Asp Burger

I haven't seen Linda Purl in anything in a while either, and in the present day, she reminds me of Leslie Charleson. I wonder if it was intentional that Reese's mother came off as Southern Fried Monica.

When I was reading along, the first thing that came to my mind is, "Blondes." Now that would be a left turn, wouldn't it? It's no one we know, just some random psycho targeting blond women, like in Hitchcock's The Lodger. That would mean Nina, Maxie, Felicia, and Nurse Amy should watch out. Laura is safely off the map.

What would be a good name for a sequel to Nixon Falls? "Ford Springs"?

I think these three started their band when they were in sixth grade. I have a terrible suspicion that if you asked any of them who Mary Tyler Moore was, they'd guess she was an important female historical figure from the Civil War or something.

It's the band's name. They were originally a trio: William, Jeremy, and Max, and the name was, obviously, their initials. But I think Max is not involved anymore. Their website only lists William and Jeremy as active members.

You're right, @pinkandsparkly13. I'll edit.

Nelle went over the cliff in an episode that aired on September 1, 2020. So, an anniversary of that works well enough. I think there were some news preemptions that pushed current episodes forward a bit. The Sasha/Lucy confrontation was UCG. Always-manic Lucy, raging-manic Sasha, and that hammy day player so proud that he scored video of the latest outburst from "the basket case of Deception." There have been so many parallels in this story that I'm waiting for Sasha to start posting word salad over videos of herself twirling around on "Immediagram."

True, but Emily was just standing in the park and wasn't any threat to Carly when Carly gutted her with that gardening tool, or whatever it was. Very similar attacks. In that case, there wasn't an intended mystery angle, so they allowed us to see it through Carly's eyes: she was perceiving Emily as Faith. I'm not saying Elizabeth was Ava's attacker, but they could do that, and have the explanation be that she was not seeing Ava but this woman she was telling to stay away from her father in the headless flashbacks. On another topic: Crying/vulnerability is the c**** in JPS's acting armor. I really don't like listening to him in scenes like those, and it isn't because I feel such tenderness toward the character Valentin that I'm upset for him. It's just...not good.

They'll be talking for years about how she ruined the party. The stabbing will be an afterthought. Nina said she was going to bring the desserts over, but of course, she really just wanted to parade her relationship with Sonny in front of everyone. Hasn't that woman done enough damage? If she had any shame, she would leave town and start over somewhere else.

No real cheating on Gia, but he dumped her and pretended to be in love with Elizabeth to make Helena think he was toeing the line (Helena and Stefan both found Gia "unsuitable" for him, and it definitely looked race-related). Then, in the Nem period with Natalia and Tyler, they had Nikolas saying when he was with Gia, he was secretly thinking about absent Emily, even when they were looking at a wedding dress. So he's always been a shitty partner. Today's show: When Willow was hemming and hawing so much before spitting out the leukemia news, I just knew there was going to be some dumb thing to prevent it coming out. What it turned out to be was even dumber than I anticipated. This is a Sonny I can put up with. Especially when he's opposite Michael, who is regressing to the Dylan Cash version. I liked the Sonny/Olivia scene. I still find Ava and Nikolas cute together; I can't help it. But the current hairstyle on Nikolas just makes their not-very-significant age difference seem wider. So does direction like having her lead him out of a room. It's a low bar, but Jordan III's scenes with Marshall re: schizophrenia, forgiveness, and dead Tommy were her best showing since she got the role.

Not just you. Eddie Maine was always a weird sell, I never believed that what he did would have mass appeal to young adults of that era. Also, if he really were as big a musical celebrity as they were making it seem, then the rest of his life as Ned Ashton was implausibly disconnected from it. It always seemed a vanity sop to an actor, so Wally Kurth could sing and wear leather pants. Then there was the nonsense with Alexis being surprised by the photographers while wearing lingerie and waiting for Ned, and becoming an unwilling nationwide pinup as "Eddie's Angel." She was hyperventilating all the time from anxiety about it. The only thing less convincing than Ned as a rock star of the '90s was Alexis as fantasy material for that era's college boys. (Nothing against Nancy Lee Grahn's looks. She was is and attractive.)

Yeah, the character has been getting demeaning writing for years. He hasn't seemed to be someone any writing/production regime cared about making look good since...maybe a couple years into Nem? Pre-Connor? (I'm not saying they succeeded in making him look good in the triangle with Emily and Zander, or the falling out with Stefan, but that was clearly the objective.) Since the mid-aughts, he's spent most of his time doing sleazy things, being an ineffectual quasi-villain who's easily exposed, being duped/manipulated, or getting beaten up. I thought when they went to the trouble of recasting and bringing him back, it might be a new chapter, but no. Coloma had most of his best moments in his first six months. It was all downhill after the Nikolas/Valentin war ended. I do think it's the writing more than the actor. He's the least interesting character in the present Wyndemere set.

