5/31/62. Jane moves in with Julie. They soon realize they are very different as Julie is desperate for a husband and Jane doesn’t want anything to do with men. Mike sees Robin and tells her she’s making a mistake staying with a man she doesn’t love. Knowing that Paul had to declare a loss on his income tax because of all his poor patients who can’t pay their bills, Bruce gives him a sizable check as a loan which relieves Paul and infuriates Anne who looks at it as a disgrace. Anne turns down the money offer from her parents because she wants Paul to fail so they can get out of that neighborhood and into a nicer place since he had promised her if he failed that he would do it her way. She also gets mad at Doris when she learns that Doris found a collection agency for Paul to get the money his patients owe him. Mike gets his own apartment and Bert is terrified he wants to live alone to have a place to get together with Robin. Papa says Bert should be ashamed for thinking such a thing.
-6/1/62-6/29/62. George lets Doris know that she could end his long run as a bachelor. Robin goes to Bruce for paternal advice as she is so torn. Bruce says what she won’t—that she needs Alex but wants Mike. While Mike is clearing out his things from the Bauer home to move to his new place or throw away, he runs across an old music box of Robin’s that her mother sent her from Switzerland. It reminds him of when a neglected Robin would stay with them as a child when Kathy was gallivanting around and his heart is touched towards her even more. Julie invites Mike over to help Jane make a friend in her new home but it’s really a guise just to spend time with Mike out of the office. Julie’s only family is a mother who she feels is too overbearing and she and Mike bond in their mutual desire to cut the apron strings. Julie later tells a contrary Jane that nothing is more important than getting married and having a baby and she is desperate for it. In a bit of foreshadowing, Jane hopes Julie won’t regret her attitude. Bert is hoping that Mike will be interested in Jane. After Mike mentions to Bert that he spent the evening alone with Julie because Jane had to work that evening, Bert goes to George’s office to appraise Julie. Although outwardly polite to each other, Bert and Julie instinctively don’t like each other. Increasingly dissatisfied with her new lifestyle, Anne tells Paul she’d rather stay in her father’s new palatial estate over the July 4th holiday instead of staying in some cheap motel on the Carmel trip he’s got planned. Paul says he’s taking Johnny to Carmel whether Anne goes or not. Anne defiantly chooses to go to the Benedicts alone until Helene, worried about the future of Anne’s marriage, tells a shocked Anne that she’s not welcome to come. Meta tries to get Robin to look at her past for answers about her present life but Robin is reluctant to think about the past. Meta says Mark reached out to her to find out why Robin hasn’t talked to him for over a year. Robin says that when he left with Ruth just when she needed him most, he died just like Kathy died.
-7/2/62-7/31/62. Bert is thrilled that Mike shows up to the Bauer BBQ for the 4th of July but Meta is disappointed that Robin didn’t. Robin tells Alex that she wants to have a child but is crushed when Alex says it would be unfair to saddle a child with them as parents. He says they wouldn’t be good parents because of their own horrible childhoods and, plus, they’re not really in love. Robin is crushed. Anne says the trial run for the clinic is over and she wants Paul to give it up. He asks an incredulous Anne for four more years. Julie is determined to cut Mike and Bert’s apron strings. Mike is furious when he finds out from Julie that Bert had come snooping around the office. With their marriage on the rocks because of Anne’s inability to continue living in the “slum”, Paul suggests that Anne take Johnny and live with her parents for the rest of the summer. Bert tries to matchmake Mike and Jane. Anne decides not to go to the Benedicts’ home for the summer.
