Aymery

I can understand Cam keeping his shirt on. I was checking his age and he only turned 18 last month, so perhaps not by the time the pool scene was filmed. (I also came across his most recent social media snap which is ... a shirtless pic, so I doubt the actor personally has an issue going shirtless.) But what I found bizarre was Spencer keeping his shirt on after he got dunked. The actor's 21 and has already been shirtless on the show. And given how flirtatious he is with Trina, I could totally see him thinking (wrongly) that it could be a way to get her onside to keep his lie going. If the show wanted to be in any way realistic, they would make at least one (or more) of the teens queer. Wasn't there some study recently which said more than half of their generation identify as something other than straight? Yet we've had no less than six teens (including Oscar and Dev) in this group and all of them are straight. God knows it would enliven Cam or Joss. They are just so white bread, and that's in spite of losing TWO of their friends. (I'm starting to think this show is deadly to teenage boys. Kiefer, Rafe Jr, Oscar, and Dev have all met their makers. Cam and TJ have done well to survive this long.) Then again, they can't even write for their LGBT adults like Lucas, Terry or Kristina, so having one of the teens identify as LGBT would probably be the death knell for their airtime/story-driving potential as far as GH is concerned.

I thought Rosie was short for Ambrosia - Amber named her kid after herself. Let's see: Thomas (Hamilton), Jack (Hamilton), Will (Logan) and Beth (Avalon) are the only kids with middle names, as far as we know. Thomas, Phoebe and Hope are the only ones with original names (well, Thomas is named for the island of St Thomas, just as Beth's middle name is derived from the island where she was born - and promptly stolen - but I think those are original enough). Did Margo name Mark after herself, or was that original, too? ETA: I suppose Diana Marone, Sheila's supposed baby with Massimo, was also an original name - if indeed she was their child. After that we had: CJ (Clarke) Rick (Eric) Bridget (Brooke + Ridge) Little Eric III (Eric & Rick) / DJ (Deacon) Steffy (Stephanie) Margaret/Mary/Erica Warwick (all namesakes) RJ (Ridge) Alexandria (Macy) Nicole and Dino (Nick) Jack (Jack Hamilton + Jackie Marone) Logan (Brooke/the Logan family) Will (Bill) Lizzie (Beth Logan) Douglas (Stephanie) Kelly (Liam's mom) Beth Avalon/Phoebe (Beth Logan again + Phoebe Forrester) Hayes (Taylor, or rather Blake!) Actually, now that I think about it, that's not a whole lot of births for a show that's been on the air for 34 years. Other shows have at least one birth a year. This averages out to about one every 2 years (once we exclude the stillbirths like the real Eric III and Nicole).

Other soaps have multiple actors shirtless in an episode but it's not attributed to the sexual desires of the headwriter. Do Y&R's traditional Fourth of July pool parties, or B&B's male modeling scenes, result in the same scrutiny of their respective writers?

You're absolutely right. Taylor's maiden name was Hamilton. She did keep her first husband's last name professionally because it was the name under which she started her career (and I think he funded her med school education?) but it beggars belief that they would give that name to her grandson. I can understand Finn not knowing, but Steffy?? And somebody in the writers' room must know too, since Hamilton was the middle name given to Taylor's one-time son, Jack Marone. But jeez, how hard is it to come up with an original name instead of always a namesake? (Who was the last baby to receive an original name: Hope? I suppose Beth has Avalon as a middle name.) And of all the namesakes to choose, why Taylor, who is nowhere to be seen during her children's various crises, a loose cannon who tried to murder the grandfather of Steffy's other child, and who dragged her into a black market baby scam? Ridge, Eric or Forrest would make more sense. FF (Forrest Finnegan) would be an apt name for the couple that spawned him. (Too bad the male version of Phoebe is the very unappealing Phoebus. I still think Phoebe should've been Kelly's name, instead of a character we never met.) And yeah, I also thought the water birth scene, which dragged on for way too long - really, two whole episodes for a nontraumatic birth? - resembled something else entirely with shirtless Finn in the water with Steffy, clutching and kissing her incessantly. I'm looking forward to tomorrow and Brooke blowing up Quinn's marriage. Hopefully Quinn doesn't wiggle her way out of it somehow. Why didn't Paris come down with Brooke to back her up?

