Alexis Enters SUNSET BEACH

Alexis

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IIRC, they wrote out both Laura Harring and Leigh Taylor Young to make room for Ricardo's extended family (Antonio & Carmen) and Meg's family (her parents took over the pancake place if I remember correctly). I can only assume they did it in an attempt to add a family element.
Cole has just said that Elaine and Paula are visiting Elaine's very ill sister. He just gave Caitlyn a bracelet that Elaine gave to him to give to her, AJ Deschanel had gave it to Elaine and it is part of the Deschanel jewels. I guess this means that Adam Carrington will be showing up soon.

This Church set is amazing, better than some stuff I have seen on prime time. It's a really big set. Made up of the Terror Island house and the Convent that Caitlyn was in. And I guess that this is what becomes the Richards house soon too.
 

Alexis

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Sean having a conversation with Gregory says Caitlyn will be married in 1 hour! Lets see how long that actually takes!
It's been 3 episodes so far and ain't nobody married.
 

Alexis

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It took 5 episodes to cover the wedding morning from start to finish. I guess a week. It's funny how quickly Madame Carmen and Father Antonio just get folded into the story. Like one out, one in!
Meg has bumped into Madame Carmen on the pier while looking for Ben. Madame Carmen warns meg that their meeting was in the cards ad that she is in grave danger. Something terrible will happen tonight!
Meanwhile Tim has been following Ben convinced that he is the killer after seeing him with seemingly hurt leg at the wedding. He's followed him to his seedy secret hideout. He goes inside and sees crazy Ben's, who is really Derek's whackjob stalker type pin=board filled with pictures of Meg and Ben. What is going to happen? What terrible thing will happen tonight?! Well Ben has walked in on Tim in his hideout and confessed to being the killer and is now about to kill him. It's a lot. This fight could also go on for says.

Meanwhile Caitlyn's wedding reception is in full swing at Grenadines which is actually her own living room but she hasn't noticed so we will leave it there. Annie is now pressing on with her plan to steal Olivia's baby and give it to Caitlyn to pass off as her own. However Caitlyn has no idea that her plan is to steal her mother's baby. She thinks it's from another woman who cant raise the child herself. So convoluted, but wonderful at the same time!

In much less exciting news everyone's detested reporter Vanessa, or as Michael vomitously calls her "Scoop" is being traumatised by the thought of her mother who refuses to see her in hospital. All while Virginia is working at that hospital and has taken some pictures of Vanessa's mother and her deformed face for some dastardly plan. I don't care so long as Vanessa is tortured.

Sweet Jesus! There is a scene of the wedding reception where all the cast are doing the actual Hokey Cokey and as the music plays we get close ups of the cast and the we get in voice over all of their thoughts. Basically the whole Richards family and guests recapping about a years worth of plot! It's so strange. Like this is obviously just filling time and not progressing the story. There has also been a lot of flashbacks to stuff that has just recently happened. I always feel like the writers are working on new plots when we get this stalling filler crap.
 

