Vee

I honestly think his crashout rages are comical and (like June) reaching community theater level. He wore out his welcome with me, it's giving Kirk Van Houten from The Simpsons.

Those folks at Orphey Gene's have put up with enough as is. From June's Tyler Perry touring show antics alone idk how some of those people just sat there still eating their pie.

Not remotely what I said, but you already knew that. You can either speak to my points (which you had no answer for, from Kirk to Twitter/Bsky) or stan for Gavin Newsom, but you won't be doing the latter in my replies.

Doug is dead as hell, soon. I still suspect that when the smoke clears ultimately Vanessa will be the only one left standing in Joey's empire, though I don't see them getting rid of Joey right away. I would absolutely bring on younger relations for Caroline (and bring on Vanessa's kids when Doug is dead), but then my brain is already far too ahead of itself thinking of recasting Sharon and doing a Therese Lamonte/Another World (or Nell Beaulac/Ryan's Hope, I guess) riff with someone young in the cast falling in love with the tragic, aging songbird.

Is that what Kirk spent his life engaging in? Debate? With words? Or did he make terrorizing and destroying the lives or livelihood of public and private figures his mission in life on his airwaves, in online media and IRL? Did he not repeatedly flirt with promoting armed insurrection and paramilitary action? If you wanted a list of people he actively targeted we'd be here til the evening at least. Innocent people will suffer because of Kirk's death, because of what Kirk spent his life doing and avidly promoting doing to others: Targeting innocent people for hate and personal and professional destruction. They are acting like he was some normal pundit now but no mainstream media outlet would publicly go near Kirk or Turning Point USA during his lifetime, because they know who he was and what TPUSA did. Gavin's usual desperation to prove he can 'see both sides' and overweening ambition has led him to make bedfellows with some deeply hateful people. Kirk was just one more. And before we take the DC party line on the terrors of some cloistered liberals on Bluesky (I have no social media accounts, BTW) maybe we can circle back to what's so genuine, rational and levelheaded by comparison to Bsky about spending all of one's time marinating their brain in the Nazi fever swamp of Twitter/X. Which actively skews pundits' brains to the center or far right.

Most definitely.

What 'example' of Kirk's does Newsom think we should we all be following? He spent his life spewing hate and targeting minorities and women. He was never some principled commentator looking for open, earnest debate and dialogue, and it's typical Newsom for him to cast him as such. We're fortunate that Ezra Klein (one of the pundits our more ossified leading Democrats actually listen to) came out last week pushing for a shutdown, but in terms of every other opinion he is just another Beltway pundit who wires everything for the right and the GOP. So of course he too is weeping for the fantasy image of Kirk they have rigged up after the fact. My only consolation is that KIrk will soon become to the right what he and they have made into so many others - a brief martyr, then ultimately memory-holed and forgotten when they're on to the next outrage. Same with the mainstream press chasing the next Trump press hit. He'd hate that. Good.

Brad-lee hit it and quit it with his estranged spouse, made it clear they're not back yet, and we're calling it some low act on par with Martin's cover-up of murdering a man?? To 'dirty him up?' That's 'equal footing?' Not even close. Some of y'all need to log off and meet new people. This shít like 'one night' happens all the time in struggling relationships. And worse lol

Assuming he has more of a pulse than Tomas, I'd slot him in that role between Kat and Eva easy. Then Kat doubles back and gets with brother Jacob down the road.

The moral core is Nicole. Easy. I do think the corruption is intentional with the Duprees - it's pointed out so often onscreen - even though again, the show like many soaps wants to have their core families be seen and valued as both light and dark. Which they can be. I'll say this though: For all her stunts and volatility, Dani is just as honest and upfront at her core as Nicole IMO. They're just fire and ice. It's the elders and some of the other relations that are the operators and gameplayers. Martin and Smitty have had notable intimacy onscreen and kisses over the last several months, but I am glad they stepped it up even further.

