Faulkner

They need to keep their foot on the gas with these interactions. You can’t build these sorts of relationships between characters with these sporadic meetings.

KM’s husband is hot:

Roger Howarth posted a great photo of him, Tuc Watkins, and Erika Slezak. https://www.instagram.com/p/DO6WgqIjt4y/?igsh=ZnNobnNqZTM4cWMw

They couldn’t have made a more respectful promo for Monica’s funeral? Even if they also included the Nathan scene?

Just the sheer numbers of the Dupree women vs. men also tell that story. It’s like the Cramer women or the Kane women or GH’s Davis girls, but those families weren’t/aren’t the only game in town. It’s also telling that they made one of two male scions of the family a gay man and the other his adopted son. I want to celebrate that as a Black gay man myself, but they also made Martin a long-suffering, mentally fragile, almost childlike victim and placed him with a supportive, morally upright white husband whom he has deceived. There’s no sense of him as a competent leader who was considering a presidential run. I’m just waiting for the skeletons to fall out of Vernon’s closet. Jacob the Boy Scout is so underwritten and weakly portrayed as to be meaningless.

I agree that a huge problem is that we don’t see these guys in their element as much (even the characters they’ve invested in, like Bill, Martin, and Smitty). But then you have Doug—a Black man whose white wife cucks him with the local white gangster and seems to be headed to a tragic end. And we’ve all speculated that Ted is equally expendable. I’m trying to understand what they were thinking with all of this. This show can celebrate and elevate Black women without making the men ciphers with no real perspectives or agency of their own (especially the heterosexual men).

Lots of characters need do-overs. The men on BTG are flat-out pathetic and emasculated (or one-dimensional, dollar-store louts, criminals, and ne’er-do-wells). I hate to evoke the late Hogan Sheffer, but these dynamic women need strong men to match their freak, and these duds just don’t. I like JG, but Doug is a key example of this.

She was so bad she was good. Gave off VERY inappropriate sexual vibes with Drake Hogestyn (her on-screen father, R.I.P.). If you read her brief tenure as sort of a Christopher Guest absurdist comedy, she deserved an Oscar. The powers-that-be are pretty good about deleting any clips of her that pop up (not linking any of them for that reason), but you’re in for a treat if you can find them. (Lauren Buglioli actually has a similar vocal tone to her, but she’s talented.) Alex Alegria doesn’t come close to that level of entertainment value.

It’s funny that they see him and don’t think, “My god, we gotta recast.” He’s definitely down there with the Ken Kenitzers and Charity Rahmers (the truly, distractingly incompetent).

He’s definitely a talent. It’s a shame that he often has so little opportunity (or motivation) to showcase his sensitivity and incredible access to his emotions. I remember the scenes that won him an Emmy on Y&R, and he was great in those, too, even though Dylan was a nothing character. I’m glad it appears he’s getting more opportunities nowadays on GH, which I don’t watch much anymore.

Steve Burton can play emotion so well. Certainly if he were weepy all the time like JJ’s Lucky during his first big return, it wouldn’t stand out. But just how stricken he looked was so powerful. Like all of the blood drained from his face. He can really step it up.

I’m a bit in my feelings about what’s happened to Eva. There’s still time to get that train back on the track, but it’s almost as if they didn’t expect her to be such a breakout. I’ve not been a fan of what they’ve given her since May.

Instagram and Meta need to fix their sh!t. Videos embedded don’t play, etc.

At least they get to watch Lorraine Broderick’s early 1995-96 run, which was probably the last really good run for the show.

Whoopi announced Robert Redford’s passing on The View this morning, and the audience gasped:

His iconic meme

Another icon gone. He was almost otherworldly in his blond beauty.

I thought his look was a miss too.

Jen Jacob and Mike Manning are next to each other in the opening and look similar enough to be kinfolk. Ashley and Smitty could have totally been brother/sister. As irritating as Ashley can be, it’s obvious JJ has some talent that’s not being harnessed properly. Her heavy-handed introduction and obnoxious behavior (which the writers don’t seem to have a clear perspective on, even after nearly seven months) were never going to play well. Why is she on this show other than as “a way in” for white viewers à la Piper on OITNB? Even white viewers can’t stand Ashley from what we’ve seen.

Last night’s Primetime Emmys were such a shitshow that I turned them off. So unprofessional—lots of dead air with presenters and winners crossing a stage that felt like it was the length of a football field. Nate Bergatze was totally unprepared and underrehearsed as host, and the running joke about the donation to the Boys and Girls Club should have been a one and done, but instead they beat that dead horse throughout the evening. Feels like the Academy has given up. Makes the Daytime Emmys look slightly less amateurish.