Vee

I don't know, probably heretofore unknown siblings of Harlan. Or Brenda and Julia's cousins, or whatever. You name it! Anyone out for a piece of the pie trying to snake it out from under Brenda.

I doubt those shots are from the opening. But it still reminds me much more of classic Y&R openings than that ATWT shít.

I did not realize Bo worked at the Banner this much, lol. I don't remember when exactly he got appointed to the LPD.

Those promo shots are giving the CBS Daytime '90s promos to me lol. Everyone was always walking out from some curtains while someone else stared at the camera like a psycho while Lawrence said some nonsense. It's a compliment! Nice throwback. I am sure most of the location work is meant for the early weeks to set up the show, but if it continued I wouldn't complain (AMC 2.0 threaded it throughout their brief run in Stamford CT, but they were also wildly overbudget and didn't pay almost anyone).

I mean, I assume part of the Barrett wealth has gotten her to where she is now or has been used in her global ventures, humanitarian or otherwise. Or some relatives or siblings or cousins, illegitimates or whatever of Harlan's could try for the piece of the pie. It's easy to work through.

Oh, both Natalia and probably Nina would be dogmeat if the show got reset lol (and I say that having liked Nina a lot this year). I can see bringing in Julia to visit (or even recast if they wanted a contract player and a bigger name than the lovely Crystal Carson) or bringing on other children of hers in at some point, but I was thinking more distant relatives you could make from scratch who could somehow challenge Brenda's claim to any of the Barrett empire. Sure, they didn't exist in the '90s but who cares?

You could still do it today with more distant relatives if Brenda and her kid ever came back. There was a lot of dysfunctional history there for a character (Harlan) who so briefly appeared.

IIRC the article also says the show has been 'rocked by the recent departures' of Real Andrews and Michael Easton. 🤔

I don't accept Charlotte as part of Lulu's life, so she can feel free to dump her.

I didn't think Hofer was terrible. He did seem on the verge of tears in virtually any serious scene, but at least he wasn't wooden. The character was just the same old same old.

Honestly, it would bore me to tears with the idea of Jason and Sasha sharing solo scenes together and also make him look geriatric. But that's me.

He's like 30 years older than her and looks like it. She has even less personality than he does.

I'll never be that lucky with all three. I agree, I feel for Eden a bit given her IRL circumstances. But I'll admit my first thought at the news was 'Frank finds the nearest starving actor twink off WeHo Grindr to come in and be Oscar's headless ghost ushering Dex into the upper room.' He did it with Faceless Edward and Lila!

I don't think you need to go lighter with Ava nor do I think it would work, though some of her stories with fellow schemers can and have been fun sometimes. I do think she can insulate herself from consequences with power and money the same way Alex did (or Roger Thorpe, or whoever else). The Liason fans are the vocal minority desperate to drive JJ off through lots of tweets but I don't think it's going to happen for them, especially with the general audience still responding to him and Becky. In their minds they came so close with Kelly gone only for a new impassable obstacle to appear. But I don't think it was ever actually an actionable possibility this year. I don't think it's been a serious consideration for any regime since before Steve left in 2012, I think they're dreaming (the same way the Jasam fans were this year). And I can't see GH or the network pitting Steve against Jonathan onscreen. So I think the weird Anna thing is his only current option. Steve claims he wants to retire in a couple years. I say let him do it. Please.

Thirsting over the corpse.

Like I think titan has said, my suspicion on Ava was 50/50 tbh. There are rumors about it this year and it could've ended in a whodunit, or I think Ava could've easily wriggled out again by having the goods on Valentin and pinning it all on him. I am somewhat agnostic on Ava - I would keep her as long as I can and I think she has longer still, but I also think you can't defang her anymore to do it. There are ways to preserve that a bit more even with a villain character so long-running (like OLTL's Alex), because Maura is versatile and a powerhouse and Ava can be brilliant in her machinations when she's written to be. But if she were to go sometime I'd buy it, just given the longevity and how much she's already done. I agree they don't have a clue what to do with Ava now. Putting her with Ric is a bulwark until they figure something out and I don't think any of that was a PM thing. But Ric and Ava can work in its own right IMO, even if just as a B-story. I don't think Hearst is breaking the bank (if he's even on contract?) and I'm not convinced Alexa is either, and she is a permanent addition. I think the money issues come from the network just tightening its grip period, and probably the added fees for Steve and Jonathan Jackson. Jonathan is worth it, but Jason has nothing to do. Of course you could say that about at least half the cast. I do think Sasha and any number of others could've gone in the spring. But here we are. I'll be shocked if Valentin doesn't come back for good, and he was clearly on the way out under Mulcahey. Dayplayers don't cost.

It seems so stupid to have it be creaky old Cyrus again. I still think this will eventually tie back to Sidwell somehow. This show loves a cardboard character actor villain who lingers for years. But whatever, anything that gets rid of this shambling old man.

I agree. I was just saying how unusual it was for Frank. That said they haven't done nearly enough and they clearly didn't let PM purge anyone in the spring. Now they're doing a little with their back against the wall, I suspect. I still think the idiotic Sasha thing was largely to try to retrench/protect Sofia Mattsson in addition to giving Tristan a (bad) sendoff appeasing his fans, I hope I'm wrong re: Mattsson.

I suspect they're just that tight for money tbh. I'm so used to Frank letting played-out characters run on for many years out of his fondness for the actors or their FB fans at this point. I do think CM is next, and not far away. I've been suspecting Who Shot/Killed Drew at the holidays or over NYE for a month or so now, and tbh it would be the right move.