I didn't know they had issues, do tell. I was surprised they went there to begin with tbh. It was an odd fit.

It's definitely Willow. Her turn mirrors Barbara, Susan Moore, Diane Ballard on GL (although I suppose Diane was always a bit spikier I think), etc. And KMM can play the instability and rage to the hilt. Which is why I think they're both full of promise now.

Yes, political violence has no place in our country, but it is in our country. Mass shootings or school shootings have no place in our country, but they are in our country. We can talk about what should be in our country and be prudent and tasteful and wishcast, or we can address a situation based on the phenomena ruining our country which has been for a long time, and who has exploited it, capitalized on it or incited it. My response to today is not the same as my response might be a year ago, because institutionalized extremism has fundamentally altered our world. This is simply what people like this have reaped, sown and brought home. I can spare thoughts for Kirk's family, who didn't ask for this. Unfortunately Kirk never spared a thought for me or mine. These people want many of us dead or caged. I didn't wish Charlie Kirk dead, and I think more death escalates an already very bad moment in America. Innocent people will pay the price for his death. I think that when you build a life and career around hate and normalizing political violence, and reduce those you can't identify with to NPCs or acceptable casualties, you run the risk of becoming simply another footnote in what are now unquestionably our years of steel. I hope someday we we learn from some of this horror and some of these deaths, the way Kirk never learned from anything. It's not meant to be a Field of Dreams quote, but when you build it, it will come.

I think it's more that the character evolved, and then the writing degraded. For over 20 years now Carly has had money, power and social status. She has raised several children. She is a pillar of the community and a known mob wife. All of this was either already true or made true of Laura's Carly not long after she took over. I can easily buy into Carly, any Carly, becoming nouveau riche and having this power and economic base after so many years. We saw the beginnings of this with Sarah's Carly after she married Sonny and became ride or die for him. She began throwing her weight around there. That was the start. What has changed in the last 15 years (or more) is the approach to Carly. Yes, Laura's Carly was different from Tamara's who was different from Sarah's, but the harder edge is something LW initially brought back to the character when Carly got bent on revenge against, say, Dante and Lulu or Brenda. Laura could go at them hard in a way Tamara couldn't do the same way, but Sarah could've. This changed when the Guza II team left. While Carly had become somewhat 'respectable' in town by then, while she was sometimes more of a domesticated B-player with Jax, when crossed she could still turn rabid. What we've seen since the early 2010s, with most of that writing team gone other than Korte and I think the occasional staffer, is a gradual softening of Carly into more of a flatter 'feisty heroine' role, where she is all things to all people, earth mother of Port Charles, etc. Few people are allowed to still be on bad terms with her, even those with longstanding bitter relationships with Carly. That all IMO goes back to FV and Korte preferring Carly be this way, because they feel the audience roots for Carly and Carly has inherited the role of a Bobbie or Laura as a nascent matriarch. Making her still make truly dark or bad decisions would interfere with that audience identification, alienate the audience they prefer to cultivate and go against their own personal preferences. LW plays this stuff well enough because she played Cassie Winslow or Ally on GL and LOV/TC, who all had elements of the original Carly but were softer characters - like this Carly today. But Laura Wright can do more as Carly and is capable of doing more. She's shown it many times. I think she's often been very good in the role, but I think it's the writing that has failed her in the recent decade. If it was down to me I'd still bring Sarah back tomorrow. But if it had to be Laura's Carly she can absolutely play more IMO.

The biggest thing that made me accept Hunt Block at ATWT (not that I had any history with Craig as a viewer at that time) was Cady. They were incredible together. As for GL, I am aware of Bradley Cole's rabid fanbase which snowed more than one EP. But Cole was just not that interesting and Jeffrey should never have existed. I'm not saying I wasn't sick of Josh and Reva in the late '90s/early 2000s like many people (and I agree Rauch did lean on KZ/Reva as his new Erika Slezak/Viki from OLTL and Josh as her Clint except the writing was considerably more crass) but I do think there were other roads to take before going back to Josh and Reva that did not involve yet more Bradley Cole.

