Anna Yolei

This. And audiences in 1987 weren't having it either because they worked overtime to clean that mess up, and it's only had diminishing returns ever since. Truly is a full line on the Bad B&B Story Bingo card: -Bad Racial optics! -Recycled story! -a Forrester getting sacrificed to prop up a Logan (never mind that RJ is also a Forrester but that lot will use anything to piss on Brooke, even this) -a victim being victim shamed! -a probable WTD story where abortion will not be discussed or considered! I just fucking can't even!

Yes. Because Bell has all the creative currency of your average AI "artist," which is an insult to those art thieves because they at least have a vision of what they want to achieve with their twelve finger abominations. Although speaking of Douglas, I'm already dreading the day when (not if) he and Hayes go down their dark path with women as is now apparently Forrester tradition. B&B may be put out of its misery before that with the way ratings ago going, though.

I mean....that's a pretty thin reasoning, no? That's the exact excuse Thomas gave Caroline when she woke up furious with him and no one was having it. Nor did anyone give Ridge any grace with Brooke. Bad optics notwithstanding, Zende shouldn't be able to get away with that justification either. Even if he didn't fully know, this was a woman who was happily committed to someone else the last time he spoke to her mere hours earlier. Maybe....just maaaaaaaaybe he could've waited till the next morning to see if she were up for it before boning her. This show is so insulting to women but if I were a man watching this, I'd be insulted by the implication that we are too caveman horny stupid to tell an incapacitated woman from a sober one.

Side note, but Tawny was Amber's mom, not Jessica's mom Maggie. That said, thanks for the info 👍🙏

Was he also Jessica's dad too? I remember them introducing her in the mid-90s back when the original leads were aging out of the 20-something scene and the show needed some younger blood. Although her mom became a character, we never saw her dad, who was Eric's brother. Did he have more than one brother? 👀

He's been on the show at least two years, right? That sounds right on schedule for when B&B starts phasing out it's Black actors. And speaking of that, Diamond White's coming up on three years so expect her to be cut by Memorial Day too. It'll be interesting if the show is still villainfying him for this five years from now whereas Eric, Ridge, Thomas and Quinn either got to skate entirely or the narrative worked overtime to say all was forgiven. And by interesting, I mean "Racist as all shit that the only person held responsible is the only Black Forrester."

And then there's the shit like Quinn entirely escaping on kidnapping and rape and Thomas giving Liam drugs so he'll bone Steffy. Even way back in the day, Sheila gave Eric boner pills to make him incredibly horny and yeah, I'd consider that just as much rape as anything else. What absolutely chaps my ass is the one time in recent history that anything HAS been called rape was Steffy and Bill: despite Steffy saying loudly that it was consentual in one of the only times she's ever taken responsibility for her behavior, Ridge insisted otherwise bc he had a grudge against the guy. And Taylor listened to his crap and decided to shoot him at point blank range without talking to Steffy. What a great message THAT is to survivors. 🙄 This plot is too on-brand for B&B to declare it's racism, but somehow I don't think Zende is going to get the redemption tour that Thomas had after Caroline. 😐

At least. Awful indeed. I won't say it's deliberate racism to put Zende in this position when they've done this story too many times to count with their white lead "heroes" ( or "heroine" in Quinn's case), but I wish Brad Bell had the sense his father did when the Black actors on Y&R told him to reconsider a WTD story between Neil and Malcolm after a "misunderstanding" and he actually did listen to them. Fuck CBS forever for barely waiting a year after WJB died before going back on that 😠 On that tangent, in watching the first seven seasons, I've noticed that the only two Black characters who have any story were ones propping up the white leads: Ruth Anne, Stephanie's friend from Skid To, and Keith, who did more heavy lifting to get Macy to get sober than anyone in the show and cared about her a lot, but knowing what I do about the conniption fans have over Victoria and Neil dating a few years later, they never had a shot. In fact Maya and her family is the first time in the show's history where Black characters got their own story and agency that was separate from merely propping someone else's story. Among many reasons, this is why the genre is dying, because the other shows are not doing much better (hello, Winters Wednesdays 🙃)

