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-- Why is Naomi on her phone during Thanksgiving dinner? As if I don't already have enough reasons to dislike her. -- So we get none of the beats played with Madison and her mother? Just Chelsea supposedly getting them all together for Thanksgiving? This doesn't work, and I wonder if Madison is long for this show. -- That table at Orphey Gene's for Ted, Eva, and Leslie is REALLY small😂 -- For me, the emotional highlight of the show was to see June with her kids, Smitty, and Martin. I'm really glad they've avoided the cliche storylines -- making her difficult, having her be a problem, etc. -- Dani overcooking the turkey -- apparently by HOURS -- was cliche to me. -- Vernon's speech at the end was very nice, and Clifton Davis has the gravitas and presence to pull it off. -- Still, it's hard to believe Anita can't do a better job of rounding up family to share a holiday meal. I mean, it was a pretty lousy showing. -- It was nice to see so many characters in this episode, though, in so many venues. -- Vanessa wants Joey to open a restaurant. Doesn't his casino have one, or more than one. Oh, that's right, it's the Golden Corral Casino.

-- Why does this show think we care ANYTHING about Dylan? An episode wasted on who ran Luna over -- with another bland, boring, vanilla "actress." -- In times like these, I find the Logan sisters absolutely insufferable. And I mean all of them.

I laughed when I saw the HUGE container of Cascade on Dani's counter. Doesn't everyone keep theirs on display? The laughs got louder when we actually got a full-blown Cascade commercial with both Dani and Andre name-checking the product and then Andre loading the gel-pac into the dishwasher -- an appliance he apparently has never seen before 😂

All true. It was like two standalone episodes -- meaningless to any future story. The wedding planner did NOTHING. I mean, this is writing that doesn't even try. All we got was Christine running back and forth to her room while her guests milled around at the most boring wedding reception ever. I was also waiting for even one GCAC guest to walk by. We got nothing. All this build up -- and the show did build up this wedding -- and then pfffft.

I think it is. It's DAYS bad regarding the budget, and the speeches were no better.

-- Esther remarked that the GCAC looked so beautiful for the wedding. To me, it just looked like they pushed all the tables and furniture out off the way and added a bunch of floral arrangements. -- How great to open the episode with a recap of who wasn't there and why. -- This cheap ass show couldn't even pay flaming wedding planner Pietro for more than one episode. At least we would have had some laughs.

-- I had to 😂🤣😂 when Marlena's blood pressure spiked and her heart numbers were off. Kayla ran out of the room...I mean, she RAN out of the room...to talk to the cardiologist. I was HOWLING! -- Then she comes back in and says "You need a temporary pacemaker." HOWLING AGAIN 😂🤣 -- Javi and Leo declaring their deep love to each other means trouble is around the corner. What an anvil. -- Brady tells Rachel she's not a bad person. Dude, yes, she is. Time to send that girl away to a sanitarium. -- This show is still using summer time establishing shots all over the place. Talk about lazy.

Exactly right about that. There's one MAJOR scandal after another with these people, but THIS is the one requiring crisis intervention by public relations? Embarrassing.

I think it's Remy, too. Like Lisa Yamada, Christian Weissman won an Emmy -- so of course they'll turn him into a complete psycho who has to be written off. Gay storyline? We all know Brad Bell doesn't give a rat's ass about that.

-- The writing today was YIKES. -- While most of us want Tomas gone, Bill talks to him about becoming a partner. I guess we're stuck with him. -- The lines Bill fed Tomas about dating and his relationship with Kat were so hypocritical they were cringeworthy. I really don't like to see Bill so lacking in self-awareness. -- It's nuts that Ted is pushing Kat to share Thanksgiving with Eva. Talk about rushing things. And what does that even mean? Is he cooking dinner? Or just getting a table at the country club? -- Nicole was no better. In fact, she was worse. I hate it that she didn't side with Kat and agree it was all moving too fast. She's already pushing the sister thing and it makes no effing sense. -- Only Dani made sense. -- Wealthy Leslie is having Thanksgiving dinner at ORPHEY GENE'S??? What??? -- And Ted said "It's on me" regarding Thanksgiving dinner with Eva and Leslie AT ORPHEY GENE'S??? -- Ted acted a fool when he saw Eva with Izaiah. The overbearing father? Really? From this guy who pretty much ignores his other two kids? -- All this fury from Elon about Izaiah being a problem and not caring about his mother does not work. Not only haven't we been given anything but "He was arrested when he was younger," but David Lami Friebe simply DOES NOT give bad boy in ANY way. -- That cafeteria-like setting in the corner is a choice.

They shot only 200 episodes for season 1. That means some repeats before the end of the year. Tuesday is episode 179. That means 21 new episodes before Jan. 1 My guess is we get repeats on December 24, 25, and 26.

