Broderick

During that SLAP, I was hoping Leslie's wig would fly off her head, sail out the front door, over the gates, and it would ultimately land on the bell tower at good ole Banneker U. Nice of Kat & Jacob to announce to the bullpen at Metro PD that Tomas is a dud in the bed. And a couple of weeks ago, Tomas was advising Eva that Kat's a virgin. Not much love, devotion, and loyalty detected in that little relationship.

If Vernon had known what was transpiring downstairs, he'd have probably told good ole Banneker U that zoom call would just have to wait a while. I was glad June said the 5 Dreadful Words to Naomi today. ("This is all your fault!") I'm crazy about Naomi, but yep, somewhere between 95% & 100% of June's broken heart was Naomi's fault. That was some good material for all of them today, IMHO. Really liked the scene when Smitty said, "Don't look at me all starry-eyed." And Martin grinned and said, "Was I?!" lol

My theory is that scene was strictly a (lame) attempt by the breakdown writer to summon Nicole & Vanessa to Uptown. The purpose of their visit to Uptown really seemed to be (1) for Vanessa to put the kibosh on Doug's plan to expose Joey, causing Detective Jacob to hit yet another bewildering dead-end in his pursuit of Marcel Malone & Joey, and (2) for Nicole to wiggle her cute ass in front of Ted, then shoot him down again. Madison basically seemed to be flapping her trap about next-to-nothing, as if she thought a therapy session in a (green) bar would be somehow helpful to her mental wellbeing.

And Leslie immediately barks at Peaches, "Did Miss High & Mighty Nikki Nicole put you up to telling me this?" It never occurs to her that Miss Nikki Nicole ain't studying her stupid ass.

Hopefully, they've staggered the contract cycles of the initial 20 cast members, so they can't potentially have 20 defections in the same month. Presumably, Ted is on a different cycle than the other 19, since he's a recast. But you wouldn't wanna create a situation where you could lose Vernon, Anita, Nicole, Dani, Martin, Naomi, Chelsea and Kat in a single month.

I wanna see Leslie get her just desserts in some "poetic" manner. Maybe in February of 2027, Laura will be driving to work across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, see a WIG lying in the road, think it's a kitty-cat, swerve to avoid hitting it, accidentally strike Leslie's new Mercedes-Benz, and send Leslie head-first into the Atlantic, lol.

As far as I know, they haven't elaborated on whether anyone has yet received a distribution from the trust. Anita knows there are some living relatives, because she commented she "wished" she'd invited them to attend the reunion concert in August, but she failed to. She probably thinks Barbara's relatives are all living high on the hawg on her trust contributions. Right now, as far as we know, 25% of the Articulette's royalties from 1970 onward could still be sitting there in the trust account waiting for Peaches to be located so Peaches can lead the trustees to Leslie. Like @janea4old I'd like to see Leslie fall sooner or later. But not right now. I'd rather wait and see her have a big SPECTACULAR fall after she's driven the Duprees half crazy first, lol. To me that's the fun of a villain like Leslie --- to see them ultimately crash & burn.

I'd be inclined to say Y&R's best years were 1975 - 1979. It was a unique and pretty show, and it always held my interest. 1980-1982 were pretty dreary. Once the Abbotts were all assembled in 1982, it started a second upswing that really accelerated in 1984 and probably peaked in 1988. (Right now, from what LITTLE I've seen of it this year, it's plumb dreadful.)

I expect it's an Irrevocable Trust, which means Anita can't terminate it or change the beneficiary. 🤣 When Anita established the trust, she likely specified the distributions would be made to the "next of kin of Barbara Mitchell", with the assumption that "next of kin" would be a sister, brother, parent, aunt, cousin, or whatever. But obviously the "next of kin" is Leslie. As for how Leslie was located, I didn't bat an eye. I know that on soaps, people are always having Top Secret Pregnancies. But in the real world, folks are apt to notice when a girl looks pregnant. Barbara's mama probably told the trustee, "I'll be glad to take the money, but I believe Barbara's got a baby somewhere. She looked mighty pregnant, but when it was time for the baby to be born, Peaches disappeared and I ain't ever seen a baby." Wouldn't take much work to track down Miss Peaches and then ask her to track down Leslie. Poor TED --- he'll never hear the end of this!!!

