Alice-abeth : Another neighbor/child.

Yesterday, I mentioned how it seemed to me that Lynn is destroying the 'Michael Patterson' character by essentially putting him in situattions more suited for John's friend, Doctor Ted. He isn't the only child whose character is distorted by beconig a stand-in for one of the first generations friends. Another fixture of the Early Years of the strip was Elly's neighbor, Alice. She was a friendly enough woman with a problem; a philandering idiot of a husband. Lynn, I would suppose (in the interest of fairness), honestly meant to follow through on her story arc but put too much focus on her children to do anthing about it. Her problem was that she had a story she wanted to tell but had pushed the character involved too far into the background for the audience to remember. Since, like Ted, Alice had become a tertiary and almost forgotten character, she did the same thing for her she did for him; she transplanted her story-arc onto one of her children - Elizabeth. That's right! The character of middle daughter Liz has had her credibility annihilated by being forced to shoulder someone else's plot; something she has in common with Mike.