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OK, I have to skip ahead here to bring something up. I will try and go back over other plots after I get this off my chest. I have to talk about Annie's plan to steal Olivia's baby and give it to Caitlyn. In detail. My God... So many things that are f**ked up with this plot.
So... Annie has phoned Olivia and using a sock over the mouthpiece of the phone and slightly disguising her voice has told Olivia that she is a blackmailer and that unless Olivia gives her $5000 dollars she is going to release a sex tape of Cole and Jade. This was on Cole and Caitlyn's wedding night. Heavily pregnant Olivia is at first dismissive then she thinks she doesn't want to see her daughter humiliated and her family shamed so she agrees. Annie tells her to drive to some cabin in the hills and meet her there to deliver the money. Unbeknownst to Olivia, Annie is luring her to the cabin in order to drug her and then have a doctor come and deliver her baby. Annie had blackmailed the original doctor who Gregory had hired to steal Caitlyn's baby with Cole and tell her it was stillborn. So right away you can see that this plot is modelled on Dynasty's cabin fire/blackmail scenario and Knots Landing's Val's babies.
When Olivia gets to the cabin she has the money and is nervous and just wants to give the cash, get the tape and get out of there. However, Annie soon confronts her and they begin to argue. Annie produces a syringe/needle as they fight and there is a moment when you don't know which one has been stuck with the drug. It's a sedative, turns out it was Olivia after all and she passes out on the bed.
Meanwhile Caitlyn waits with Sean parked in the woods thinking that Annie is getting the baby from an illegal adoption that does not concern their mother or her womb.
Now Annie is in some cabin in the woods with a 9month pregnant woman, who has already been hospitalised due to a chance of early labour. And she's drugged her with some sedative and has absolutely no medical knowledge or midwifery skills. I know this is soap, and one of the more outrageous ones, even for daytime. But my anxiety is shitting all over me now. Even though it's a fake cabin, in fake woods and there is some questionable acting happening. This whole scenario is terrifying, and it's not even being played that way.
So now Annie waits for her Dr Ackerman to show up. I think I have memories of Olivia actually redoing Val's "But I heard them cry!" bit but to less effect.

Anyway just had to explain all this madness... Normal programming will resume shortly.
 

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Ok, so about those other plots. So Derek pushed Tim off the scaffolding at the building site on the beach when they fought. Just as he did that he heard people approaching. It turned out to be Casey and Gabby and they discovered a wounded and unconscious Tim. Derek sneaks off to scare the shit out of Meg, who's living on her nerves since Madame Carmen prophesised that terror would happen tonight. So Tim is in a coma at SB medical centre now. Casey call's Meg to let her know and so Meg and Ben/Derek end up at he hospital. Gregory also finds out that Tim is in hospital and goes to see him as he was working for him at the site when he apparently fell. Gregory, pays for Tim's treatment feeling semi responsible. While Meg and Gregory are talking outside the room, Derek disconnects a cable and smothers Tim with a pillow. He almost dies but is later revived, and he's seen Ben/Derek try to kill him but cant speak, well I think he cant speak otherwise he would have ya know, spoken. This could go on for days.

Virginia had the photo's she took of Vanessa's mom developed at the local print shop but dropped one and the guy who owns the shop found it and put it in the shop window as "Photo of the month!" thinking that it was a test shot for a horror movie makeup job! I swear! Pretty sure putting up someone's photo in a shop window of a photography shop violates all kinds of data protection laws but maybe that wasn't a thing in 1997? Anyway then everyone in town saw the photo including Michael and little Jimmy, who's now on about the 4th recast. He gets older and younger between episodes. The only person who hasn't seen the picture is Vanessa but she's now heard about it, and remembered when she tried to see her mother last she was screaming about someone taking pictures of her. Super sleuth is on the case.

Cole has left work at the construction site early to try and find Caitlyn as he hasn't been able to trace her all day. He's worried she's in danger, Gregory is also worried about Olivia also missing, presumed pregnant. Cole and Gregory are trailing the highways looking for their wives. Caitlyn of course is still in the woods with Sean waiting on her baby Deliveroo from Annie.
Meanwhile the shady doctor is held in traffic and starts giving Annie instruction on how to deliver the baby. Luckily Annie had purchased an at home birthing kit and she takes the time to mention this to herself out loud which is EVERYTHING. Long story short much moaning and groaning and she manages to deliver the baby and then she steals it from the drugged up Olivia. We do see that Annie is torn about this, she feels very bad about what she is doing. But she also has a flashback to the lawyer telling her that the codicil of her fathers will states she will only get her inheritance if she marries Gregory by the end of June. Remember he was having an affair with Olivia and he wants Olivia and Gregory to be apart, even from beyond the grave! Annie is rationalising that although what she is doing is horrible. Gregory and Olivia were going to do the same thing to get rid of Cole and save face over an unplanned pregnancy of Caitlyn's. Now she's helping Caitlyn have a child even though it's not physically possible for her to have her own baby. She thinks Olivia loosing the baby with drive a wedge between her and Gregory and thus push him into her arms and bag her all her daddy's money and the Deschanel jewels. Then she will off load Gregory and then she doesn't care what they all do.

