FrenchBug82

I don't think there is anyone who treats those as mere rumors anymore. It is pretty much established as fact. That being said, I am not sure why the *character* of Peter would be banned. The issue was the man she was cheating on her husband with, not who he was playing.

It is a minor point but I am struck by the shirt he is wearing. I rarely if ever have seen men on soaps wear those kinds of color in the past few decades.

In all fairness, knowing a lot of people but in a shallow substance-free manner and keeping things positive are literally the two main skills of his dayjob career. He is just transposing what he knows; problem is the huge gap between what he knows how to do on one hand what we the audience expects and what could potentially be rung out of these chats.

Re: Leah. One of the most essential skills of a Housewife needs to be good being good at faking sincerity. These women are acting for the cameras, pretending to show their lives, improvising drama. Some are crazy enough to believe what they are doing (Ramona), some are savvy enough to know how to play and fake it (Bethanny). Leah is desperate and thirsty and obnixious and it *never* rings true. It got lost in the shuffle of the last season, partially because it was mostly with "Look how sex-positive and quirky I am", a light-hearted play which played well in comparison to Dorinda's angry meltdown. But she can't pull it off beyond that now that the cast is smaller AND that she is the center of attention AND she is trying to start more serious storylines. She reeks insincerity and attention-seeking.

Third. And THAT performance is why I continue to defend AH. She *could* play a vulnerable bitch because she did it then. So whatever is going on now starts with the writing and, yes, it is true, that she is not fighting the writing. She is Morrowing her way through the material. Doing what's on the page then going home and not trying to create a character performance. This. There is so much that could have done by now to set her up when Victor goes. There is SO MUCH material they could have gone with, even with AH in the role, in Victor's reluctance to treat her as the true heir and insisting on pushing his dum-dum older son who wasn't really interested and then his criminal hateful other son when SHE was there and had more than proven herself. The underlying subtext of gender, the Oedipal relationship, Victoria's mix of vulnerability - which could explain turning to the wrong men - with her intelligence and savvy... So many layers they are not even trying. Part of it is because EB's adamant insistance that Victor never lose and never be vulnerable in turn - which means the lawsuit storyline for instance despite being momentous on paper ended up a damp squid - but it is clear indeed they chose tortured heroine and sadly they can't seem to understand a leading lady can be tortured and sympathetic at the same time as she can be strong and smart.

I actually like Amelia Heinle, as I have said before, and I think the problem with Victoria during her tenure has been mostly the writing, not her. But it is still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact she has been playing Victoria longer than HT ever played her. And that in itself says all that needs to be said. In the end, I don't think they'd swap unless AH herself decided to walk (not to mention HT would probably be more expensive).

Is Amelia Heinle's contract coming up? Because, let's be honest, CBS sending HEATHER TOM ("of B&B" of course) to guest on The Wheel of Fortune with Jason Thompson reads at the very least like trolling or sending a message as a negotiating tactic Or then a straight-up chemistry test although I doubt they'd do AH the way they screwed GT like that if she wanted to stay. But it definitely got me aflutter.

Hey, I detest Sonny and am not a fan of MB but he is a good-looking man. All characters have lovers I am more jealous of than others but the list of Alexis' conquest is plenty fine by me, in comparison to others: Julian Jerome Jasper Jacks Ric Lansing Edward "Ned" Ashton Shawn Butler Sonny Corinthos Cameron Lewis Garrett Floyd (aka John Bolger) Jerry Jacks Mac Scorpio Shawn Butler

We don't even need to refer to who her mother is SHE used to be written as kind of a schemer herself. She slept with Billy to get back at her mom. She had done her fair share of stuff at Lola when she wanted Kyle. And so on. It is not potential: we have established already that she can defend herself. I hate the bad habit of soaps deciding a leading lady can't have done bad things and memory-holing them. I am not a Summer fan at all but HK can definitely carry story and be sympathetic without turning her into a wimpy victim. Summer would NOT be intimidated by Tara at all.

And this is also why they wrote in that pregnancy story that is, in all fairness, weirdly timed for a couple they had been trying to build up. And also why I suspect they wrapped up the Sasha/Michael/Willow triangle a lot faster than any of us expected - a good thing, it turns out, but I bet the pregnancy forced their hands. Gotta admire the directing though that we didn't notice her bump until they started showing it and she was already huge. They seem to be planting the seed for that to be the play once the current Willow marriage story and the Valentin baby story winds down. I don't know if they are going for a pair-up but that would nicely continue the unexpected run of Alexis having the sex life history that I most envy of all the characters.

I feel stupid for not thinking of it earlier but technically eating disorders are actually classified as addictive behaviors. So technically it WAS established that it had touched on each generation, although they never made the link.

For those of us who werent following the gossip at the time, why did he exit in the first place? Was it one of those "I wanna do primetime" thing? Or was that around his real-life drama with NLG? Or something else?

I am surprised that she is surprised. The minute I heard Gina and Janet would not be coming back after all, I really groaned. That both removes two of the most memorable characters AND leaves the one remaining memorable character without her two main foils. Of course the dynamic is going to shift and if the new Housewives don't have huge personalities to fill the blank... To be fair though, Janet's comment could be a hint that the season will be lacking OR suggesting a lot of upcoming conflict with the newbies which could provide entertainment so I will keep an open mind.

Yeah Greta never really worked but it is exactly as you said. JM was delightful and she had lovely chemistry with a bunch of people - I thought the surrogate-mom dynamic with not-Princess-Gina Hope was also interesting - but none of her stories gelled (and some were huge ridiculous stinkers) so I am not surprised she didn't stay on. She stills looks amazing

That's when I think the show just gave up on him and figured if his physique is all he has to offer, then let's go full hit on it. It was too bad though because I love JM and Greta. But I think this was the moment where he actually might have started to make an effort at getting better because for someone who wants to act, good at it or not, this may have been humiliating. Really wish we had people who know the history of soaps that could get them to do real probing interviews where someone like AP delves deep. I'd actually be interested if he felt comfortable being honest about his journey (and what happened at ATWT, etc.).

