The Scorpios: Spies, Doctors, & Commissioners... Oh My!

[IWantCandy71]

32 minutes ago, UYI said:

In retrospect, do any of you think it would have been better if Robert & Anna had stayed dead?

I've never cared about any of that family, TBH. They bore me. I can't imagine it's magically gotten better in the two years I really haven't been watching. I find Anna and Robin to be so unbearably self righteous.

That's like, my pet peeve in a fictional character. No thanks.

[HeatLifer]

48 minutes ago, UYI said:

But in terms of character development/retcons, I can see an argument for why it might have been better for her parents to have actually died. 

I’m not understanding your point. What character development of Robin was erased because Anna and Robert turned up alive?

[UYI]

20 minutes ago, HeatLifer said:

I’m not understanding your point. What character development of Robin was erased because Anna and Robert turned up alive?

Just the idea of how independent she had to be in developing her own surrogate family outside of her parents before she got them back.

Maybe citing character development was the wrong way to go about it. I only wound up confusing everyone. My apologies. 🙂 

(I probably should have focused more on what happened to R&A's characters, tbh. How their characters were damaged.) 

Edited May 18, 2019 by UYI

[ulkis]

I get what you're saying @UYI and I would agree with you (see my complaints about Michael not being able to do anything without Sonny and Carly up his behind) but i don't think they ever went backwards on any of Robin's relationships.

I do think it might have been better that Robert and Anna left when they did, because then she might have ended up as another Michael, but by the time they came back all those relationships were firmly established. She said something about Sonny being a better father than Robert! Plus they weren't really around that much even when they did come back.

[UYI]

1 hour ago, ulkis said:

I get what you're saying @UYI and I would agree with you (see my complaints about Michael not being able to do anything without Sonny and Carly up his behind) but i don't think they ever went backwards on any of Robin's relationships.

I do think it might have been better that Robert and Anna left when they did, because then she might have ended up as another Michael, but by the time they came back all those relationships were firmly established. She said something about Sonny being a better father than Robert! Plus they weren't really around that much even when they did come back.

Yeah, like I said, "character development" might have been the wrong term to use here, at least in regards to her. She's always been a strong character. I just have always found it interesting how, in many ways, the entire town really raised her and became her family--and that became even more true once her parents were gone. It drove home the point that family doesn't always equal blood or DNA, or your immediate family (in this case, her parents). It is great that she did get them back, because of how much loss and pain she's suffered in her life, but when you look at how Robert & Anna's characters have been treated...I can't help but question if it was really worth it.

And I can't help but imagine what things would have been like if she had still gone back to be a doctor at GH, still met and married Patrick, still married Emma...but without her parents there, and the dynamics involved with those she considers her closest family in their absence.

And of course, the even bigger "what if?"of what would have happened if they had never been presumed dead in the first place--what would have changed, and what, if anything, would have stayed the same, especially in terms of her HIV status. We'll never know, of course, but I just can't help but wonder sometimes.

I love this scene in particular. Robin and Felicia talk, shortly before she permanently (for six years, anyway) leaves town for Paris in 1999, and tells her how much she misses her mom. This is right before she ended things with Jason and told AJ he was Michael's father, so she asks Felicia for advice about how to handle things with Jason and Carly, and then afterwards, she imagines what Anna would tell her to do if she were there. 

Edited May 19, 2019 by UYI

[jsbt]

It was absolutely worth it having them back.

[ouinason]

I will split the difference.  I think Anna and Robin's relationship post return from the dead has been amazing and has added to the character... I think that, with how the interactions with him have gone, Robert's return really added nothing for Robin beyond an extra level of cynicism. 

And, maybe that's just the retconned reasoning for their being gone.  Anna had amnesia and brain damage and was living in a cabin in the woods.  She was found, treated and reunited with her daughter.  Robert faked his death and just stayed away.  That reunion was anything but happy, and it's colored my opinion of him ever since.

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 hours ago, ouinason said:

I will split the difference.  I think Anna and Robin's relationship post return from the dead has been amazing and has added to the character... I think that, with how the interactions with him have gone, Robert's return really added nothing for Robin beyond an extra level of cynicism. 

