All My Children, Jan and February 1976

Please review Jan and Feb 1975

All My Children Jan and Feb 1976

 

Written by : Agnes Nixon

Produced by : Bud Kloss

 

A dinner given at the Chateau by Dr. Frank Grant was abruptly terminated when Claudette Montgomery O.D.'s on cocaine - Claudette retrieved a drug laden box of soap from a trash can behind the Boutique after watching through a window as Kitty Shea Tyler deposited it there in a last effort to keep Hal Short from picking up this latest syndicate shipment. – In the subsequent investigation Lt. Purser discovered the Espada box and the tie between Hal Short and Kitty was uncovered in-luding the fact that Kitty's divorce from Hal - Al Shea - was not final when she and wealthy Linc Tyler were married - a fact unknown to Kitty till it was used, along with threats against her and Hal's lives to pressure her after she discovered the drug operation -.

 

Kitty’s explanation of the circumstances and her vindication were dependent for confirmation on Hal, who was a fugitive, and Kitty, after being visited at the jail by Phoebe Tyler who urged her to spare Phoebe's son Lincoln and the Tyler name further disgrace, had refused to see Linc and retained Paul Martin as her attorney.

 

Margo Martin, Paul’s wife was questioned about the six thousand dollar check written to a Mr. John Avery on her return to the Boutique. When Anne Tyler, the Boutique's owner, insisted upon knowing what the money bought - having just received a call from Mr. Avery who insisted that he was not in the clothing business but refused to talk any further saying he would call again to speak to Mrs. Martin - Margo exited hurriedly saying that she was too upset over Claudette and finding Paul and Anne together once again - Anne and Paul were previously married and unknown to Margo, Anne was pregnant with Paul's child - to talk business.

 

Paul had been told by Nick Davis that contrary to what he had believed Nick was not going to marry Anne and that the child Anne was expecting was Paul's. When he returned to his apartment he was determined to tell Margo that he was leaving her. The phone rang and from his at first puzzling conversation with John Avery, he realized that Margo had been planning to pass off a baby to be obtained on the "grey market" as the child she had led him to believe she was carrying. He dismissed Avery with a warning that he would see him in court, "Counselor," if he did not receive a refund of the deposit Margo had sent in full in the next few days despite Avery's reference to compensation for his "services" rendered so far, and turned to confront Margo. After Margo's tearful insistence that she kept up the deception because Paul's child was real "in my heart" Paul insisted that she pack and leave and went to tell Anne. Margo spent the night with Mona Kane and the following day Paul, reminded by Anne of Margo's trouble over Claudette and their own happiness, asked Margo for a divorce to be obtained quietly. Margo agreed. When she mentioned Anne, Paul told her that Anne had nothing to do with the fact that their marriage was a mistake, Margo replied that he had loved Anne all along but she – Margo - couldn't accept the fact and Paul wouldn't admit it.

 

Dr. Chuck Tyler suggested to Tara that since he couldn’t get away - he was still an out-patient on dialysis - she should go to Costa Rica to obtain their divorce as soon as possible. She replied that she can leave any time, telling her small son Little Philip "Maybe I'll find a funny island and just go and take a vacation there." - Though Chuck was Little Philip's legal father and the only man he knew as such, his biological father was his "Uncle Phil" Philip Brent who exchanged vows with Tara in a self-performed wedding ceremony on the eve of his assignment to Vietnam. Philip was reported missing and presumed dead when Tara married Chuck. - Chuck told Tara that Jim Perry, Linc's partner would handle the divorce and asked if Tara would let him have the home movies made of Little Philip so that he could have some prints made. He had come to give Little Philip a present of a sleeping bag which he had exchanged for a previous present, a pup tent that turned out to be a duplicate of a present Philip had brought back from New York for the boy. However Chuck was unable to see Little Philip when Phil returned from an outing without him, having dropped him off for a visit to Kate Martin, his grandmother. When Chuck left, Tara told Philip, "I wish you hadn't come in like that without ringing the bell as if you'd taken over the whole house." Philip assured her that the meetings with Chuck were sure to become easier.

