Jon and Trisha stole today's show.

I look forward to this unholy alliance

Im wondering if Hayley's and Randy's plot will converge somehow.

I also really liked the conversation with Tyrell and Nicole. Just like Tracy and Anita’s conversation point sides made great points.

Today's show was also the perfect example on how Ashley should be used.

3 minutes ago, Liberty City said:

Love seeing Karla Mosley (Dani) in her mugshot top! What a throwback!

I was watching live today and I knew that looked familiar!

I noticed that during the Vanessa/Dani convo, Vanessa referred to * both * Dani and Nicole as her best friends.

Wow they FINALLY updated the promo, they showed the Season 2 promo at the end of the show today. Finally no more of that Articullette's promo we've seen for months

On 1/5/2026 at 11:22 PM, DramatistDreamer said:

Months ago, I complained/suggested something in a past BTG thread and I am seeing traces of it onscreen. I won't mention what it is 🤭🤐but I am somewhat interested in seeing where it eventually lands.

The cotillion as opposed to the bar mitzvah for Black folks. Do you think the writers might have listened to your suggestion?

On 1/6/2026 at 10:09 PM, ranger1rg said:

I also have problems with the PDA between Madison and Chelsea every time they're shown at the hospital. I don't think that's realistic or cute.

Same. Besides, Madison is a young doctor. It's part of her story that she graduated early because she's a genius, if I am not mistaken. Young professionals tend to be wary of how they're perceived. They don't want to come across immature as their age would suggest. A 'Madison' would never act like that with her girlfriend in her workplace!

23 hours ago, ReddFoxx said:

Eye roll at Vanessa running to tell Joey about Nicole's business. And despite Doug's issues, Joey is totally delusional for saying that he's better than Doug.

That was painful to watch. The only change I've not appreciated since TT's joining the show as co-HW and EP is that Vanessa has become submissive and borderline offensive. Remember that speech about crawling to her man? I get it - there's multiple ways to love and lust, but why does everything in this story have to be so miserable? (answer: because Joey is dangerous lmao)

18 hours ago, Errol said:

Anyone can come and go at any time, though I do find it interesting that it took nearly a whole year for the show to update its opening sequence in any capacity.

Remember they had to change Ted's shot from Maurice to Keith. Maybe that derailed their budget for any further opening credits update.

17 hours ago, MontyB said:

Just want to mention I quoted @ReddFoxx who mentioned Kim Hunter and The Edge of Night which gave me pure life.

For some reason it didn't work correctly on my phone.

Replying from your phone will cost you 15 minutes of hell. This board wants us to be like those stereotypical Millennials... @Errol

5 hours ago, Liberty City said:

Rewatching from the beginning, Andre's hesitation to do the Forrester Creations feature was very on-character that was established in the serial's third episode, where he refuses to have his photo taken with Kat, Nicole, and Ted.

Cool trivia!

BTW thank you so much for reporting the writers and director for every single episode when it starts!!

4 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

Eva and Isaiah aren't doing it for me, so far. It feels like a couple of beats were missed and a lot of talking.

Exactly. Izaiah: 'I was afraid of loving again, but then you made me see the light again'. And I'm like... when did that happen? Was it between a gin tonic at Uptown and a smoothie at Orpehy Gene's? Or was it before breakfast at the Club? lol These writers can't write young romance.

They also mentioned a cotillion background for the girls maybe 2-3 weeks ago. Maybe longer. From Kat or Chelsea's pasts, IIRC.

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by Vee

23 hours ago, Vee said:

This I don't remember. Do tell.

A lot of people will claim that hey, with the likes of David Canary and Erika Slezak there just wasn't a lot of room for other actors to grab awards but it still doesn't make sense to have a world in which Kathryn Hays never even got nominated once, Elizabeth Hubbard never won for her portrayal of Lucinda Walsh (especially when she specialized in the kind of OTT performances the Daytime Emmy voters often loved to reward), Colleen Zenk didn't get a single nomination until the '00s and Hillary Bailey Smith was virtually ignored until she went over to One Life To Live. The men had slightly better luck but it was somewhat laughable (or merely coincidence?) that Gregg Marx, Julianne Moore, Brian Bloom and Ellen Parker all held their Emmy statuettes in their hands when their presence on their respective shows were in the rearview. All that I could've overlooked if Kathryn Hays had gotten even one nomination in damn near 40 years of solidly strong work. I mean, Kim Sullivan Hughes was the last character ever created by Irna Phillips. If Hays' performance as Kim isn't a metaphor about the lack of regard for daytime soaps, I don't know what is. Yes, it's probably also P&G's fault as well, which is why I still don't trust them when it comes to any soap opera.

