Vee

I can't remember who was with me on thinking Mulcahey had the long game with Ava and wouldn't kill her - titan? kalbir? Anyway, that was my thinking at the time, that he was repositioning her as a strong villainess, that she and Valentin would link up (as each had discovered what the other was doing to Sonny) and then Valentin would ultimately take the fall for the whole thing. But I can see her being offed as being very possible at the time. The factor that makes me think that may have been the case is that the instant PM was out, someone (most likely Van Etten) set to immediately repairing Ava's sympathetic, fan favorite relationship with Nina and Trina, which had been lain waste.* While either that same someone or IMO someone else (most likely Korte) had Sonny kick her out and most of the town put Ava back on her heels again, broke and desperate once more. Not unlike how the same creative team treated Nina when she took Sonny from Carly. (* - personally I never bought the Nina/Ava friendship given their history and didn't care, but they do have lovely chemistry as actors so I don't mind it and hoo boy were the fans pissed) That's just funny lol. I'll eventually stop returning to this analogy (not any time soon), but the Cody thing reminds me of Tonja Walker playing with various boytoys on OLTL. It's the same spirit, while Ric serves another aspect of the character. If Cody doublecrossed Kristina because Ava has him down bad I wouldn't blink.

Lindstrom is very good at certain things on certain shows and I applaud MVJ for trying to branch him out again, but this isn't really his wheelhouse. I do think he still projects menace as Joey in certain scenes, but it isn't quite what they're intending a lot of the time. I also vary by the day on whether he and LB have serious chemistry or whether it's just sad. It's weird that it's like that! I do think Lauren Buglioli is a star and has been since Day 1. The woman playing Samantha is quite good but has long since passed her Bianca Lawson zone in terms of looking age appropriate. This is why they should've kept their first instinct and stayed with Martin and Smitty's kids as small children, and if they wanted to use the actors brought them in as young cousins or something. I do think any time Mike Manning gets out amongst the canvas as a reporter he shines. His dueling interplay with Timon Durrett is especially sharp.

I think Steve might call the White House in protest.

Thank you!!

It is wild to say Ric is beneath Ava. They are the same class of character and person. Nikolas and Ava worked for awhile, til they turned them into a normie soap couple. They were always dysfunctional horny people. If Tyler had recovered and returned I think it'd be another story. I could see they had heat together during his last days on the show.

I alluded to this in a post above but I think the truth is a lot of fans do not know what they want re: Ava. This is not new for soap fans obviously, but what they want is more of the character. They want the character to do well or be well. They want them to not be endangered. Those are common soap fan wants for any beloved character, good or bad, since the beginning of the genre, but there's a limit to what you should coddle. And I think often certain folks at the show's love for Maura has made Ava too soft to try to keep her viable, while other times you get the extreme opposite. Supposedly when Maura was first hired Ava, incredibly, was only supposed to be on for a week or so to intro Kiki and Roger Howarth's Franco. She was dynamite in that first week (including with Howarth, something they unfortunately could never really capitalize on given his toxic character) and RC and FV immediately hooked into keeping her. But as Ron often did (and continued at DAYS) he went full bore with the character murdering people, framing people, etc. with little thought to the long-term future. I have no problem with that because Ava's turned out to be one of the few enduring rivals Sonny has ever had. The difference between someone like her and feral Faith Rosco is Ava could move in multiple spheres, while Cynthia Preston's Faith never lost her edge. Ava has lost hers a number of times (and gained it again), but for all her inconsistencies she still has more dimension as a character than Faith. While Faith, for all her memorable villainy, too often was used as a blow-up doll and fetish object by Pratt and Guza. Ava's stories are not always great (or good). But Maura is excellent and is what has made Ava last. The Alex Olanov from OLTL model remains the way forward with Ava. You can play her harder while still giving her wins and some dimension. But IMO the issue is it seems like one writer at the show wants to write Ava like a slightly harder-edged Carly Snyder, and the other just hates her and wants her gone as Carly's enemy. So she's kind of a weird in-between zone. I guess it's good she has Rick Hearst atm.

Yeah, her fans get real mad if you remind them Ava is not just Carly Snyder on a permanent bad day. Whenever Ava starts actually being Ava it's time for loads of tweets about how her character has 'evolved' and is being 'character assassinated'. She came on this show murdering innocent people! She helped get ol' skinhead Morgan blown up! Ava fortunately has not gone back to being a total milksop again since last year, but I was much more into Ava the scheming Iago in Sonny's lair under Mulcahey, where I would not have been shocked if it had ended up in some con marriage as she dragged his drugged ass to the altar for power. The Ric thing is good, the flirtation with Cody is interesting, but at the same time her current situation also feels like a B/C-tier holding pattern because Korte or whoever just doesn't like her but knows they can't get rid of her. (I say Korte because the instant Mulcahey was out the door, everyone on the show turned full guns on Ava again - while CVE, I assume, restored her relationships with Nina and Trina.)

I think the difference here is that Drew and Willow are kind of in a Susan Moore, Heather Webber, etc. position. They're not Sonny and Jason being venerated and getting away with everything. People know them, hate them and they do take hits, like Drew losing his fight over the crypt or Willow losing her kids. But they also keep making moves. So in that sense it's not fully like Billy Warlock's A.J. either - it might feel that way if the mob was stronger on the show today, but the mob element of the show feels considerably weakened and like an afterthought vs. the Q intrigue, even when it's being played onscreen.