It will always be Sarah for me.

Given their handling of them in the Martin fallout, I don't think so. Several characters (Smitty, Jacob. Nicole) called them out. I think the show wants it both ways: Yes, they're the things some people say they are, but they are also wonderful things too, etc etc. But really this cognitive dissonance and mixed messaging is pretty standard for any central core family on any soap opera. Particularly the Bell or Bell-adjacent soaps. It's how these shows and these kind of power families work. Soaps get to have their cake and eat it too.

Erika had a complicated relationship with Clint. She's very complimentary of him in the book despite their issues but also says drinking destroyed him. I think his demons ran much deeper, given what she, Linda Dano and others have hinted at.

I just would much rather see scheming spoiled socialite Joss, whoever is in the role. Eden has a facility for comedy, not heavy drama. The main youth story at this point should be Gio, Emma, Trina and Hottie To Be Named Later. It's money left on the table.

No, I don't think so. As the writers and actors tell it (including Roy Thinnes IIRC), the initial plan for the Sloan/Viki/Clint triangle was allegedly always for Sloan to die much sooner and Viki and Clint to reconcile. This apparently got delayed by CR's major accident on his ranch in summer '93. You can see them, early in the rape trial saga, moving Clint back towards Viki as support for her and Kevin while Sloan is the odd man out. That 180s as soon as Ritchie got hurt and Clint Buchanan did too, offscreen. That kept him out for months and things changed, and I think Thinnes has said suddenly he was around an extra year. I've seen bits and pieces of Clint during the Billy Douglas story over the years, though I am not there yet in my regular viewing. I agree some of it went too far (and tbh I wonder if the IRL issues there may have run deeper and sadder, based on some gossip I've heard in the past). But I also think that team was capable of writing beautiful stuff for Clint, both in '91 with his father and son and then after the Llanfair fire, and much later still in '93, '95 with the DID saga, etc. It was a complicated and flawed writing treatment compounded by a complicated and troubled actor, but they still kept Clint a very decent man.

Didn't @Khan say Phillip Brown actually taped and then it fell apart? Or am I conflating posters?

I think sometimes longer exits or new combinations can be good story, but there's plenty of people on various soaps today I'd just weed out fast. It varies by the situation. GH has a ton of worthless characters; would I weep if half of them went in the next 60 days? No. What I'd heard long ago (which may be apocryphal) is that like a lot of people, PM's conservative/religious views hardened as she got older, whereas IIRC Carlotta had been pro-gay in other situations in the past. She thought she could get away with changing the script on the day with Cristian and it didn't work. I missed her on the show as I loved her Carlotta, but I shed no tears.

It pre-dated Passions, IIRC. I had skepticism about her more based on the PSSNS background (Kelly Monaco and IIRC Karen Witter had done Playboy, along with I'm sure many others and they were both strong back in the day) but she impressed me from Day 1 on OLTL. That clearly translated to Hillary B. Smith, who still talks her up as the only good Rachel recast. I still weep for what might have been there, but Daphnee is in a great place as one of the central heroines of this show.

Oh God.

It's a little wild to me that Phillip and Beth were a supercouple when IIRC they were only together a couple years in their classic incarnation? And then came Lujack? Everything with BC's Beth in the '90s, after she returned, always felt like Rauch just inserting a scheming, hard-up grasping vixen into the mix that seemed to clearly demean the prior character. I knew nothing about Phillip and Beth when I first saw the show in the late '90s, and even I was like 'wow, this chick is pathetic.' It was only Chamberlin's talent that kept the character afloat to evolve further, but putting them back together for real always seemed a bit sad to me after everything they'd both become and done with other people, for good or ill. But I only know so much about her classic years - I've seen more Lujack material than I have Phillip and Beth in earnest. So I could misjudge their impact.