FrenchBug82

It is a problem when writers don't remember well and end up picking a character that should have known but it is mostly a lazy way for the writers to re-introduce a past character to the part of the audience that wasn't watching then by having someone simply ask "Who dat" and being explained

That's why one never gets to convince younger actors they are making a mistake leaving at the end of their first contract. Because there has been a handful who DID make it so the hundreds who didn't don't matter when you think you have *it*.

Was there anyone at SB that Robin Wright DID like at that point?

Yeah. Fair enough. Because we were talking at the same time as Cricket not knowing about Patty, my instinct was to lump the two types of "not remembering" retcons but I agree that the Eve one was considerably more problematic.

I am not sure their political beliefs differ greatly: Reeves hasn't run for office so she hasn't had to discuss them openly but everything points in the direction of being roughly in the same ballpark Difference however is that Reeves has been said to have said and done things ON-SET that upset and offended crew members while I have never heard anything bad about Brown on a personal level. I have nothing but contempt for both of them politically but it is worth drawing that distinction.

Maybe they are going in the direction of breaking up Quinn and Eric story as the prelude to his retirement. Me thinks Brown is f***ing up by giving away so many details.

I'd add that even without the retcon I find the soap trope of having a character not discuss important parts of their lives with the person they are supposedly madly in love with pretty unappealing. How am I supposed to root for Cricket and Paul if he is not comfortable discussing that he has a sister just because she has a mental illness? What does it say about Paul and what does it say about how much he trusts and feels comfortable with that woman he wants to marry? I would literally dump a guy who I have dated for a significant period of time and who never mentioned he had a sister! Not good writing IMHO. I agree "He doesn't like to talk about her" would have been a fair compromise. As terrible as contemporary writers have been, I often think on how differently "legendary" soap writers would be remembered if there had been Internet and its dynamic back then.

In his defense, as far as retcons go, those were minor. But we do know that Bell was comfortable proactively deciding to pretend a story he wrote and later regretted never happened (see Dru/Malcolm/Lily's paternity).

There was a similar conversation about AMC's Stuart just a few weeks ago. And the answer is simple: as unedifying as the writing for mental illness on soaps has been, it would be worse if a specific diagnosis was given. Because suddenly every trait of the character would be assumed to be that of anyone with that diagnosis and lord knows most diseases can take a lot of different forms for different people. And inversely every trait that doesn't fit the diagnosis would get them a lot of peeved-off letters. Better for them to give themselves a lot of leeway story-wise by staying vague, so they can adapt the disease to their story needs AND not create problems for themselves by inadvertently miseducating the viewing public. So honestly I prefer it that way.

I am interested. Why do you think?

Well, that says more about TB than it does about KB. I don't doubt for a second that there are plenty of people who love KB, and/or get along with her in her personal life. That doesn't make, not just the things she believed and the things she said, but the things she is so committed to that she ran for office to implement, absolutely horrendous, offensive, hurtful and actively problematic. Being friendly and polite and funny and, in her case, talented does not make her any less of (insert epithet here). I am sure John Wayne Gacy was a very entertaining clown. I am glad her fellow rich white friends are comfortable enough in their lives that they can separate her politics from their friendship. But I personally find that a pretty fundamental element of my opinion of someone because the things she advocates hurt/would hurt me and people I love. Sorry but that makes KB not a good person regardless of what other qualities she may have. And, sadly, that makes it hard to separate from Sheila at this time, regardless of her talent and the potential of the character which is indeed big if they don't reduce her to the psycho villain. On the upside, considering how much mileage she has gotten with "I have been cancelled as an actress since I spoke at the RNC! Boo hoo" in interviews (as if her career as an actress had involved anything other than Sheila the past twenty years), I am sure that if she is brought back, she will retract her statements about cancel culture. Right? Right? Surely.

Do an Murder on the Orient-Express type of story. Everybody gets a shot and it is impossible to know which one is the fatal one.

OK I have established I liked Giz so maybe I am biased but that's why I never quite understood why Monique's receipts were supposed to be shade at Gizelle. If any of it is true then Gizelle is the victim and it makes me feel sorry for her, not hate her. Ironically, many blind items in the months before the season she announced she got back with him had hinted that the reason Gizelle "got back" with him was 1) she did not really but she made a deal with him because 2) because she needed a storyline and he needed a reputation laundering. I always expected THAT to be the T Monique was going for because it would kind of make sense and it would be embarrassing if she alleged it was all false for the cameras. But "Gizelle is an idiot for taking this cheater back" is not the embarrassing shade Monique seems to think it is. Now we know why Monique is pressed. I will grant you Gizelle should have simply said she didn't want to film with Monique anymore after what had happened - which would have been fair - instead of her stupid (see, I am not that biased!) comment about how "as a pastor's wife" she can't be associated with Monique and her behavior. But, man, if the response to that is to STILL be litigating Gizelle's husband's infidelities something like a year later, Monique, girl, take a breath and move on.

