I’m up to April 27, 1999.

*They finally gave nuBill something to do, but I agree with most, Ryan Brown just isn't that strong here.

Danny goes to the lighthouse and Michelle walks in, surprising him by saying she never left the country and she was staying there to think about her relationship with Jesse. However, she admits that all she could think about the entire time was Danny. She says she can’t fight her feelings anymore and wants to be with him and she then kisses him. While crying, Danny says she’ll never be able to accept his family and what they do, so it won’t work out and he walks out, leaving Michelle to cry. The next morning, he presents her with annulment papers to sign, but she refuses to sign them.

Jesse declares to Drew that he loves her and was jealous when he knew she slept with Danny. She asks about Michelle, but Jesse says he needs to tell her it’s over and he wants to be with her instead. Drew is excited but says he has to tell Michelle first before they go any further. Later, Michelle and Drew talk and Michelle tells her that she thinks it’s over with Jesse and Drew is happy, but she can’t bring herself to tell Michelle about Jesse choosing her now. Drew and Jesse then later have sex for the first time, with Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” playing. After, while still in bed naked and holding each other, Michelle walks in and sees them. She runs out, and Jesse/Drew run after her and apologize for her finding out that way. Drew leaves to give them space to talk, and eventually through a very emotional conversation, Michelle and Jesse realize they’re over. Michelle apologizes to Jesse for hurting him and they hug, as Drew walks in. Drew is concerned that Jesse changed his mind and chose Michelle, but Michelle leaves and Jesse assures Drew that he only wants her and kisses her.

Pilar calls Bill to pick her up, but Carmen catches them leaving and tries to stop Pilar from going. Bill stops Carmen and she threatens him to back off. Pilar lays into her mother and Carmen loses control and slaps the ever living hell out of her! Carmen immediately regrets it, but Pilar runs off. Bill runs after her and while together, Bill voices his concerns that he’s in danger if he helps her out, but Pilar begs him to let her stay with him. He says she can get a job at Millennium and they role play waitress/customer in a flirtatious way. The next morning, Bill convinces Drew to hire her, which excites Pilar.

Max is trying to take money from the Millennium bar, and then order a beer, but Selena catches and stops him. She then tells him that Drew is his sister and pressures him to tell Drew stories about their mother (this doesn’t seem ok to me, could really mess up Max’s head). She blackmails him into helping her, saying she could turn him in for stealing her ring and they would believe her over him, so he reluctantly goes along with it. Later, Susan, who now wears makeup and has straightened her hair to look older, runs into Max at Millennium. He’s mean to her, still calling her a little girl, but she says she knows that just means he really likes her, which shuts him up.

Buzz is preparing to give Jenna’s clothes away to charity, which makes him sad, but Selena is there to comfort him through the process.

Blake, Cassie and Harley are celebrating Blake’s independence from Ben at Millennium, but Ben shows up. They blow him off and he finds Annie at a table alone. They talk and Annie wants him to be his lawyer again so he can help get her community service charges lessened. He’s distracted and keeps looking at Blake, which Annie notices and she decides they should dance together and make Blake feel jealous. The ladies see them dancing and Blake is disgusted that he would be with Annie. Ben then gets a call from Carmen and has to leave, but on his way out tells Blake she knows this isn’t over. Ben arrives at Carmen’s, where she’s crying over Pilar, and after trying to stay tough with him, she becomes emotional and he hugs her. We later see Carmen tell one of her henchmen to find a way to remove Bill from Pilar’s life, so it forces her to come back to her family. That henchman then finds Bill, beats him up a bit and tells him to stay away from Pilar or he’ll regret it. Later, Danny and Pilar see a beaten up Bill and Bill assumes it was Danny that made the order. Privately, Danny says it wasn’t him and he would trust having Bill hang out with Pilar. He asks Bill not to tell Pilar it was their mother, as Danny goes off to confront Carmen about it. Pilar then pressures Bill into the truth, assuming it was her mother, and he caves and says yes, it was Carmen. Bill says he’s not going to be scared away and will be there to support/protect Pilar. Later, Danny confronts Carmen and the henchman, attacks the henchman, and yells at Carmen to leave Pilar alone or else. This confrontation was a great scene and well-acted by both Danny and Carmen!

Reva is back from vacation (I’ve been shocked that Reva/Josh have been MIA lately). Cassie is now their wedding planner and Reva asks her to be her maid of honor. To help find her something new/old/borrowed/blue, they look through old boxes that were saved from the old house fire. Cassie finds a mysterious ring that Reva says looks familiar, but she has no idea why (4/22). It looks to have some royal crest on it, and mysterious music is playing as they look at it. This must be the start of the San Cristobel storyline! Reva tries the ring on and it fits perfectly, like it was made for her. Later, Marah finds a pregnancy test and confronts Reva about it. The test is negative and Reva explains why they didn’t want to tell her about it first, until she was actually pregnant. Later, Reva has a dream where she’s wearing that ring, rocking a bundled baby and then sees a man (off-screen) who scares her. She looks down at her hands and realizes it’s just an empty blanket and the baby was taken from her and she screams “not my baby!”, before waking up. The next day, Josh finally comes home and Reva is now adamant that having a baby isn’t a good idea, first because Marah was concerned, and second because of her dream, which felt all too real to her. Josh calms her down and they agree to focus first on their wedding. They look through brochures to find a fun honeymoon spot and Josh calls out San Cristobel, the “small country with a big heart”, to which Reva says “with a town that overlooks the ocean”. Josh questions how she knows that and she says she’s not sure, she probably just heard it on TV or something. After Josh goes to the kitchen, she looks at the brochure and then her ring and ponders as mysterious music plays in the background (4/27).

