Still the Place with Laura Layton, Courtney Thorn Smith.
And Daphne's Aniga an iHeartRadio podcast. Hello everyone, are you guys?
So good to see you, Always good to see you. The recap today another recap, So wild.
How this show is not what I in my mind thirty whatever years later. The show is so much more than I thought it was.
It's this episode especially, is very different from what we've gotten used to in our Melrose world.
Well, yeah, and like the last one too, Like we've had now had two and row that are kind of like a little darker, little heavier.
Yeah, it's such an interesting change of pace.
Our expectations are they've gotten going in one direction and.
It we're like I think, because we're still from like Melrose whatever it was one point zero, we're getting into the Melrose You know, we're still in season one and the show really hit I think in season two and three, right, so we're not quite to all the like craziness.
But I don't know if I've mentioned the ratings were very bad in the beginning. I mentioned that before, you know.
You've mentioned it once or twice.
The miracle we're still on that air.
Something about this I think it was from you.
Court It's good great, Courtney was in the studio head you that much we would gone would have been so over. As you mentioned, this is a serious one. This is episode twenty seven. It's called the Test.
And we're not talking about college admission testing. No, we are not, or like this is an athletic prowess test.
Not yeah, No. This aired in nineteen ninety three, March thirty first, and the test we're talking about is an AIDS test. And this is sort of the height of a lot of AIDS awareness going on in our media and on our show, thanks to Aaron and Darren and the writers, in the world and in the whole world old after a decade of not enough attention. Okay, so this episode, episode twenty seven, the test refers to our a storyline which opens the show with Joe and Jake fill.
In the blank in ind bed but his time not in the not in the pink satin sheets, no.
But sort of move sheets manly plaid manly move and the plaid it.
There was maybe move.
He has a sensitive side, Jake, so I supposed I think his actual pillowcases were plaid.
So it's like sort of a preppy.
At any rate. Joe has to. I had to utter the cheesiest line ever. Yes, you did. What is it? Cringe alert?
It was a sex pun.
It was a sex pun. We were as if we had just done it. And then Joe says, I like it better in the morning, and he says, yeah, why use it gets my day out? Started with such a bang, such a guy line.
I admitted, jaff you committed.
I was so impressed with read it. I had this sort of like this memory stored in my cells, going, oh my god, I remember that moment, and I'm sure when I did it, I was like, who the hell wrote this? Like I would never have said that.
But but you guys, the characters laughed at all and made it fun and funny, like Joe knew she was telling a dad joke and was getting a kick out of telling it. Like you played it in such a way that it was fine and we.
Did all laugh.
Oh well, thank you, Laura, and thank god.
Jake.
I'll say grant aka Jake, We're so was so loving and it didn't turn him off. He just rolled over me said, you're crazy girl. You get me going again.
I love dad jokes.
It was so sweet. Anyway, all right. So we're in the middle of seeing what happens next with the two of us, and the phone rings and we hear on the voice machine his ex girlfriend Perry's voice, which was on the show several seasons, several episodes back, and she just says, Jake, I need you to call me right away. And we do know that we're going to find out later that she was a drug user, but she got clean and she was ready to turn her life around.
And that's when the doctor says, you have AIDS. So when she finally does get him, she tells Jake that because they had unprotected sex, he needs to get tested and he should also ask his current girlfriend Joe to get tested. So at this point, Jake is like, he represents all of us. I think that in that year ninety three, you know, those of us who are not in the gay community, who had friends and lovers and everybody getting hit with this. We didn't know the masses,
so there there's a lot of misinformation. There was a lot of fear about it, you know, thinking you could catch it casual touch, et cetera. So Jake is kind of scared. He's like, well, I didn't do anything like, what does does this mean for me? And he's pissed. He's pissed. Yeah. He has a very aggressive reaction to her, like,
look what you know? It's your fault and and and then he's says he's as I said, he's terrified, and he can't bring himself to tell Joe kind of avoids her one night, says I always want to be alone, and she knows that Perry is called, so she's kind of misunderstanding what went on with them on that phone call. And then Jake actually talks to Matt about it and asks advice, and Matt, you know, says that he lost
a lover to AIDS. And Jake finally realizes that he has to break this news to Joe, and he takes her up to Mulholland at night on his motorcycle and he breaks the news to her. And I remember shooting this scene, you know, as you said, this is a very serious scene, and uh, I just remember shooting it very well and talking about AIDS, And as you know, I was aware that we were bringing to our audience a real issue in the zeitgeist in the world. Right then.