I certainly had no qualms about seeing Carter in his undies, because I honestly don't know what else the actor brings to the table. Considering it's been a year of socially distanced love scenes, some eye candy is definitely a welcome substitute - I don't know why it took them so long. And frankly, for a show whose audience is predominantly women (and some gay men), it's bewilderingly slanted towards showcasing the actresses in their skivvies. I mean, in the past year alone I can remember Flo, Sally, Zoe and Brooke all in seductress mode parading around in lingerie - where was the male equivalent with Thomas or Wyatt? Heck, this show took about 25 years to introduce a male fashion counterpart to Brooke's Bedroom, and then had the guys do the catwalk in pajama bottoms! Yeah, the mind boggles at the inappropriateness of Eric discussing his and Quinn's bedroom issues with his son - who, on top of that, also had an affair with Quinn. These characters really need friends, which is why killing off Thomas's best friend Vinny - even if their friendship was a retcon - is just another bone-headed move on their part. I guess Quinn has Shauna, and Ridge is apparently now besties with Carter, but that's it. Hope, Thomas, Liam, Eric, Brooke and Katie would really benefit from having friends who are not relatives, exes or love rivals. Who else remembers Brooke's friend, Megan the receptionist? They should have recurring characters like that, and if they get a positive audience reaction, they can build out a family for them. Why couldn't Vinny have had a single mother (potential love interest for Ridge or Bill) and a few siblings (potential love interest for the younger generation). They wouldn't need to bring them on all at once; have the siblings studying/working in another state and bring them on later. And there's Vinny's grieving girlfriend. These characters should be here now. Bill could be comforting Vinny's mother and have the whole messy drama explode once the truth comes out that he's been hiding his own son's role in her son's death.

I just want to address the point about the Bell family being conservative, because I really don't think that's the case. We may have our grouses against the writing capabilities of the current Bells, but it's not fair to simply tar and feather the whole clan especially when the evidence suggests quite the opposite. Bill Bell, Sr. in particular was seen as progressive in his writing. He wanted to introduce a lesbian romance (involving Katherine Chancellor!) back in the early '70s, which was shot down by the execs. He also brought on a Black family to Y&R who were prominently featured throughout his tenure (although the occasional stereotype reared its ugly head) - that may not seem like a great feat, but remember that years later, the attempted pairing of Neil Winters and Victoria Newman on the same soap actually prompted a tidal wave of hate mail from viewers complaining about "miscegenation". Under the senior Bells' pen, B&B prominently featured scandalous stories like Brooke sleeping with, and becoming pregnant by, father and son - where the father also had a romantic history with her mother. There was a long-running story about Jessica's boyfriend Dylan who was a male stripper (and involved with both mother and daughter). He was preceded by Don Diamont over on Y&R playing a frequently half-naked pool boy, Jill fantasizing about younger men, etc. Just a few years ago Brad Bell said his mother Lee was the one urging him that Ridge should get his shirt off more often! The Bells' daughter-in-law Maria (wife of Bill, Jr.) was head scribe at Y&R where she introduced their first gay characters and was on the cusp of revealing Noah Newman - grandson of Victor and Nikki, son of Nick and Sharon - as gay, when execs pulled the plug on both the story and her employment. Mind you, her writing was atrocious with a particularly noticeable overreliance on doppelgangers, but it's very telling that the final straw for the execs was the coming-out of a legacy character, which was the only story of hers they axed. And then there's Brad Bell, our current head of B&B. We might rightly criticize the complete absence of gay men in his portrayal of the fashion industry, or the dearth of Latinx characters in a city where they make up 40% of the population, but he did introduce American daytime's first regular trans character - albeit one played by a cis actress - and placed her in a prominent romance with the son of the show's two remaining original characters. GH does have a trans character (played by a trans actress) on recurring, but she rarely appears and never has her own story; aside from that, there is no trans representation on daytime since Maya's departure. And although the latest infusion of Black characters may be seen as pandering in light of the recent spotlight on racial equality and representation, he did bring on the Avant family and Zende before that kicked off, all of whom had prominent storylines. All of this indicates to me that the Bells are hardly conservative, but they have been constrained by execs who either pander to a very vocal minority of viewers, foreign markets (particularly in the case of B&B, which enjoys a following in Italy, the Middle East and Asia) and/or nurse their own prejudices. Now whether it's CBS or Sony (or both) that's the problem I have no idea. I do recall that when ATWT introduced a gay couple, they were almost immediately forced to suspend all intimacy between the characters due to a conservative backlash. Now, the Cordays over on Days are a different story. Their current head, Ken, is on record espousing conservative views (and attributing them to his late parents) to keep that show from progressing. The disgusting way he killed off Will Horton, after permitting his coming-out with the greatest reluctance, speaks for itself.