Carl T. Evans debuted in July 1987 which would make the auditions sometimes in the late spring 1987. Brad Pitt's Dallas appearances were in December 1987-January 1988, presumably shot sometimes in the fall. So it does not overlap. PS: Looks like we posted at the exact same time

I hear you but schemes work when they are organic. From past experience with soaps, when they pair schemers together, writers then tend to look for schemes for them to get into rather than give them stories and then let the tendency to scheme flow from those. The scheming becomes the point of the character rather than a way the character deals with things that happen. That's what I am worried about here but it is way premature for me to bitch about it. So far so good.

It was an unexpected idea (and I like when shows put two characters I wouldn't have thought of together) and I like it but I wonder what they can do with them as a couple. The way WR walked into that elevator and that overdramatic turn... Man I can't imagine what the other actors must be thinking.

I wholeheartedly accept your apology and as I prefaced the post that started this, I am not intending to relitigate all of this because, indeed, all the receipts have been given and if people already have a set opinion on what happened - ironically mine is that it was complicated and many people showed bad judgement - then we are not going to change our mind now. I wanted to type down my opinion because the vitriol was very one-sided. I said my piece and your opinions are very clear and that's how it should be. We disagree but that's really not a problem. No hard feelings and I am excited to be watching the new season along ya'll. But know that I am not predisposed to think any of 'em ladies are entirely truthtful or evil witches. They are messy attention-seekers. Likeable at times. Interesting often. But not worth blindly stanning... or hating. Although since we are talking Dallas' LeeAnne, open recorded racism is as close as I will grant you the show will give us a reason to intensely dislike someone.

Very interesting choice to attack me for making my point. Certainly reinforces my impression of the unhealthy obsessiveness with which certain posters seem to approach a reality TV storyline. As I said, I have no issue with liking Monique and I have no issue even with defending her actions. But the reality-denying aggressive stanning is a bit much. And the tone of your answer makes my case that this isn't coming from a fun place of being a fan of the show. Whatever is going on here, I am not impressed and I wanted to say so before moving on to the next season and whatever fake fights and controversies the show will serve us. This on the other hand is engaging on the merits and siding with Monique the right way. I don't quite draw the same conclusion on balance and certain points seem weak to me (I still don't see the evidence of Andy "protecting" Giz beyond keeping things under a certain boundary) but plenty of decent points made. And indeed Monique made a mistake walking away. It may have felt good for her but I think she should have wanted to litigate stuff openly on the show. People indulging the story she was a victim of a plot (cough, cough) did NOT do her a favor. Bravo likes drama; they ate it up and made it worse. But noone forced her to handle things the way she did. She gave them the drama; they amped it up in whatever way served their purpose. Was no plot. Neither I nor you got heated. The reason I wanted to give my take before the season started was simply because I was seeing a lot of vitriol in defense of Monique that I wasn't entirely comfortable with and that I found exaggerated. The fact it suddenly got directed at me when I disagreed vindicates my sense that it isn't entirely rational and coming from an ugly place. Conversation is more interesting when people don't start taking what these women on REALITY TV say and do as Gospel or worthy of stanning. None of them are angels and not a single thing we see on these shows is completely truthful and balanced. It is a TV show. Duh. For every thing we didn't see that is embarassing to Gizelle, guaranteed we haven't seen similar footage of any of the other ladies saying something nasty or doing something cringey or crossing a line of some sorts. Guaranteed that there is more Monique stuff that would also make her look terrible that Bravo didn't show. All of them mess up. So I spoke up about the Monique sainthood narrative because I see people feeling unhealthily extreme about it and it makes me uncomfortable. As I said, like Monique, support Monique, defend Monique. No issue with me there and plenty of grounds to like her. But the intensity and reality-rewriting and endless bile towards whoever is perceived as her enemies is just over-the-top and off-putting. The show is enjoyable if you get that it is just a show. I won't argue on Monique because, truth be told, I don't feel that strongly one way or another but I thought it was important to bring the temperature down as for the hate directed at Gizelle and Candiace. Otherwise our collective watching of the next season is going to be a drag if the viciousness isn't toned down. That's my take and I wanted to share it.