It wasn't just melrose Place drama. I definitely remember that anyway. So he says, do you remember that time when we were at that restaurant which we all saw on a few episodes back when they.
Were at the rest sex capades, the sex.
Capaid and before the food comes, are like, we got to get out of here, and they run home. And neither of them wanted to break the mood with pulling out protection as they talk about there on the overlook of Mulholland, and so again this is very common. People didn't want to break the mood, you know. So people did have unprotected sex, which is exactly how you can get it. So Joe at the very end of that scene says, we'll get through this together, Jake, don't worry.
So they get tested and they have to wait twenty four whole hours, and they escape to the desert to try to get their mind off it. As we all know when we try to escape, especially to a place where there's no distractions, getting our mind off it is a last thing that happens. But very distracting, is it, No, But it was a really sweet scene, I thought. By the campfire and they talk about, you know, they have a new perspective of life now because they don't know
what this test is going to tell them. They either have a potentially deadly disease or not. And he says he talks about how he doesn't want to take life for granted anymore, and then he uses the L word for the first time. He says he loves her. She says she loves him. Good, he said it first. And then the light, you know, the camera pulls out and we have that lovely campfire in the desert scene under the stars, and then he has a nightmare. Jake dreams
that he's tested positive. Of course, we'd use that recently in another episode where somebody had it. We didn't know it was a bad dream. I don't remember offhand, but it's a great device, you know, where it's just a scene opens and the doctor comes in and says, you know, you've tested positive, and he's like what, and then boom. He wakes up in the morning in the desert in the sleeping bag and gets Joe up and it's like,
come on, we're out of here. Let's go get some breakfast at a diner, and then they're going to head back to the city and hopefully get there negative results. They do both test negative. They each go to their separate doctor and we have a cut back and forth where each of them ask very pointed questions about it so that our audience can get the answers, just as our characters Joe and Jake will get answers. Doesn't mean
you're immune to it. Keep having sakes, save sex, you should come, you should get tested again in six months because it could be in you but not showing up the virus. So that's another chance to tell our audience about, you know, about the details of AIDS that they want
them to know. So to finish off the whole, I'm just going to jump ahead for a minute because Jake, the good man that he is, ends this whole episode with going back to Perry after he's gone through this whole journey and is apologizes for his initial reaction, apologizes and asks how she really is, and she says, I'm okay, I take my medicine, and you really get a sense I thought she Michelle Johnson was it, Yes, Yeah, that she was really good in this. She just you know,
she's living with it and she takes her medicine. But some days are bad and most days are okay. And he says, look, we've never given being friends to try. Let's give being friends to try, and gives her a big hug and they have that kind of closes out the whole show. That's that story. Then come back to the top and we'll see Alison, who we know from last episode, has decided to stay and so she wants
her old job back. Makes sense, but unlucky for her. Lucy, after rolling her eyes, says, well, you have to go interview for your old job with none other than Amanda, because she's made Amanda in charge of hiring. So we're like, great,
so we will see this storyline. We'll see Amanda, you know, totally insulting Allison's work throughout the episode, and Alison trying to you know, suck up to Amanda and you know, trying to appease her because Amanda says, well, I think I can put you on the phones while I interview all these other people. Of course I don't think we see any other interviews. But she's just putting her through the ringer, you know, she's.
Just like, go back to being a secretary.
Yeah, be a secretary. Still. Finally, after a while, Lucy finally tells Amanda, look, you need to hire her back. There's no reason to not. This is not a sorority. I don't care if your best friends or not. You have to hire her back. So she calls a man Alison in and lets Amanda take credit for deciding to bring Alison back.
She makes Amanda take her credit for it.
Yeah, he makes her decide to take her back, and so she does. I mean, I really noticed the shoulder pads and you Courtney talked about that just recently in real life, how you would order them from home Shopping network or something bulk. This was it.
It was the look.