-8/1/62-8/31/62. Robin thinks Doris is staying around Los Angeles because she wants Alex back. Helene goes to Paul and lets him know that she’s sympathetic to him and his ideals and doesn’t like Anne’s attitude. Grateful for the support, Paul says he was born too late and that he should’ve married Helene instead of Anne. Bill is being transferred to Seattle for six months. Mike tells Julie that he’s getting over Robin and then kisses her. Mike is finally feeling free and enjoying his independence from the “ownership” of women like Bert and Robin. Julie hopes to change that as she doesn’t like going solo like Mike does. The stress Robin is under is leading her to have headaches and insomnia. Bruce suggests to Alex that Robin see a psychiatrist. Jane opines to Julie that women are ruthless—using whatever they have to catch a man and then using those things to keep him in line. Robin is insulted that Alex wants her to see a psychiatrist.
-9/3/62-9/28/62. Anne is elated that Paul won’t be able to pay his bills by the time they’re due on the first of October so that the clinic will fail and they’ll be out of there. She’s unaware that Doris is getting money from Alex to lend to Paul to meet his financial need. Papa convinces Robin to see the psychiatrist. Doris and Anne lash out at each other. Doris says that Anne is castrating Paul and Anne tells Doris she needs to find another savior. Anne says Doris frightens and sickens her. Doris retorts that Anne makes her skin crawl. The fight is so intense that Doris tells Paul she wants to quit. Paul accepts the loan on the condition that he can give Alex and Doris interest in the clinic. George proposes to Doris. Robin refuses to talk to the psychiatrist about the past and her mother, instead saying all the blame for her problems is Doris wanting to have her husband back. Mike brings Julie over to meet all the Bauers at Bill’s going away party. Bert and Meta later discuss what they think about Julie. Meta says she feels sorry for Julie because she can tell she wants Mike so badly but she can also tell that Mike doesn’t want a wife.
-10/1/62-10/31/62. Julie and Mike disagree on the importance of marriage. Mike is enjoying his freedom and Julie is lonely, desperate and craving the stability she thinks marriage will give her. Paul breaks the news to Anne that he’s solvent now that he’s sold an interest in the clinic to Doris and Alex for five thousand dollars. Anne is furious with Paul who she considers a failure and crackpot at this point, angry at Doris because she feels like she gave Paul the money to get even with her and desperate to get out of the crime-ridden slum she feels trapped in. Anne goes over to Robin to get her to join her in a fight against Doris and to get her to stop Alex from giving Paul the money. Robin says she doesn’t want to get involved but Anne drags her into it by telling her that Doris told her that her Mexican divorce with Alex wasn’t legal and that Alex and Doris have teamed up to give Paul money. The news freaks an already jealous Robin out and she runs over to Doris’ apartment to tell her to get out of her and Alex’s life and to keep her filthy hands off their marriage. She falsely accuses Doris of trying to get Alex back, of trying to make Alex think Robin is crazy, and of wrecking both Anne’s and Robin’s marriages. Robin leaves after the tongue lashing and Doris is left alone with the flashing “BAR” sign across the street. Bruce goes to the clinic to give Paul a bottle of Napoleon brandy to celebrate paying off his debts. Paul and Anne have a big fight and she tells him she’s leaving with Johnny. Paul is called away on a housecall. Having read about another robbery in the neighborhood, a paranoid Anne grabs the gun when she hears a noise in the clinic. She goes to investigate and finds Doris in the clinic. Anne leaves the gun on a file tray in the clinic and they go into the house and Doris tries to plead her case with Anne. An enraged Anne lets her have it, blaming her for the breakup of her marriage and telling her to get lost. A distraught Doris leaves through the clinic but first stops there looking for some cigarettes and stumbles upon the Napoleon brandy that Paul had left. The temptation is just too strong and she ends her year-long sobriety. Paul returns home and notices the empty bottle. Anne notices the gun missing. After Helene calls Anne and reluctantly says Anne and Johnny can come stay with her and Henry, Doris shows back up at the clinic, drunk. Anne hears her moanings through the clinic door and enters to find Doris a mess and is disgusted. Paul enters and Anne tells Paul to take a good look at Doris who seems to personify everything Anne has come to hate about her life. Paul tries to defend Doris and goes to help her. He discovers Doris has the gun in her purse and she threatens suicide. Paul and Doris struggle over the gun and Anne is accidentally shot when it goes off. Anne is rushed to the hospital but dies. Papa, Meta, Bruce and Bert learn that Anne Fletcher has been shot and killed. Bert and Meta rush over to Paul’s house/clinic to take care of Johnny and Bert finds the note Anne had written right before she was killed saying she was leaving and taking Johnny. Henry and Helene come to the house and learn that Anne is dead. Paul is in shock and says that he shot Anne. Bruce tries to get information from a very drunk Doris who was at the clinic when Anne was shot and has been taken into Cedars but she is incoherent. Everyone questions why the gun Anne kept at the house for protection was in the clinic and how it went off. The Benedicts take Johnny away after Bruce brings a dazed Paul home. The police find the gun and an empty liquor bottle in the clinic.