Absolutely this. And God, I can't believe I'm typing this, but at least when Steffy was ruining Hope's life for cutting the front of the line, she had smoke for Katie and Donna who put her there as well. RJ hasn't said boo diddly dick to Eric or especially Ridge, who has had beef with every male relative of his except Douglas and Hayes (yet), so why not have Zende dragging his ass? That too. I won't bother ranting about the abominable treatment Black characters gets on this show, but just because TPTB have chosen to forgot the Avant family exists doesn't mean that we have, or that he married Nicole at least seven years ago. I remember because we were ripping the shit outta how boring that couple was but damn, that may as well be prestige TV compared with anything today. Given his age at his adoption, Zende ought to be older than Thomas even, much less bagging girls in their twenties. Just no. All of this. If in fact this was a long set up for that, then bravo because her about face has been nothing short of terrible otherwise. Re: Thope, I have nothing new to say on that. Still hate it, always will and the day Matthew Akinson quits the show to move into primetime and B&B can scuttle the last five years the way they did his relationship with Sally to push this crap is the day I will know peace. 🤷‍♀️

Honestly, this was passé even in the 80s and early 90s. In one of Felicia's earliest scenes with Stephanie, they made a point of noting that she'd long lost her V-catd in high school. I think it was mentioned in passing that Ridge was the first guy Brooke was with but it was never her entire personality the way it has been for seemingly every girl legacy child after Bridget and excluding Steffy. As for the past week, it's just as well the board was closed. Thope is the only couple with any half-way interesting story currently and "interesting" is doing heavy lifting in that sentence.

I won't go quite THAT far and I stand by the opinion than any love interest is better than revisiting the army ant death spiral that is Batie, but this?! THIS is the best they could give him? It ignores so much of history of him being callous and ruthless and never caring a fuck for anyone else before he met Katie and found Liam in the same year. While Liam never said outright that his behavior was the reason Kelly kept him away, Quinn absolutely did. Assuming Bill and Poppy had no further communication after that music festival and she didn't bang anyone else that weekend, there's no such compelling reason for her to have hidden the truth from Luna. None of this makes sense in the slightest.

Bill Spencer Junior being the illegitimate son of Bill Spencer Senior, and who was directed by his late father to use his inheritance to make Eric's life miserable was a rather huge and memorable part of the character's backstory and seems a rather stupid thing for TIIC to retc9n and erase, especially when 95 percent of everything with Bill Jr is easily found on YouTube by the Bells themselves. This show truly has no respect for its audience's attention in the slightest. Also, Li's protectiveness over the Forresters is odd, considering she couldn't even fake civility with Taylor and Steffy when they approached her for Finn's funeral. Admittedly, I just wanted someone who wasn't falling at Saint Taylor's feet to praise her for existing and I'm disappointed that has been erased for no reason. I won't lie, this is the first time since Rome that I haven't wanted to punch Liam's smug face, probably because for once they weren't talking about his ridiculous joke of a love life.

Come to think of it, they didn't do all of this when he first "died" last year (or the year before? Time has no meaning after 2020 😂). B&B never does anything subtle and rarely subverts expectations. I knew Finn wouldn't be around forever because Bell is never letting Steam or Lope go in the long run and I'm genuinely surprised he lasted as long as he did. Wish I could say I felt anything one way or the other about it but he was never much more than Steffy's Ken Doll, a joke that I don't think I can even make anymore after the Barbie movie did in fact give Ken his own agency. Just annoyed at round 47 of Steam on deck. :|

TBH, with the glut of cancellations that took place in the late 2000s and early 2010s, I suspect TBTP would've already done so if they could find anything else that could play in its time slot for cheaper (ie, when The Talk or The Chew or whatever replaced ATWT, which I can't believe has been off the air longer than I ever even got to follow that show, yikes!). Aussieinsydney said it best: I don't want the show to die. I wasn't Brad Bell to wake up and allow the characters to change and grow. I want characters with new lines every day instead of changing at the summer and fall equinoxes. This has been such a bizarrely consistent feature on this show that I can only blame Bell, who has been the only consistent on this show from day one. It's a shame he'd rather let his father's legacy go to pot than pull it up but here we are.

