B&B: Should Stephanie jump off a cliff?

[Sylph]

I do love Susan Flannery, and in her golden days, she brought so much class, sophistication and good acting to daytime.

But has her character turned out to be a complete loon or what? Desperately wagging around for Eric's genitalia, having a sick and incestuous relationship with her son, roaming about LA like a total psychopath, in the course of one episode, knocking on 10 doors, blackmailing everyone, telling them what to do, completely obsessed with Brooke, ego-maniacal, self-obsessed b!tch with severe personality disorder... The list is never ending.

Furthermore, I've been saying it for a long time: Susan Flannery lost all sense of scenic movement, she doesn't even act instead choosing to sleep-walk through scenes, and as the last straw we have her fabulous, haute couture, unique clothing.

Someone needs to remove her ASAP, she is doing no good to this show together with Brooke and several others.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Sylph is laying down the law, Brad Bell!

A revolution must happen!!!!

[bellcurve]

Your assessment, IMO, is dead on.

B&B could live on without La Flannery. I love her, but her character has become kind of repetitive and pointless. Stephanie has never grown as a character or as a person. And Flannery gives good performance, but her reactions have now become predictable.

[Taiah]

Well yeah SF should go since its clear Brad Hell's hard on for the Logan gals ain't going nowhere. Thus Stephanie is stuck being a agitating old hag one-note villain for them and nothing else. SF needs to grab LK's hand and both walk on out the door. I'm tired of Stephanie walking around in her pant suits, one in every color, spewing the same old rants as well.

[Evan]

I adore Susan Flannery and I'll be sad the day she retires, but I kinda agree that Stephanie has become a one dimensional, predictable character.

It'd be refreshing if Bell ends the Stephanie/Brooke feud for good, and perhaps brings back Massimo(as a recast) so Stephanie can have a man to occupy her time.

[ian]

Stephanie is going to prop Taylor no matter what [!@#$%^&*] she does and call her "stability" even though she's as crazy as the next slut in LA.

I LOVE Susan Flannery but, like everyone else she's being sucked into the quicksand of predictability. Show would have a huge gap without her but it'd go on. She carried it for a time and is strong enough to carry anything they throw at her but the time has come for her to take a step back and evaluate some things. If she realized some things à la Katherine CHancellor is right now about her history, and if she STICKS to it... and actually uses the past to improve her future keep her. If a bunch of sh!t that's totally inconsequential happens, then just be done with her.

[Sylph]

Watch it happen! Not!

It is so amazing that this show, despite so many missed opportunities, so many great characters wasted, so many great actors fired in a blink of an eye, still has an unbelievable chance to recover. And it wouldn't be all that hard, even though the viewers are starting not to care.

[sheilaforever]

Now ain't that the truth...

It pains to agree with you on this one, Sylph. Simply because I consider Susan Flannery the greatest thing to ever happen to daytime television. But STephers has become predictable and not in a good way: the tremendous chance of re-positioning her in the wake of the abuse storyline was ignored/wasted. Same goes for KKL/Brooke and the rape.

I ask myself why? Brad Bell must have seen these as means not only to appease his darling stars but also to propel new storytelling directions. Yet it went to hell in a poisonous fruit basket.

[ian]

I think it's that THE SAME motivations don't make sense anymore because everything's changed. We know she hates Brooke but to keep calling Taylor "stability" after everything Taylor did this past while, killed Dara, drugged Ridge, etc. etc. etc. etc. she's no more stable than anyone else, and how many half-reconciliations have her and Brooke had, only to have it not count for anything the next time Stephanie gets pissed.. and not even pissed for a reason, she just kinda randomly flips. She's tolerated the woman before while she was married to her son, then she wakes up one day and says I want to destroy Brooke again. To play the beats of the feud is to have it stop and start again for REASONS (like Viki and Dorian or Jill and Kay, though dont make Brooke Stephanie's daughter or it all goes to hell LMAO)

I think they need a story where Stephanie finds a chip in her brain (suspiciously planted by Massimo... hehe ) that put her on a ƒucking loop for years now even though it doesn't apply anymore. It's like putting a character who hasn't changed or witnessed change in the middle of a family that's falling apart. If she was any mother (who was FIRST a self-respecting woman) she'd slap her son across the face for having no balls and stringing these women along, and tell him to [!@#$%^&*] or get off the pot or move on... maybe even leave town for a long time.

