Michael

Totally. Nick, a character born offscreen to a mother who notably suffered from DID, is a much more plausible candidate to have a lost twin out there than a lot of the ones we've gotten...

They've even retconned how he looks. During his first episode, they intentionally had him run into Gabi, who didn't recognize him at all. So he didn't look like Nick and certainly wasn't identical to him. But more recently, they had Julie remark that he looked somewhat like Nick, or at least reminded her of Nick. That felt like someone (Alarr? The scab writers?) had decided to tie him to the Hortons after all. With the recent mentions of Tommy and Sandy, I kinda wonder if they're going to make him a cousin of Nick's through that line or something.

Yeah, it seems like he worked as a journalist under both names. So how did no one in the journalism community notice that Bobby Stein and Everett Lynch were the same guy? And the basic premise of the story still doesn't make sense: he ghosted Stephanie after this (alleged) accident, but he would've been married to Jada and left her prior to that... so the whole accident/ghosting thing kinda doesn't matter in the long run, unless he secretly went and started a THIRD life.

I somehow totally missed that! Interesting tidbit for sure.

In theory, yeah. They just never connected the logic in a way that worked for me. He knew Stefan was running drugs for Clyde, and the drugs would've come from them even if Tate had technically handed a pill to Holly, so it felt odd to me that EJ was wholly unconcerned with bringing down the people who were supplying drugs to teenagers instead of the men (whom he already loathed!) causing the entire epidemic we kept hearing about -- especially when the case against Tate looked pretty flimsy.

I thought Leo Howard did fine and was pretty natural on his first day. I liked JMM a lot, but he aired for, what, four months total? LH does read older -- like they could have cast him for the Johnny/Chanel age group, not as someone who's supposed to be 16-17. I still have no idea why EJ was so hellbent on prosecuting Tate, who at worst would've been the lowest-level offender (distributing small amounts, since he wasn't caught with any significant amount on him), when he knew Stefan -- the brother he despises -- was involved in high-level drug-running. Don't DAs usually want big convictions instead of small-time ones?!

Probably 2019 or so. Linsey Godfrey debuted in late 2018 as Sarah and they've referenced Neil a few times since, and they definitively established onscreen that he had passed away.

Agreed! I think she works as "Tate's mom" but she doesn't fully register as Theresa to me yet.

Leo and Chad discussed this in Thursday's episode.

Let's not go nuts here. 😂

I never get tired of the Wanchai Ferry clip. It's one of the most insane things I have ever seen on television.

Clyde is like 70! Although considering this show almost had Lucas donate Kate's heart to Julie...

Kyle's "story" hasn't even been a story. There have been intriguing moments where she appears to get vulnerable about the distance between her and Mo, but that basically amounted to, what, 4 tense conversations? Nothing was spoken aloud, nothing was concrete, and they never went any deeper than the surface as far as showing something there. I thought there was going to be WAY more Morgan content, too. It amounted to Kyle giggling with her about 3 times all season long and hinting at one lunch with the ladies that she could maybe kinda be bi-curious?

I didn't know that about Jack's 2011 return. It's interesting that Higley & Tomlin were planning to bring him in, because as soon as TomSell took over, they axed Jack to get back to Jennifer/Daniel. So maybe that lends credence to Jack having been intended for a short-term stint.

Color me shocked that they don't have RSW playing Tom...

Thank you and I still understand very little. LOL.

I have NEVER been able to make full sense of the Carly/Reese backstory either.

I liked what Sheri did with those novels in 2009-10. They gave John and Marlena another kid in those, right? I tracked down most (all?) of the novelizations of 60s-70s stories a few years ago and did a big blog post about them, if that's of any interest: https://whathappensinsalem.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/a-novel-idea-the-early-years-of-dool/

Oh, totally. That's where I think the execution could have been much stronger. By his 2000s run and the latter half of Passions, the dialogue was legitimately a parody.

I have really fond memories of and feelings for that era, even though I can now clearly see its drawbacks and failings. But I disagree about pacing, to some degree. I thought JER did an excellent job of building and sustaining suspense. The particulars usually turned out to be dumb or, uh, credulity-stretching, but I thought the overall long-term nature of the show worked and it's something I DEARLY miss today. Definitely agree about the tone and the dialogue. It's weird to be getting stories currently that have most of the same trappings -- the masks (which I'm sick of), fake deaths, etc. -- but the dialogue and production kind of feels... humdrum. And while they occasionally still hit it, it often feels like they're trying to emulate that specific tone and it misses. Don't get me wrong (and I know you won't agree with me here): I like a lot of the more down-to-earth stuff we've gotten in the years since JER, and there's plenty I appreciate about 2006-present. But there were hallmarks of his writing that I think did work well and don't get the credit they should because of the over-the-top trappings. I actually think, at its absolute core, JER's pacing is very classic soap! I never had that hope for MarDar, for whatever reason, and I'm kinda glad because I thought their year absolutely sucked. It was the epitome of "good on paper and terrible in execution."

Ken Corday's incompetent and damaging leadership rears its head once again. Absolutely disgraceful how poorly he handled this and allowed Alarr is go on like this for years.

Hmmmm. Interesting! The rewrite was so bad that I remember feeling like they might as well have just put up a title card that said, "FORGET ANY OF THIS HAPPENED!" It didn't even make sense within the retcon.

I really just want to know what the plan would've been going forward. JER would've written Marlena out of the killings somehow.

Now that you mention it, I could easily have seen Chrishell as a more effective Taylor.

Oh, I thought she was dreadful. She and EJ were sniffing that damn scarf for however many weeks she was in the role. She was just no match for Nicole at all, and her "sweetness" came off as cloying and fake instead of a real counterpoint to Nicole's scheming and impulsiveness. Recasting with Braun, who has a totally different energy from both NL and what Taylor was supposed to be, didn't really work anyway, but they kind of twisted Taylor into a harder-edged character to fit her. The whole thing was a mess.