 

Joe Martin, Tara’s father and his wife Ruth have become more and more estranged from one another to the point where Kate Martin, noticing, asked Ruth if there was anything she could do to help but Ruth had told her that their differences seem to have slipped over to something quite apart from their troubles with the children - Joe, in fact had told Ruth that he didn't know what he felt for her. That he was in an "emotional void." - At first convinced that they could work out their troubles if they were patient with one another, Ruth angry at being hurt so often and accusing Joe of making her a scapegoat for everything wrong in the family told him that when he started acting like the man she married she would come back to his bed and not before.

 

Paul convinced Kitty that she should see Linc who told her that they could clear up the legal aspects of her marriage to Hal in no time and be together again. Kitty replied: "The only thing that makes sense is to break it off." She insisted that they were not suited to each other and never had been. When Lincoln said that in the eyes of God they were husband and wife, Kitty told him that in the eyes of the law she was a bigamist and that she had made a fool of him. She went on to say that she didn’t have what it took to be his wife and that it was "unfair of you to ask me to do something I'm not suited for." When Linc told her that he couldn’t believe she really wanted to leave him and asked if there was someone else, she answered, "I can only be myself and I have to leave."

 

Margo went to the Boutique and asked Anne to forgive her, that her own failure as a parent with Claudette prompted her to want a second chance. She told Anne that she wanted to salvage their friendship. Margo reminded Anne that she was the one who brought her to Pine Valley. In a burst of sympathy and generosity Anne offered to sell Margo the Boutique - Margo would inherit the loss of the six thousand dollars -. Margo pushed Anne to go one step further and agreed to help out for a time as she couldn’t get a replacement for Kitty. When Paul learned of Anne's promise he told her he didn’t trust Margo's 'Act of Contrition' — "Margo would like nothing better than to see you miscarry." But Anne assured him that "Margo can't hurt us in any way."

 

When Linc went to Erica's house to tell Kitty that besides exonerating her - on her release from jail Kitty accepted Erica's appeal to have Kitty stay with her as she prefered not to be alone with Philip gone -, Hal Short had offered to proceed with the California divorce as soon as possible. Erica refused to waken Kitty but offered to give her the message and to "intercede" for him. Awake, Kitty told Erica that she wanted to make a clean break but that didn’t mean she wanted to isolate herself. She told Erica that she lovesd Linc and wanted to make things easier on him. When Nick Davis told Kitty that she had unique qualities born in her, she insisted that she had been "a stupid little kid playing in the wrong league." At that moment, Phoebe, pouring tea for a visiting Erica, said, "Frankly, my dear, if you can dissuade Kitty from any kind of reconciliation with my son, I would be forever in your debt." Erica replied that she wouldn't be a very good friend if she didn't try.

 

Tara, distraught over her latest confrontation with Phoebe, told Philip that she was questioning the wisdom of their decision to keep the truth of his parentage from little Philip. Philip maintained that they had promised Chuck to keep silent and that it was better not to divide little Philip's loyalties till he was old enough to accept it. When she voiced concern about Erica - who was aware of the truth of the matter - Philip insisted that Erica would be so busy trying to trap her next victim she wouldn’t have time for revenge.

 

Asked by Little Phillip if his name would change when Tara returned, Chuck told the boy he would always be "Philip Tyler — that's never gonna change." When the boy left to go to his grandmother Martin's house, Chuck apologized to Tara for his grandmother's behavior and felt compelled to tell her that despite both their objections Phoebe had set up a trust fund giving little Philip a share in the Tyler fortune.

 

Joe Martin was concerned that his mother Kate couldn’t help but he aware of the fact that he and his wife Ruth were not sleeping together but Ruth told him that, for the present, Kate seemed to have accepted Ruth's "cold" as the reason. When Joe asked: "How long will this 'cold' hang on"? Ruth answered, "until you stop treating me like a piece of furniture."

 

At the hospital, David Thornton met Ruth who had just said goodbye to Tara - reassuring her that her ordeal would be over soon "and then you will be starting a new life" -. He told her that her sadness was because she was feeling guilty since what she wanted to happen, did happen. Trying to cheer her, David suggested that she join him in a picnic he planned to work into a trip to the country to view a cottage he was considering as a more permanent homesite. He warned her that he was seeking her approval so that if he should regret his choice in the future he could blame her "If she can stand a little more guilt." After some friendly banter, Ruth agreed to go along.

