Kerri Okie

Pollard may be an asshole, but he played for a number of years on our local NBA team. It was a great team and a lot of fun to watch, and Pollard was one of the reasons why, so I have a bit of a soft spot for him. I hope he doesn't blow it. Was the ice cream guy the mismatch on the Brains tribe? Not that guys who own ice cream stores can't be brainy, but I must have otherwise missed whatever it was that made him brainier than the average Joe.

I knew McDonald's was a sponsor last night during the Wrigley Field date when the camera pulled back on Ben and Jojo at the end of the evening and the golden arches were shining brightly in the background. That's probably why they didn't go to a nice restaurant for dinner, too, so Mickey D could get their big after-dark money shot. Hell, that dinner was probably catered by Ronald McDonald. I thought it was funny at the beginning when all the girls got to Warsaw and were talking about how they could live there. Uh, ladies, Ben lives in Denver. At least Emily got that part right when she said she'd happily be a cheerleader for the Denver Broncos. Not surprising at all was that Lauren B got the "meaningful" date, Jojo got the "fun" date, and Amanda got the "soccer mom hustling through the drive-thru" date.

For the moment, it's Schrodinger's baby. Until that baby is born and someone decides to do a DNA test, it could equally be Thomas's or Ridge's. Even then, it's nothing to change the paternity down the line at the drop of another DNA sample, which will probably happen some day, maybe years from now. Especially if you consider that half of Thomas's DNA comes from Ridge, a mix up in the lab is a no-brainer. The way this show is written, I wouldn't be surprised if Brad Bell himself hasn't decided who's the father yet.

I would agree with you 100% except for Maya and Rick, both of whom were complete dicks to everyone, until all of a sudden, they weren't. Or Deacon and Quinn, who were happy and in love until they weren't. Or the amount of time it takes anyone to fall in love on this show, or the number of actions that result in actual, you know, consequences. Since the underlying premise of this show seems to be "believe what we tell you until we tell you something else," (the "show" part being irrelevant), Thomas's "change" fits right in with the rest. It doesn't mean any one is going to buy it, but regardless, Show will press on with sparkly new Thomas whether we buy it or not. Sadly the only thing the writers have managed to consistently show over time at all is that there is no point applying the same standards that one would expect from any other show to this one.

Funny, I didn't really hate Po, but I was already sick to death of the weepy Shi footage and wasn't sure how I'd be able to stand a whole season of it, so I'm glad Po's gone. Though you'd think that having a sister who'd just gone through all of this a year ago, she of all people would have known what to expect.

Po, to camera: "Everyone knows me as Shi's sister, but I'm hoping to get to a point where I'm just Po and that's it." About one minute later: Harry: "Tell us about yourself." Po: "Well, I'm Shi's sister..." *facepalm*

He was taping last week.

According to SON, TK had appeared in 150 episodes as of December 1, more than any other cast member, all of whom, incidentally, live in LA. Even without any appearances in December he ended the year fourth in episode counts behind JMW, SC, and DB. That hardly sounds like someone who is holding back the show or any other actor. I don’t claim to know specifics about what goes on behind the scenes at B&B, but consider this scenario, which is a great deal more likely than an actor demanding six weeks off in the middle of a front burner story and Brad Bell just giving it to him. Most contract actors have a minimum number of episodes they are guaranteed to work for any given year. If they don't work, they get paid anyway. It makes a lot more sense to think that instead of paying TK to do more episodes than he had been contracted for, Bell put his story on hold and featured actors who had not yet reached their guarantee rather than paying them not to work. In that vein, every actor on the show negotiates his or her own contract independent of what any other actor negotiates. Whatever minimum number of episodes LG negotiated, surely she either worked those episodes or was paid for them if she didn’t, regardless of how many days anyone else on the show worked. As another poster said, Caroline has two front burner cousins she could be interacting with, along with her uncle and Maya for starters. If Bell isn't writing that for her, that's on him and no one else.