I'm surprised Ole Jan didn't just strip nekkid, run on into the Emergency Room, and mount Triathlon Derek while he was stretched out on his back. She's been acting like she wants to, ever since her dull daughter dumped him.

I enjoyed hearing Kat raise the possibility that maybe he just ain't very good in the bed (or on the SOFA, I should say, since her two "encounters" with him have been on someone's couch). I really WISH Eva would take him to bed, too, and discover the same result Kat found. And then Eva and Kat would continue the charade of "trying to be his woman" to irritate each other, with neither of them admitting he's a complete dud in the sack.

I enjoyed the scenes, but I wondered why they burned through it so quickly. Even the reconciliation between June & her sister moved at warp speed. I fully expected June to say, "No thanks! Where were you when I needed you?!" and storm out of the diner. Naomi's time could've been spent encouraging June to give Regina a chance, help her move her shopping cart of possessions to Regina's house, and facilitate a real reconciliation between the two. THAT would've been the ideal time for Naomi & Jacob to discover the kids were Martin and Smitty's.

Didn't Dante start a "smear campaign" against Barbara, claiming that she was too "ghetto" to be singing with the other three girls? Maybe he had some deeper, more ulterior motive for wanting to 86 her from the group.

I bet Bryton James wanted to wet his britches, being asked to appear on a show that isn't as static & dull as his regular hang-out. I really enjoyed the "doomed pizza night" and then the card game. The guy who plays Tyrell has really grown into his role. Shocking that everyone has suddenly decided Ashley is the only woman in the world for them. Lord Jesus, WHY?! Poor Anita. She's trying so hard to do the "right thing" in regards to the late, great Barbara. And now it appears she's about to financially empower the worst (but funniest) woman on the show.

I'm still pretty invested in the whole Kenny ordeal. There are still a couple of corpses floating around, a pistol, a broken marriage, a host of moral/ethical dilemmas on the police force, a sarcastic casino gangster who seems to be a loose cannon, and a formidable lawyer who knows more than he's telling. I doubt we've heard the last of Kenny & Company.

We're all pretty good about criticizing this scene or that scene, this character or that character, this actor or that actor --- but most days, BTG is head & shoulders above what the other shows are providing in 2025, and today was definitely one of those days.

I agree that Nicole, Smitty, Vernon, and Tyrell all laid out their positions well, and made good sense. I could see everyone's point of view. I was completely opposed to Anita's solo, until SHE said that her subsequent "jazz career" is closely associated in the public's mind with the Articulettes, and some fans might attend the concert wanting to see a jazz number. That actually made sense to me, and now I don't think her [one] solo number is such a bad idea, after solos were also offered to Sharon & Tracy. My only problem is how quickly Sharon & Tracy capitulated into tagging themselves as backup singers. If they always viewed themselves as "backups", why did they get mad when Anita left them? Smitty teared-up when Martin stopped by. I'm surprised by how many posters think they should "get a divorce" simply because they're having problems right now. (I also don't think Nicole & Ted should rush into a divorce, although Nicole might disagree with me.)

I'd take that Unhinged One in a heartbeat. She was cute as hell today when she called Martin a "selfish son of a bitch" and when she asked Andre "are you here to ask my father for my hand in marriage". 😀 She might pull out a gun & shoot you at some point, but she's cute & funny.

Y&R has made some awfully dumb decisions with its younger characters. We can all list several of them. Josh Griffith seems to be saying to us, "Not much future left in this dying shell of a show. This tired ole horse is about ready for the glue factory, folks!"

That did look like a Magnum wrapper Tomas left behind. And instead of being ripped from a corner, there was a slit down the very CENTER of it, as though he intended to take it home and reuse it as a coin purse. Maybe this will be a breakthrough storyline about a boy with a small johnson whose vanity led him to purchase an oversized condom, it slipped off on the third thrust, and he inadvertently impregnated his bored girlfriend who believes his Humpin Prowess is as "lovely" as her auntie's potato salad.