It didn't have a normal shoulder. That was just like, you had to have this. So she did, and she did this one. And I especially made a note of that lime green suit with the corset ties at the back. I'm sorry, you did it very well. You wore it very well. But at any rate, So she finally confronts
Amanda and says, look, let's have it out. I know this is about Billy, and then Amanda insinuates, as she always does, that she and Billie are still talking and we're actually talking seeing each other and talking, and Allison's like what, and she is so gullible and huffs off, and then we're going to go back to the top and we're going to see Billy who. His first scene is with Alison where he is applying his quote, applying his creative writing skills to his resume without any ethics.
So this resume is full of exaggerations and lies that he's making for applying for job at Escapade Magazine. And one of the lies is that he went to Columbia University for journalism.
I mean just a little while.
Yeah, just you have to have a whole session about if we've ever like fluffed up a resume or just tweaked something, because I know people do it, but that's so obvious. Anyway, he takes this resume. Oh, and then he says something to you know, Alison, about yeah, I put you as a reference, but it made you like the senior editor in charge of something something or other, like a very high position, and Alison's just like what.
So anyway, he shows up at Escapade Magazine with flowers and this resume, and he gets past the desk by saying he has to sing to the boss.
So she.
Says, okay, go on, it is through there, and he shows up into the boss's office, so she's very actually impressed, I think, with the the baldiness of that, and says, Okay, I'm gonna read some of your stuff, and I can't take your flowers, but yeah, I'll read some more stuff
and maybe gave you something. I'll let you know. And then sure enough she brings him on and introduces him to his coworker Cameron, who actually did go to Columbia and he busted him for lying on his resume, but the sexy boss doesn't care and keeps Billy anyway and then hits on him with weird questions about if he saw her sweating at the gym and stuff. Very inappropriate woman.
Yeah, I mean, I think the overall feeling of.
The episode was really heavy, so it is definitely the primary storyline, and it's the primary like feeling.
I thought of the episode like it was kind of a downer.
I mean, obviously a very important topic, but just a total energy shift from where we thought we were going in the show. And it's definitely like a super important topic that was.
I think all of us sort of felt like it was a little bit.
Of a one long episode of a PSA for.
It was in this issue. You know, it was important to Aaron Spelling and Daron but Aaron Spelling this very year produced and the Band Plays On, which was the Discovery of AIDS, starring Matthew Modine, and it had a stellar cast. I don't know if you guys remember that back the day. I remember everyone auditioning for it, and this cast was amazing, you know, with Matthew Modine and Richard Gear and Lily Tomlin and I mean Ian McKellen. It just went on and on and I got an Emmy.
It was, you know, an amazing show on a TV movie or series on HBO. So I know that, you know, Darren produced that and this was kind of like a he really which I really admire him for. You know, he brought that.
And I think the reason because we've been just having two couples making out all through the in the last few episodes, right like you guys we're making out, they're making out. One episode it was you and Jake and Amanda and Billy and me Keith. It was like so many and I think they couldn't counter this storyline right with a lot of casual sex and normally in other episodes, if they had a real heavy, intense storyline, they'd have
a light storyline to counter it. But I think they didn't want to break the mood with this because they really wanted to make this point, and every scene was an education, right, Like for sure, they really had something they wanted to say. And I think they maybe they were feeling, I wanted this just camp. Maybe they were feeling that there was so much casual sex on the show that they felt a responsibility to say, be careful because they talked a lot about protected sex. They talked
a lot about the risks. They really talked a lot about specifically what you should do, how you should handle it. Like they were saying, you know, it takes six months, so you get tested now, you get tested later. And do you guys remember I remember going for that first HIV test? Do you remember that? And it was five days. It was terrifying, and you thought of every person you'd slept with.
You had to wait for five days.
In the beginning, like all of a sudden, you're remembering everybody you'd slept with. Yeah, Like in my early twenties, the first time when it went on, Oh my god, there are there are people getting it. Like when we finally came out of the dark and went, oh, wait a minute, this is real for everybody. Everybody has to be aware of this, right.
Yeah, And I think that that And again I think not only did he want everyone, did they want everyone to know the details. There's a lot of misinformation and stigma too, like if you could get it casually, then you don't want to touch certain people's gaze were being hired. And you know, thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of gay men had died at this point because it went all through the eighties pretty much silent. So this nineteen
ninety three was really a time. And then you know, the drug interfere on I think came on, but there was more and more in the zeitgeist, and then more acceptance and compassion, because that's really what was missing. So I really I liked that it was a story of two heterosexual couple.
