FrenchBug82

Add that to the pile with the Sonny in Nixon Falls rushed denouement and the abrupt Chase-tells-Wallow-he-knows all of a sudden that makes it absolutely obvious something happened BTS and they decided to wrap up everything they had going very suddenly for... reasons Hope the story of what happened leaks some day.

An additional wrinkle that makes it even more idiotic is that they DID write an Asian character (Ji Min) who was extremely well-received by the audience and had sexual chemistry with other characters. So it is not like Y&R of all shows has any excuse to pretend they don't know if it can work. It is bigoted but they also have clear evidence that it is wrong!

I have been thinking really hard about your question since you first posted it - which is great actually; love that you got me thinking even though I don't have a good answer! Thanks for a great conversation starter - and one thing I can immediately spot in those examples is that Kate's lie almost led to Sami's death (on death row). Which is akin to murder. Sami's behavior at least in the examples you mention did not rise to the same level. So in the immediate aftermath of that storyline I think it somehow explains why the consequences were more severe for Kate. She was literally ready to let Sami die. And the fact Sami spent time on death row for something she didn't do presumably functioned as Sami's "punishment" for her own misdeeds. Now, Sami raping Austin was not presented or played as rape for cultural and sociological reasons and therefore the audience didn't receive it as it. This has to do with the times being different: back then I imagine the idea of men being raped was not taken seriously, the entire issue of drug-addled consent was not treated as as clear-cut as it should have been and as it thankfully is now, and so on. I am not sure how the old "scheming woman drugs guy to get him into bed" trope would be received nowadays but something tells me the audience would correctly recognize it as what it is and not shrug it as just a "scheme" like they did back then. But they played it as a lie, rather than rape so it didn't have the same impact on the audience as a more "classic" rape would. I do think if the story was told now, the response would be completely different. But it is hard to expect an audience to revisit its impression of a 25-year old storyline Similarly the various acts of violence Sami committed against EJ felt like a tit-for-tat between them. Their relationship started with another rape (which I never forgave him for but most of the audience and writers did) and that entire toxic back-and-forth was just vile and toxic from both ends. And since both were equally culpable of crossing all kinds of lines, no one bore the judgement of the audience in quite the same way a one-sided crime would have. I really think this is an interesting question in general: why certain crimes and/or characters do not get the same response from the audience as others. I do not think Ben is a good example though because it is pretty-straightforward: killing several innocent characters is just a line that you cannot come back from. ESPECIALLY since there is no remorse here. He didn't "redeem" himself. He just magically was written an excuse for his crimes and allowed to move on and be treated as a hero. A better case for me - and this isn't the right thread for it - is Jason Morgan who IS a killer and not strictly for self-defense. The indulgence for that character is infinitely more problematic to me than Sami who is, by all accounts, correctly identified as not an outstanding citizen but has been on the receiving end of enough crimes and dastardly plots by others to somehow balance the karma in the mind of the audience. Ben was given an excuse for the heinous crimes he committed and is never supposed to be on the receiving end of any consequences - direct or karmic. As AlexElizabeth said, there actually was an entire storyline where the mother of one of his victims was written as the villain because she couldn't forgive him. This really makes it hard to swallow. You can't redeem a character who hasn't reckoned with their crimes. And the reason they don't write it is because they know they couldn't. There is just no way a serial killer can be fully redeemed in a way that would be satisfying enough for us to want him to be happy. But I have been thinking a lot about what you said about the rape part and Sami's crimes. And that is a really good point I don't have a solid response to besides my above babbling.

Yes. But in a way that works for me. That the only man patient and forgiving enough to put up with Erica Kane would be Jackson - a nice guy she had alright chemistry with - rather than the ones she had wild passion and lots of things in common with. She was easy to fall in love with and impossible to love. A bit of cosmic karma that in the end she would have to "settle" (and even fail at that since he left her in the end) for a boring nice guy.

Yes she was played by SK! I personally don't really think there was much of Cecile in her although I'd be curious to hear if anyone disagrees. I guess her main story arc was that she was the secret child of the patriarch of the "main" rich family and that she was bitter so she initially had a bit of a scheming side while she was seeking revenge but it never felt Cecile-ish to me but I never got to see too much of Susan as Cecile at the time (read about it and watched what is available later though)so maybe others who can compare the performances will have another PoV. In any case once it all came out Shana became a more traditional female character - fell in love with a priest, had her husband and toddler die in a plane crash and various hearteaches. She was sadly never written that consistently and very well despite Susan rocking whatever dramatic material they gave her. But that was the problem with Loving in the first place. You can see the episode I was mentioning here: This was the run-up to pair her with Leo, the guy she is talking to and they were going for comedy-ish hate-you-love-you kind of thing. You can get a glimpse of her early performance when she was more scheming I guess you can superficially see the similarity with scheming Cecile but the characters' motives were so different I don't see it ...

On a less serious side of this euphemism issue, it is funny because I just watched an old Loving episode that was posted today on YT in which Shana wants to be artificially inseminated by Leo and the lengths to which the writers have to go not to explicitly say she is asking him to be her sperm donor ("I need your DNA") made me roll my eyes.

If they want to save money, they could have Chuck E Cheese sponsor a location shoot at one of their restaurants for product placement and it would be a more realistic first date.