GOD this. In a show with Bridge, Thope and everyone Liam has ever been romantically involved with, it speaks volumes when THIS is the one I want revisited the least. They have seriously not had a single new conversation about their relationship since before Pokemon Go was released and what chemistry they had in 2009 that made me think it was a shame Brad and Victoria didn't get together before Tom left Y&R has long since eroded. I have either never seen this scene or somehow put it out of mind, but either way, it just feeds the Stephanie/Brooke shippers who have always thought Steph's hatred of Brooke stemmed from way more than concern for her family 😂 I wish Finn was an actual character instead of a Ken Doll accessory to Malibu Barbie but it's not like the writing is egregiously worse for him than anyone else on this show, so guess there's no point in beating that drum when the bigger problem of women never moving past a trash man has been resolved--especially when the relationship stemmed more from a rivalry by proxy that her mother encourage instead of any true love in the first place.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 I came into the show in '99 with know idea of her history so it was easy for me to like her but God, in hindsight? Tylo was as shrill in her lines as Thorston Kaye is bellowing and loud. I'm beyond glad those two never shared a scene together. I deeply prefer Krista Allen's version because my new Chihuahua from the shelter isn't screaming his head off every time she appears on my scream.

You know, I'll give Bell this much: it's peak cringe, but at least is mildly funny cringe like the scene of Bridget's family listening in on her and Deacon and not actively offensive like the shit with Eric's ED or rage inducing like any time Ridge opens his pie hole or actively depressing like the year of hell that was watching Hope sink into depression about her baby with no break for the entire 8 months Beth was away from her. I honestly can't even say this is the worst scene of the show this month, much less in the last few years. B&B has been in desperate need of levity and yeah, this ain't it but if the choice is this, any of those options, or him groveling at sourpuss Katie's feet? It'll take this. RIP to RJ and Luna'a eyes, tho 🙃

Can I just say as a side note how incredibly tired I am of this trope? Especially in a show set in Los Angeles of all places, where no one on this show was raised as an evangelical or a Mormon? Hope was the one case where her being defined by her "morality" and "virtue" was understandable but even there, it wore off rather quickly. Taylor was actually the original owner. Stephanie bought it for her the first time she came back from the deasas a Please Get Brooke From My Son present, lived there for. a few years until she has the twins, then she and Ridge moved. Then, Bridget and Deacon moved in until that marriage fell apart and I think Rick and/or Amber also lives there for a time. Bridget and Nick were there during their first marriage, then I want to say Rick occupied it cuz I'm pretty sure Steffy was deflowered there. And *then* it came into Bill's possession when he got FC and most of their assets and he and Katie lived in it until they bought Taylor's house that she left the beach house for.from there, it got used as a bachelor pad until Wyatt moved in and had that mural painted and he's been the one there ever since. I know a Normal Amount™ of things about this show 🫠🙃 On aside tangent, the one thing I notice in my watch of the older seasons is that B&B used to do really grand reveal of new key locations. Things like Brooke's first house with Ridge or Clarke's office after he married Sally or when Macy opened her office house Insomnia back when those were a neat novelty and not a dime a dozen put me in mind of the first Star Trek movie where we get a looooiong reveal of the redesigned Enterprise when Kirk is seeing her for the first time in years. I know part of that is budgets, but I miss that energy in the show.

