Broderick

Since the "revision & shuffling", I've only noticed TWO openings (like before the shuffling) -- Anita, Vernon, Beautiful, Dani, Bill, Andre, Ashley, Izaiah, Smitty, Chelsea, Naomi, and Theodore Anita, Vernon, Beautiful, Dani, Vanessa, Martin, Hayley, Jacob, Joey Armstrong, Leslie, Eva, and Kat

Tomas is GONE from the opening. The show went to great lengths to disguise that he's gone, by moving everyone else around except Anita, Vernon, Beautiful, and Dani -- but Tomas is nowhere to be found.

They're very clear & pretty in HD.

I think IMD simply made a mistake if they referred to him as a Barnes. Pam always introduced him as "my cousin Jimmy Monihan" or as "my Aunt Maggie's son, Jimmy Monihan". In Lee Raintree's novel Dallas, which coincided with the release of the miniseries in 1978 and which was taken from the first five rough-draft scripts, he's Jimmy Monihan from beginning to end.

That girl never caught on as Patty. The previous actress (Lilibet Stern) was very pretty, and she was extremely popular in the role. When she left (in the middle of a big story arc), Bill Bell made the decision to recast the part, and Miss Evans got the role. She just wasn't Lilbet Stern by any stretch of the imagination, and once Patty's divorce from Jack Abbott was finalized, the character (and the actress) mercifully got the axe so Bell could concentrate on the characters who were more appealing. Ironically, when you look back at those episodes today, Evans was just fine in the role, IMHO. I think I would've learned to like her. But at the time my friends and I called her "that ole fake Patty".

The Plasma Ring really does seem like a (lumbering) attempt to achieve some specific long-term goal. The way we've seen Ted & Nicole announcing that they're "moving on" (him with Shanice, her with various Plasma Suspects) seems to strongly suggest this arc is designed to bring Ted and Nicole back together at least temporarily. And let's not forget Naomi's LOUD announcement at the Mardi Gras party: "I've got the BABY! Everyone! I got the BABY!" I can't help but believe Jacob is going to disappear temporarily during the Plasma Ring storyline, and Naomi will discover she's pregnant and decide to give birth despite having the BRCA gene. Otherwise, they likely wouldn't have had Miss Anita's cancer be an inherited trait that just happens to fall on Naomi, who's conveniently keeping it a secret.

There are so many things I don't understand about the plasma plot, too. (When I was in college in the 1980s, my friends and I were routinely selling our plasma to buy compact discs, lol. If I remember the prices correctly, we could sell a supply of plasma and generate enough cash to buy two CDs) I have no idea what the clinic did with the plasma they collected, nor did it cross my mind to wonder.

I don't know much about the "sweeps periods" but if I were planning to write a Cotillion storyline, I'd probably want it to air in May when some of the schools are beginning to let out for the summer, so maybe a few young folks will catch it when it airs. I'd mention it several times from Christmas to Easter, so it wouldn't look as though I just made it up out of thin air when it's time for it to start. Not sure what mindset MVJ has about it, but that's how I would've handled it if I were the writer. (In my part of the South, Cotillion season generally starts in the fall and wraps up with the final spring ball in March.)

I think the "stakes" could be an interesting story if Tomas suddenly stumbled onto the full truth about Hayley, Lynette, and Randy/Sammy --- and then ended up dead. There's no honor among thieves, and each of the three would blame the other two for killing him, while the audience remained in the dark about which of them (if any!) actually offed him. This would bring Kat deeper into their orbit as she attempts to figure out who the three people really are and what Tomas learned about them prior to his death.

If the Hayley/Lynette/Randy story concludes without Tomas getting knocked in the head, the writers have missed a wonderful opportunity to get rid of the show's most irritatingly bad actor in a memorable manner. Likewise, if the Plasma Thieves Storyline ends without Derek in a body bag, they've missed a golden opportunity to get rid of another dud.

At one point today, while declining to take Kat's money to purchase a partnership interest in the Baltimore law firm, Alex Alegria demonstrated his "acting skills" by clenching his fists tightly without ever changing his facial expression. I honestly can't recall ever seeing such an awkward actor on television before. Vanessa really seemed whorish and desperate today when she sat there like a blonde gargoyle watching her "date" disparage Beautiful Nicole (who's supposedly her best friend) at the dinner table, then followed him back to the Golden Corral Casino and basically told him, "I love my children and my friends, but I love you even more even though I know you're a criminal."

I'm not holding out much hope that he ever will. He doesn't do anything with his lines except recite them like a poem he memorized to recite to the class, and he lacks the capability of adding any subtext at all.

When Bill lit into Tomas today, I was hoping Tomas would go cast himself into the Potomac River. The actor is just HORRID.

I can't imagine why Naomi doesn't worry for her daddy. That would've made much better sense, storywise. I guess she ultimately will at some point. (Only reason I didn't mention Naomi as executor of her grandparents' wills is that she's a beneficiary, which could cause her sibling and cousins to resent her. Her daddy's not a beneficiary but has a vested interest in making sure the funds aren't squandered in probate costs.)

And just to add --- Michael Jackson certainly wasn't an EGOT on the Grand Scale of Anita Williams Dupree (lol), but he was considered a fairly successful entertainer back in his day. We learned a few years ago that the executors of Michael Jackson's estate had awarded the attorneys $625,000 in "bonuses", in addition to the legal fees they'd already been paid. We know the job of the executor is to preserve the assets of the estate to the best of his/her ability in order to benefit the heirs of the decedent. That's obviously not being done in the case of the Jackson estate, where the executors have no personal relationship with Paris, Prince, and Blanket. If Jermaine or Rebbie or Marlon had a spouse who was a high-powered attorney and who'd closed the Jackson estate for free, think of all the extra money Blanket could've had.