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by DramatistDreamer
forgot the parentheses

Does block voting play into this at all, or am I misunderstanding the process? JFP perfected that scheme, particularly at ABC.

18 hours ago, Antoyne said:

Vanesssa playing Joey is wishful thinking by the audience. There is zero onscreen, in the scripts, or even in any of the performances that even remotely hints that Vanessa isn’t madly obsessed with Joey and never loved Doug. If this is some sort of ruse it will feel completely unearned and a shock just for the sake of a shock. As I’ve mentioned before, if she was playing Joey, why was she at Winterfest sloppy drunk and crying just cause he wouldn’t show up and hold her damn hand.

While the acting has been good when I allow myself to watch, the breast cancer story just isn’t for me. My mother is in remission from breast cancer and it was the scariest thing I’ve ever been Through. So while I appreciate what they’re trying to do, hearing the word cancer over and over and over every episode is just a bit much for me and I find myself looking at my phone until other scenes come up.

My brother died from pancreatic cancer three years ago (next month), so I know how deeply triggering Anita's storyline can be. Therefore, I made the decision that I would only watch sporadically for now, especially since this show has decided to focus narrowly on a few set of characters.

In the very beginning I was discussing this with another group of folks who were watching the show (some have stayed, some dropped the show) that I thought that they should either connect Mona and Laura as relatives or give at least one of them some sort of family. I would love to see Loren Lott be family to either Mona or Laura and Loren could hit the ground running due to her previous experience on a soap. But this show desperately needs another Black family that is not directly related to the Duprees, either by blood or marriage, because the scenarios on this show do feel claustrophobic. And there ought to be some other storylines besides illness (Anita, Peaches), gangsters and the world of sex work and Leslie who is obsessed with the Duprees and their world.

There is plenty more that they could be giving us and I really hope that we will see this very soon.

This show needs to go on ahead and have Vanessa admit that she never loved Doug and that she used him to get a foothold into a community that it is unlikely she would ever gain access to without him. Instead of trying to have her straddle two sides of the fence, which is not working anyway, have her go full villain. Also, we know she doesn't care about those kids.

Edited 22 hours ago22 hr by DramatistDreamer

In the first episode it looked like Laura and Mona would have a strong surrogate mother/daughter vibe and we got a little character sketch of Mona being childless and Laura having a boyfriend.

But nothing really happened beyond that.

I have wanted Mona to get family from almost Day 1. She's great. And I would kill to have Loren Lott join up.

36 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

This show needs to go on ahead and have Vanessa admit that she never loved Doug and that she used him to get a foothold into a community that it is unlikely she would ever gain access to without him.

It's been established that Doug came from a lower class background, hanging out in his youth with BFF Randy. I don't know Vanessa's background but I had the impression she came from money or that she earned all her money from selling real estate.

Edited 22 hours ago22 hr by janea4old

Vanessa has always lived behind the gates because she mentioned how she would sneak Doug into her parents house when they were young.

Leslie and Joey together are pretty delicious, even if I don't really find what they're talking about that exciting or interesting.

Ashley/Shanice were great today too.

1 hour ago, Aback said:

Izaiah: 'I was afraid of loving again, but then you made me see the light again'. And I'm like... when did that happen? Was it between a gin tonic at Uptown and a smoothie at Orpehy Gene's? Or was it before breakfast at the Club? lol These writers can't write young romance.

The Eva and Izaiah coupling is a big miss for me so far. Feels like we get the same cliched conversation every day.

1 hour ago, Vee said:

They also mentioned a cotillion background for the girls maybe 2-3 weeks ago. Maybe longer. From Kat or Chelsea's pasts, IIRC.

I did a little research on cotillions, because I honestly thought they were a thing of the past and that the show was off base. I was wrong -- cotillions are still a thing, especially in the South AND in the Delmarva area, which is close to DC.

While I appreciate getting two sides of the cotillion, I would have preferred that Jessica have an influence on Tyrell over time and not in one episode where she laid it all out and he became this expert on it.

-- I agree with others here that the show needs another Black family. I know everything can't happen in a day or a week, but it is getting to be claustrophobic.

-- I said it a couple days ago and I'll say it again: GATES needs to be careful about having us overdose on the cancer storyline.

-- Now I have something else to bitch about regarding Joey. His influence over Blacks in this town is bad enough, but now he becomes a major player with the free clinic??? I hate it.

-- Had to smile at the furniture update and rearrangement at Martin and Smitty's. We needed lots of seating for today's conversations with 5 characters, so all of a sudden we got 2 wing chairs blocking the entire fireplace. 😂