I assume Finn knows his brother's birthday and it's not exactly difficult to date his ONS with Jackie if it happened the night before the wedding. So if Finn was born circa 9 months after the wedding ... You know, the only reason I will support the (weak) Lucas recast is if they intend to give him a new love interest and Ryan Carnes was not available for more airtime, as I do remember he didn't want to be made a regular. But as it stands, I don't see any development on that front - Lucas is little more than a glorified dayplayer at this point and there's no sign of another gay man in sight. Heck, now that Brando no longer resembles Lucas, they could hook them up?

If Gwen did actually sleep with Chad and got pregnant by him, and it turns out she is also Jack and Laura's love child, that would make her baby: Thomas and Charlotte's sibling via their dad Thomas and Charlotte's first cousin via their grandpa Jack Thomas and Charlotte's first cousin once removed via their great-grandma Laura Said baby would also be: Abby's stepchild Abby's niece/nephew Abby's cousin It would almost make the lunacy worth it. Almost.

A big leap from Tripp threatening the woman he believed murdered his helpless mother in her hospital bed to force a confession from her, to accusing him of being a rapist. Was there ever an indication he wanted to murder Kayla? In fact, wasn't Tripp first introduced onscreen getting into a fight with the owner of the diner where he worked because the guy tried to molest a female employee?

So now Finn joins the unholy trinity of Steffy's defenders (the first two spots taken by Ridge and Taylor) where she constantly falls "victim" to men who "take advantage" of her. She has no agency, no willpower, no culpability and apparently no consent when it comes to who she sleeps with. And it's all the more galling when you consider that Finn is the BETRAYED party here. And STILL he wants to defend her and say Liam "made" her sleep with him. Look, it's a flimsy excuse but Liam at least had one: he thought Hope had cheated on him first. Of course, a decent person would at least wait to break up before jumping into bed with another woman, but that's not how Liam rolls. Decency isn't in his vocab. But the point is - he had an excuse. What the heck was Steffy's excuse? What did Finn do to deserve being cheated on? He can rail at Liam all he wants, but the person who betrayed him, who hurt him, is Steffy. As long as he can't recognize that, and wants to make excuses for her, he isn't some shining example of truth and courage. He is just another whipped member of "Poor Innocent Steffy Was Taken Advantage Of By Bad Spencer Men" club. It was one thing for her PARENTS to cook up this skewed view of the world where their only surviving daughter was concerned; another completely for the boyfriend who's been cheated on. And on the side of the equation, we have Hope being pilloried for still hanging around Thomas - a guy for whom she has NEVER once shown romantic feelings. He has always been the pursuer. There's never been any indication that his feelings are reciprocated. Dude even had to score some drugs from Vinnie on their freakin' WEDDING NIGHT because he knew there was no other way he would get her into his bed. And yet .... and yet ... we're told Hope has been encouraging his delusions. That she has some culpability in his actions, and therefore in Liam and Steffy's. STEFFY! Lord, wake me up when the world is the right way up again. Watching this show seems to demand a complete absence of logic and sanity.