Absolutely, wasn't that. Yes, it was so smart to do it that way. And when Jake calls Matt to ask him, sort of in a vague way about what happened, Matt is this great line. He said, testing positive isn't a
death sentence, ignorance is. And I thought that was such a great way to say because people were like, you know, they didn't want to know, didn't want to know, and they were really trying, you could feeling show they were trying to get people to test and be conscious and to understand because you know, Jake was this guy he didn't do ivy drugs, but he happened to have a sexy affair with a woman who did and he didn't know. They're saying, look, you don't know. It's not you're a
good girl, you're a good guy. You can't get it. They really wanted people to be aware that to stop it, we all had to be active participants in prevention.
Yeah, and it was totally understandable how no one wanted to break the mood, you know, I mean, who wants to break the mood? It was a big hurdle they had to. People had to accept and live with this idea that this thing is out there. Yeah.
And I think what you're saying about like breaking the mood is that they put that dialogue in the character's mouths, you know, to say these things that an audience of all sexualities and orientations and experiences can relate to. Sort of like all the things like, this is not just a disease that affects one group of people or whatever. These are relatable things, and so by having our characters say this dialogue, it's like, oh, yeah, I get that,
or I've experienced that or whatever. It made it feel very much like a PSA, but it was covering really a lot of information, whether the doctor was saying it and being really specific about now you need to get tested again in six months, because it was very very
informational in the in the dialogue. But you know, like like you said, the movie, the HBO movie came out in the very same year as this, as this storyline on Melrose's Place, So I was thinking, like, it almost feels like, you know, we've already made the turn on Melroe's Place into thinking, okay, we need to definitely make this more soapy and whatever Heather's already on, we've already
started to see the storyline starting to do this. It almost feels like these storylines were planned all along Billie's father passing and this really important storyline, and it almost feels like they needed to make sure that they were still telling these stories that they'd planned to tell, even though it's sort of not consistent with the.
Flow of where they were going.
So it did feel a little jarring as an audience member to suddenly have this really important, heavy hitting topic when we've come to expect sort of like fun and this. And to your point, Court like, it's really hard to mix it up and just have a little bit of this storyline and just get enough so that you can have a balanced, you know, fun and funny thing.
On the other side, it's really hard to strike that balance.
So it felt really heavily all right, let's just tell this whole story in a really big Yeah.
I watched it. I was watching it with a friend and I was like, I'm prepping for a pop washing thing. It's so much fun and I was like, oh wow, this was not the funn Yeah.
Yeah, but they had to get it in and so they just they did the whole thing, and like, we don't even see Jane and Michael at all in this one, or or Kimberly.
Which they were very committed.
We just started to see them maybe heating up in the prior episode, and then they're not even in this one because they really needed to cover this aid storyline.
Yeah, I bet they had to fight the network to do it and to really have this out there because they got so much good information out to people who probably needed who wouldn't have been researching it. Right, it's the audience from Melrose Place and all of a sudden they're getting all this very specific info.
You think they really would have to fight the network. Like I said, Aaron Spelling was a huge producer at this point, and he did an HBO High Caliber outlet and the band. Oh.
I think so HBO was willing to do it, but Fox was the sexy fun network. I mean, look, they got it through. Somebody okayed it, but my guess is that this script was probably challenging to get through. He probably called him a couple of favors, and it was great that he did because it really was like Gloria. Like you said, there was so much direct information, like they would just have a close up on the doctor and they would be giving specific information back and forth
between two doctors. It was like, in case you're not paying attention, we're going to tell you exactly what you need to do.
Yeah, I mean I remember going to an AIDS. It was a fundraiser with Darren and I think he was a host on it. And I was asked to say a few words, and I dawned on me that everyone and I said this, everyone in this room has someone has been affected by it. So it was everywhere, and yet people didn't know the details. It was everywhere. Everyone had somebody. I had somebody. I told you guys that my friend Patrick Lippert, who wasn't such a fun guy. We were roommaids for a while, but we were very
good friends. And he founded Rock the Vote. He got young people voting with the Vote. He did the first Elton John Aids party at the Oscars. He you know, they still had Patrick Lippert Awards after this for years,
but he had Aids. This aired in March July. I went to his memorial and in fact, me of ninety three, they gave chip let me leave, said I was working that day to go to that, and they shifted the schedule and I so, I just I think that's why, you know, it just feels heavy because it was heavy, and these were very dedicated people, are writers and creators, and they had to make every scene and I feel like they did balance it with the light.