Failing that, just retcon it so he was switched at birth so she can do what we all know she wants to and screw him

Having Stephanie on repeat when it doesnt make sense anymore just makes her look like a crazy old bat. Where is the CHARACTER CHANGE BRADLEY?

[BoldBeauty]

IMO it should be Brooke that should jump off a cliff. Now there´s a character that has never changed. Still longing for Ridge, still crying and playing the victim, still boring. And all storylines keep on circulating around her!

Stephanie is on the show now only to prop up the Logans, the new "queens". Stephanie´s only role is to make the Logans look better and cause trouble for them. THAT is wrong. You don´t waste the finest actress on daytime for that purpose.

I am so over B&B because of that reason. I love SF/Stephanie, she is the only reason why I bother with B&B, but when they treat her like this there is very little for me to enjoy. I simply don´t give a rats behind about the other characters. They are awfully boring. Even Bill now being paired with boring Katie. He came in with such potential and now it´s all wasted. Same with Whip, I am already over his return.

[NorrthCafe]

I vote YES! Once she jumps she should be dragged back to the top and PUSHED off... then dragged back up to be KICKED off the cliff. The writers have made such a huge joke of Stephanie (and a joke of her weaponized friendship with Taylor). I've always believed that the only storyline that makes sense with Taylor and Stephanie is that they secretly long to be together - as lovers. Stephanie has turned on her children for Taylor's sake - and will fight to give Taylor what she wants, which is Ridge, no matter what she's done (bigamy, adultery, flirtation with Hector, manipulation, etc, etc, etc.)

Steph hid the gruesome details of Darla's death so that Taylor wouldn't have to feel 'guilt' while Thorne was falling apart. Her answer? To make sure Thorne and Taylor got together... sick.

She treats Taylor FAR BETTER than she treated her daughters in the past. She spends more time with Taylor than she does Felicia - who had to fight death to come back to the family. (and honestly, LK is SUCH a better actress than HT that it's painful to see LK in the background while HT chews scenery)

Don't even get me started on Steph pimping Ridge... setting him up to fall into bed with daytime's dumbest psychiatrist who happened to 'not know' that Ridge was drunk and drugged?

Once Steph's kicked off the cliff she should be washed out to sea, never to return.

[ian]

I'd love if Stephanie had an epiphany à la Katherine on Y&R and tried to move on as an adult. Even if Stephanie and Brooke don't necessarily mend fences, they need to move forward.

[Cat]

I don't know... I still have a fondness for the old bat. Or should I say, Susan Flannery. She is the Susan Lucci of her soap. I wish B&B would stick with these periodic moments of realization and growth that hit Stephanie because so much story could be generated from her moving forward and leaving her trifling men and resentment behind. I still think joining Jackie M is key to that and have been loving her story there so far. The only problem is when they have her going back to FC and mooning about "leaving a piece of her heart" there. It is like foreshadowing that she will return to the Land of the Living Dead where the comotase corpses of facelifted Ridge and drooling Eric stalk the corridors for young flesh.

So. I'm pinning my hopes on Steph's alliance with Jackie M as a TRUE jumping-off point for Stephanie.

In the meantime, would it be so difficult for Birgit Mueller to update her wardrobe once in a while? And was that a fugly Mephisto clog I saw Steph clamp down on Donna's train? Susan may wear that to shlep around the studio and stay comfortable but they should have substituted another shoe for that close-up. I'm not saying Flannery has to cram her toes into a Jimmy Choo... a nice suede mocassin (like Tod's) in red or camel would have looked money AND comfortable.

[/fashion rant]

[y&r_fan]

Amen.