I have to very vehemently disagree with this particular example. Now I agree with the gist of what you said: I don't think any villain has been particularly well-written (and as I said I am not a fan of the parade of umbrella villains of the year). But the notion that a good villain could not possible have shown hurt and vulnerability when realizing the mother he had been longing for was not actually her is very very wrong. Mustache-twirling one-step-ahead villains can be good and work sometimes. But there is something to be said for showing a villain's journey into being a villain. For a villain to be written as complicated. For a villain to genuinely love some while committing evil. To be vulnerable and human AND scary. Actually some of the scariest villains are those who show humanity because it makes their choices to commit evil even more chilling. And understanding their motives is definitely a plus. So no. Peter is not well-written but more importantly is not well-acted. But his desire to know his real mother, in the hands of a better actor and better writing, could have been an interesting character layer. As I said, I otherwise agree with you. Cyrus' obsession with his own mother is written as weird and whiny rather than a scary Psycho-style Mommys-boy thoroughline they seem to have intended.

I am not going to be launching into this debate since we all saw the same thing and yet some people continue to read the events differently. But since the relaunch of the Potomac season is getting people to apparently subtly repeat a rewritten version of what happened, I will stake my take one last time and move on. The "cuts" that Bravo showed showed why Monique genuinely misread the situation the way she did. It does not actually show the sequence of events she had described in her defense. Things did not happen the way she thought they had. The cuts only show why she may have been confused in good faith, which is to their credit, but ultimately the violence was on her alone. I can completely understand finding Gizelle annoying and detesting Candiace. But I still have trouble understanding the insistence that Monique didn't do anything wrong or make any bad choices and is only a victim of conniving castmates and shifty producers. Hum. No. We all saw the footage. You can argue she had grounds to be angry. You can argue Candiace was definitely searching and baiting for it. You can argue that in the heat of the moment she misread what happened with the glass and the hair. You can argue the show is less interesting without her and that Candiace should have been punished too and that there are double-standards. Fine, fine. I am not far from agreeing on some of those points. But I have to put my foot down with the complete rewriting of history here. Enough with the Blame Gizelle or Blame Andy thing. Monique did this. You can still like her btw. But she is not a victim.

She popped in and out of Dynasty because she had another job at TJ Hooker. And she owned her career to Aaron Spelling so wasn't going to happen. To be honest, while Jack was a dud, I don't think Jamie was. Writing wasn't strong but I liked JH fine in the role. She definitely grew the way the character did - stronger as time went by. It is just that it went nowhere.

This. We will see if it lasts but from the big wedding reveal - I know the episodes themselves were uneven and the fallout didn't quite land but they tried - to the twist in M/W/C to the convoluted but soaply-delish Nina/Sonny thing to the BrookLynn pregnancy and how it inevitable is going to dovetail with Maxie's plan, they are writing the soap as a soap, down to the stupid coincidences and the character being injured right as he discovers a secret so that said secret can drag on a bit longer trope. The story beats can be predictable but we love it and we love the anticipation and watching said beats play out. Please producers and writers read this, this is what we want. We watch soaps because we love soaps, including its stupid tropes. If we wanted to watch a crime drama or a medical show we would. So indeed. I am actually enjoying most of GH right this minute because it is a soap and a soap I recognize. If they can manage to drop their addiction to the "umbrella villain of the year" thing that pollutes the show regularly, they'd have quite a decent going there.

I am a bit surprised by how this conversation is going. Andy Cohen has NEVER been neutral or fair during reunions. And storylines and narratives have always been controlled and edited. And housewives have always been forbidden to talk about certain things. And reality TV is not reality in any shape or form. What is happening here is that the RHOATL folks have cut SO MUCH that it is now hard to follow the dynamics within the group so it is coming out because it is too glaring. But this is far from new and lots of housewives have been burned by it before.

I watched this twitter excerpt and all I have to say is that's a lot of boobage showing on everyone.

If that was the case, her anger would have predated last season and there wasn't that kind of intense anger. Something happened no one is telling us. But both Dorinda and Bravo said - and of course that's the official line but as you said it might have some truth to it - that indeed she needed to be off for a while. The fact they kept the cast so small this season tells me they genuinely expect to try and bring her back