At this point, they should bite the bullet and chem-test Michael with another dude. Chad just doesn't click romantically with the actresses he's been paired with. They can even explain away the late realization with the trauma caused by Michael's prison rape. (Although I do wonder what Chad would apply his open-mouthed "boobies" look to if they gave him a gay love scene: Felix dropping his drawers?) And if that fails, they should just go with him being asexual. In one stroke they get to keep Chad Duell on (I assume that's their primary motive) and tick another diversity representation box since I don't think asexuals have ever been portrayed on US daytime.

Pretty sure Casey Moss has both dark brown hair and abs, so I doubt that's why he's off the show. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather they write out Ben (and Eli - neither impresses me from the acting standpoint) and keep JJ. I just don't think his short stint was for the reasons you suggested. And given the choice of love interests (Gabi and Lani) I think he had a lucky escape. Or, since he has form with older women, he might've wound up in Jake's storyline and helped Kate complete the trifecta.

Can someone remind me what the timeline was for Bridget's paternity reveal? IIRC, Brooke never had any doubt that Ridge was her daughter's father, until Eric reminded her that they'd slept together when she was hopped up on some strong flu meds. Were they estranged at the time of the BeLieF lab boink? And how much time passed before that reveal was made? Was this around the time Hunter Tylo demanded that Taylor be the only one for Ridge, and that's why they didn't allow Brooke to be the mother of his firstborn? How the hell did she even get that kind of clout on set anyway? It always struck me as a recon that they would reveal the child named after Bridge to be Eric's, and give Beric - who were never a supercouple - a second kid.

How is she "sniffing" around Thomas? I did not see ANY of that play out onscreen. She took her son to see his father. She did not express any romantic interest in him. Not for one second. Liam is not right in the slightest. Maybe we will have Hope bond with Thomas as he recovers from this medical crisis and she reels from her husband's betrayal, but that story is yet to come, if it ever does. How often must Hope mention her daughter? Most of the kids are offscreen even in normal times, and these are not normal times so I doubt the parents of the child actor(s) who play Beth want their baby on set. Douglas is in play because of the story with his dad, and Kelly was mentioned frequently during Steffy's addiction storyline. Certainly I have NEVER seen any behavior from Hope that constitutes child endangerment (that would be Steffy with Kelly) for her to have her child taken away from her. Nor have I EVER seen any interest in being a part of Beth's life from Steffy, unlike Hope who has been involved in Kelly's a fair bit this past year. I don't blame Steffy for not wanting to get close to the child she illegally adopted and then lost (thanks in part to her and her mother's massive sense of entitlement of wanting a baby and wanting it NOW that they paid for the privilege) but we certainly see NO reason whatsoever for Hope to lose Beth again and for Steffy to be the one to "mother" her again. Equal blame on Hope - for taking her son to meet his dad? And Liam "truly worried for her safety being around Thomas" - yet dashes off without doing anything when he sees Thomas kissing her in a darkened room, while she says nothing? He KNOWS that Thomas is not beyond trying to drug Hope, right? Hope did NOT bring all this on herself. That is like blaming a rape victim for dressing in a short skirt. Hope has done nothing to encourage Thomas. FGS, she has showed over and over again that she is not interested in Thomas that way, even when she was married to him for a hot minute! Thomas's obsession with her is being furthered by his own delusions about a mannequin that resembles Hope - not Hope herself. I'm done with all this baseless blaming of Hope, while Steffy - the fool who actually got into bed with Liam, who got into bed with HIS FATHER, who got high while she was supposed to be minding her daughter - gets to skate and is actually suggested as having better parenting potential to the child SHE STOLE. GMAB! As far as I'm concerned, Steffy deserves Liam. If she can get into bed with him under these circumstances, when he's married to Hope, and she herself is in a relationship with someone else, then she deserves all the heartache coming her way. (I am sure she will skate again though, just like she skated for raping him when he was drugged by her brother, and just like when she got both her parents declaring she'd been raped by Bill.) I do think the story beats have been poorly played out here - Liam should've been unaware of the mannequin, and Steffy should still have been sneaking around on drugs (maybe she left rehab too early), to even remotely justify this development. As it stands, they are both mega jerks and a perfect pair. Hope will be well rid. I just hope she gets a better love interest than Thomas.

