The Loves of Erica Kane

[Steph J]

Inspired by a conversation/argument with a friend, my personal ranking of the many love interests of the one and only Ms. Kane*:

1. Dimitri Marick - I started watching the show in 1994 and always liked Erica with Dimitri (well, until he slept with Maria, then it was kind of ruined). I've recently been watching what I can find of the 80s and 90s and have finally seen the beginning of this relationship and it's reconfirmed how much I like them as a couple. They're so glamorous and dramatic together.

2. Jack Montgomery (1989-91) - the first go-round of Erica and Jack was so sexy and fun that it's easy to understand why the show kept returning to the well.

3. Adam Chandler - not a love match, but Susan Lucci and David Canary were gold together. Their second marriage was greatly entertaining, even though it feels like it came about as a back up plan after the actor who was playing Charlie was let go.

4. David Hayward - I've heard that they were broken up because TPTB wanted Erica to be single while playing out Bianca's coming out story. I wish they'd gotten them back together rather than putting David with Dixie.

5. Mike Roy - I haven't been able to see any of their relationship in the 80s, but I enjoyed their rapport when he returned briefly in the late 90s.

6. Jack Montgomery (2003-2006) - I have a great fondness for this period of their relationship, if only for the family scenes that also included Bianca, Kendall, Greenlee, and Reggie.

7. Jeremy Hunter - this is just such a classic, OTT soap opera relationship. Every time I think of Erica stuck on the collapsing fire escape while Jeremy swings towards her in slow motion, or Erica getting onto the ladder of the helicopter, it just puts a smile on my face.

8. Travis Montgomery - Lucci and Larkin Malloy had good chemistry, but he could be such an ass. You got Barbara pregnant, dude. You don't get to be sanctimonious about Erica's fling with Jack.

9. Jack Montgomery (1998) - their brief reunion, broken up when Erica had closure sex (or whatever you want to call it) with Mike Roy.

10. Charlie Brent - the relationship never got far off the ground and the actor was there and gone in a flash, but I can see why the show gave it a try since it played into so much history.

11. Chris Stamp - I never cared for Chris or really understood why Erica was with him other than the fact that he was played by Jack Scalia.

12. Jeff Martin (2006 version) - blah. We all knew it was coming when they brought Jeff back to town, but it felt so forced and it was part of that terrible abortion retcon.

13. Jack Montgomery (1994) - less a relationship than a straight up plot device that functioned to break up Jack and Laurel and delay Erica and Dimitri's reunion.

14. [Literally anyone]

15. Ryan Lavery - what even was this? This was about the time I stopped watching the show.

 

* I've never seen Erica's relationships with Chuck Tyler, Phil Brent, Nick Davis, original Jeff Martin, Jason Maxwell, Tom Cudahy, Brandon Kingsley, Kent Bogard.

[Black Knight]

On 3/29/2018 at 11:24 PM, Steph J said:

13. Jack Montgomery (1994) - less a relationship than a straight up plot device that functioned to break up Jack and Laurel and delay Erica and Dimitri's reunion.

I remember an interview with whoever the writer was back then, explaining that originally they really were doing Erica/Jack, but they saw the audience was rooting for Dimitri instead, so they changed direction.

Erica/Dimitri will always be first for me too.

I hated Chris Stamp the most out of any of the men I saw Erica with - until they briefly paired her with his son, Ryan Lavery. I think I'm still traumatized by their sex scene. Was that when Chuck Pratt was writing the show? He made so many other terrible decisions, and that seems right in keeping with them.

Jeremy Hunter - sniffle. He didn't deserve his ultimate fate, on Loving.

[Steph J]

31 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

I remember an interview with whoever the writer was back then, explaining that originally they really were doing Erica/Jack, but they saw the audience was rooting for Dimitri instead, so they changed direction.

Really? I'm currently in the middle of rewatching 1994 and I find that surprising because I can't imagine who they would have paired Dimitri with if Dimitri/Erica weren't endgame. The only non-Erica women that he's really been interacting with in this period are Laurel, who is clearly slated for a pairing with Trevor so there wasn't going to be a Dimitri/Erica and Jack/Laurel spouse swap; Kendall, which would have been gross given that Sarah Michelle Gellar was only 17 (though playing 24 because AMC realized too late that viewers would actually do the math) and even her pairing with Rudolph Martin's Anton (he was 27 at the time) was kind of pushing it; Maria, which would be a non-starter since she and Edmund are still being pushed as an ideal pairing; and Corvina, a non-contract player.

Maybe they would have put him with Gloria, whose marriage to Adam has just imploded because of his faked kidnapping, or with Brooke, currently without a love interest or a storyline.

[Black Knight]

Yeah, Brooke seems the likely option to me. They probably would've made quite a good couple, actually.

[BBHN]

Brooke and Dmitri would have been interesting.

But yeah, Erica and Dmitri for me as well.

[SmithW6079]

I had stopped watching AMC long before it was canceled, so I don't know some of Erica's later lovers/husbands (although I did watch it when she was on her first four or five husbands), but I always liked Mike Roy best for her. He knew what she was and loved her anyway, and he didn't put ip with her BS.

[WendyCR72]

18 hours ago, SmithW6079 said:

I had stopped watching AMC long before it was canceled, so I don't know some of Erica's later lovers/husbands (although I did watch it when she was on her first four or five husbands), but I always liked Mike Roy best for her. He knew what she was and loved her anyway, and he didn't put ip with her BS.

Nicholas Surovy's version, though. Not Hugo Napier's. No offense to Mr. Napier, but I liked Surovy's more salt of the earth take than Napier's high-brow take. (And Mike suddenly gaining a British accent was weird.)

[SmithW6079]

5 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Nicholas Surovy's version, though. Not Hugo Napier's. No offense to Mr. Napier, but I liked Surovy's more salt of the earth take than Napier's high-brow take. (And Mike suddenly gaining a British accent was weird.)

Yes! Until I read an AMC wiki, I didn't even know Mike Roy had come back from the dead. 

[Steph J]

6 hours ago, SmithW6079 said:

Yes! Until I read an AMC wiki, I didn't even know Mike Roy had come back from the dead. 

It's too bad he was only back for a few months. The adventures they could have had.

[Caracoa1]

How many men has Erica slept with? I watched this soap for years and never really realized she has had a lot of sexual relationships.