-11/1/62-11/30/62. Alex and Robin get into a fight over Doris that is interrupted by Bruce and Meta bringing the news of Anne’s death. Jane starts to get possessive of Paul and Johnny after Anne’s death and is upset when Bert tells her that the Benedicts are taking Johnny away on a trip. A despondent Paul says he wants to quit medicine. Alex blames Robin for causing Doris to fall off the wagon. He tells Robin that he no longer thinks she’s at fault for their tumultuous marriage because she doesn’t love him. He says he thinks now, because he was the older and supposedly wiser one, that it was his fault for marrying her in the first place knowing that she didn’t love him and that he’s leaving her. He says he’s been a father, a benefactor, a crutch, a port in the storm for her, but never a husband. Robin begs him not to leave her but he says they need time on their own. He leaves a devastated Robin. Doris comes to with a severe hangover and no memory of what happened after she drained the bottle of brandy. Bruce urges Papa to go see Robin as he is the only one she really loves and trusts. Robin tells Papa that everybody has left her; Kathy, Mark, Mike and now Alex. Papa says she may need to be alone to learn to like herself and find her home within. Then she’ll be able to love. George breaks the news to Doris that Anne has been shot and killed and Doris is terrified that she did it. The police find that the only fingerprints on the gun are Paul’s. That, and the note Anne left for Paul telling him she was leaving him, are enough for the police to arrest Paul after Anne’s funeral. Bert gets annoyed at Jane’s hysterical behavior and the two argue. At the police headquarters, Paul confesses to shooting Anne.
-12/3/62-12/30/62. Julie is shaken when she learns Robin and Alex are separated, thinking that Mike will try to get back with Robin. Mike doesn’t like the jealousy and tells Julie that Robin isn’t interested in being married, only in being Mrs. Somebody Else. Bert wants to take Doris in but Mike doesn’t want her to get involved with Doris. Papa is angered at Mike’s new callous attitude towards friends in need. He thinks he’s trying to be too independent and untouched by other people. George wonders why Julie is trying so hard to get a wedding ring when “one in four marriages today ends in divorce”. Julie says, at 25, she is starting to feel desperate. (Knowing how it ends up for Julie, there’s a lot of irony that Julie thinks her life is over if she doesn’t get married). Dr. Pete Nelson, a friend of Paul’s, takes over the clinic while Paul is in jail. Doris is moved to tears when Bert asks her to come live with her, Papa and Ed. When Doris moves in, Bert breaks the news to her that Paul has been arrested for killing Anne. Doris is now desperate to remember what happened that night. George is defending Paul and wants Mike to be his leg man. A guilt-ridden Paul has no desire to fight the charges. Julie fights back tears when Mike gives her a little finger ring instead of an engagement ring for Christmas. Helene can’t believe that Henry is so unwilling to help Paul. Doris is taken in for questioning where she is accused of being in love with Paul. Her amnesia of that night persists.
-12/25/62. Papa and Bert have coffee Christmas morning and talk about Paul being arrested for Anne’s death. Doris has amnesia and is staying with the Bauers. Henry and Helene are keeping Johnny who is confused about Paul and Anne’s absence.
By
Rev. Ruthledge ·
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