It's possible he really isn't the same guy, though. Dante had enormous scars on his back from torture overseas when they were telling his "brainwashed" story. Now he's hanging out at the pool, sitting in the steam room, having love scenes with Sam, and any other soap-opera shirtlessness justification, and his back looks perfect. Poor continuity, or...an impostor?!? 😁 Probably an unpopular opinion, but I prefer Duell to Tiny Temp Michael. I know it isn't easy to just get thrown into ongoing stories when you don't know all the leadup, but this guy is off in strange ways. He distances me from the scenes more than some other recent temps have, like the ones for Alexis and Taggert.

Cynthia Preston is a lot to live up to, but I thought the Faith Rosco recast had a pretty good first day. I believe her as the same character, somewhat older. It's interesting that they're involving her with Nikolas and Spencer. Oh, my bad. It's just Ava, having a hair off-day. Re: Josslyn talking about Diane getting Sonny acquitted over and over for years, when "he was always guilty": So, buttercup. Think back to when you were so offended that your supposed close friend Cameron strongly believed Jason had committed a murder. You cold-shouldered him for weeks over it. Who (allegedly) ordered most of the murders Jason (allegedly) committed? The always-guilty guy, right? I can't with her. Carolyn Hennesy is a good actress, and that's a lot of the reason Diane works as this supposed powerhouse attorney. The writing in the courtroom is usually dumb and unbelievable, but I believe her as an effective attorney for the way she speaks and carries herself. I expect cases on soaps to feel rigged; they're going to go the way the writing needs them to go. This show has "needed" Sonny, Jason, and Carly to come out on top for so long. But I've never minded Diane herself. It could be so much worse, and we get just the right amount about her personal life (very little). Poor Mickey Horton on DOOL never won a case in the '90s. They'd bring him out of storage whenever one of the show's heroic characters was being framed for murder or whatever, and he'd lose (because the writers planned to have the character literally in the gas chamber before being exonerated). But everyone would still talk about him all the time as being one of the country's finest defense attorneys. It was a running joke with the DOOL fans.

Dante and Cody's conversations about camp (and oh how I wish I meant Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Pink Flamingos) remind me a lot of the early Olivia Falconeri days. Remember the incessant conversations she and Sonny would have about some nun from their childhood, some fruit vendor on their street, or some other Bensonhurst local color the script writers were pulling out of their asses? It's forced, as @dubbel zout says, and it's also overcompensation. They want badly to emphasize the importance of a new character in the history of a character we've been following for years, even though we'd never heard about this person. It's also unnecessary, because most of the people who watch a show like this one have been introduced to a lot of new characters who have old history with the existing ones. We're well drilled. If the script says "This is So-and-so's never-before-mentioned childhood friend," like they did with Liz and Terry, we'll go with it.

I know Dan has said that Holly's feelings for him were a complete fabrication, but I dunno. A lot of Holly's emotional testimonials to him during that Challenge were not edited. We could both hear and see her saying "Dan" in on-camera interviews. One example came at the end of the season, when she was crying and talking about how she wasn't going to see Dan anymore now that everyone was going home. And she did seem absolutely glued to his side. It's possible she was just really into him as a friend rather than romantically. If the producers grossly misled us, I think it was more doing Holly dirty. She was the one viewers were calling a stalker and worse. Dan was portrayed as resolute not to get involved with anyone, because he had the girlfriend back home. Both Teck and Seattle David claimed in the Challenge 2000 section of one of the RW books that Holly really was into Dan. But Teck adds that she was just as much into David. David doesn't say a word about that. This is one thing that I think the New York cast couldn't really relate to. Their season was almost a practice run, compared to later ones. The time the castmates were living together was shorter. There were fewer episodes. The producers and editors were still figuring their format out. So their season was more authentic and less manipulated than any later one (although it was still manipulated -- there were a few "We all decided to..." group things that I'm sure the producers fed them, like the prank on Kevin). They just didn't have the same experience that, say, the Hawaii cast had. I like Heather and dislike Tami, but they were both right. You have to take responsibility for how you behave on camera, knowing it's very likely to be part of the finished product, but the producers can make anyone look better or worse in the edit. And it does shape viewers' idea of you. If over five months, I talk about a particular topic six times, maybe that isn't an overwhelming amount of attention to one topic in the big picture of everything I say. But if every time I bring it up, it goes in the show, a viewer will reasonably conclude I'm obsessed with that topic. Especially if there's zero coverage of numerous other things I talk about.

