I did a bunch of things and either one of them or some combination of them worked. Whew!
Here’s some things to try if you are having a similar issue. Select the Thickbox effect in Options/Effects. Delete all the images from my galleries, clear the cache and then load them up again. Deselect “Integrate Slideshow.”
my above idea worked, it ain’t pretty in the code but it got it done. if anyone comes up with a more legit way to do it, i’d love to hear about it.