FrenchBug82

I have said as soon as this story leaked that I was hoping they'd go there. It is realistic enough and it provides some motive for Quinn to stray instead of the random irresistible attractions grown adults supposedly can't fight that Bell usually writes

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.

Which brings me to the point I made in an earlier thread to much blowback. There is nothing to Amanda other than MM being very talented. So I am glad she is around but the writing needs to give Amanda *something* because I am incapable of figuring out who she is and why I should care other than I like the actress at this stage.

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

Or you retcon a convoluted story to introduce cousins and even make them entitled to shares at Ewings to establish them as part of the show only to drop them with an off-hand comment a year later and never mention them again

Of course now we have the reason they turned her so vanilla: BECAUSE they wanted her and Ben to be the next option.

Yes. THAT would have been a fitting end. Pamela returns, reveals JR kept her away, JR loses Bobby for good because of it, gets thrown out of Southfork, Pamela joins forces with (insert list of enemies here) to kick JR out of Ewing Oil and he has now really lost everything. THEN it would make sense for him to be so despondent as to contemplate suicide. There is no way the likes of Cliff would ever make him feel defeated. Of course I'd expect Pam and Bobby to reunite but making the fact of their remarriage the thing that sticks it to JR would falling back into the bad habits of making Pamela JR's enemy through Bobby. I like the idea of her hitting him where it hurts: business.

I liked the way they slowly sold Dickson as a convincing businesswoman - by not dropping her frivolity altogether or making her a genius out of nowhere, but by building on her existing established skills - not least of which the shrewdness she had shown in getting shares of Jabot in the first place and her, well, taste for men. It wasn't dropped out of the sky and it made sense. Old Y&R could be slow (I swear the two hours before Jill's "press conference" where we were waiting to find out if John was going to yield to her blackmail and give her shares must have lasted three weeks on-screen) but the advantage of old soap storytelling is that you could make a character switch a lot more believable by slowly building it up piece by piece while distracting us with "hunky secretary auditions".

Yeah I meant Tinsley of course. But here is the thing: they are all in denial. I mean, I find Ramona to be an absolute monster with not a shred of self-awareness and her behavior during the lockdown was a lot more shocking to me - and her unwillingness to acknowledge it - than anything Dorinda did. But I get that Dorinda might need a year or a few years off to cool down. But I am going to miss her. And I continue to think there is something we weren't told about Tinsley that explains D's behavior better than what we got.

I detest SH's politics but she was a fantastic actress and Donna a great character. I second everyone's take but I do know that her refusal to play certain stories because of private beliefs probably irked them and irks me. I respect someone's right to have opinions; not impose them on her character. If Dixie Carter can play an outspoken liberal, then Howard should have lived with whatever they wrote for her. But as for Donna's value, we go back to the show writers not understanding the concept of strong women beyond a few episodes and isolated moments. In the end, things must go back to the "right way" in which Ewing men dominate, Ray included. I know about how gay rights were seen in the 80s; it does not make it any less disgusting even "in context" (racism wasn't OK even when it was widespread either). And characterizing the show as "family-oriented" was hypocrisy of the highest order even at the times considering JR's behavior. So, you know, unsurprised and understanding of the context but still displeased by that anecdote. I will judge people harshly for bigotry, even when bigotry was widespread. One of my biggest irritation of the post-dream-season lack of cleanup was indeed Katherine just disappearing considering that if Bobby's death had been a dream, she was still around and not an outright murderer. I don't know if Lucy would have been my choice but that's the kind of story I had suggested earlier should have made up the final season. Instead of the random guest arc from Barbara Eden and *Michelle* taking over, they should have build up a season-long plot involving Lucy and others indeed and making JR's downfall at the hands of his enemies spectacular and involving tons of fun cameos. And we go back to our earlier conversation: the frame HAD to be a man vs a man. And JR vs a weaker enemy. They couldn't let Pamela headline the opposition to JR. And they couldn't give a space to the Wentworth where the Wentworth had an upper hand to play. They had to face on the field that JR could always win on: oil.

I miss Dorinda. And I maintain that everyone overreacted to her hostility towards Leah as much as she overreacted towards Leah.