I mean to have Billy lying on his resume and getting obviously busted at this new magazine and then having that sexy boss hit on him and being weird.
I thought that was thought that was, you know, a funny balance to balance it out a bit, the whole thing.
It was a little bit lighter. But it wasn't. It wasn't sexy, right, It was this. I assume it's going to go somewhere. I assume that the boss is going to raise the heat on the sexual harassment, but right now, it's just him trying to make it as a writer, right and working his way into this business. So it wasn't. It didn't have that jaunt silly, right, because he's going to be sexual harassed. We assume, yeah, she's talking about I'm sweaty.
Caught in his lies too.
We start to see that his resume lies may come back to haunt him, although it's not clear if she is aware that he's lying. But the partner that he's at the desk with, yeah, one who sort of calls him out like.
Hey, you went to Columbia, so did I and all of a sudden, let's year yeah different.
Do you think he knows? Do you think the guy knows?
I mean, I certainly that because he calls him out because you know, Billy tries to blow it off and say it was a big school Well no, it's not, you know, total, especially like within the journalism department. You know, like you might know somebody that was only two years apart in the same department. That is sort of funny, But it did not seem clear to me whether the female boss herself was aware that he lied all that
on his resume. She seems mostly just interested in him because he's good looking and he's a good enough writer that she wanted to give him the chance of the job.
And I think she was impressed with how he got in.
Yeah, she's gumption for doing what he did to get in and lying about his Yeah, or was it always just that.
He was cute?
It just ends on very strong, very fast. There's not like there's not like a professional right.
And he was like good enough. Because what she was really interested is that while he's cute, because we that whole scene where she's asking him about if you were next to me at the gym and it was me and I was sweaty, would you be attracted to me?
Like totally it was so weird.
She goes, I go to the gym at five nights a week. And there's this guy who looked just like you. So we're really making it clearly like I looked.
Just like you.
I thought he had the hots for me. It's like, wow, this is so on the.
Nose, super not subtle. Yeah, and he's so uncomfortable.
Yeah, this heels going.
Yeah, I find that attracted. Well. You know what's funny too about this episode, like we I like the episode's best where we're all we're all working with each other. There's a lot of overlap. Like the last episode with Billy's father dying, there's a we're all in scenes. It's really interwoven. This was three completely separate storylines. I think Billy and I had one scene together, a couple of scenes together in the apartment and about him lying and
putting on his resume, and but that was it. Then we're in these completely separate worlds.
Yeah, right, you guy.
They send you guys all the way to the desert, like we're you're not in your apartment anymore. Yeah.
Yeah.
And Alison's busy trying to get her job back, and and can we please can we just talk for twenty minutes about how bad my hair and close.
Her hair clothes. I know I felt for you.
It deserves a lot of time I must have. Like, I'm like, was I growing my bangs up? I had it back in a French braid that I clearly did myself and just sprayed off my face like I was gonna do gymnastics somewhere.
What was I do? See?
I'm not assuming that you did it yourself because the weird thing about that back French braid it was tied with a giant scrunchy at the.
End, which I promised you I did myself, I promise you.
Then did you also do Billy's Bosses hair? Because she had the same exact hairdoo in the same episode.
She had brandshack with the same scrinch that.
Was very in fashion.
Laura, I don't think you did.
Yes, it was it was, don't you remember, like that little low pony with the big scrunchy. I remember it was very cool. I got a life.
I mean, every time I saw that or your other hairdoos against in a scene with Amanda, I'm just like, well, she please just get a clue and do some nice highlights and do what Amanda does. Because Heather always looks amazing and she does nothing but have this hairtail on your side, and I'm like, why is Alison going all over and doing all these circus tricks with her hair?
And then remember the outfit when I'm at the desk and I've got huge voluminous linen pants, a weird mock turtle turkur thing, and then a huge tapestry, Like, what what happened? Did they not have my size and anything? Everything was huge?
