Faulkner

Absolutely. She’s not some rube, but the show treats her like some innocent, overprotected schoolgirl. The redemption arc would have been interesting and soapy. Perhaps Victoria would have been her advocate while Nikki/Nick/Victor were still on the fence or even hostile. Perhaps Claire could have found a dubious mentor in Adam as a Newman family black sheep. And there’d be this fascinating undercurrent to the scenes with Summer, as Summer would be pushing Claire to see if she could get her to break and expose her loose grip on reality. And perhaps Claire would be afraid she’d lose Kyle if he knew she wasn’t quite together yet.

I watched those T.J./Molly break-up scenes. I thought TB’s performance was a major yikes. He obviously has access to his emotions, but a good director should have intervened. Obviously that wasn’t going to happen on this show, and I’ve seen other good actors on this show lose control (I remember they even had the gifted old pro Jeff Kober screaming at the top of his lungs against those sensitive mics). The writing and scene length didn’t help—as they didn’t allow Tajh to really build to that explosion of anger. Not sure what they’re doing with Sonny. The show is clearly telegraphing an attempt on Ric’s life at some point (like his comparison of Ric to Jagger and the spooky close-up of Maurice’s red-rimmed eyes as he spoke to Natalia). Hopefully RH gets to stick around. NLG is the MVP. These past few weeks have been a total showcase of what she can do on the regular. I like Alexa Havins as Lulu, but I knew she was going to be a pro. She’s grown a lot as an actress since her Babe days (and she was decent then). Everything is very compressed time-wise on this show, but she’s been navigating all of the changes in mood expertly (her delight and anxiety with all of the reunions and the horror of learning the tragedies that occurred while she was comatose). She did her homework.

I hated Dr. Eve Guthrie on GL and associate her in part with the downfall of that show, but Claire’s whitewashing is even deeper than hers. At least a lot of characters still openly feared Eve would lose her grip on her mental health, even when it appeared she’d gotten on the straight and narrow. Claire should be treated more as a ticking time bomb and not some giggly, pure Mary Sue. Nikki shouldn’t have gotten so comfortable with her so quickly, for example.

I’ve largely stopped watching these series (aside for an occasional Peacock ride down NY/ATL memory lane), but “High Body Count Hair” and “I look like a mother!” came up in my feed. Thanks, SLC Angie, for that gold.

I like Carter standing there like a boss (with an assist from Justin). Still I wish he had a team standing behind him to make the moment stick. For example, Zende would have been a great ally given his frustrations as a designer and fellow family “outsider.”

This. The next few years are going to have quite a few sad losses, especially for us late Gen Xers/early Millennials who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Still it never gets easier. TC was around as Carlo when I started watching OLTL, and I knew he was a special talent. He enlivened a lot of bad stories, as DRW50 mentioned.

Have they been trying to make her look older or am I imagining that? I certainly could be.

@AbcNbc247

Hope at least got some digs in, but I’ve seen too many conversations where she’s had to stand there and take Steffy’s vitriol when I’ve tuned in. Even La Stephanie had people clap back.

Adam and Nick arguing about Sharon is so boring. It’s very 15 years ago.