Just now, Vee said:

She did what?!

Yup, Lucy's a published author. What happened was that she was convinced to share her account of the Kevin situation rather than have it be in the hands of unauthorized writers. Lucy was still making nice with Patrick and Terry to an extent at the time, so she claimed the proceeds would go to benefit the Jennifer Talbot Memorial Wing in Laurelton. In reality, the proceeds were going to the Lucy Coe Clothing Closet. The combination of her greed, how sour things became among Lucy, Patrick and Terry over things like Lucy's book triggering Terry and not being kind to the hick, not to mention hostility from the likes of Ted and Sheriff Broder, all added up to make Lucy a key suspect when the Laurelton 2.0 murders happened.

3 hours ago, DRW50 said:

ABC did trust her appeal enough for a spinoff, but other than the Nurses' Ball and the Mac/Felicia wedding she no longer had any presence on GH (maybe she was at Katherine's funeral - I can't remember). So to GH viewers she became detached. When PC ended Guza/JFP were able to just give her and Kevin the appearance at Lila's funeral as a parting gift and moved on with no fuss. She did return on a more frequent basis, a decade later, but to such a different world.

I don't think any of those viewers who came into the show in the mid '90s/late '90s/early '00s have it out for Lucy, but I think she just doesn't matter to them, and that is still a big portion of who the show caters to. That's one of the reasons they can get away with moments like the ritual humiliation of Deception, and Home & Hearth or whatever it's called.

She mattters to me, but I am not saying I speak for the entire audience. The Home & Hearth QVC stuff bothers me. I am not saying put Lucy front and center but give her dignity.

Yeah, I think she matters and is loved by a lot of the audience. She can exasperate or polarize some people as could any character of that type, but that's largely due to her use in the last 10+ years which has been pretty weak. I appreciate Frank's GH for reviving Lucy and keeping her in the mix but they can do much better by her. It's just not been a priority, but that can and should change as opposed to going all in on Round 3 or 4 of Obrecht and the Faisons.

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by Vee

6 hours ago, Vee said:

It's just not been a priority, but that can and should change as opposed to going all in on Round 3 or 4 of the Obrecht and the Faisons.

Talk about characters who are unlikeable and are existing past their shelf dates! I still don't know how a short-term(-ish), one-note villain like Cesar Faison wound up making such an impact on GH. I mean, was he really that integral of a character that they needed to keep bringing him back AND build an entire family around his basic ass? Were viewers really missing him THAT much?

Even worse, when they had him pop up briefly on LOVING, I was like, "Who in da hell was asking for THAT!?"

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by Khan

34 minutes ago, Khan said:

Talk about characters who are unlikeable and are existing past their shelf dates! I still don't know how a short-term(-ish), one-note villain like Cesar Faison wound up making such an impact on GH. I mean, was he really that integral of a character that they needed to keep bringing him back AND build an entire family around his basic ass? Were viewers really missing him THAT much?

Even worse, when they had him pop up briefly on LOVING, I was like, "Who in da hell was asking for THAT!?"

I can't stand Faison. I assume the show was trying to do something similar to what Guza did in the 90's with bringing the Cassadines back and it failed. The initial idea of tying Britt to him wasn't horrible given the Robin connection, but having half the town related to him is a lot. Someone can correct me and may remember differently, but by the time they brought Faison back the audience had long moved on. Considering AH can't or won't appear at this stage, it's odd.

Why was Faison on Loving? I know it had something to do with Ava and Universal Studios, but why would Faison care about either of those things lol.

I liked Faison's return in '99 more than some folks did. He was creepy as hell even though the Felicia thing was ridiculous. I was pleased to see him in 2012 even when the story was goofy.

By the time they had him dressing up like Beetlejuice for a wacky family Halloween the following year and then going off with Britt to 'bond' I thought he was played out and had been made too campy-cute a la most of Carlivati's takes on villains. Regrettably they then brought him back for more bad stories to give him needless sons in later dull regimes.

Faison, like Obrecht, works in controlled doses and careful story. Neither of which either of them have had in many years. With Obrecht it went off the rails very quickly because Ron and Frank couldn't bear giving her up. Now half the town is on a first-name basis with this terrorist and they all act like she's an eccentric old aunt when she's schemed against, shot or otherwise tried to murder maybe a dozen of them. I'm tired of it.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by Vee

3 minutes ago, Vee said:

I liked Faison's return in '99 more than some folks did. He was creepy as hell even though the Felicia thing was ridiculous. I was pleased to see him in 2012 even when the story was goofy.