I don't think YouTube would be helpful here. Last time I looked, only the 1996 reunion (seasons 1-4) was there. In the 2001 special (with all of the first nine casts), I think the only part she did was the party. She really avoided the cameras. We just saw her walking in, all in black and stony-faced. Most of the arriving people were waving to the crowd, chatting with Miami Dan the emcee, and looking as if they were going to a party. And many of them were doing "confessionals" or chatting with each other or with Dan during the party. (I remember Kelley and New Orleans Melissa talking to the camera about how we should forget their pseudo-fight at the end of their season, because they were friends now.) None of that from Kaia. In the 2000 reunion (seasons 5-8), as above, Cynthia and (Miami) Melissa talked about how stressed out Kaia seemed backstage, and Cynthia said it was too soon for the Hawaii cast to have to go through this. Melissa replied, "The first year, you're bitter. The second year, you seek professional help. The third year, you're over it!" Kaia did seem tense the whole time she was onstage. The host, Dave Holmes, asked her if she had any poetry for the audience, and she said she wouldn't read a poem because then she wouldn't have the copyright, but her poetic speech was "Speak as much truth as you can." Teck burst out laughing, and the audience joined in. She didn't seem to be in a good place with it all. She said the positive thing she got from doing the show was "having seen [her]self."

His having had a novel published in the last year or so may have had something to do with his willingness to do a Homecoming. They'd let him plug it. I'm sure Kelley had at least a few more sales of her FLOW book from being back on television for eight weeks. I'm still planning to read Lone Stars eventually. One of these Amazon (or library) trips, its day will come. I hear it's quite good. Kaia did seem shell-shocked in the two reunions on which she appeared. Weren't Cynthia and Melissa from Miami talking backstage in the 2000 one about how scared she seemed?

Syrus is better-looking in that current photo than he was on Real World Boston or the Challenge. I'd watch a Homecoming for Hawaii. I strongly disliked most of them in 1999, and even the ones I didn't mind so much did things that weren't cool, but I found them entertaining. For a Real World cast, they have an impressive record of accomplishment in the grown-up world since 1999, so they'd have a lot to talk about. Re: Matt, my sense is that once he got the "working in movies/TV" bug out of his system, or realized he wasn't headed straight for the top in it, he found a way to channel his irksome big-brother-who-knows-best tendencies in a more constructive direction with his teaching career. She turned 50 this past October. Huh. I thought we had seen their first meeting on television, when they both did Road Rules All-Stars. They definitely played it that way, but maybe it was for show. I can't think about that season without remembering the song they wrote and recorded. "We've got Cyn Dawg from Miami and Jon from LA / We've got Rachel comin' down from the Frisco Bay / We've got Eric from New York and Sean from Beantown / We've packed up all our things and we're ON OUR WAY NOW." I'll still be able to sing that when I'm in the home. Poor Eric kept flubbing his line at the end and having to do it over. Yes, I looked at her Instagram the other day. Nothing on it surprised me, given her origins. Suffice to say, she's definitely not one of those kids who rebel against their parents' views.

Was that reminder that Carly went to nursing school (but didn't finish) planted for a reason? Is that the next thing for her, she loses the hotel and becomes a nurse, and two weeks later is "head nurse"?

Agreed. There is a perilous age group for GH -- old enough to do more than be carried around as a little prop, but not yet a teen who can be in relationships -- and Violet is in it. Thinking back 20 years or more, I think the only child actor on this show I've truly enjoyed was that one outstanding Morgan, Aaron Refvem. He had the role for the first couple of years of Dante. He was wonderful. All the others who are coming to mind have been super-stiff, or really unpleasant (Dylan Cash as Michael), or if they've shown any flair for acting at all, they've been encouraged to ham it up and they've been over-featured. Nicolas Bechtel had talent, but they went in awful directions with him. The previous Charlotte wasn't bad, but I can't say I looked forward to her scenes. Hudson West (Jake) did well with the brainwashing story, but I can't remember much around that.

Cue Carly-on-the-bridge scene, talking to Jason. "This never would have happened if I had you here to talk me down. God, I miss you so much!" ETA: And you have to keep in mind that Carly is brave and strong, and when she invests, she invests with her whole wealth. Not just a part of it!

The reunion for seasons 5-8 in which various Real Worlders took turns babysitting Evita was in 2000. Evita was born in October 1999. Rachel said the baby was five months old at the time of that reunion. So, it was taped in March 2000 for airing in May. Evita would be 22 now. And yes, she was the one who just got married. Kind of, but they're not as unpleasant as the later Challenges that I saw in the '00s. Those were super-toxic. At least these Homecomings make some feints at constructive things, even if there's a lot of bad with the good. New Orleans is the best of the three.

It's probably not the one you mean, as it's still around, but Datalounge has regular discussion of the remaining soaps, and it matches that description. Lots of behind-the-scenes dish that may or may not be true.

Since I just fell off the turnip truck this morning, hitting my head on the way down, my hope is that Carly has to go through a bad patch when the sekrit of Willow's parentage is out. We all know she'll be an unrepentant bitch about it, so maybe besides Nina and Sonny, Millow will also have her on their shit list for at least a few days.