Carly as a character works when she is not a Sonny/Jason underling. THAT has been my problem; not that she is an overbearing harpy because she has always been and that can be fun

I wanted to add some thoughts on Larry Hagman's role in all of this - whether his financial demands should indeed have been dialed down over time to help the show be better which was, after all, in his interest. But I wanted to balance that out with what I knew of his efforts to stand for his fellow actors during disputes and while researching the latter to give an example, I stumbled upon this tidbit I had never read. And now am so pissed. Not that the story was not told: it didn't sound like a good idea and the characters involved... who cares. But while I knew about Howard's right-wing Christian ideas, the entire business of BBG and Hagman nixing it to keep the show "family-oriented" just infuriates me. JR was boinking a new woman every week, none of which were his wife, but a lesbian character is where he drew the moral line? I know it was the 80s but that's really gross.

Me neither. Although, to be fair, I don't entirely buy the official version from Dallas folks either, which tracks a little too neatly with the good ol' diva-actress trope. As often in life, truth is grey and probably a mix of everyone being a bit right and a bit wrong and a comedy of errors. I imagine the dynamic as having gone something like this: VP demanded pay parity with PD, an eminently reasonable ask. However, she *expected* them to grant it to her - I mean, after the money they poured on Duffy to lure him back, she was surely as important to the show as he was AND she had been loyal. That was her mistake: a legitimately held view she did matter to the show mixed with what seems to be, from her multiple interviews, a very healthy ego. Let's not fool ourselves: she probably made it harder for them to yield to her by being a bit insufferable about her own importance. However, she faced producers who, as we said, saw the show as Ewing-men-centered, didn't really get her value, didn't get her character and probably didn't like her. No way were they going to grant her parity at all, because they didn't think she was worth it and, even if she was, no way were they going to be extorted by an actRESS like that (read between the lines: little lady needs to stay in her place) To hold their misguided position they resorted to a reasonable classic: they played chicken. And so did she but she probably grew pissed over time because not only were they not yielding to her reasonable demands but she probably saw their tactics and offers as belittling (which they surely were). So ego started to play into it. And she decided she was going to walk from that game of chicken. She was newly married, probably held the same delusions as so many before and after her about how her popularity would translate career-wise, reasoned to herself that Pamela had been poorly written anyway. But key was not just that they weren't given her pay parity but that the fact they were not considering it and playing chicken betrayed that they didn't think she mattered as much as Duffy had. Which was reasonably galling. Her quotes in the years thereafter - not least of which that "as far as I am concerned she is dead" do NOT read as she made a calm reasoned decision it was better to leave ahead of time and gave them time to prepare. It reads as: she is still pissed (understandably so) all these years later and a pissed exit is a last-minute exit.

I am surprised by this. Do we have a problem with KS? She does fine in my book. I am curious what you don't like in her portrayal.

On the other hand, since part of why she left so summarily was because she felt disrespected, one way to ensure she NEVER returns would be to recast. I am fine with letting her cool down. Remember how adamant PR was he'd never return? And yet he did end up yielding and coming back to give Bo a proper ending.

I am still against recasting Hope. She is too iconic as KA for one and let's be honest: they didn't know what to do with her when KA was there, which is partly why she left. So I don't think the upsides being nearly enough to compensate for the downside. True that there is a bit of a loophole here but it would be so easily addressed with an off-hand comment with Ciara meeting her mom abroad and then explaining she is on a "case" or something. Unsatisfying but acceptable considering the circumstances. HOWEVER Cady McClain has proven that recasting a long-time character associated with a given actress can be done successfully. But it is lightning in a bottle and I don't think it is worth it story-wise.

RSW is a good-looking guy - I get why he is fangirled so much - and seems like a decent guy. Which is exactly why Ben is being written so indulgently. Blake Ferris was a much superior actor - I thought he was hot and I'd take him over RSW personally but he wasn't "classically" handsome - and Nick was given the most unsympathetic of writing when he got his too-bad-we-made-you-a-killer second run. And if they are worried about the Ben/Ciara chemistry if they recast, then audition the replacements with RSW and see who sparks. It is not *that* hard to make that a criteria for a recast - it shouldn't be the only one but it wouldn't be unheard of and it is better than "who looks like the previous actress" or "she's beautiful". I mean, they hired Krista Allen as a Billie recast for God's Sake. I am sure they can have a halfway better process for Ciara.