Holly gets a visit from Meg’s teacher, Kate, who Fletcher was falling for. She’s in town helping Meg transition to a local school, and tells Holly she always felt like Fletcher was still in love with her (Holly). After a little bit of a rough patch, things soften between them and Kate shows Holly pictures of Meg’s drawings and they smile. Kate says she hopes things work out between Holly and Fletcher and Holly thanks her. Fletcher and Blake show up and Fletcher is upset seeing Kate there. He pulls her aside and says her being there isn’t helpful to Holly and it seems as though he is calling things off with her officially. As Kate walks away, Blake warns her never to visit with Holly, Fletcher or Meg again, or else.

20 hours ago, Khan said:

P&G could, but it seems as if they're almost ashamed even to MENTION those former shows, despite their continuing to tout their groundbreaking legacy in the field of daytime drama. And maybe I could understand how they feel, too, if I didn't think they were at least partly responsible for the utter messes those shows ultimately became.

20 hours ago, Vee said:

I'm not sure BTG is strictly in the same universe as the P&G classic soaps. IIRC June on BTG was caught out for giving a fake alias to the DCPD as "Jessica Griffin," which another character noted was the name of a soap opera character from ATWT. It was a cute little Tamara Tunie in-joke, but I thought it was a shame to lock off referencing the same P&G 'universe.'

Of course they can always ignore that in future and do direct in-universe references to GL/ATWT/whatever. No one would care and I'm sure other soaps have danced across the line before.

Right? It does almost feel like they're ashamed. And while I don't want to trash talk BtG---it's not exactly groudbreaking television.

I forgot--but yeah, they did have June mention Jessica and her stories. I'm not sure that's slamming the door on a "universe" exactly. And it's not like they don't have scriptwriters on staff who could write some throwaway lines. (at least in ATWT's case. although all the P&G shows traded behind the scenes people almost as much as they traded actors._)

10 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

I’m up to April 27, 1999.

*They finally gave nuBill something to do, but I agree with most, Ryan Brown just isn't that strong here..

Oh, that's being very generous.

PJ said:

"Right? It does almost feel like they're ashamed. And while I don't want to trash talk BtG---it's not exactly groundbreaking television."

Wholeheartedly agree. It would have been groundbreaking television 40-60 years ago.

Speaking for myself only, I am thisclose to seriously trash talking BtG, and I've never watched it. I never plan to. It's quite likely emblematic of the same tiresome pablum that's been repeatedly endlessly for several decades now. Wash, rinse, repeat and rake in the money, right? Right.

All so incredibly socially UN-aware.

50 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

PJ said:

"Right? It does almost feel like they're ashamed. And while I don't want to trash talk BtG---it's not exactly groundbreaking television."

Wholeheartedly agree. It would have been groundbreaking television 40-60 years ago.

Speaking for myself only, I am thisclose to seriously trash talking BtG, and I've never watched it. I never plan to. It's quite likely emblematic of the same tiresome pablum that's been repeatedly endlessly for several decades now. Wash, rinse, repeat and rake in the money, right? Right.

All so incredibly socially UN-aware.

I was on the fence about watching it too. IMO, it really has to find some emotional resonance if it wants to make it to the five year mark. As much praise as I've heard for Val Jean over the years, it's surprising.

5 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I was on the fence about watching it too. IMO, it really has to find some emotional resonance if it wants to make it to the five year mark. As much praise as I've heard for Val Jean over the years, it's surprising.

IMO, it does really well with family relationships but falters big-time on the romantic love stories. Their one attempt at creating a star-crossed couple flopped so hard it was almost funny.

I don't know about other people, but that's the main attraction for me when it comes to soaps. I want this show to succeed SO much because it's a chance to revive the whole genre. But I find it harder and harder to tune in regularly when there's no captivating central love story. I don't understand why they don't get how important that is to a soap.

25 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

IMO, it does really well with family relationships but falters big-time on the romantic love stories. Their one attempt at creating a star-crossed couple flopped so hard it was almost funny.

I don't know about other people, but that's the main attraction for me when it comes to soaps. I want this show to succeed SO much because it's a chance to revive the whole genre. But I find it harder and harder to tune in regularly when there's no captivating central love story. I don't understand why they don't get how important that is to a soap.

I do wonder what they thought they'd accomplish with the Dani/Bill/Hayley story, which I guess they saw as their big hook. But yeah, the only couple that comes close to working is Dani/Andre, and that was purely accidental. (I do not count Anita/Vernon, who are clearly meant to be the bedrock couple.) The actors that truly showed some spark initially (for me that's Nicole, Kat and Eva) were stuck with absolute washouts. They really missed on a majority of the casting on the show, and it continues to hamstring them.

18 minutes ago, P.J. said:

The actors that truly showed some spark initially (for me that's Nicole, Kat and Eva) were stuck with absolute washouts.

It's not just that--there's no conflict, there's no real story! Kat and Tomas arguing about living arrangements is not a storyline. I have no investment in them as a couple (beyond the fact that the actor playing Tomas should have been fired or replaced ages ago). The ONE thing that might have made them interesting (a triangle with the half-sister Kat despises) was quickly scuttled.

This makes no sense to me.