It's a popular (and controversial) You Tube channel, and I don't wanna "plug" it here in this thread, because I find it exploitive as hell. Harsher critics refer to it as "poverty pornography", because all of the subjects interviewed are marginalized members of society (like June). Mark Laita isn't a social worker or a therapist. He's a photographer. About 20 years ago, he photographed many individuals who were homeless in Chicago. He interviewed each of them to discover their "voice" --- who their families were, how long they'd lived on the street, what their aspirations & goals were. The result was a coffee table book called Created Equal. Years later, he moved to Los Angeles and established a studio on Skid Row. He pays some amount of money ($100, I think) to anyone who'd like to be interviewed. His channel effectively becomes "continuing drama", because many of the subjects return for additional interviews, offering the viewer deeper insights into their unique situation. During the interviews, Mark comes across as naive & stupid as Naomi & Jacob, because he's a photographer, with no professional training in dealing with their often harrowing situations. I couldn't believe when June appeared on BTG, because she's so similar to many of the individuals he's interviewed on SWU. June is quirky as hell, as are most of his subjects. (Some of them even bring him "gifts", like June's toy money.) If the writers on BTG have created a genuine character profile for June, it'll likely be the first time a daytime soap has been brave enough to dive into something that potentially complex and off-beat. (If it's handled with a quick therapy session, it'll be horrible, because that ain't the way it works with the real-life individuals who've offered their stories on SWU.)

I've got no problem with how June is presented. Most of us who are online have probably run across that (exploitive) Soft White Underbelly, where Mark Laita interviews various individuals he's met in homeless encampments in LA's Skid Row. Probably the most "famous" of his subjects is that boy Ismail Seoudi who calls himself "Rebecca". It's a case of gender confusion meets body dysmorphia meets drug addiction meets mental illness meets homelessness. How long has that "saga" been going on? Two or three years? "Rebecca" pops in, makes perfect sense, carries on thoughtful, intelligent conversations, Mark buys him a phone to stay in touch, provides him a motel room, arranges an appointment with a therapist, and sets up a meeting with an immigration attorney to make sure "Rebecca" isn't detained by ICE. "Rebecca" sells the telephone, abandons the motel room, skips the appointments with the therapist, skips the appointment with the immigration worker, and vanishes into thin air. A month later, he reappears, stoned out of his mind, claims he went to a party in West Hollywood, was sexually assaulted, then was hospitalized for a drug overdose. But he wants to change, so Mark buys him a phone to stay in touch, puts him in a motel room, and the whole bizarre disappearing act starts again. Obviously there all kinds of homeless people in the world. Some are nice folks who lost their house, some are mentally ill, some are drug addicts. Some are a combination of all the above, plus more. To me the "stereotype" is what we usually see on TV -- the person voluntarily meets with a therapist a few times & gets "cured" in an hour. Or kicks drug addiction during a commercial break. June seems to be an amalgamation of SEVERAL of the interesting & unusual personalities we've seen on Soft White Underbelly. I just hope the show doesn't go the tired, trite route of having a "savior" pop in and "cure" her of whatever is wrong with her in a few episodes. I'd rather see a more "real-life" step forward/step backward trajectory for her.

The Articulettes should sing "Never Can Say Goodbye" at some point. Vernon Dupree would enjoy that. June's "money" was the star of the show today. Not sure how much she "paid" for that lunch, but that bill on top with a big yellow smiley-face on it was a "fifty".

I thought Nicole & Bill's scenes were really good. Ironic that everyone pulled out their "professional privilege cards" today. Nicole is now Martin's therapist so she can't squeal on him, and at the same time, Vernon waved that $1 bill in Naomi's face as a "retainer" so she can't tell Jacob squat. They're all so flawed (but not in a horrible way), and I like that. Looked for a minute like Gran wasn't even gonna let Martin go see Nicole. Vernon was passively/aggressively encouraging him to go clear the air with his mother, but not one WORD from Anita. She just stood there looking at him like, "Awwww, you just stay right here with Gran, Sweet Baby. You don't have to go see that mean ole mama of yours." 😅 She kills me.

Looks like Ted would tell Leslie, "Look. Your voice carries. I can hear you from across the room. You don't gotta put your NOSE right up against mine to talk to me."