Heather Tom, Don Diamont, KKL, Rena Sofer, Sean Kanan, Jacob Young, and Karla Mosely have all gone long stretches of time this year without appearing on screen, some of them longer than TK has been gone. Other than KKL, who took time off to do DWTS in Italy, I don't recall being given any reason to believe their time off was at their request. I'm not sure why it's assumed TK's time off was at his.

Let's not forget Ridge flying to Dubai to stop Brooke and Bill from getting married. With regard to the retread writing and instantaneous personality changes, I choose not to watch it anymore, but I do feel sorry for the actors having to try to sell this garbage as believable, especially KKL, who had the better part of 2015 off only to come back to this again.

I may be dreaming this, but wasn't there a case earlier this season in which a key piece of evidence hinged on ChumHum using an individual's browser history for targeted advertising? If so, isn't this contradictory to what the show has already established as ChumHum's standard practice?

You mean the one from Aviaries 'R Us?

And the fake wide-eyed look of shock/fear/surprise/panic she has in almost every episode. It went way beyond my last nerve weeks and weeks ago.

Oh please let it be this! I'd give anything to see the smug crushed out of Rick and Maya after spending months congratulating each other and gloating and preparing for their royal offspring to arrive, only to find out they don't get to keep their little prize after all. The only drawback to that storyline is that there's no doubt in my mind that they will come out as the poor, wronged victims and Nicole will be the baddie for plotting to keep the truth from them, meaning she and everyone else will have to fall all over themselves for months and months to make it up to them. In fact, given that Ridge and Caroline are in almost the same story right now seems to up the odds that this will happen. Brad Bell's already notorious for recycling, so why not save the trouble of coming up with something new, and run the same story simultaneously with two different groups of characters?

I agree, and I don't have a problem with Brooke's behavior in this story at all. She's the one person who is thinking clearly about any of this. Ridge and Caroline sure didn't think it through before coming up with their cockamamie story. Why not just say they had an anonymous sperm donor? That would have taken care of everything and Brooke would have bought it. Did Ridge really tell Caroline yesterday that there's nothing more important than family? Uh, right. Tell that to the son he sent packing back to Paris to keep him from his unborn child. Or the son stowed away in boarding school somewhere, or the brother he stole his wife from. Or is "family" only the current wife and unborn child?

Even if Ridge were the father, there would be no Forrester genes. ;)

To be fair, nothing is a publicity disaster in this version of LA. Eric was worried that Caroline and Ridge making out behind Rick's back would be a publicity disaster, and no one outside the family blinked an eye. They were so sure that Maya's gender identity would be a publicity disaster, and it blew over just fine in a relatively short time. I haven't seen every minute of every episode of late, but I don't recall publicity being an issue, or have any reason to believe that the marriage would end if the paternity became public. Why would it? If Rick would turn his back on being CEO for Maya, certainly no one should expect any less from Ridge. My issue is less with Ridge offering to be a father to this child than it is the way he went about it. Caroline did try to say no about keeping the secret from Thomas but gave in to Ridge's repeated insistence that they do things his way, which was more ultimatum than offer. I know that mileage varies and there are those that would see what he did as romantic, but the fact is, she was in no condition to make a decision either way at that point. He should have seen that and backed off instead of pushing what he wanted on her.

But it's not Ridge's decision to make. Caroline is the mother of this child, and unless things change, Ridge is not the father. If Caroline feels strongly that Thomas should know, then it's her choice to tell or not tell. Ridge can counsel her to wait until she's had time to clear her head and think things through before making a decision, but browbeating her with what he decided they were going to do was way out of line. I love Quinn too. She needs a real story.

Sadly, every last bit of that painful honesty was just wiped out with Ridge's decree to Caroline not to tell Thomas about the baby. The level of self-righteousness and hypocrisy here is mind boggling. The thing is...it wasn't. Thomas has had a thing for Caroline since the minute he returned. That's why he went to Caroline's hotel room. It had nothing to do with Ridge, contrary to Ridge's Ridgecentric view of the world.