Was Denise on vacation.
From mad at Me? You were friends with her? Did I fend her?
Well?
I think we see flashes of really really bad nineties nineties?
Yeah, not all of it is make a note?
What were you thinking?
It wasn't fashion though? It was like but there was no fitted thing. It was three huge layers, and next to Amanda in her fitted top and tiny skirt.
It could have been from above. I wonder if Courtney they said, look, we need to make they've decided that Amanda's a sexy one, because a lot of things are they put to you with this baggy stuff because you're you are sexy and you had this body and I'm wondering if it came from on top, you know how they said, shorten the skirts. Well maybe they're like put her in volume.
Against This is when they got the note this is probably remember right after this bright tighter and Allison this more tobably the episode, they were like, what is happening there?
That has no more bricade?
Three layers of atpoestry like they just said, it was like gone with the wind. They're like, you know what, nobody's using these curtains. Let's make these into a jacket for Allison.
Yeah, totally.
Well I don't really want to see the giant braid down the back with a big scrunchy anymore, and a business suit, even if that business suit is this pale lime green with corset laces in the back, also bizarre, like the whole.
Thing in the breasted dress with the person I think you.
Guys wore a lot of those, though, Court. I remember Alison D and D had a lot of these suit skirts, suit jackets that were like with the shoulder blades, double breasted, some big buttons, but older pads like this and then a little skirt under. That's what I remember a lot of Well I do know.
Look I've said this before, but I had huge breasts and I was so self consciously.
You know, you do keep saying that is there reason?
I know because because I'm watching it going holy smoked. I mean I was so self conscious. So that was kind of Denise was kind of stuck because I wanted to hide. I didn't know that I should have been fitted right, It would have been better doing fitted, but I was trying to hide them, which means you end up bringing these voluminous things with huge arms. Like I was looking at the way the arms were fitted and I was like, there are arms like huge.
Sweaters were like that too.
Nothing fitted. Everything was so huge. And then in this one, I had this like weird bra that had seen in the front that looked like those fifties bras that were made of iron. I have a seam in my woice.
Yeah, you know, not everybody has this like memorializing of their early twenties or their youth on film, and we have this weird thing that we're we get to go back and see it for better or for worse, and then just went to see the earlier version of ourselves. Not everybody gets to have that, and everybody has to have it, and I don't.
Think a lot of it's flattering.
Now, yeah, it's not always easy to see that, and it brings up those feelings like gosh, I remember feeling insecure about this or that, and now I have to watch it all over again, and I know.
That it's not it's not always easy.
Well, in the defense of all the hair and makeup people, I had a rule that I would only give them an hour to get ready. So so I do hair, makeup, and wardrobe in an hour and I wouldn't give them any more time. So some of that is my fault because you're like, well, we got to do the best we can do it and.
Out so they were halfway through and then you just went back to your trailer to like do a quick friend's braid and grab a scrunchy.
I do my own braid.
The I wasn't processing it. I never did anything. It would be there forever.
Do you remember the guys would just breeze in and breeze out like that.
I wanted to be like the guys, and I was.
I was the opposite.
For me.
I was like, however long it takes, whatever, you know, if I need actually worked so great, give me some extra time.
I remember being in the makeup trailer and I was like, Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready, and then Heather will be next to me, still getting like teased and this, and then I'm like, hey, can you I'm not quite ready yet. Can see what she's doing. I'll be ready in a minute. So what a what are you using on the lip over there?
Lona didn't know and you remember that time too, like I'm looking, I'm clearly trying a new hairstar where I'm pulling it back. I didn't know, like now I've settled on this hairdo that I will have for the rest of my life. That it was just like I just now I know. I'm like, this is what works. I'm not going to try I'm not doing anything different anymore.
This is it.
So just lock it in because I feel like I was trying something new and I was trying it on TV, like that's where you want to try the huge amounts of hairspray and the homemade French braik.
You know, on the topic of trying new hair on television yet but totally, I kind of had a lot of experience in trying new things and just like going out and pin with that, you know, in the under the umbrella of like it was a character, but still you know it was like, Laura, don't your hair was cut short, let's flip it out, you know.