I've said it before but I think Eden is tolerable in doses. She has great real BFF chemistry with Tabyana, she can be funny and I think can do screwball or vixen stuff but she can't be an A-lead. For that you would eventually need a recast. But I can handle her in a smaller role like she's had for much of the year. I don't want to deal with her howling and grieving for weeks or months. I do think the PM era tried to make Dex and Joss more palatable to the writer's own tastes by moving him to a cop role, which IMO was the right thing for that character and he came off sincere and good-hearted in that arena with Anna, etc. But ultimately I never cared about Dex and won't miss him. It's time to do what OLTL '91 did: Purge! Start throwing up an opening sequence where 50-70% of the actors in it have already been fired! Here's what you do when you don't find the rainbow's end! Don't cry! 🪓🪓

Bye!

Girl, we don't need to just be posting "oh?" Come on now.

Oh, that is ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. I feel like she's spent the bulk of her scenes for 2+ months just packing and vowing to leave town and then returning and heading back to work! In other news Michael Malone is officially here, and it's good to know some things still prove out through the years; this show got real horny real quickly and that intense psychosexual undercurrent ran through his show in both eras in many storylines (Malone II opened on Troy and Lindsay having kinky and pretty explicit sex before Nora's eyes). I highly doubt Jason and Stephanie sporting matching scars (due to Carlo's domestic abuse) is unintentional - and of course echoes Todd later - and their scenes are both hot and vaguely kinky. After months of drippy teen love with Kevin and Stephanie set to Miami Sound Machine, a sexually frustrated Stephanie goads the street kid her abusive uncle hired until they get down to business. You don't get this shít on GH today! Griggs and Brettschneider are pretty fiery together but I assume by this point they'd already decided to can her which was probably for the best, Stephanie had limited potential unless she went full spoiled vixen (which seems to be closer to who RG was off-camera based on some cast recollections). Still, an impressive shift. Probably a lukewarm and well-worn take, but based on these early weeks and months Jason was at least a proto-Todd experiment for Gottlieb and Malone. Obviously they never had any inkling of creating Todd at this time or what he'd become, but a scarred town bad boy with a wounded heart and animal passion? That's Jason Webb. Of course he became a much sweeter and more earnest character later on who I'm more familiar with and always liked, but it's striking to see the sexual frankness on display with Jason here and then have him switch on a dime when Stephanie initially refuses him and have him say 'no is no,' until she reengages. Makes you wonder what could've been if they'd stuck with him and not Todd. It must be said: Nicholas Walker's whimpering goodbye scene with Little Al was giving Zachary Levi Instagram Live. @DRW50 knows what I mean.

Eternal moments in time: Another stylish, intense sequence on 9/12 where Lee Ann is in turmoil with all the voices in her head (including her dead mother) during the stormy night after NW's Max walks out on her yet again (she usually does most of the walking out, actually). I feel like Lee Ann and Max have dumped each other and gotten back together like half a dozen times since July and it's gotten very old. His rationale is kind of nonsensical this time - he understands her sleeping with a dude while they were on a break but she didn't tell him and took Asa's payoff, so now she's just like Gabrielle, sleeping around on him. Okay?! Watching Lee Ann once again pack her things for like the 10th time makes me think she's on a schedule - 'if ah leave town forever now ah can be back in Llanview again by Sunday!' It still trips me out a bit when Gottlieb/Malone (who this clearly is by now, with Tina's fortune cookie foretelling 'a mysterious stranger will drop into your life') reference Rauch stuff like Gabrielle, or Sheila noting the Daughters of Llanview have to accept Brenda McGillis as Michael Grande's rich widow. It's a pity Gabrielle's final eps are not (to my knowledge) on YT, but we can't have everything. The Dorian fantasy sequence with Jason is silly but also pretty sexy - they have heat. Even he and Robyn Griggs have some. "I came for take out!" was hilarious. If you weren't around for all of them together (which I wasn't) you don't know just how close Tina, Megan, Cord and the kids were to each other. I've watched less of the Rauch years so I don't know if Andrea's Tina sat around with the kids in the kitchen like this too; I hope so. It was lovely to see her do just that sometimes in her return stints in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Also notable is the new regime having Karen's Tina reflecting on wanting to be her own woman outside of Cord. I assume by now they knew Loprieno was leaving but who knows. I know there are stories that he and Witter didn't get along but I wish they'd had a real run under this regime because they are good together. Not that I didn't like Cain and Tina, but he's not Cord. Of course if I'd seen more of the Rauch-era Cord and Tina maybe the chauvinism would turn me off. Also great: A drunken Asa and Nigel singing a melancholy Scottish song. Asa being weirdly obsessed with still claiming Max as his heir (who he now knows is not his son, and will inexplicably repeat this entire plotline again under JFP in '99/'00 for no good reason) is written so strangely and I do like the new writing team correctly having Renee and Cord point out that his obsession doesn't make sense. But it became such a throughline for both characters, given their future conflicts in the Luna and Blair years, the past family beef I don't know much about with Wingate Holden and the love/hate relationship that persisted into the 2000s. I guess in hindsight what it was about (though it's not often well written onscreen via the prior team) is that he thought Max was closest in identity to him than his own sons - a rapacious schemer and power player - and kept trying to make that fit work, while Max was torn between embracing it and rejecting it for a variety of reasons including his own family. It's fitting Max turned up for Asa's funeral that last time. Amusing too: Just like the infamous Storm of Change in 2003, Malone's first run is augured by a Llanview thunderstorm the night before Luna touches down. Sorry to spam, y'all.