And, maybe that's just the retconned reasoning for their being gone.  Anna had amnesia and brain damage and was living in a cabin in the woods.  She was found, treated and reunited with her daughter.  Robert faked his death and just stayed away.  That reunion was anything but happy, and it's colored my opinion of him ever since.

While I'm no fan of the reasons of why Robert stayed away, or how he treated Robin, he didn't just stay away. Robin and Anna were threatened by the wonderful WSB, should Robert go back to them. While I hated almost everything about that story, I will always love Robert for calling Mooby a thug to Robin's face. Because one thing that is Robert's North Star is the LAW.

And Sri Rao redeemed him in the second season of Night Shift. It's also where we got such emotional beats and HEART and got confirmation that Robert and Anna really love each other. But Robert "loves [her]more." And bringing back Sean, Tiffany during Robert's cancer story line...amazing.

Sri is the ONE person who could have saved this show had he any interest in doing the daily grind of running a soap. Since Night Shift was a summer weekly, he did it. And he was a fan. And he RESPECTED the history, the characters and the relationships.

Bitter, who me?

[ouinason]

I get what you are saying.  

My biggest problem with all of Robert's actions is this:  The WSB is the bad guy in ruining his life and keeping him away from his family... but he continues to not only work for them (changing the boss doesn't negate that it's the same people), but encourages, and sometimes cajoles) Anna to work for them.  So... I guess it was fine?  He's practically the WSB's cheerleader, and I haven't seen that their actions have become less douchey at all.  The shit with Dante makes them look bad, the shit with losing Alex and Andre's whole BS makes them look incompetent at best.  His continued allegiance to this group of people who have supposedly kept him from his daughter while she needed him most is dumb, and makes him look bad.

[statsgirl]

I think of the WSB rather like the military: it keeps Robert from his family and has caused trauma to Dante but its existence is the greater good.

[UYI]

I feel like I've asked this before, but do we know if a boat explosion ever really occurred in 1992? I know there were photos back then when Robert & Anna were presumed dead, but it's the WSB--they could have easily been doctored. 

[ulkis]

16 minutes ago, UYI said:

I feel like I've asked this before, but do we know if a boat explosion ever really occurred in 1992? I know there were photos back then when Robert & Anna were presumed dead, but it's the WSB--they could have easily been doctored. 

@Francie do you have anything on this?

Edited May 25, 2019 by ulkis

[Francie]

32 minutes ago, ulkis said:

@Francie do you have anything on this?

Here’s the moment on screen:

The death reveal starts at the 8 minute mark.  So, in 1992 all we saw were photographs. Sean, with the greater expertise, believed them.  Mac did not, at first.  No bodies found. So, many of us fans believed they lived, of course. 

Later, on AMC, Anna remembered being on the boat and seeing Robert die. It was supposed to be that the explosion caused her near decade long amnesia. She wound up in Canada, playing chess with the father from the Waltons. 

Still later, Robert remembered being on the boat and all of them in the explosion. He knew Anna lived, and was blackmailed into black ops for years to keep her and Robin alive. 

And that’s the jumbled mess that was “the explosion.” 

[UYI]

Thank you, Francie. I've seen those scenes and knew about the photos from that time period, but when Robin saw Robert again in 2006, that was one of the first things she asked him so I always wondered about it. 

[bannana]

On 5/24/2019 at 8:32 PM, Francie said:

Here’s the moment on screen:

The death reveal starts at the 8 minute mark.  So, in 1992 all we saw were photographs. Sean, with the greater expertise, believed them.  Mac did not, at first.  No bodies found. So, many of us fans believed they lived, of course. 

Later, on AMC, Anna remembered being on the boat and seeing Robert die. It was supposed to be that the explosion caused her near decade long amnesia. She wound up in Canada, playing chess with the father from the Waltons. 

Still later, Robert remembered being on the boat and all of them in the explosion. He knew Anna lived, and was blackmailed into black ops for years to keep her and Robin alive. 

And that’s the jumbled mess that was “the explosion.” 

Why did they kill them off?  Did the actors want to go off and do prime time?

[UYI]

9 hours ago, bannana said:

Why did they kill them off?  Did the actors want to go off and do prime time?