Having promised that she would not stand in the way of her husband Paul's plans to remarry Anne Tyler as her own pregnancy had been exposed as an elaborate fake, Margo Martin prevailed upon Anne to help out at the Boutique until they could work out plans for Margo to purchase the place from Anne - Margo hoped to secure a baby through the “grey market” and pass it off as the child she had led everyone to believe she was expecting, using funds she had embezzled from the Boutique in her capacity as manager.

 

Anne, sympathetic to Margo's troubles - the break-up of her marriage and that fact that Margo's daughter, Claudette, having survived a drug overdose was in a prison hospital and faced with a long sentence for drug dealing -, and happy that she herself was carrying Paul's child, had offered to sell the Boutique to Margo so that Margo would have a way of earning her living and could stay on in Pine Valley. Anne suggested that Margo contact Kitty Tyler, Anne's sister-in-law, who had been released from prison thanks to the testimony of Hal Short and exonerated of all charges in connection with Hal's drug operation, which involved using the Boutique as a "drop." If Kitty could come back as an employee, Anne would feel no obligation to help out any further and Margo offered to see Kitty personally. Margo suggested to Kitty that Anne was happy at the Boutique but was offering her the job out of kindness. Then Margo went on to mention that the Boutique had had some ugly publicity and invented a story about some troubling phone calls. Kitty declined Margo's offer.

 

When Drs.  Joe Martin and Charles Tyler realized that they had both given in to Margo's request for sleeping pills, Joe confronted Margo at the Boutique and obtained from her the double order that she had filled. Though both Charles and Joe had considered the possibility that Margo might be a threat to Anne and the child she was carrying, Joe accepted on the face of it Margo's story that she was considering suicide, but would never have gone through with it.

 

When a repairman Margo had called in to see to the furnace at the Boutique told her that it shut itself off because it was leaking and that the back room, particularly, could have become a gas chamber, Margo, upon learning further that the repairman couldn’t work on it till the morning, called Anne and asked her to meet with her at the Boutique that evening to help out with an inventory. She set things up for them to work in the back room and after a time pleaded that she was hungry and needed to see about getting something to eat. As she left the building, Margo turned on the thermostat, leaving Anne in a room in which odorless, lethal fumes were building up.

 

Her only warning was a headache, Anne worked on till her collapse as Margo, in a nervous state at a coffee shop, appeared to be having second thoughts. However, she allowed the arrival of first Mona Kane and then Chuck Tyler to serve to delay her from leaving to undo the damage, and when she returned to the Boutique she realizes that Anne has been found and taken to the hospital. Not knowing if Anne was dead or alive, Margo rushed to the hospital to be confronted by Paul who told her that it was he who found Anne and that he was convinced that Margo is guilty of attempted murder. His suspicions were confirmed when he went to the Boutique the following day to recover Anne's coat and purse that she had with her at the time of her collapse and learned from the repairman that Margo had been told of the danger. Margo insisted that Anne must have turned on the thermostat herself and that in any case, if Paul believed her guilty he had no proof. Saying that it had already been proven to his satisfaction. Paul added that unless she agreed to an immediate divorce and to leaving Pine Valley that very evening, he would make damn sure that “you are sitting and rotting in jail right alongside your daughter.” The following day as he went to visit Anne at the hospital, he told her that Margo's bags were gone.

 

Although Anne had fully recovered from her ordeal, the possibility of damage to her baby as a result of having been deprived of oxygen was a fact that had to be faced. Joe Martin advised Paul and Anne to consider a test, amniocentesis, which could help to determine if the baby showed present signs of brain damage. Anne was reluctant, as she was afraid that if the test suggested such damage she would be faced with the question of a possible abortion, but she finally consented to the procedure and she and Paul were relieved and happy to find that there were no negative indications.