Only 2 new episodes this week.

I hear you on Anita and on everything else. The problem for me is that we're constantly waiting -- with Anita and with others -- for someone to get their comeuppance. In the meantime, for all appearances, the bad guy (here, Leslie) seems to get away with one thing after another with no repercussions. I understand writing it this way, but it's happening all over the canvas, and that is frustrating. Is a takedown at Winterfest worth it? Is it worth the wait? Would Anita really want to spoil that event by making it about Leslie? I want Leslie on the show, but I don't want the other characters to be stupid and enabling. Some of us feel like stories have stalled because of the continual "They're going to pay for this" dangling all over the place. That's good news/bad news for me. I love it when we "complain" about something and then get it in the next episode or so. But all the time?

I can't stand Jan, either.

The Mark Green return hasn't worked for me so far. They're styling him like he's a Jonas Brother, and there's nothing about him that says "doctor."

I don't trust this show -- at all. Was it intentional that we never saw how Luna escaped, or did they realize they couldn't make it look realistic so skipped the escape completely? Scenes can be written any time to fill in those blanks. Lisa Yamada announced her exit, but that's meaningless. We've seen that before. Didn't Tanner Novlan announce his departure as Finn? Meaningless. Is it ridiculous to being Luna back? Of course, but we've had plenty of ridiculous with this show, including Finn, and Eric and Liam miraculously escaping death, and don't get me started on Sheila. Do I think they know how they're bringing her back? LOL I don't. I don't think Brad works that far ahead. The biggest problem is that Luna is a MURDERER. She killed two people. How you redeem that, I don't know. But we all know Brad Bell doesn't care if we think characters have been redeemed.

We're getting far less traction on the BTG board these days. That was bound to happen, I know. The pure rush and excitement of a new soap was bound to wear off a bit. Now we're into holiday season where people are busier and perhaps not posting as much. Still, I wonder if something else is going on. I wonder if interest in GATES is waning, at least here.

The character returns would have been enough to draw interest for this wedding. The Phyllis stuff was not needed -- none of it was needed. All of it should have been written as sugary and sweet and sentimental and emotional. Instead, Josh Griffith included the woman who tried to run over Christine with her car. And damn, how embarrassed did Billy Flynn look in that scene when Cane was blasted by Nina and Amy? I don't think that was a character feeling humbled. I think that was an actor thinking "What the absolute hell."

I'm still SMH at Laura discovering Dalton's body in her trunk and shrieking like a crazy person. Hasn't this woman seen -- or caused -- multiple deaths over the years? All of it was overdone. If ever a situation was clearly a setup, this was it. A call to the police would have cleared Laura in short order, but no, we have to do the soap thing and have characters behave like morons. I guess we can all stop wondering why Laura hangs with Sony and pretending she's better than he is.

If we watched a good show daily, I might be kinder, but this just made me angry. Josh Griffith is USING history for a quick ratings grab, and it's cheap and worthless. Danny and Christine will marry and we won't see them again for months, when they'll blow in for Easter dinner. Nina couldn't show for her own son's funeral, but she's there for this. I'm sure we'll never see her again. Amy and Nina confronted Cane in the most godawful, embarrassing way. Pathetic television. Lucy was nowhere in sight. "She's not feeling well." Gina is now a "former singer," whatever the f_uck that is. If this show really cared about history, they'd give her a song. Phyllis was again like a gnat that won't quit. It wasn't interesting and it wasn't fun. I didn't care that she wasn't the one who sent the flowers that Christine was allergic to. Diane was there, but not Jack. Huh? Where were Victor and Nikki? All of it reminded me of what Y&R used to be, but not in a good way, because after the wedding we return to none of this. These are stand-alone episodes that mean nothing.

-- Sophia did her best acting today. Playing catatonic suits her. -- Please kill off Susan. -- Rachel is a monster. Please kill off Rachel.

The entire hour was depressingly bad. Hated it.

And another: The pastry display case at Orphey Gene's is always the same. That cake and pie have to be moldy as all get out.

I love this, since I'm a proud and out nitpicker. -- The Uptown green has to go. -- That cafeteria set looks like an afterthought, and it's claustrophobic. -- I like Dani's house, but the sink on her kitchen island is so tiny it's ridiculous. It barely fits a dinner plate let alone pots and pans. -- Anita and Vernon's living room is FILLED with tables. I lost count. -- No idea why Anita's work table is decorated with blue and silver and looks like the Christmas decorators came in. -- Why is Vernon getting singing lessons in a hotel room?

Oh, look, the set designers heard my complaint about the lame as hell Mr & Mr mantle decor, so they took it down. 😂