Finola Hughes got a primetime show on ABC called Jack's Place in late 1991; she had originally planned on leaving GH, but doing double duty on both shows during her final month of GH. But Gloria Monty, possibly feeling butt hurt about losing one of the show's biggest remaining stars up to that point (Finola had won her first Emmy earlier that year, even though she couldn't accept it on person--it was the same day she officially became an American citizen so she was celebrating that instead), instead fired her right before the beginning of the Scorpio's family Christmas scene in the show's Christmas episode that year; FH had only a month left on her contract, but I guess GM needed to show off her authority or whatever. Finola was replaced by Camilla More (who had previously been on DAYS with her twin sister Carey--they're both descended from Sir Thomas More, interestingly enough!) to play Anna for that final month (going into 1992), before Anna was kidnapped by Faison and ultimately presumed dead along with Robert.

TR, meanwhile, had originally wanted to leave in 1991, but GM convinced him to stay another year by introducing Mac as Robert's brother. However, after seeing how Finola was treated over her departure, he wound up leaving earlier in 1992 than he had originally planned; he was fed up with GM by then, and I guess his early exit was a way of expressing solidarity towards Finola. The loss of FH and TR proved to be the final straw for ABC regarding GM's ill-fated second tenure at GH, so they fired her and replaced her with Wendy Riche. Oddly enough, though, her sister, Norma, who was GH's head writer by then, was actually kept on a bit longer. Not much longer, granted, but longer than GM was.

Complicating things was that GM had brought back Holly/Emma Samms RIGHT before she was fired, which probably left Holly a bit more aimless than she would have been had Robert stayed longer. 

Edited January 17, 2020 by UYI

[UYI]

Here are two clips featuring Camilla More as Anna:

 

[Francie]

On 1/17/2020 at 10:08 AM, UYI said:

Finola Hughes got a primetime show on ABC called Jack's Place in late 1991; she had originally planned on leaving GH, but doing double duty on both shows during her final month of GH. But Gloria Monty, possibly feeling butt hurt about losing one of the show's biggest remaining stars up to that point (Finola had won her first Emmy earlier that year, even though she couldn't accept it on person--it was the same day she officially became an American citizen so she was celebrating that instead), instead fired her right before the beginning of the Scorpio's family Christmas scene in the show's Christmas episode that year; FH had only a month left on her contract, but I guess GM needed to show off her authority or whatever. Finola was replaced by Camilla More (who had previously been on DAYS with her twin sister Carey--they're both descended from Sir Thomas More, interestingly enough!) to play Anna for that final month (going into 1992), before Anna was kidnapped by Faison and ultimately presumed dead along with Robert.

Really, really close.  Here are some additional tidbits. 

Finola planned to leave at the end of the year, and gave 6 month's notice. Gloria was her biggest champion, and wished Finola luck.  Gloria even facilitated a meeting or some meetings with ABC bigwigs.  What both Finola and Gloria had in mind was that Finola's exit was well-timed with the start of pilot season, which starts every year in January. 

A wrinkle developed. The ABC bigwigs liked Finola and wanted her to be part of a mid-season replacement show -- Jack's Place. Instead of filming just a pilot between Jan. and May, Jack's Place needed Finola to start right away -- in late November.  Because Finola's contract was with ABC and not General Hospital. the bigwigs "fixed" it by letting Finola out of her GH obligations.  Be that as it may, Finola was still willing to do some sort of modified wrap up of her storyline for GH.

But Gloria was livid and refused to take out a single beat of the plot or otherwise shorten the storyline. And Finola and she clashed about just how much of Finola's time Gloria would take up during those last few weeks. Gloria wanted Finola available until the early hours of the morning and weekends. Finola, as we would now say, stated her boundaries. 

And the immediate termination -- the, "I hope you enoyed that scene -- it was your last" was a result. 

To this day, I'm bummed that Gloria didn't just let Finola shoot a nice final Christmas episode, a New Year's Eve episode, and then the final face off with Faison.  It was criminal to not have Finola play out those scenes.  