I didn't get that either - at least not from the promo. Even her own son has a WTF look on his face when she suggests it's remotely possible for them to be a family with Patch, whom Tripp knows she raped the last time she was in Salem. Not saying it ain't possible, considering a serial killer is now the show's hero, but it's not in the promo.

I don't know how soap executives view their audiences through the prism of race but they definitely seem to view them as a monolith of conservatism. Gay storylines/couples have been blamed for declining ratings on ATWT, GL, OLTL, AMC, Days, Y&R and GH - and, in the case of the first four, their cancellations. There are undoubtedly some very vocal conservative fans but it seems like they're the only ones to whom soap pander. Remember it was not all that long ago when Heather Tom, Kristoff St John and Y&R/CBS were getting hate mail by the dozens for "promoting miscegenation" by teasing a potential romance between the characters of Victoria Newman and Neil Winters. I don't know how B&B viewers reacted to POC like Usher and Michael Lai who were both involved in interracial romances during the same era. If something like that could happen 3 DECADES after the civil rights movement, how might same-sex relationships be regarded five years after the legalization of same-sex marriage? It is especially telling that, Maria Bell had committed many missteps in her tenure as Y&R's head writer but TPTB did not see fit to fire her until she decided to reveal that one of the show's legacy characters was gay. Never mind that Noah Newman's coming out was the culmination of a months-long arc which had been (relative to some of her other big twists) well-developed. They actually canned material that had already been filmed and fired the actor playing Noah (which was lucky, because he was the one who shed light on what had gone down behind the scenes). Ultimately, I think this pandering has massively damaged soaps and curtailed their ability to move forward with the times and engage new audiences. Young viewers would much rather watch progressive content on streaming services than stick with their grandmother's soap where gay people (and Latinos) don't exist in Los Angeles, people offer up engagement rings after one date without even sleeping together, rape is not regarded as a crime, and mental illness is played for laughs. In some ways these soaps have become even more retrograde than they were in the '90s, when they at least led in bringing social issues to the forefront like homelessness, domestic abuse, AIDS, and even coming-out, which was portrayed back in the '80s on ATWT, a soap set in semi-rural Illinois ... yet according to B&B, the fashion industry in 2020 Los Angeles is the sole preserve of straight men. Okay then ...

Man, Evan looks good. Would've loved to have him onscreen as a love interest for Will or Paul instead of turned into the killer of the day in service of the latest Ben-propping story. What are the odds on Tripp faking the paternity test results? The November 4th spoiler certainly sounds like he knows about it and might have done something to alter the results. If he really is a rapist though, I don't know why he didn't do a better job covering up his crime - instead of admitting she took her clothes off in front of him, denying that he was also drunk, claiming their encounter was consensual, etc. Surely he understands the existence of baby Henry leaves him open to suspicion. Even if he doesn't take the test, he has plenty of other family members - several of them related to Allie - who might provide a DNA sample that would indicate a familial relation to Henry's bio-dad. The whole story leaves a bad taste in my mouth by reducing it to a "he said, she said" debate.

Six weeks is a much more manageable lag between taping and broadcast. They might actually have a fighting chance of re-jigging stories which are falling flat with the audience - like this "she said, he said" nonsense between Allie and Tripp.