 

Phoebe Tyler, Anne’s mother, had offered Al Shea - Hal Short - a substantial sum of money if he would delay finalizing his divorce from Kitty - Kitty Shea Tyler believed herself to be divorced from Al when she married Phoebe's son, Lincoln. – However, Hal turned Phoebe down and even told Kitty when she visited him of the offer and warned her that Erica Brent, who had extended her hospitality to Kitty, had implied that there was a chance of the two of them getting back together. He told a puzzled Kitty that she still didn’t understand that Erica, in the process of losing her husband - Philip Brent - was paving the way for another one. He told Kitty that though he was fond of Erica he saw her as a frightened, insecure girl, "threatened, her first thought is survival." When Kitty asked Erica point-blank if she was interested in Lincoln, Erica insisted that Lincoln was her lawyer and that she was merely acting as a friend to both of them.

 

Kitty, having told Erica that she thought it was time she talked to Linc herself, visited him at his office. When Lincoln, touching her hair tenderly, talked of their fife together as Hal had consented to proceed with the divorce as quickly as possible, Kitty insists sadly, "Nothing has changed. It's over, Linc." At that moment Phoebe called and a distracted Lincoln agreed to a dinner invitation at his mother's house. When he again turned to Kitty she told him it had all been said. Saying: "I am so sorry, Lincoln," she turned and left. On her return to Erica's house she was present when Phoebe Tyler phoned to invite Erica to the same dinner. Erica told Kitty that she accepted Phoebe's invitation merely as a sympathetic friend and asked Kitty if, having made up her mind not to go back to Linc, she didn't wish to see Linc going on with his life as she herself planned to do.

 

Phil Brent, Erica’s estranged husband, told Tara Martin Tyler, upon her return from Costa Rica after obtaining her divorce from Chuck, that Erica was stalling on a final answer about whether she would contest ending their marriage, "As if she's waiting for another door to open before closing this one permanently.”

 

Philip had also confronted both Tara and Chuck about Phoebe's setting up a trust fund for little Philip. Chuck insisted that if Phoebe was told the truth about little Philip's parentage - On the eve of Philip's leaving for Vietnam, he and Tara, unable to find a minister or a justice of the peace to marry them, exchanged vows in a small chapel. Philip was mistakenly reported killed and Tara, pregnant with Philip's son, accepted Chuck Tyler's offer to marry her and raise her son as his own. On his return Philip married Erica. -, Phoebe, who had a drinking problem might "hit the bottle" and tell everyone. He insisted that he didn’t want that known. Philip questioned Tara's motives in retaining the name of Tyler though she insisted that to change back to her maiden name before she would again change it when she could become Phil's wife would be confusing to their little boy. He remarked that she might be hesitant because "the name of Tyler holds a lot of power in this town."

 

On their lunch time trip to inspect the cabin that David Thornton was considering purchasing, Ruth at first was not enthusiastic but when it was evident that David was serious, she told him that Kate's attic was filled with odds and ends of furniture he might use and that the place has possibilities. As he went out to check the foundations she found herself holding his coat against her cheek. Later she found herself dreamily recalling those moments together. Joe confronted her about going off to the country with an unattached aide saying he had been hearing about it from the staff. He insisted that he was concerned only with appearances but Ruth told him that merely his mentioning of it had been the first hopeful sign in their relationship for some time. Later when Joe told her that he did not need her as Anne's Special and that he would not offend the nurse who would ordinarily assist him by making an exception and that in any case her concern for Anne was not his problem, she left to take a long walk home by herself to get her head together. Later she told David that she considered that she had imposed on him by sharing with him her troubles with Joe and their children, Tara and Philip, and that she would not do so in the future though they could still be friends. To herself she said: "I've gotta stop these feelings - for David - for everybody's sake."

 

In Kate’s attic, helping David find some curtains, Ruth broke down in tears when David extended his sympathy for a cutting remark Joe had made to her in his presence. She said, "That kind of thing cuts your soul," and added that she resented Joe for his high-handed attitude and despised herself for her bickering and the pretense that she and Joe had been living. David kissed her and for a moment she responded.

 

Nancy Grant called from Chicago and said that she couldn’t get away due to her responsibility to her job and some unexpected work which only she could do. Frank answered that she didn’t feel badly enough about not coming home for the weekend to be willing to chuck it - her new position - and he hung up angrily. He asked Nurse Caroline Murray to come with him to the Chateau to the anniversary dinner he had planned for his wife, saying: "Nancy has more important things to do."