In any event, Gloria shot herself in the foot with that move, and the writing soon was on the wall for her and her not so grand return to daytime. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by Francie

[UYI]

Thanks, @Francie! Here's Finola describing that final day on GH--and Tristan and Kim also discuss the tension that surrounded those scenes once Gloria dropped that sudden termination onto her (starts at around 9:22):

 

Also, shortly before that, the narrator claims that when IB left the show in 1989 that Duke & Anna divorced, which is a GLARING error. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by UYI

[GHScorpiosRule]

GOD. Will that reunion scene of Anna and Robin running toward each other always GET to me and give me chills and tears?

I ❤️ It so much!!!

[EarlGreyTea]

In self-isolation and working from home, I've been able to watch the Mr. B. and Asian Quarter storylines on YouTube, albeit out of order. Thanks to the kind soul who divided everything up into playlists and edited all the scenes so I wouldn't have to sit through other storylines I don't care about.

TinyRobin was so cute that it kills me to see the low caliber of kid actors soaps employ nowadays.

Robert sure was a sight for the eyes in those early days. Frisco and Felicia were a stunning couple - in fact, I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful woman on soaps than KW, except maybe Robin Wright on Santa Barbara.

The whole thing kind of depresses me after a while, though, because we now know where all these characters ended up, and in some cases it's not pretty. Frisco is a deadbeat and one of his kids is dead, Robert and Anna seem to have this weird dynamic between them that I've seen while casually flipping through channels, and I read what happened to Duke.

Edited April 14, 2020 by EarlGreyTea

[EarlGreyTea]

Might I also add that I caught some of Robert and Anna's investigation scenes with Emma out of context (at a boarding school or something), and, having watched some classic Scorpio family scenes recently, I felt giddy because the whole dynamic seemed like an homage of TinyRobin with her cop parents?  Except that I don't really understand the newfound hostility between Robert and Anna nowadays, and am not sure I want to. And the Emma actress is lovely, but, ahem, a bit wooden, shall we say.

Edited April 14, 2020 by EarlGreyTea

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 minute ago, EarlGreyTea said:

Except that I don't really understand the newfound hostility between Robert and Anna nowadays, and am not sure I want to.

It's because of the ridiculous RETCON of Henrik/Peter being her son with her stalker Faison. And how he's such a gooooood person. Asshole Frank basically undid everything about Robert and Anna's falling in love/marriage, just to insert this waste of space into the show. Despite viewers knowing he's a murdering arsehole.

[dubbel zout]

38 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

It's because of the ridiculous RETCON of Henrik/Peter being her son with her stalker Faison.

Do we know for sure that Anna is his bio mom and not Alex? Anna thinks of him as her son regardless, so that idiocy is now canon, but I refuse to accept that Anna would sleep with Faison willingly.

[EarlGreyTea]

44 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

It's because of the ridiculous RETCON of Henrik/Peter being her son with her stalker Faison. And how he's such a gooooood person. Asshole Frank basically undid everything about Robert and Anna's falling in love/marriage, just to insert this waste of space into the show. Despite viewers knowing he's a murdering arsehole.

What on EARTH? Since when would Anna have slept with Faison? Does this mean she supposedly hid the kid from him while she was with Robert on their first go-round when they married? Wow, what a travesty, seriously.

I hate it when the writers try to give Robert or Anna another kid that is not Robin. I prefer her to be their only child.

I am going to swim back to the Barge as fast as I can.

Edited April 14, 2020 by EarlGreyTea

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

Do we know for sure that Anna is his bio mom and not Alex? Anna thinks of him as her son regardless, so that idiocy is now canon, but I refuse to accept that Anna would sleep with Faison willingly.

No we don't! But, as you said, Anna all of sudden, upon her return from vacation, flip-flopped to that pestilence piece of shit being HERSON.

I'm with you; I REFUSE to believe that she would do so willingly, as this FAKAKTA regime has been trying to shove down our throats for two years now. It's SO RAGE INDUCING.

1 hour ago, EarlGreyTea said:

What on EARTH? Since when would Anna have slept with Faison? Does this mean she supposedly hid the kid from him while she was with Robert on their first go-round when they married? Wow, what a travesty, seriously.

I hate it when the writers try to give Robert or Anna another kid that is not Robin. I prefer her to be their only child.

 

When she first joined the WSB; and she did it as a honeytrap; and she INSISTS he didn't know it was her. What BULLSHIT. They're totally retconning that Anna was a VIRGIN when she and Robert married.