So off Annie goes into the night with the baby but she waits outside the cabin to make sure the doctor gets there to see to Olivia first. When he does she flees, but on the highway she gets into a 3 car crash and one of the drivers is Gregory! She makes off into the woods with the baby, and eventually finds her way to Caitlyn and Sean.
While this is all happening, the doctor tries to give Olivia yet more drugs. Apparently these will also wipe her memory. While he's filling a syringe, she manages to stumble to her feet and escape into the woods. She doesn't get far, hallucinating that she see's Gregory, then Cole holding her baby, then finally Annie and Gregory showing off their new baby. The doctor finds her and drugs her and then takes her to his clinic in San Francisco.

And this is where were now.
 
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Alexis

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Well, at least they resisted the urge to become outlandish. o_O
I don't know how this is possible but really Sunset Beach only works when it is this level of batshit crazy. It only seems real and viable when they are throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you. Like from Cole unknowingly sleeping with mother and daughter, Annie and Tim's scooby doo adventures in tormenting Meg over Maria, Paula's abduction, Gabby's rape trial, Terror Island, Evil Ben/Derek, The baby switch, it has to be that high octane. It's the stuff in between that makes you want to die. It sometimes feels like nothing is happening, the pacing is so slow. It's like they go over the same point twenty times. Then they do these big energetic plots with bursts of action and it suddenly becomes addictive.

I still have so much fun ahead of me too. An earthquake, the discovery of Maria, AJ Deschanel aka Adam Carrington, more jewel thievery with Chip Roberts from Knots Landing, their version of The Poseidon Adventure, a turkey baster baby, a Caitlyn recast, a Meg recast, another appearance from Derek, more jewel thievery this time cursed jewels and zombies!
 
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Alexis

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Also Virginia has went there. She has consulted a voodoo high priestess to make a potion to give Vanessa the same illness as her mother and make her deformed and deranged.
 

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Delivery of a baby is pretty easy on our soaps, it can be done at any time and place, and you can even keep your pants on
 

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Doctors and cops are always usurped by other characters who can apparently do the job quickly and with little to no training
 

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I cant remember from my kind of recent-ish watch a few years ago of The Bold & The Beautiful, but do people in daytime soaps still talk to themselves out loud? Like just be stood by themselves and speak their thoughts to the camera, conveniently recapping the plot to the viewer or explaining their inner thoughts on a plot. I know it's been done in most of the soaps I have watched at some point or another. On Sunset Beach it seems to happen all the time! Like much, more than I am used to. Is that just bad writing or is it a genuinely accepted thing in genre?
 

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Days of Our Lives was replete with such scenes in this period, and since NBC wanted all their soaps to 'be more like Days', I'm sure the self-talking on SuBe was a reflection of that. I'm not sure it would be much different, but I always thought doing voice-overs (having the actor look 'deep in thought' as the dialogue played) would have been better, or at least a tad more realistic. It's not totally gone, but soaps today don't rely on it because they finally figured out how stupid it looks. Wouldn't it be awful if that whole thing returns in the wake of Covid-19, when they have to come up with tricks to keep the actors socially-distanced on camera? All the actors taking turns recapping plot in rooms by themselves? ::horrors::

I totally agree about the 'hills and valleys' approach to storytelling on SuBe. I was as guilty as anyone else when it came to tuning in to see the more audacious plots, then running away screaming after having to sit through Annie recapping her latest scheme three times in an hour. It had to have been a Sweeps-centered strategy, but they had to know that was not sustainable.
 