By the time they had him dressing up like Beetlejuice for a wacky family Halloween the following year and then going off with Britt to 'bond' I thought he was played out and had been made too campy-cute a la most of Carlivati's takes on villains. Regrettably they then brought him back for more bad stories to give him needless sons in later dull regimes.

Faison, like Obrecht, works in controlled doses and careful story. Neither of which either of them have had in many years. With Obrecht it went off the rails very quickly because Ron and Frank couldn't bear giving her up. Now half the town is on a first-name basis with this terrorist and they all act like she's an eccentric old aunt when she's schemed against, shot or otherwise tried to murder maybe a dozen of them. I'm tired of it.

I have to look up his 1999 return because I mostly forgot about it. Is this during the Felicia/Luke affair we don't talk about? I remember the Lucky stuff, but literally nothing with Felicia lol.

The Obrecht stuff is ridiculous. She's a fun grandma to Rocco. Yay! It's typical GH/Frank stuff to keep an actor or actress. So clearly we will being dealing with Carlo Rota for the next 10 years (if GH is still on the air).

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by carolineg

18 minutes ago, carolineg said:

have to look up his 1999 return because I mostly forgot about it. Is this during the Felicia/Luke affair we don't not talk about? I remember the Lucky stuff, but literally nothing with Felicia lol.

It lead to the affair shortly before he left again, telling Luke that Lucky was alive on his way out the door. I was thrilled when I heard Faison was returning in 1999. But like the entire Cassadine storyline by Guza it was a lot of build and atmosphere to ultimately peter out and not come to a satisfying climax. Felicia was the only one left from his first run that he really had any story with, so I got why they brought her into that orbit. I just felt back then and now that Laura would have made a better target for his unsettling behavior, both because that would have made Helena angry about another man being obsessed with her and brought Luke/Laura back together at a more appropriate time. And not trashed Felicia!

Lucy Coe is easily one of the best characters in GH history, played by a lovely person who is game for anything. Once they tapped into her screwball comedy energy more, she was often annoying to other characters (and sometimes the audience I am sure!). But I never felt like Lucy was a joke.

Like a lot of things onscreen in the last decade, I think a certain segment of the audience is just happy to see these older characters pop in out of nostalgia, and don’t really care how they are used unless they are killed off. We clearly care around here though!

My Faison family problem is the same one I had with the Dimera’s on DAYS. I have no problem with giving a larger than life villain more grounded material. But they built up an entire family around him, paired Sami with EJ, and the whole show started to be written around them as protagonists and not antagonists. Nobody in Salem should ever have been comfortable with Stefano walking around, and I feel the same way about Faison and Obrect. I like Gati too, but not wacky.

25 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

It lead to the affair shortly before he left again, telling Luke that Lucky was alive on his way out the door. I was thrilled when I heard Faison was returning in 1999. But like the entire Cassadine storyline by Guza it was a lot of build and atmosphere to ultimately peter out and not come to a satisfying climax. Felicia was the only one left from his first run that he really had any story with, so I got why they brought her into that orbit. I just felt back then and now that Laura would have made a better target for his unsettling behavior, both because that would have made Helena angry about another man being obsessed with her and brought Luke/Laura back together at a more appropriate time. And not trashed Felicia!

I'll have to look it up again. Laura being the target makes sense to me when you write it out. I really only remember the Carly/Jason/Sonny stuff from that year as I found the drop off from Vanessa, JJ and Kimberly leaving depressing lol. Something about the way Guza wrote Robin out really annoyed me which has nothing to do with this, but made me a casual watcher at best.

What was Felicia doing before this? The Two Macs? Or the weird non-story with the dolls?

38 minutes ago, carolineg said:

What was Felicia doing before this? The Two Macs? Or the weird non-story with the dolls?

Kevin stalked her, she and Tom had a ridiculous sexual relationship, the Aztec dolls, the two Mac’s, then Lila’s memoir is when they started putting her with Luke. Bob Guza was there most of the time Felicia was a big character as a part of the writing team. And yet he had no feel for her as HW!

Something else that occurred to me about Lucy is that they kind of started to isolate her a lot even before PC. She sold her ELQ shares, and she sold her interest in Luke’s club. Both of those connections kept her tied to main characters and in the mix besides just Kevin, Mac, and Felicia. I also loved her as partners with Sonny and Luke, and think she brings out a spark in Maurice I haven’t seen a while.

Something occurred to me while catching up and I may have missed if we discussed it here. The show is four to six weeks from air roughly correct? And probably written out further than that. Did BTG’s demo and ratings growth that started at the beginning of the year precipitate them all of a sudden caring so much about the Black cast again beyond Portia? The story is not good, and I see people complaining about the crash, Curtis, Jordan’s face, all of it all over the internet. But was this simply calculated and ultimately just a bad story foisted upon these folks to try to grab some of that audience or lure some of them back?

