Guiding Light Nov 2 1979

From Friday, November 2, 1979, Roger makes plans for plastic surgery in France with the beautiful surgeon Dr. Renee Dubois. Back in Springfield, Alan wonders who received the blind trust from his late father, Lucille Wexler plans another fatal “accident” for Ben McFarren, and the marriage of Rita and Ed Bauer is headed for the rocks. Note this episode is 42 minutes without commercials, in later years 37 minutes would be the norm.

This is why Alan Spaulding hated Roger Thorpe. Roger had something on Alan and he blackmailed him into helping him. That allowed him to escape the country after his near conviction for multiple rapes. His current plan is to get plastic surgery and then return to town. As that would mean Roger Thorpe would not longer be played by Michael Zaslow, that’s not going to happen. Roger later shows up at the plastic surgeon’s office (she’s the woman in the green blouse with the French accent). The doctor and Roger had a pretty strange and intense relationship that played out over months.

Rita was the wife who most enjoyed the fact that as a doctor Ed Bauer now had money. It’s because of Rita that Ed bought the house next door to the Spaudling mansion which was how Rick and Phillip (the true flagship couple of Guiding Light) got to be friends, so I’ll always be grateful for that. Otherwise, although many people I know like and respect Rita, I really couldn’t. It might be because of 1970s Ed. He was even more of a doofus than Peter Simon’s version and I lost respect for any woman who would marry him, especially if she wasn’t head over heels in love with him and therefore not so much to blame if she didn’t notice his faults. Maureen gets a pass on this because while she did love him and marry him, she also didn’t put up with much of his bull. Rita had been involved with Roger, but I’m not sure if that’s the secret she’s been “pretending” about here or not. On the other hand, I think Ed does have a point, what the heck does Rita mean Ed shouldn’t worry because her leaving him has nothing to do with him? Rita and Ed break up eventually so I don’t really care that much about this. Ed just accept it she’s just not that into you.

The older woman is Lucile Wexler, Amanda Spaulding’s adopted mom. She tried to kill Ben McFerrin (Amanda’s then boyfriend) by sending him up to deliberately falling out of a door in her mansion. She wants all of Amanda’s attention and Ben is the first serious threat she’s faced in awhile and she’s been pushed to extremes. The guest house is the Carriage House that Ross Marler later lives in for many years. Lucile does a nice long set of what Dark Shadows Every Day calls “Thinks.” Actually Ben is entirely right all the way down the line, except for stupidly threatening Lucile. Ben should have pretended to be fooled. And Amanda was the lucky recipient of Brandon’s blind trust because she was his daughter or granddaughter, he probably didn’t care which. Nobody knows Amanda is a Spaulding biologically at this point. That’s part of the secret Lucile is trying to control.

We get a good look at the quad that defined late 1970s-early 1980s. Alan Spaulding and Elizabeth Spaulding are talking about the trust that young (not yet SORASed) Phillip Spaulding and the trust he inherited from Alan’s father Brandon. Their talk branches out to old hurts and they remind us that they had currently switched partners Elizabeth was married to Justin Marler and Alan was married to Jackie Spaulding. This is post Hope and Alan on the Island and Elizabeth is taking the unfair position that just because Alan hadn’t loved her, that he was incapable of loving anyone which he was.

Evie is Rita sister. I was never very interested in her. She gets into a lot of trouble during her time in Springfield, but not a lot of it was interesting.

Robansuefarm is the handle of one of Manny and Guiding Light‘s biggest fans following in her family’s footsteps of Guiding Lightfandom since 1939. This blog is an effort to make it easy to findGuiding Light and especially Manny online. Check back here for her blog, find fanfic previews and fake WSPR newscasts on her YouTube, find podcasts that look back to old shows and audios of her fanfics onBlog Talk Radio, and finally follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Tags: Alan Spaulding, Amanda Wexler, Ben McFerrin, Brandon Spaulding, Ed Bauer, Elizabeth Spaulding, Evie Stapleton, GL, Guiding Light, Lucile Wexler, Phillip Spaulding, Rita Stapleton Bauer, Roger Thorpe