And it would have the benefit of fitting how I remember the story ending. Keemo was feeling strongly about Genoa City and his father being corrupt influences and wanted to get away in order not to lose his moral compass which he felt his attraction to Mary Jo was the symbol of. It wouldn't be a stretch at all to explain that Keemo just cut ties with his father entirely for those reasons and Jack understands and feels that guilt enough not to go against his wishes. AND it creates potential conflict once Keemo's children want to go to the US to study and they are conflicted between their father's intense values and their exposure to a foreign country. So much human drama to mine without having to retcon anything!

Considering that the whole point of Keemo's existence is the fact Jack was in Vietnam during the War there is no way to de-age him. His birth is pretty fixed in time. That said, he can easily have married in Vietnam and have had children who would be teenagers by now and could want to take advantage of having an American grandpa to study in a good US school. It is a pretty basic and easy to implement premise if they want to bring more of the family without dwelling on Keemo himself (who wasn't a great character himself anyway and whose entire final storyline was his disgust at being attracted to a woman who once slept with his father which would limit the potential pool of romantic partners in Genoa City LOL). Sorry. I had missed that 😉 To be fair, it is such a weird reason to ignore a huge chunk of history that it would be hard for people who don't follow the gossip like we do to guess.

The rumor generally accepted as having a grain of truth is that Bergman hated that story so much that he and therefore the power-that-be (who have no stake in this since they weren't there) find it easier to pretend it never happened (a bit like Bell regretted Malcolm/Dru cold medicine influenced (read: unconsented) sexual encounter and this wasn't addressed for decades). That being said, one of the main families having non-white core members should be SUCH an easy layup for producers and writers if they had a genuine intent to diversify the cast. So both stupid story-wise but also short-sighted.

I still cannot get over that they are writing SONNY to be the deus ex machina that unlocked the stalking storyline. This is exactly the kind of character-propping I didn't miss when he was away from the rest of the canvas. This is a Victor Newman situation: any storyline, even tangentially connected to the character, ends up solved by the power of the great MANHOOD of Sonny. Urgh. Another story whose payoff is disappointing for me. Talking about dogs that didn't bark, while I certainly like their relationship too, I am quite surprised the fact Nina knew Peter was around and didn't say anything despite the danger to Maxie has not been made more of a thing.

I have to admit that personally I am not enjoying the possession at all. Granted, I hate supernatural stories in the first place so I never was the right target for it. But I thought maybe the camp of it all would provide some entertainment so I tried to approach it with an open mind. And I am sorry to say that, while I seem to be in the minority, it is not doing it for me even at that level. Bill Hayes enjoying himself for a few episodes is the only thing that I take away from this. The rest is just cringe for me.

Oh I am the first one to appreciate storylines that resemble real dynamic between real people and "real" issues. But I don't think Santa Barbara lacked those either. I just don't accept the criticism of SB's campiness at times. That's part of the charm of the genre for me, regardless of the show.

I still can't believe they are going to try to write more drama out of Sonny getting involved in the stalker storyline than out of his best friend and his wife getting married in his absence. This is bananas.

Out of curiosity, as someone who doesn't follow actors' social media, how does he come off as grating?

Immediately made me think of this (4:59):

I am reminded of something Alexis Matteo said about drag queens on RuPaul's Drag Race. "Drag queens are supposed to be over-the-top. If you just want to see a pretty girl, go to the mall". That's how I feel about soaps. Soaps are supposed to be OTT. If I want to see run-of-the-mill tragedies I can turn on the news.

I have done some research and the tape storyline was early 2001. That should narrow it down but there is so little of it online from that time unfortunately.

Does anyone know what the thought process was for the writing turning Kristen to the dark side? They explained it well enough on-screen but I wonder what prompted them to go there with the character in the first place since it really wasn't what she was at first. Did they think the character wasn't working as a good person? Was it opportunistic - the story presented itself so they took the chance even if it meant rewriting the character? Additionally: does anyone remember the storyline where Sami had a recording of Kate admitting... something (I don't recall if it was about Franco's death or something to do with her plotting against Victor) on tape and blackmailed her. There was a scene in that storyline where she told Kate she was going to "burn and burn and burn" and I used to be obsessed with that promo back then (don't ask; just one of these things that spoke to me for some reason). Anyway around what time would that have been? Anyone know?

Maybe I am overthinking it but the fact that Nina's first line during the confrontation was "I see Sonny told you..." followed by Carly briefly frowning tells me this particular point is going to bother Carly. Because indeed he didn't tell her and we are supposed to draw a conclusion from that.

Thanks for tracking that down!

In that telling, what was the falling-out about? Coz if it was JA pissed he wasn't written for, both versions are not incompatible with each other, I guess

Maybe I am biased but the French opening was quite something too. I was OBSESSED with this dramatic music back then.

It is a bit cross-threads comment but I have to laugh at his description of what he saw as the drama being completely drained from Roman's return because this reminds me so much of what we are saying about GH right now.

I will ride Y&R through and through because it is the OG for me and all. And the potential is still there. But it has been by far (for me at least) the worst soap of the four-soap era (the 2010s) overall. There have been moments of awfulness with the others but Y&R has consistently been mediocre to awful throughout whereas there have been great fun moments on the others to balance the bad ones. Y&R benefits from an undeniable nostalgia because it really went as high as a soap can get quality-wise, from an older more loyal audience and favorable timeslots. But yeah it has coasted on that and is consistently the least enjoyable soap in recent times.