So no, she didn't hide another kid from Robert. This whole RETCON pisses me off. Someone else who is of a more calm mind can 'splain it better.

[EarlGreyTea]

43 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

When she first joined the WSB; and she did it as a honeytrap; and she INSISTS he didn't know it was her. What BULLSHIT. They're totally retconning that Anna was a VIRGIN when she and Robert married.

So no, she didn't hide another kid from Robert. This whole RETCON pisses me off. Someone else who is of a more calm mind can 'splain it better.

What nonsense. I did see a clip a few weeks ago where Anna wondered whether Robin really was her kid. The treachery! I did, however, like that Robert INSISTED he'd know if it  was Anna he slept with or not. I have seen very early Robert and Anna - they were gorgeous and sincere together. Their very existence was a retcon in and of itself, wasn't it?

I'll send over a grenade from the Barge if they go one further and say that Robin was Alex's. Alex's existence in the first place was a huge misstep, but she could (and should) have gone the way of the dodo along with AMC.

Edited April 14, 2020 by EarlGreyTea

[GHScorpiosRule]

11 minutes ago, EarlGreyTea said:

Their very existence was a retcon in and of itself, wasn't it?

I didn't see it that way. We didn't know Robert's past when he showed up; just that he was WSB. So introducing Anna, their past, was organic.

12 minutes ago, EarlGreyTea said:

I'll send over a grenade from the Barge if they go one further and say that Robin was Alex's. Alex's existence in the first place was a huge misstep, but she could (and should) have gone the way of the dodo along with AMC.

It was stupid, but the way Anna "figured out" that Robin was hers, was from some bracelet. So, Robin is hers and Robert's.

[EarlGreyTea]

Can someone well-versed in KMc's GH history tell me where she was in 1997? As I'm watching JnR clips for the first time, it's certainly noticeable that she was offscreen a lot.  Was Kim at school? I am about to reach the point where she returns for her longer stint until 1999. In retrospect, it's rather amazing that they didn't pair Jason up with anyone else while she was gone (and if they did, I don't even want to know, especially if it was Cujo). I liked that they had enough respect for JnR. Of course, that didn't last long, but I appreciated it for 1997 at least.

I now see why people swear up and down that Jason has not loved anyone truly except for Robin. In fact, during that short period of time, I'd say he gave Patrick a run for his money in the amount of love they both had for Robin. Patrick certainly always had other options on the backburner (thanks, writers), but Jason, during that time at least, never seemed to consider anyone but Robin. It may be that SBu does longing better than JT did. Unless Jason dallied around with Carly in 1997, but since the kind soul who uploaded JnR conveniently left her out of most clips, I don't know if she was a real option.

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by EarlGreyTea

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 hour ago, EarlGreyTea said:

Can someone well-versed in KMc's GH history tell me where she was in 1997? As I'm watching JnR clips for the first time, it's certainly noticeable that she was offscreen a lot.  Was Kim at school?

Yes. Kimberly was in school, so Robin was off at school/college. She would return during the summer. Then when Jaysus got shot in 1997, she asked Mooby to fire him. He did, but Jason knew it was bogus, and he and Robin broke up. It was RAW. There was UGLY CRYING! From Jason!

Robin left to go to the Sorbonne. But you knew both were heart broken.

Robin/Kimberly returned a year later when Brenda started to go cray-cray. She and Jason reunited until the SheBeast returned from maternity leave. Then when Kimberly wanted to leave the show in '99, Guzasshole TRASHED her character. But Robin left ALIVE, told AJ that the SLS baby was his.

She would return sporadically for the last Nurses Ball that took place off screen; Lila's funeral. Then her final return in 2005, until her "death" in 2010, and rescue in 2013; then sporadic visits until two years ago. Or last year?

I think I've got it.

Edited April 15, 2020 by GHScorpiosRule

[EarlGreyTea]

29 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Yes. Kimberly was in school, so Robin was off at school/college. She would return during the summer. Then when Jaysus got shot in 1997, she asked Mooby to fire him. He did, but Jason knew it was bogus, and he and Robin broke up. It was RAW. There was UGLY CRYING! From Jason!