I saw the actor on the Hulu teen drama Love, Victor - he plays the best friend to the title character and has pretty good comic timing; at least a couple of reviews singled him out for praise. So either his acting has improved or B&B just did not know how to use him properly. RJ should absolutely be a key part of the show, considering who his parents are. My main grouse with the previous actor was that he was too dorky-looking. It works for his character on Love, Victor - not so much for the only biological child of two of LA's most desirable people, unless it was to be addressed as something his character struggles with (not being conventionally attractive despite his parents). I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: they should just go ahead and make him that rarest of breeds on daytime soaps - a bisexual male. With Ridge and Brooke as LA's most desired people, it follows that their son would be desirable to both men and women. But I know CBS won't go there, after the backlash they got when they put out a casting call for a bisexual guy named Christian a few years ago, on the heels right of all the positive buzz for Maya's trans reveal. IIRC, the character was supposed to be Latino (which would have gone some way towards helping their diversity problem, which is still glaring in a city where nearly half the population has Hispanic heritage) and speculation was rife that he'd be an alternate love interest for Zende), Most of the ire focused on the character's name, which was an easily addressable problem - just rename him Christopher or something entirely different. Instead they went with the knee-jerk reaction of cancelling the casting call entirely. They did the same thing after Brad Bell's sister-in-law Maria Bell was fired from Y&R and they not only yanked scenes of Noah Newman revealing his homosexuality but recast the actor with someone way too old to play Nick and Sharon's son. I tend to think this is a CBS problem, rather than with either of the Bells. After all, Bill Bell, Sr. wanted to give Katherine Chancellor a lesbian affair on Y&R way back in the 1970s. With none of the soaps featuring regular queer male characters at present, it might just work to B&B's advantage to do this story. After all, Zende is back onscreen. Maybe his breakup with Nicole occurred because she cottoned onto his attraction to other men. They could bring back a coworker from the Paris office, or better yet a conniving male model who wants to get into his pants instead of Zoe's previously-unheard sister. And make the mystery character Eric Forrester III, wanting revenge on the Forrester clan for discarding him while Zende - similarly adopted - continues to enjoy the perks and privileges of being a Forrester. It would give Hope a story beyond worrying about Liam's pull towards Steffy.

I'm disappointed that Brooke took Ridge back, but then it was always a foregone conclusion. I hope they are going to be back-burnered now. I can't believe this, rather than Steffy's drug addiction, is the story they chose to drag out for months - and I'm sure it would have gone on even longer if Denise Richards had been available to film on-set. I am glad that Brooke "won" (though Ridge is certainly no prize) because that means the criminals Shauna and Quinn - you know, the pair who impersonated a man communicating with his lawyer and dragged him drunk to a chapel for a wedding ceremony he can't remember - did not. They may not face the legal consequences of their crimes, but at least they did not get this "victory". There's an interview with the nuZende actor where he talks about being star-struck by Denise Richards when he arrived on set. I was perplexed by that. I wouldn't have thought she rated highly in his age group, plus she does not look as she did in her heyday. Am I the only one who finds it incredibly insensitive - if not downright insulting - that B&B's reaction to BLM is to give Carter a pointless and unearned promotion to the C-suite, and to throw all the Black characters into the same dating pool? And could they not, at the very least, have introduced (or reintroduced) a Latinx character, who despite forming a large chunk of Greater LA's population, are even less represented on B&B, which has had the Avants and Waltons in front-burner stories during the recent past. I don't think there have been any Latinx families on the show since Taylor dated Hector Ramirez. And no Asian-Americans since Michael two decades ago. And absolutely no gay men in the fashion industry ... okay I'll stop now. I will say it's a shame they cast Delon as Zende instead of as Xander - I certainly wouldn't have minded seeing him model for the Intimates line. For once they really could try to have the guy work for it instead of the girl always playing seductress. But yeah, it's glaringly obvious the show is run by straight men.

I think that's more on the wardrobe department than it is on Chad. He's worn boxer-briefs before, multiple times (most notably during the Magic Milo performances). So I don't think he refused to wear them; it just wasn't what wardrobe provided him. In fact, I can't remember the last time any guy on GH appeared in boxer-briefs. Julian's last scene was in boxers, too. It does make this show's leading men look lame in comparison to the other three soaps - especially since the women in those love scenes are left in nothing but skimpy panties after discarding their bras. I remember Kiki had everything hanging out on this show but Griffin (another guy who did the Magic Milo act) kept his trousers on. Definitely not a new thing.

Well, Hope has two half-brothers, a nephew and at least one more grand-nephew. Not sure she'd necessarily want to visit them permanently though, given that none of them have been mentioned, let alone seen, in decades. They should have written her out together with Shawn-Douglas, Belle and Claire (and give them another kid - adoption, whatever, I don't care. At this rate the Brady name is going to die out just like the Hortons).