Don't you remember them having instinct and initiating hair. I mean, yeah, I know went in with my They would kind of come up with their idea and I would either agree or not agree.
Well my I mean, I mean my character and the hair and stuff that was very I was specific and I think unique on the show because I was definitely sitting in the hairchair and we're going, what do we want to do today? And we collectively would come up with something that was, oh, this is funny for Sydney,
you know. So it wasn't necessarily a reflection of my personal taste, but it was like, what do we think is really fun and funny for this character because we seemed to be given the permission to do so, and I thought that was a really fun element. Not fun Yeah, so I did. But other you know, other than that, Like I I will say, in the nineties and in
the eighties, I had some super bad hair. Like you're saying Courtney, like you've settled on a haircut that like this works for me, This is this is what works. I went through plenty of I tried everything, and I have real bad I should try to find some really horrible that I cannot blame on a character.
That was something I did all by myself, myself.
I picked it out of all the Yes.
I remember doing a movie in eighty six or seven and they wanted me to get a perm.
Oh, I got plenty of those.
I got the perm. We frizzed it out, curled it out, they died a black and I just had this cool like thing, Yeah, perm thing, Kartney, did you ever get it? And shoulder blades? Honestly, I mean shoulder pads. Yeah.
My sister gave me a home perm.
I can show you.
I have a picture of it right here. I carry it with me.
I think we should we should all find a perm photo and share.
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.
I think that perm that I got lasted two movies because I remember another one right after. Well, we're just gonna work with it. My mom.
There was one photo I remember from the seventies that my sister and I still just thin because the funniest thing my mom had just given herself a PERM and she was standing in the hallway of our house and her hair filled up almost the whole hallway.
It's basically curling it and frying it with chemicals.
But it was there was a there was a bigger is better stage.
My sister go to firm once at the beauty salon and she was riding our bike back and do it using a hair pic on the way. By the time it was just like huge.
She was horrified.
Yeah no, but we thought it looked good. That was what we were going for. Bigger the better.
No.
I wanted that eight is enough the sister and eight is enough the curly hair and straight bangs.
That's what I was going for.
I never achieved it.
Hmm. I don't think I ever tried that one.
I think I just cry it now.
It's never I should definitely try it. To try it now, you're like Laura's that just sucker. She'll probably try it now if I tell her to on you.
But you try to go You remember, you try to go in and say I want big loose and you can't do loose waves with the perm They say you can't, but you can, and they put on those little tiny things and the go it'll loosen up.
It doesn't loosen up.
It doesn't loosen up ever.
They're the tiniest little plastic rollers. The kink corkscrew like curls. And then and it smells like a hard boiled egg.
It's so bad.
But so let's talk more about this girl line because Amanda has this great line that I wrote down. It made me laugh so hard. She says, so, so she's Allison is forced on her to work with her again, and she's making her do all the drudge work, and she's she's rejecting all of her reports.
Yeah.
And then Allison in this very I loved my tone. I was like, we were friends member.
Sucking up, sucking up. Yeah, remember.
And then she says, let's get one thing clear. In the past, we let friendship get in the way of our professional relationship. Let's not make that mistake again.
Yeah.
Oh, and then I have to make this point. This is on another storyline, but back when I have to go back to Joe and Jake because I forgot it about this. So Joe and Jake are in the desert and they're talking about life and our short life is and Joe says, out of nowhere, I never thought I'd lived past thirty. That's how old my mother was when she committed suicide. Yeah, and she just sort of dropped it there. Jake doesn't say tell me more than he goes, I love you, And then that was like, yeah.
She.
Red flag.
No, no, no, she has mentioned it before.
Remind me when that was, because I don't remember it as as like making it makes sense. I felt like in that scene, like you're saying, Corney, that she really just dropped it there, and I kind of went, yes, well that was big, and it wasn't addressed enough because then I started going, wait, did we already know this?
Did we?
And I wasn't clear enough that we already knew this information. I thought that was such huge information to just leave there right there.
And I remember her saying something when she first comes in the show, and when she first I don't remember who she's talking to, but.
That your mother died, not that she committed sue.
She committed suicide. But it wasn't a lot. It's not like a memorable part of Joe's history. But I do remember that, but it's still I think the whole thing is, don't forget this is that limbo of they've taken the test and they don't know the result, and they're both talking about how, you know, really deep kind of like life changing perspective on life things. And so I think she's sharing with him, you know, because they're really going deep.
