FrenchBug82

4 minutes ago, Melroser said:

I was a huge Cass and Kathleen fan as well. I loved that triangle but I grew to not want Kathleen back with Cass. I felt like she left him (yes, for reasons) and Frankie always had his back. Frankie hadn't done anything wrong, to sort of speak, and deserved that loyalty back.

 

I agree.

I know the writing for Kathleen after her return was understandably a sore point for many fans - clearly writers wanted us to root for Frankie/Cass and were nudging things that way and writing Kathleen not always in a very sympathetic manner.

But the truth is that even with more neutral writing, the underlying facts kind of favored Frankie.

29 minutes ago, slick jones said:

Anyone that doubts Hunter having first refusal on Bummer    ...

 

I think we all understand that she does - and it is fine. She has played the role for most of it after all; it is fair that she does

It is just that I am saying that I don't see *it* and I don't think they should be bending over backward to make it work financially when they are already cutting $$$ everywhere. A less expansive recast may turn out to make the role much more interesting

2 hours ago, Errol said:

I have so much to say about this but I just can't comment. I'd get in trouble. Haha. Happy to have Mealor back though.

I want to know which part so let me:

1 hour ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Psst. My PM inbox is open. I won't tell

Second this! LOL

 

1 hour ago, Cat said:

I feel like Summer vs Sally is trying to be the new Phyllis vs Diane. I said trying, lol.

I'm underwhelmed by Hunter, even though I know she has played the character a long time. Hence a recast, but Y&R often aims to recast dull for dull, except for happy accidents like Mishael Morgan or character actor parts.

Never quite saw the star quality in Hunter that the Y&R folks seem to see in her.
She is fine; just not seeing a powerhouse that would justify waiting around for her.
And I am all for them developping rivalries for the future but as we discussed at length at the time, the problem with Sally vs Summer is that they started by telling us they were rivals who disliked each other and THEN they started writing reasons for that. 
Slowly show instead of tell is an art that soaps have lost a lot of skills and patience for.

Otoh, even if I am annoyed already by a certain someone's histrionics, Phyllis vs Diane, even force-fed a bit too on the nose for me, I can get behind. The history is there

In my quest to see old clips the past few days, I rewatched an early scene between Phyllis and AD's Diane (which is interesting as it wasn't setting up anything other than a mutual dislike then and yet paid off later) and, man could MS be good back then. And then you slowly see the Diane story unfold over the 2000s and by the time of the 2010 visit clips she is all over the top and cringey and yelly.

As usual I am not nearly as enraged about it but can't deny they lost the momentum they had at the beginnng of the year by dragging the Brooke kissed Deacon story while at the same time not adding enough twists and turns for it not to feel repetitive.

That said, I continue to like the ideas on paper and Thomas finding out is a great wrinkle. But they need to throw more curveballs.

43 minutes ago, Khan said:

I'll say this much: SW remains one very beautiful woman to look at.

Right? I thought the same thing when I started checking her out after news of her return leaked.

And she *aged* which is what is exciting about it. She is clearly an older woman, probably mostly all natural or at least well-done, and it looks pretty but normal. 
So many woman in Hollywood need to hear it is better to be pretty while looking old than to look like a young monsterfreak.

1 hour ago, Cat said:

As for Summer, I'd be down for a recast if the recast had some personality.

Summer is definitely coming back too. Whether the casting calls they are spreading was a negotiating tactic to spook Hunter or whether they will go ahead and recast remains to be seen.
Not looking forward to the inevitable scenes where Summer attacks Sally for giving her a job she kept and enjoyed - Sally is in a better spot now than she was when she was dragged by that stupid rivalry - but hey.

1 hour ago, Vee said:

These things are often superficial. AD is harder/stronger-featured in the face and has a more aggressive/masculine energy. Walters definitely looks younger. Plus, IIRC when AD got dumped her story was directly intersecting with MTS and a potential challenge to her character, which allegedly her husband the showrunner did not like. I believe it and it's been out there for years.

1 hour ago, Faulkner said:

Totally. AD is a “handsome” woman in the Sigourney Weaver/Frances McDormand mold. 

OK. I can see that.
I ask because I figured the MTS factor was more likely a bigger one than age per se but while they are both beautiful women I can see how SW's more classical beauty might come off as younger or less harsh. 
Point taken.

As a side note, Y&R casting team in the mid 90s had a thing for "handsome" women. Alex Donnelley returned in 1996 and they cast Sandra Nelson a few months later.
I also didn't know AD was born in Germany. Was she a military baby or a fellow immigrant like EB?
 