I get it. But the thing is Nina has been around since (I can't believe this) 2014, and even her debut years were a bomb lol. It wasn't til the Sonny/Nina thing that she really caught on with a certain group of fans, and that was over seven years into the character's run on the show! Willow has been on for almost seven years herself, and most of those years were blindingly boring. It's only FV that keeps dud characters around this long, because he is so wedded to his version of the show or his hires. Am I glad they have found something new and interesting for Willow that makes her worth keeping awhile longer? Certainly, I would never have expected it (and it came from a HW that in their minds they couldn't have dumped fast enough). Do I think the problem the show has with sunk cost characters has changed? Not at all.

Please screencap this, I am behind lol. 10K?? Randy, come on.

We had what feels like ten years of Willow being 'normal' and it was one of the most boring characters this show ever had. Only the affair with Drew made her interesting. Also, Nina's family is not a core group on this show. It never has been, because most of them were either boring or two-dimensional and placed there to give Nina more grounding. Nina herself was just an excuse for another surprise stunt hire (Michelle Stafford) in the Cartini epoch which didn't pan out as they hoped before descending into another years-long sunk cost fallacy for FV. While Cynthia Watros has done a heroic job with a mess of a character and I thought Mulcahey was on track to make her and Drew really work last year, that's done. And even if that couple had flown, it still wouldn't have made her larger family some robust tree. Dead Wooden Nathan, Dead Nelle, Michael Easton #3 and guest star Donna Mills don't make a worthwhile bloodline. Those characters were worthless. I enjoy watching Watros, but at some point soon I would probably get rid of Nina. Because her one good option last year is now closed to her and she does nothing but weep over Willow, and the character was otherwise played out years before the recast. Soap Twitter these days acts like any character that has a few fans suddenly is 'core' or part of a core family whenever they get maybe a hundred RTs. But the potential merits of these characters are individual. I'm not interested in Nina's family being built out, because Nina's family largely sucks. The drama here is in further Mildred Pierce-esque mother/daughter mutual destruction.

I highly doubt that's happening. But I would leave them in the dirt and have fun with it, and eventually let Willow branch out into other men and schemes, possibly after both a) shooting Drew and b) blackmailing him into marriage while getting away with it all. And yeah, the Mike timeline/character choice makes zero sense. I almost never watched in that period either. I just remember Margaux, ugh.

If Jacob has anything to show me as Ashley, now is the time. Letting the token white girl go psycho would be great.

I think they were running out her contract? If she had one. I know they were running out Miller's, so whatserface (Margaux? Woof) had a few kisses with Drew or something. The whole backstory with Mike and her dad was so dumb.

Nina is a nutjob. I enjoy Watros' version up to a point but I don't care about her family lasting beyond these characters and their (IMO) finite potential. I think it'd be a mistake to burn her or Drew too soon, but knowing GH they will. Of course I'd expected them to kill Drew at New Year's and here we are. I think they could both drive drama for at least a couple years to come.

Why redeem her? She's far more interesting like this. Elizabeth Hendrickson's character had a few more turns. When they lost interest in her she turned up as a clueless member of Shiloh's cult and also got chemistry tested heavily with Billy Miller's Drew while they were running out his contract in C-story. Then she left town. Exactly. Which is another reason I wouldn't get rid of her any time soon, since this Willow/Drew/etc. saga is the only wholly interesting and organic one on this show and KMM is giving great performances. It's like when people say she and Drew have to go - do they really? Or are they the only fully exciting story engines on the show bc people hate them and are invested? I'd let Willow run several more years yet as she descends to full crazy rich divorcee territory. Then I'd off her.

Well, Claire was also a Brendabot, yes. I forgot her. Liz Hendrickson's terrible character also came close to getting involved. Thank God that didn't happen. Would've been so gross.

It is time to just park Sonny with Alexis in a light, secret affair where she keeps him in check and they can spar in a more gentle, Nancy Meyers-esque way until such time as someone relents and brings back Vanessa Marcil. Yes, this is a containment method (as would be bringing back Brenda to be paired with him and then take over most of their story), but I am pragmatic. Dropping Sonny would mean the show taking a real hit with viewers and while in a perfect world I'd be rid of him, I'd sooner work with what I think is possible. Plus I think there is still meat in Sonny and Brenda, and little else for his character. The latest pointless ADA is definitely giving 2000s Brendabot vibes a la Kristin Minter, Reese, Hannah, Sam, etc. though I don't think they're intentional since FV is Brenda-phobic and it's a clear excuse to hire Carlo Rota's wife. It's embarrassing to watch for all involved.

I thought so, but it seems like people keep calling her Leslie.

For me, as I keep saying, the consistently most interesting thing about BTG is how it feels like a strange and new melding of very, very old classical soap staples, and declarative storytelling/exposition or dynamics, or even meandering domestic bits (be it Bell-style that Val Jean clearly picked up at B&B, or even dating back to Phillips) with hyper-modern material as well - sometimes fresh and sometimes awkward or cringe, both very redolent of the Prospect Park soaps. Then there is some stuff that is clearly, deeply culturally specific for MVJ and the writing staff. I am glad it's a diverse creative team. But honestly, given what he did with some similar material not just at B&B but during his brief and tortured run at GH last year, it does make me wish MVJ could drag her old pal Mulcahey back out of retirement to work on some of this too. Among others from the old GH corps.

I do think Bill and Leslie (I still do not know which is her real name tbh) have real chemistry and are an inevitability at some point.

That is some wild revisionist history on Britt. She stole that damn baby. And Jason wasn't even there!

I was under the impression Fairmont Crest, etc. was just in or outside the District. I grew up in and around DC, but not in a gated community.

The Young and the Restless 2020s Experience.

For someone a little behind, when exactly did the mid whites break it off?