Maybe that’s cynical of me, and I do appreciate Valentini for investing in having Black people on this show and actually in main stories for the first time since the 90’s. But it seems like they were not doing much and now they dominate, and it’s noticeable that it happened when it did.

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

Kevin stalked her, she and Tom had a ridiculous sexual relationship, the Aztec dolls, the two Mac’s, then Lila’s memoir is when they started putting her with Luke. Bob Guza was there most of the time Felicia was a big character as a part of the writing team. And yet he had no feel for her as HW!

Lilia's memoir! That's what I was forgetting!

I unfortunately remember everything else including the Tom relationship which I still have nightmares about. KW and MA weren't old, but something about the way their conversations were all about sexual innuendos made them seem like old parents trying to be hip.

Poor Felicia! She really got saddled with a lot during Guza including her being a dead beat mom for years.

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

Something occurred to me while catching up and I may have missed if we discussed it here. The show is four to six weeks from air roughly correct? And probably written out further than that. Did BTG’s demo and ratings growth that started at the beginning of the year precipitate them all of a sudden caring so much about the Black cast again beyond Portia? The story is not good, and I see people complaining about the crash, Curtis, Jordan’s face, all of it all over the internet. But was this simply calculated and ultimately just a bad story foisted upon these folks to try to grab some of that audience or lure some of them back?

Maybe that’s cynical of me, and I do appreciate Valentini for investing in having Black people on this show and actually in main stories for the first time since the 90’s. But it seems like they were not doing much and now they dominate, and it’s noticeable that it happened when it did.

I wouldn't be surprised. It may also be why they started having Trina singing - not because BtG is full of singing, but because they don't want to use her much but she's there and they know she has fans, so let's have her sing because they figure black women love to sing. (I know Trina did sing at the Nurses Ball but I didn't think it was a passion of hers)

7 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Lilia's memoir! That's what I was forgetting!

A story mostly remembered for how Kristina Wagner pronounced the word, "memoir."

3 hours ago, titan1978 said:

It lead to the affair shortly before he left again, telling Luke that Lucky was alive on his way out the door. I was thrilled when I heard Faison was returning in 1999. But like the entire Cassadine storyline by Guza it was a lot of build and atmosphere to ultimately peter out and not come to a satisfying climax. Felicia was the only one left from his first run that he really had any story with, so I got why they brought her into that orbit. I just felt back then and now that Laura would have made a better target for his unsettling behavior, both because that would have made Helena angry about another man being obsessed with her and brought Luke/Laura back together at a more appropriate time. And not trashed Felicia!

Lucy Coe is easily one of the best characters in GH history, played by a lovely person who is game for anything. Once they tapped into her screwball comedy energy more, she was often annoying to other characters (and sometimes the audience I am sure!). But I never felt like Lucy was a joke.

Like a lot of things onscreen in the last decade, I think a certain segment of the audience is just happy to see these older characters pop in out of nostalgia, and don’t really care how they are used unless they are killed off. We clearly care around here though!

My Faison family problem is the same one I had with the Dimera’s on DAYS. I have no problem with giving a larger than life villain more grounded material. But they built up an entire family around him, paired Sami with EJ, and the whole show started to be written around them as protagonists and not antagonists. Nobody in Salem should ever have been comfortable with Stefano walking around, and I feel the same way about Faison and Obrect. I like Gati too, but not wacky.

I mostly remember Faison in a greenhouse, smelling a flower again and again.

Obrecht is best used in moments like the scenes a few days ago where she saw through Willow's lies about Drew's condition and told Nina to wake up.

5 hours ago, Khan said:

Even worse, when they had him pop up briefly on LOVING, I was like, "Who in da hell was asking for THAT!?"

4 hours ago, carolineg said:

Why was Faison on Loving? I know it had something to do with Ava and Universal Studios, but why would Faison care about either of those things lol.

I think they only did this because they were trying crossovers in that period (91-94 or so). I imagine Guza must have been the impetus since he brought him back to GH. I know Anders Hove later panned the whole thing (IIRC he also panned his 1999 return in the same interview).

46 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I think they only did this because they were trying crossovers in that period (91-94 or so). I imagine Guza must have been the impetus since he brought him back to GH. I know Anders Hove later panned the whole thing (IIRC he also panned his 1999 return in the same interview).

You know I hate crossovers, but it seems ill conceived even if you liked them. A GH villain, an AMC character, and a Loving character? I seems like a big ask for the audience of three soaps. I know Loving did a bit better with AMC/Loving crossovers though.