I have said it in the other thread but while I am perfectly willing to believe it, I don't understand the notion that AD firing and recast was due to ageism.
SW is only three years younger than AD and did not look noticeably younger. So this is confusing.

It is funny coz that montage does make him look like a plausible cross between PB and SW.

33 minutes ago, Dylan said:

That's not what's happening. In 2011 Diane was gonna fake her death with Adam. But she ended up actually dying. ( or so we thought.)

Oh I thought/was hoping that she was suggesting that it was a scheme with two layers (we are going to fake your death PSYCH you are really dead PSYCH it was actually the plan all along to fake the death on top of the thwarted fake death).

I stand corrected. I should really wait to see how it plays out on screen I guess.

On the plus side, it does sound like they are going to acknowledge everything that happened with Maura in the role as cannon. And while I am still rolling my eyes at how they are going to explain her being alive, even with Adam's help, I hope they do continue that alliance/friendship. 
Of course you know JG will let the fact Adam knew Diane was alive and let Nikki take the fall be resolved with one angry scene and then done but hey on paper I don't mind it.

On the downside, both that promo and SW's comments about what happened when she was gone really make me worry that we are not dealing with writing with a clear understanding of who Diane is supposed to be.
She is an antagonist, not a villain.

Just now, Faulkner said:

I know some people feel like production is subordinate, but Diane’s entrance should have been an event, and not the throwaway, blink-and-you-missed-it shot that it was. A little finesse goes a long way.

This is Y&R nowadays. Finding myriad of small ways to suck the drama out of everything, even when they have actually come up with something super dramatic to show us.
We rightfully rag on JG but it is really the entire backstage managing team that is subpar.

1 hour ago, Khan said:

I think I'm more perplexed over how Diane relates at all to Keemo and Allie.  Are they REALLY gonna suggest she's Allie's mother?  Because, if that's where Josh is going, then I wish he wouldn't.

This. I'll wait to see the explanation for how she isn't dead but there is no rewriting of the timeline that would make it possible that she'd be the mother of Allie. 

1 hour ago, Khan said:

You know, I STILL wonder why Breyer has changed his mind about retiring, especially when his retirement will not have any impact on SCOTUS' current ideological makeup.

I think he is smart enough to know the case for locking in that seat was very strong and important.

His refusal to do it earlier feels more like an ego-driven knee-jerk reluctance to be seen as bowing to political pressure.

So in a week we have a Republican Senator raging against Obergefell (same-sex marriage). One hoping Griswold (right to contraception) goes away. And now this with interracial marriage.

At some point people should start taking Republicans at face value. They are not *hiding* it. They won't stop with Roe, which is going to be horrible enough.

At a minimum Democrats really should stop clinging to the rhetoric of SCOTUS as some kind of impartial arbitrer. It is a highly political institution that is implementing an extreme political agenda as the supposedly non-political proxy of conservative Republicans who know their agenda is unpopular if proposed directly to the people.
And continuing to enable a veneer of respectability to the rogue actions of these political agents, before we even get to how illegitimate the current conservative majority on SCOTUS is, is effectively giving them leeway to do what they want without repercussions.

The fact ordinary Democratic voters who don't follow politics closely rre still giving high marks to the SCOTUS in poll after poll is a galling failure.

2 hours ago, Cruising Soaps said:

The Real Diane Jenkins!

I too have been watching old clips and man this hurts. Even in low-stakes story/scenes, everybody is SO much more invested in their acting than the same actors give us today and the writing so much more interesting.
I knew about the decline in quality of the writing but like a frog in boiling water, I sort of had lost track of how much more mechanical some of these veterans have become when there is nothing to get them going acting-wise.

17 minutes ago, Aback said:

I have always been under that impression as well. If that was not the sole reason, it played a huge part.

I have no knowledge or opinion on it but SW is only four years younger than AD.
Maybe Scott was working at MTS' behest. While I have never heard any specifics, we have had more than a few hints from people in the business that MTS is not as sweet as she seems.
 

A reminder that the award system is extremely unsuited for daytime soaps where the quality of a performance or of writing spanning daily episodes every weekday over a year cannot be summed up by a single episode submission.
It gives an extremely warped sense of who exactly has been doing well AND it biases itself towards a certain kind of writing and acting.
Subtle long-term plotting and compelling sustained storylines gets ignored before spectacular "special events" and twists. Layered performance building a character over time are overlooked in favor of histrionics.

