Between the holiday weekend, the rerun on Monday, and some personal scheduling, I am caught up on the show and the board.
I agree we're definitely in a lull. It's interesting how last year, they built up such a big cliffhanger for the Labor Day (arguably unearned, given how fast Chelsea and Madison became star-crossed lovers and Allison's obsession seemingly came out of left field). Then, this year, the Tuesday-after episode was all B or C stories with no major developments.
I absolutely do not hate the show. That said, I am sure there are people who hate the show, and want it to fail (I'm not talking about anyone in particular, or even anyone on this board. Although I can only imagine the discourse on X). And I really don't want them to get their wish. This show has so much potential, and I am invested in nearly all the main characters - and many of the supporting/background casts. And unlike so many new soaps that have notoriously struggled to gel, the stories and relationships they came out of the gate (no pun intended) with have legs.
I did not realize MVJ has been ill. I truly hope she is on the mend, for all the reasons. And if the writing staff has been in a holding pattern waiting for her to return to wrap things up, so be it.
That's an interesting observation, because I don't find Heather convincing as a nice person at all. This may be one of the problems with the dialogue for me. It can be bad enough when the Duprees or other "good" characters are clearly pumping their scene partners for needless details and/or reciting research papers on each other's back stories just to catch the audience up. With Heather, especially when I know she has an agenda, I feel like she's coming on so strong in her attempts to ingratiate herself that it would be off-putting for me IRL... I also have to say in several cases now, the (always unspoken) racial dynamics have added to the awkwardness when she puts her foot in it.
I'm at least somewhat intrigued that Nicole has Heather's number, and even that she is apparently going to psychologically profile the "Impaler" for Smitty. Relatedly, Smitty should have more scenes with the veteran actors playing his in-laws, as opposed to his scenes with Jacob. It's not entirely the actors' fault, especially when their connection is as supporting players in the worst story on the show, and they're so often stuck providing endless exposition. But neither actor is great at elevating that kind of material. At this point, Smitty just seems like a complete doofus as an investigative reporter, and Jacob comes off like Encyclopedia Brown in The Case of the Bad Blood, so when you put them together...
I would much rather see Shanice's relatives built up as a "second" family instead of the Hawthornes, but Monica is barely on and the brothers seemed to be played as a joke, so I don't have much hope. For that matter, Darlene is barely on, so...why even tease an extended family of non Duprees?
On top of everything else, it's such a waste because he's one of the best actors! Now that I think about it, they should have at least had fun with the Groundhog Day of it all, and done a bit with Bill secretly giving his "healthy" smoothies to Tomas, whom I would have no trouble believing listens to gym bro podcasts about the virtues of protein maxxing. Then Tomas could be the one who repeatedly ends up unconscious, and of course nobody would notice anything different about him when he came to.
And why not Jan as the housekeeper? Is she supposed to be a live-in housekeeper for Vanessa, because I seem to recall Jan cleans multiple houses behind the Gates. Isn't that how Ashley became friends with Naomi? We know Jan is a poor judge of character, and Dana/Leslie actually has an in with her she could have exploited to get onto the premises.
For me, the scripts are actually part of the problem. The exposition is often so forced, and especially when nothing much is happening to warrant the detailed recaps. As someone who only knew of MVJ from her GH work, I continue to be stunned that the dialogue is not better.
I like this overall, but I don't think Bill should have been Hayley's first mark. It's bad enough they had that flashback of Randy warning her not to try and con Joey because he's too clever, and that's how Bill became her backup plan. The only way this story could work without destroying Bill's character is if Hayley is good at what she's doing, which in theory she is supposed to be, but a year later, it's clear that she's not. Today's dialogue did give me a glimmer of hope that maybe Bill has been onto Hayley for some time and setting her up, although at this point I don't for the life of me understand how, or to what end at this point. He has no more incentive than Randy to drag this out.
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DeliaIrisFan ·
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