Broderick

Sharon stole the show. "When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is He. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches over me."

FOUR love scenes today -- gotta be a new record. (1) Ted & Shanice (2) Beautiful Nicole & that God-awful Chemistry-free Carlton Creature (3) Dani & Big Bill (4) Jacob & Smitty 🤣

If I remember right, the first time we saw that "coffee spot" was around Halloween. At the time, I thought it was part of the hospital cafeteria. That ain't the case, based on those little signs. I really can't figure out what it's supposed to be.

It's a new year, and I genuinely planned to give that thirsty horndawg Nurse Ashley a chance to entertain me as she desperately throws her Basic Wares at yet a 3rd victim in a brief 10-month period --- but it's just plumb excruciating, y'all. I keep expecting Timothee Chalamet to appear as an X-ray technician or Rami Malek to show up as a nurse's aid, in a last-ditch effort to make her drab ass interesting. That "ice cream comparison" was agonizing, but at least it led to a cute scene between Shanice and Ted.

I was taking the opening scene very seriously, until Hayley pulled out that big envelope that said TEST RESULTS!!!!, and then I busted out laughing, realizing it was Dani's ghoulish nightmare. I thought it was effective. I love Beautiful Nicole, but Lord have mercy -- Carlton is plumb dreadful. I believe he's enrolled in an acting class taught by Tomas & Derek.

Besides being WAY TOO THIRSTY for his "best friend" Ted's ex-wife, Carlton just can't keep up with Beautiful Nicole in the acting department. He's dull as hell to me. Sometimes I wonder if Greg Vaughan's unavailability to tape some scenes led to this sudden resurgence of Nicole's friendship with Carlton. At one point, she acted like she was DONE with him. Then after Winterfest, he popped up again, to my disappointment.

And I could be dead wrong. But there's been a TON of literary symbolism going on the past few episodes that points to Naomi being pregnant. It's the type of thing writers & readers jump onto. Anita yelled at Tracy the other day and broke a teacup. As she flung the cup, Senator Dupree walked in just as Anita yelled, "I want more grandchildren!" Then, at the Mardi Gras celebration following Epiphany, Naomi (of all people) "got the baby". And Naomi didn't say it once, but yelled it twice, to drive the point home, that SHE was the one who "got the baby". Anita then brought Naomi a crown, which seemed to symbolize Anita "passing something" to Naomi (the triple negative cancer gene). At the end of the episode, Naomi presented Anita with a gift, by placing the crown on Anita's head for the photograph, indicating that Naomi would be "gifting" something to Anita later (the grandbaby that Anita told Tracy she wanted).

Or the opposite. Naomi might change her tune entirely & decide not to postpone having a baby, after all. Based on the (excellent) Mardi Gras scenes, there appeared to be some foreshadowing Naomi will wind up pregnant. As she chatted with Andre & ate her king cake, she suddenly squealed, "I got the baby! I got the baby!!" The writers could've theoretically given the baby to any king cake-eater in the room, but they specifically chose Naomi for the honor. I don't think it was a throwaway. I think they were previewing a 2026 story for us.

Just finished Wednesday's show, where Beautiful Nicole dropped by with the mini-quiches and big plans for Samantha's cotillion debut. I loved Tyrell's tirade about cotillion culture being a way to further separate the "haves" from the "have-nots", juxtaposed with Nicole's explanation of how the debutante society (as well as fraternities and sororities) raise money to help the very "have-nots" that Tyrell feels are being discriminated against by cotillions, fraternities, & sororities. That conversation was NOT typical soap opera fare, and it was certainly something to think about.

Finally got to view Episode #200 tonight. WOW!! What great work from everyone involved. I know it's a gloomy issue, as each of us likely knows someone who's suffered (or who is currently suffering) with breast cancer, but those Duprees knocked it out of the park. Every single one of them. I'm handing them an armful of DuPraise of my own tonight. (And I just knew Anita & Vernon's little Sweet Baby would be the first one beating a path to their door. He didn't let me down.)

Episode #198 & #199 are now on Pluto, for those (like me) who were galivanting around last week & missed them. Episode #200 should pop-up on Pluto tomorrow.

Yeah, I think we're STUCK with Ashley for a while, as she's been more integrated into the canvas than Derek ever was. Hopefully, we'll see better writing for her, and hopefully she'll take an acting class or two.

I think there's 3 areas where things desperately needed improvement. (1) The "triangle" with Derek, Ashley, and Andre just never worked at all --- very little chemistry among them, and the writing for that story was disjointed and lackluster at best. I'm sorry someone lost a steady job, but that entire debacle needed to be dropped from the canvas. (2) The actor playing Tomas is horrible (and has been horrible since Day One). (3) There was entirely too much "DuPraise" in the dialogue (people endlessly praising the Duprees). I've noticed that's finally lessened-up over the past couple of months.

My biggest takeaway from 2025 on BTG is how well Karla Mosley & Daphnee Duplai have grown into leading ladies.

Probably what Ted should have said is, "Nicole, ole weird-ass Leslie is running around saying Vernon is having an affair with Sharon. Now, I believe she's wrong. But on the off-chance she's right, I wanted to let you know about it so you wouldn't think I'm keeping secrets from you. She's most likely wrong, though." How hard would that have been?