23 minutes ago, Liberty City said:

From my recollection, by the time West and Michael Muhney were paired together as Diane and Adam, respectively, it was setting up the outcast of the Newman fortress, and since Diane was pretty much *in* that fortress for the bulk of her return (taunting Nikki about her upcoming marriage with Victor, sleeping with Nick, Diane re-marrying Victor, et al) and then she was getting thrown out of a moving ambulance and being alienated by all of those around her, aside from Adam. The writing was on the wall that Diane's time on the canvas was coming to a close.

That sort of makes sense but I have a distinct recollection that, at the time, because I liked the chemistry between them (and yes I was very much into MM's Adam, sorry to say), I thought putting them in each other's orbit, presumably to seek revenge or something, was full of potential rather than a door closing.

But I hear the logic for why it turns out it meant the opposite. They definitely were writing her down a spiral at the end - which I thought would have been an interesting storyline on its own right - and I remember her fight with Michael ("I am surrounded by snakes and you are one of them") as being a oh-no moment for me but her exit may have already been rumored by then.

 

3 minutes ago, DaytimeFan said:

One of Y&R's saddest scenes. Jess and Jeanne knocked that scene out of the park. That they undid Philip's death was just appalling.

Yes. Again why we were right away hating that story, long before we were reminded TB is not a good actor and the gay stuff. 

 

1 hour ago, Dylan said:

Thank god. But again, she was hit in the head 10 times with a rock. We saw the body. And a nearly years long mystery. Can't wait to see how they explain this.

I am very eager to hear how they explain that way but I am even more skeptical of how they are going to explain the Keemo/Allie connection. It would make no freakin' sense for her to be Allie's mother AT ALL. 
Even if MW's Diane was a fake or something.
I really can't understand how they are going to explain it away. And will this impact Deacon over at B&B?

I do think everyone's reasons for casting MW were sound.

MW was a very good fit for the show, acting-style wise and MW was right to strike when the Carly iron was hot.
The key mistake was casting her as Diane. But as she said, if CBS just rushed to lock her in and randomly assigned Diane to her despite the fact it didn't make sense while having no real plan with what to do with her (which tracks with the several abrupt story changes and story being dropped... remember when Victor was being very creepy with her? Nothing came of it? And those long scenes setting up the details of the prenup, clearly planting the seeds to a future story? That never did anything), there is even fewer reasons to think they would have invested the time in creating a new specific character for her.

I don't quite understand why she says working with Muhney (which whom she had great chemistry btw) is when she knew she was on her way out.
I still think she is talented enough and she had enough chemistry with folks that with a more committed writing regime, even the initial miscast could have been made to work if we ignored that it was supposed to be the same Diane (the way I accept new Ridge over at B&B or the way I think miscast-JT as Billy could be made work if writing was better because the underlying talent is there).

Btw now that Diane is back to being slightly closer to being age-approriate, what's the over/under that even with the triangle with Phyllis clearly teed up, they won't be ever mentioning that she hooked up with Nick for a while?

49 minutes ago, edgeofnik said:

Another possibility is that Kyle was aware Diane was alive, but kept it secret knowing how many people really wanted her dead. It would be a far better twist and certainly cause a ton of friction with Jack and Summer. It'll be boring if they bring back Kyle just so he can cry and rant on his mom for two weeks and then disappear.

I'd accept that actually. It also would explain why her death featured so little in his character's persona, the way losing a mother at a young age usually shapes people. It had been poor writing but hey if we can retroactively make it an interesting clue, I am all for it.

49 minutes ago, Liberty City said:

Even dead Maura West is STUNNING!!!!!!! But that dress was not...

She won't because she is a professional like that but I'd love to hear her take on Diane being resurrected. Heck, on the entire Y&R fiasco. 

2 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

OMG yes. He was monstrous. I think she overcompensated for all the Zapato/epilepsy stuff that happened under LML.

And it is so telling what EB complains about story/HW wise and the stories he suprisingly does not feel the need to be "outspoken" about

13 minutes ago, Dylan said:

Did they interact on GH?

Yes, quite a bit, which spoiled my then-theory.

12 minutes ago, Dylan said:

Ah, I see what they will do now. Diane is helping JAck so she can get him back or some ish. Phyllis Jealous.

I liked Phyllis Vs Diane even if the particulars were not always fascinating.
One of the first signs the Maura West as Diane thing was going awry was that the fact they spent her first months on the show really setting themselves up to revisit that and then it abruptly just went away just like that only for them to almost never interact again. It was so weird. I always assumed there was a BTS drama story behind it

Took me a second coz I didn't remember Amanda marrying Mr Feeny