Sadly this isn't karma. This is an intentionally downsized, humbled, staged "house" to go for "look how rough I have it" for public opinion and for the benefit of the judges while having plenty of backup in Swiss banks

I third that. Nina will never be remembered as one of the greatest character of daytime but at least she is watchable now. As for romantic chemistry, I don't think neither Nina/Jax nor Nina/Sonny, nor even Nina/Val are setting TV screens on fire but it is not cringeworth either. As I said earlier, it reads more like a plot point than organic chemistry but there are plenty of other pairings I like that are not off-the-roof with chemistry but that makes sense and work (Ned/Olivia?) And I think it is similar to what I remember of her main GL pairing with Josh: they weren't red- hot but CW and RN had an easy sweet rapport and it worked. CW is one of these actresses that has better chemistry with other female characters. I like her with MW's Ava, despite the fact their friendship makes no sense, and the feud-y scenes with Carly work.

Yes. And yet the fanbase was so so so angry with the admittedly bleak run of bad things that had happened to her the first five years after her SORASing and the reaction/backlash to any negative plot so epidermic that I don't know it would have been well-received and that producers would have dared going there. Just like when fans burn characters by refusing to let writers get them out of a supercouple, even temporary, I really feel that the potential of Bianca as a character was hurt by the vicious backlash to the fact she was given a lot of sad heavy storylines. I get it, mind you, but if I were a writer, I would have been wary of it.

Yeah when I saw the preview yesterday I assumed the inappropriateness of Paulina saying that was going to be a plot point - either to establish Paulina as having some of kind of motive to float that or create conflict with Lani - but it turns out it was just a weird writing choice. Yes. It is unfortunate that there seems to be a lot of BTS drama out of his ATWT run that marred the memory of it because his Brad vs his original Austin is one of the largest gap in acting ability/on-screen charisma for the same actor in two different soap roles in almost ever.

It worked but it also was pretty obvious he was just doing ATWT's Brad for which he had gotten SO much better reviews than in his bland-and-stupid first run as Austin. I think HIS second run worked better than Muldoon's, even if neither resembled either their own first version of Austin or the vague version we had in mind.

They are doing to him what they did to Lucas for so long - thank God Lucas had Sami because in every other relationship he was in his other half was actually pining for someone else.

I never quite cared for Jax but I certainy have always defended his place on the show as, not quite a counterpoint to Sonny/Jason because he was never allowed to be written that way, but at least as one of the few characters who was not worshipping at that Church and called them out on some of the "antihero is actually a criminal" BS. But knowing how much IR is a you-know-what IRL has completely dulled my even remote interest in keeping him around. SB and MB can afford to behave badly because they are too big to fail. But producers do NOT like public drama so if there is someone who is going to pay for the mess that GH was on social media during the pandemic, I'd easily see IR being the one to be cut - after a reasonable period of time so he can't say he was cut for his opinions or what not. They'll definitely keep him around at least until the fallout of the Mike/Nina story though but if they are not inspired by then, I wouldn't be surprised either if he went. I have to assume we are not near the end of the Mike/Nina story AT ALL if they are sending Avery back to Carly for now. The renewed custody battle was going to be an interesting subplot of when-Sonny-gets-his-memory back so it'd make no sense for him to return anytime soon if Avery is where she was all along. I don't know how I feel about the pacing of that Mike story. I get why it needs to take time to make the ensuing revelations and fallout explosive but the momentum has been entirely lost for now. I am willing to buy Nina/Mike for the plot potential but they shouldn't try to sell it to us as a real slow-burning romance if the chemistry is middling at best. Just accept that you are pairing the characters only because it leads to juicy conflicts and be done with it.

Oh man we were all pining for Vinny and Thomas' chemistry to be played on explicitly because it'd be fun and THIS is how Bell chooses to play it? This really feels like a last-minute add-on to the original plan in the hopes of throwing red meat to the fans who were having fun with the idea. But it is played for shock value AND it doesn't even use the chemistry in question since it is a plot point for a dead character rather than character development so: wasted opportunity. I don't even mind the stupidity of the "I kill myself to help Thomas" thing because I can accept psycho characters doing psycho things but not as a coda once the story is already done. We should have had weeks of Vinny obsessing over Thomas romantically and then maybe it would have made sense. Here it just feels insulting and lazy.

That's where I am at personally. I am actually happy to see young characters have plans that are both ambitious for their age and realistic but could provide fodder for stuff later one. Give characters depth, angles and layers instead of relying on the lazy police/lawyer/doctor/workwithfamily. Much better than aimlessness - since putting youngsters on soaps at Salem college seems to be not an option for some reason even though it'd provide a simple response to what-are-they-doing without tying them to a job AND be realistic - or worse yet the inevitable "I wanna be famous" storylines every soap gives us with regularity with younger characters, especially when they sing. Bakery hasn't been done before and like any business the actual thing they do will be irrelevant to whether good storylines come out of it. I don't think the drama around Kirakis or DiMera's business empires has ever had much to do with what they actually do/make.

I'll honestly be a bit sad. I know she didn't really bring much to the table but part of the rooting interest of the show for me is the familiarity and the notion that this is a group of women with deep ties. Having been on for so many seasons, Cynthia has ties and history with most of these women and even when dull, I guess I care more for someone I feel I have gotten to know and see the life of for many years than when a newbie who knows noone in the group tries to start fake drama for screen time.