They're both going deep, and so I just feel and in the desert and all the parameters fall away, and your roles that you usually are with each other fall away, and you know, you usually just jump in the sack and get you know, tipsy or whatever or vice versa. But you know, I don't. They don't have that. And I think that I you know, because I think she's about thirty, right, so she's saying like I thought i'd be dead soretly, and she could be. You know, they
could be. They don't know. And yeah, scary because Perry just said we had unprotected sex not that long ago. You've had it with your girlfriend, I have aids, go get tested. And so this is a twenty four hours or whatever where they're, oh my god, what if? And so you're imagining your life over And that's what I think.
Like that was, yeah, added to the It really.
Was added to their relationship too.
I think it deserved to follow the question. Let's just say that I think, yeah.
You're a little curiosity something it felt like a lot to.
Just buy or buy Jake saying well, what do you mean by that? How did she do it? Or not?
Not that kind of follow up question, just more like acknowledging that that must have been you know, while that's huge in your life.
Yeah, yeah, you want to talk about it or something. Who knows.
But it did feel like just sort of plopped there and that he didn't follow up.
Well, I guess for me a lot because I feel like all of their scenes were I mean up up in the the the muhall overlook at night that was a big deal. That's where he says I may have aids and you may have aids. You know, we got to get tested. So I just feel like everyone, every scene that they went through was an invitation and a safety to go even deeper. That's what I felt, Yeah, remembering these scenes like, wow, we're going so by the time I got there, it didn't seem like just to
jump out to me. But that's because I was in the storyline.
I think, Well, I think in this episode two, we see that we're firmly we've turned the corner for Amanda to be bitchy like her character is going to be bitchy, where as if it started, you know, with maybe not having her. I think now we're clear that's going to be okay for her character. And I also think we leave a established firmly that, like Matt is the go to guy if you need advice or just a shoulder or just somebody to listen.
There's going to be a reason for Matt to be that guy.
Yeah, and it really sort of moved off Billy Allison, like they just seem like total roommates again. So they got really really close and now they seem like roommates again. So it'll be interesting to see in the next episode. I did look ahead because I was like, what is next? Is like this poor friend, this it'll be great fun. But next is you know, Kimberly and mikeel heating up. So we kind of get back to the Melrose that we were expecting coming up in the next episode.
Yeah, so we got these we got these heavy things out.
Yeah, well done, well done, Melrose.
We can expect some of the typical Melrose probably to circle backs.
Yeah. Yeah, but it was really great, really good work in this episode. To Daphne, it really was important, you guys did a great job.
And we'll never forget Denise Wingate for your outfits in this episode. I must say I felt like she was gone.
I would bring a picture and say, what were you? What happened?
Guys?
I hurt you in some way.
But I swear to God, you guys, don't you think if we weren't thirty something years on, if we were back then, that it wasn't that out there?
It was. I'm very bad costume. It was a very bad costume episode for me. But maybe I was supposed to look like so much the underdog next to Amanda who looks gorgeous in every single scene. Maybe if so well done, because that wasn't the goal.
And to your point, Courtney, about you, about Alison and Billy. So the last episode you said I'm gonna stay, he talked to you into staying so you don't go back to Keith in Seattle. So now you're here, how long is it do you remember until you guys actually start to become a couple, Like, how are we gonna work for that?
We're gonna have to find out.
And I just want to reassure you that, like by the time Sydney.
Comes on the show, like, you're gonna feel so much better about your life.
You're going to see all the hair dos and the outfits that I was just like, Okay, we're gonna do like and there's no sense in being like, you.
Know, I want this to be a little bit more flattering or whatever, like Nope, it's just going to be a very like yep.
Yeah, I'm just trying to for all of us, like trying this and trying that, and then you just look at a man and go, Jesus, she just wears the same old thing as he looks back.
She always looks amazing. Yeah, she wins.
I know.
Oh, ladies, so much fun, all right. I think we have a couple of guests before the week up, and it's very exciting. Now we have people coming on.
Yeah, then we can.
Do and we're getting close to it at the end of our season, so I'm sure every storyline is gonna be heating up.
But always fun to see Ladies steally great.
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