Mark was Jake's nephew as a nitpick, but to my recollection once the issue of the heart attack was resolved, he was disappeared too. I cannot even pretend to give a solid rat fuck about Flo Fulton. The character sucked on arrival, her connection to the Logans was every bit as forced at this bullshit with Luna and Bill, and she got to skate off on everything even more than Thomas, who at least got to be publicly embarrassed at his wedding to Zoe. Flo and Wyatt didn't even have a temporary split up over this FFS. Sometimes, an idea gets so botched that it's just easier to throw it all out and start from scratch, like a bad sourdough starter. I'm perfectly fine with memory holing her entire existence and never mentioning her again, the way B&B never concluded what happened to Deveney after she helped scam the Forrester as Angela for years, or Taylor's brother Zach or how Steffy and Rick's ill advised relationship ended off screen after that bullshit ate up the show for most of 2009. Like, really, does anyone want to know where Flo is? Does anyone sincerely care? I know I don't. Back in 2006, when TIIC decided to go all in on turning Nick Marone from a straight shooting thorn in the Forresters' side dragging them for their privilege into a character as petty and entitled as he accused Ridge of being, I didn't think it was possible to ruin a character more but Bill Bell saw how much fans loved Poppy and said "Hold my beer" with his entire chest. I don't understand what her deal is? Poppy's (alledged)sluttiness didn't cost her a career and Jack's infidelity aside, her life is great with a son and grandkids but naw, she just gotta be more miserable than Stephanie was. Make it make sense.

There were only four adult actors since his SORASing. He had a long illness around the same time he left B&B that kept him outta work for some time before he got treatment. If he did in fact leave for better work, he made the right call because it would've been a matter of time until they ruined him yet again anyway.

Given Finn wasn't around for that shooting and seemed to be surprised when he learned about the paternity issue w Kelly long after he and Steffy were married, I'm sure Steffy probably hasn't even told him about that one.

I think the answer is gonna prove to be "yes," because TPTB will absolutely pivot back to the status quo despite what the fandom want and there's no way in Hell that Bell allows a woman to stay single longer than a week on this show and remain on contract. And I doubt he'll be writing Hope outta the show when the Team Hope vs Team Steffy fight gets him so much buzz. He can start it all over again with Finn, who is essentially a clean slate without Liam's baggage of whipping back and forth. I would love to be wrong but Bell has long lost the benefit of the doubt from me. If he was consistently evil or even a typical entitled rich brat like anymore born in Beverly Hills would be, I wouldn't mind. But TIIC can't seem to commit one way or the other. It speaks to Pierson Fodé and his talent that the character was salvaged after the shit with Caroline but all of that was wiped away the minute he left and they came in with this Adam Newman/Paul Ryan dark horse ass bullshit. I just hope Matthew Atkinson gets a better opportunity soon so we can just get on with the next version of Thomas. Maybe that one will be able to have a hobby beyond obsessing over Hope.

And why tell now, almost five years after the fact, and not, oh I dunno, after he first got Hope? Or any of the times he was declared cured? This is a very obvious vehicle to set up Hinn but if this is what wakes Hope up, so be it.

Basically, this. This also doesn't cover his ill-fated and inappropriate relationship with Rick's ex-wife Amber (a grown ass woman when he was a senior in high school at the oldest), his green card marriage to the granddaughter of the maid Stephanie got killed (the second healthiest relationship in his entire history, and it's not even close) or the weird obsession he had with Brooke just a few months before the ten second fling with Hope you mentioned. Dude has been a train wreck all his adult life except for the brief six months he was with Sally.

Wasn't he rolling with them in the mid-2010s when he was waffling between Maya's sisters? Hell, chronologically, he was a tween back when Steffy and Thomas were still in diapers, so he should be even older than that, but definitely not going after 20 somethings. Thomas has a whole big ass fight with Ridge in '05 about going to school so I know his ass went. Steffy was at school in Europe when she was called back home in '08 and never went back. I don't believe she ever graduated and while she definitely had a pretty cushy push to the top between seducing Bill, Taylor's favoritism and Quinn bribing her with co- CEO to curry her acceptance of her & Eric's marriage, I guess she's put in her dues, I guess. RJ OTOH doesn't want to be there and has no passion. And I'm here for a rivalry that doesn't involve either Tridge brat, especially when neither can play the "True Forrester" card like Exodia the Forbidden One in Yu-Gi-Oh (at least, I hope RJ doesn't) but Zende creeping on his cousins girl is quite literally THE SAME SHIT Rick pulled with Steffy when he was having a go at Ridge. It wasn't cute then and it isn't now. Have a go at RJ (or the puppet master pushing him up the ladder) but leave Luna outta it.