Robin left to go to the Sorbonne. But you knew both were heart broken.

Robin/Kimberly returned a year later when Brenda started to go cray-cray. She and Jason reunited until the SheBeast returned from maternity leave. Then when Kimberly wanted to leave the show in '99, Guzasshole TRASHED her character. But Robin left ALIVE, told AJ that the SLS baby was his.

She would return sporadically for the last Nurses Ball that took place off screen; Lila's funeral. Then her final return in 2005, until her "death" in 2010, and rescue in 2012; then sporadic visits until two years ago. Or last year?

I think I've got it.

Good stuff, thanks. I've seen their 1997 breakup several times already. It was AMAZING! Did either of them submit those scenes for their Emmy reels? I thought it was totally raw and realistic. It was a legit reason for a breakup, a classic example of irreconcilable differences. I liked that Robin had a real problem with mob life, even if she did return to him later. It made for good soap and it kept Robin's morality as an important part of her core. My headcanon is that Jason is with Sam now (whatever, I haven't watched in years), because she doesn't care about his job, but if Robin was willing and even vaguely accepting, he'd go back to her. And yet he's been with Sam for, what, 15 years?

I wish SBu's 2000 exit (or whenever it was) had  been in pursuit of Robin, and that they'd returned triumphantly together back to the canvas. I won't ever be convinced that Liz wasn't a placeholder for Robin, if they couldn't have the real thing.

I can also see now why Robin and Sonny were so close. Mo emoted back then, too! All of them had amazing friendship chemistry. I almost don't want to watch Robin's final 1999 scenes.

Edited April 15, 2020 by EarlGreyTea

[UYI]

17 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

She would return sporadically for the last Nurses Ball that took place off screen; Lila's funeral. Then her final return in 2005, until her "death" in 2010, and rescue in 2013; then sporadic visits until two years ago. Or last year?

I think I've got it.

2012, actually, specifically Valentine's Day (her AIDS scare was in late 2011).

But yes, after 1999, her only appearances on the show before her 2005 return were at the 2000 Nurses Ball (where she found out Jason had left town and Sonny & Carly were married) and for Lila's funeral in 2004, plus her AMC appearances in 2001 when Anna turned up alive.

Unless she came back for the Nurses Ball in 1999 a few months after she left for Paris and I just haven't seen it. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

13 minutes ago, UYI said:

2012, actually, specifically Valentine's Day (her AIDS scare was in late 2011).

But yes, after 1999, her only appearances on the show before her 2005 return were at the 2000 Nurses Ball (where she found out Jason had left town and Sonny & Carly were married) and for Lila's funeral in 2004, plus her AMC appearances in 2001 when Anna turned up alive.

Unless she came back for the Nurses Ball in 1999 a few months after she left for Paris and I just haven't seen it. 

Right! Thanks for the correction. The dates all seem to blur.

But no, Robin didn't show up at the Ball in 1999; Found a clip where Amber's Emily asks Jaysus to be her date. I love her contempt for the SheBeast. And even though Jaysus told Robin she was dead to him, it is SO CLEAR AND OBVIOUS he's still in love with her; and it's his own hypocrisy that he won't forgive her. No one will EVER convince me that Robin wasn't/isn't the love of the Borg's life. And Emily asks him if he doesn't want to go because he and Robin broke up.

The sound quality is crappy, but here you go:

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by GHScorpiosRule

[GHScorpiosRule]

I MISS THIS family so, so, so, much! And even Luke!

 

[GHScorpiosRule]

Okay, so Patrick broke two of the promises he made to both Robin and Robert. But it was still a beautiful wedding! 

 

I know I watched this, but I can't remember--why wasn't Elizabeth there? Or Lucky? Emily? Who was that sitting next to Edward? Where was Noah?

MATT!!!! *sniff* It's been long enough. He should be out of prison by now.

[WendyCR72]

Sigh. I miss Scrubs. Yet I am also very glad they are no longer on.

[UYI]

From 1991: Anna alternates between kissing Robert and attempting to beat the crap out of him and Mac, LMAO. 😄

 

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by UYI

[GHScorpiosRule]

ALAN!!!! *sniff*

I MISS THIS Anna so much!