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Delivery of a baby is pretty easy on our soaps, it can be done at any time and place, and you can even keep your pants on
Cole eventually found Caitlyn and Sean in the woods, one of the advantages of the woods being about 6 square feet I guess. When he comes across them Annie has given them the baby and then hidden quickly in the trunk. Of course Caitlyn didn't really give birth, but they made no pretence of making it look like she did! She has perfect hair, uncrumpled clothes, pants on, hasn't broken a sweat holding a clean baby wrapped in blankets. Looking 100% normal after apparently giving birth to her son in the woods with only her younger brother to help her deliver the baby. Cole doesn't think this is weird at all. Really? I have 10 nieces and nephews and I have been to the hospital for most of them a day or two after the birth and their poor mum's always looked like they had been pulled threw a tornado backwards and then electrocuted, and that's with a hospital and full medical team.
 
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Olivia booked an appointment to have an abortion to get rid of Cole's baby. Of course wires got crossed, as she booked the appointment under the name of Mrs Cole. When Olivia was out Caitlyn answered a call confirming the appointment. Initially thinking it was a routine doctor appointment she missed. She asks a few questions and learns the appointment is for an abortion. She races to the hospital and finds Olivia and she explains she needs to have the abortion as Gregory would not forgive her having another mans child, actually the child is Caitlyn's husband's.
Meanwhile back at the Richards house, Cole and Olivia cant find their respective wives,
I just realised that earlier on I had assumed that Cole and Caitlyn had married. They had eloped ages ago and I thought they actually married but now I realise that they didn't as they just married a few episodes ago. I must have missed them deciding to call it off?! Weird! I had go back and check this thread as I remembered the talk of a wedding earlier in the show.
 

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It was one of those situations where they went to the place where they planned to marry....but spent so much time building up to it and having all kinds of sub-plots that they totally forgot why they went there...so they turned around and went home. I mean, when you're that young, sexy, and devastatingly gorgeous, you can get away with that.

Edit: Yes, Caitlyn--you're kind of cute, too, so stop whining.
 

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Speaking of the un-pregnant, Caitlyn has now turned a bit of a whack-job. She's stolen a pregnancy pad thing from a store to stuff up her top and pretend she's still pregnant and she wants to return to Sunset Beach urgently. I think her plan is to steal Olivia's baby. Though I am no that certain, I can hardly remember. It's all so complicated. I also know Caitlyn is going to be recast pretty soon, as I remember the other actress pretending to be pregnant too.
I guess I didn't remember that as Caitlyn already has her baby, unless they reshoot flashback bits.
 

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It appears that I am missing one episode going by the episode numbers. Luckily due to the recap from the last episode and the pacing I haven't really missed anything of note. Olivia is now home from the hospital with Gregory and they are in shock over the loss of the baby. Bette is being a good friend to Olivia and being with her as much as possible. Olivia picked up a music box and it played rockabye baby and she had a hazy flashback to a phone call the last time she heard the music box. But she cant recall who the call was from. It was Annie. And yes, they are very much re-doing Val's babies from Knots.

Vanessa seems to have started showing the first symptoms of Martins Syndrome. Blisters appearing on her arm. The voodoo lady's curse has worked. What I missed was how it was done. She made a potion, Virginia must have put it in her food or something. Instead of Vanessa just going to a doctor to find out about the disease and its effects she decides it would be a good idea to break into her mothers confidential medical files. Which is so stupid. 1. She can just see a doctor. 2. She's her mothers next of kin and is paying for her medical treatment, she is entitled to see her medical file.

Meanwhile Caitlyn and Cole have taken their baby back to their apartment above Elaine's. They are unaware of Olivia's baby loss.
 

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Perhaps Annie was diving into those Melrose Place reruns where Kimberly tried to steal Jo's baby. Of course Kimberly had been to medical school
 

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She's her mothers next of kin and is paying for her medical treatment, she is entitled to see her medical file.
Not that SuBe cared about such details, but as long as her mother was not declared legally insane/incapacitated or something similar, Vanessa would have to seek power of attorney or some sort of conservatorship over her mother to gain access to her medical records. HIPAA laws do not let anyone look at personal medical files of other people very easily, even for their closest relatives. Of course option #3 was not on the table in 1997, which is....a visit to Web.MD!
 
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