I suspect the charges pertaining to his rape of another boy would likely had led Monty's killer(s) to the same assumption as his dad, that he was gay. I don't know about you, but given the last we saw of Monty alive, I wouldn't have been surprised if he did/said something with the intention of provoking another inmate to end his life. I doubt Monty's homophobic dad regrets his son's murder, so if he were to sue, it would only be for the money.

I really wish they hadn't killed off Justin. I get that they wanted to bookend the show with another person close to Clay losing their life because they didn't open up and get help in time, but it felt like Justin didn't need to die for that lesson to get across to Clay. After all the character development that went into Justin, redeeming him from the guy who watched his girlfriend get raped and did nothing, going through the painful journey of turning his life around after a childhood of misery and abuse, to have that taken away from him was just cruel. And worst of all - it didn't technically serve the central message because Justin did open up: his homelessness and drug issues were out in the open; he'd revealed the sex abuse he underwent as a kid and even stood up as a survivor; and he'd spoken about his prostitution work last season. They could have given him HIV from the IV drug use/sex work, had him close to death, and Clay could still have had his rant about "why did he let himself get so sick?" to his therapist, with the reply that "you really don't know why someone would think they weren't worth saving?" That being said - I don't get all the hate for Clay. I know there are moments (especially this season) when his behavior was grating, and his problems may seem minor compared to some of the other kids who are victims of rape, physical and sexual abuse by parental figures, homelessness, addiction, disability, sexual repression, etc. but his problems are still real - they're still valid. They were enough to drive him to the point of wanting to commit suicide by cop (which is what it came across as, despite Clay's denials and his therapist's concurrence). I was appalled that the reaction to Clay's breakdown from some quarters was "damn it, he got away with his BS because of his privilege" and not "if only cops showed the same restraint and empathy with every troubled person they encounter". I guess it is a combination of his whiteness, maleness, straightness and middle-class status that makes it easy to dismiss his problems out of hand, but I feel like the key message that "we all bleed the same, and need to be there for one another" is not getting across, even after four whole seasons of this show. Along the same lines, I don't think there was a need to "humanize" Bryce or Monty ... not because they weren't human beings, but because they were. People are multifaceted. Obviously both guys were a-holes, rapists and bullies, but that didn't mean they had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. (Painfully few, perhaps, but they did have them nonetheless.) Nor did their crimes warrant a death sentence - particularly in the case of Monty, whose murder was ultimately the result of extreme homophobia. (I don't buy that he was killed for being a child molester - he was only a year older than Tyler, and was he even 18 at the time he committed the crime? He might have faced a tough time in prison as a sex offender, but it was the fact that he was gay that signed his death warrant.) With a father like his, Monty was screwed from the outset. How was a kid growing up in an environment of toxic masculinity - both at home and at school, as part of the football team (don't get me started on the bizarreness of the largely misogynistic team actually rooting for two queer boys as prom kings) - expected to embrace his homosexuality? Not that he should have chosen the outlets for his repressed feelings that he did, or justify them in any way, but it does feed into the overall narrative. How differently might things have turned out if Monty had been able to speak up about his father's abuse and get away from that toxic home environment? If he felt he could open up to someone - a friend, a teammate, a teacher, his mother, a counselor/therapist - about his sexual orientation? There's a good chance he wouldn't have resorted to raping Tyler and winding up in prison with a target on his back. So, in a way, his was also a cautionary tale of emotional repression leading to fatal outcomes. I agree it was hugely problematic that Winston believed himself to be "in love" with someone who gay-bashed him, but I don't think that he was wrong for wishing to clear Monty's name of murder - because that was (and remains) a major injustice. It's not like Monty was getting away with the crime he had committed; he was in prison for the assault on Tyler. And he was ultimately the victim of a totally disproportionate punishment when he was killed. Winston didn't need to be in love with Monty to want justice for him - he had an idea of why Monty was the way he was, and it would chafe any right-minded person that Monty hadn't just lost his life senselessly to homophobia, but was now also being framed as a murderer - which Winston knew for a fact was impossible. It was adding insult to injury. And their dream sequence dance at prom indicates that Winston himself knew, deep down, that Monty was not boyfriend material. It wasn't Monty's (non-existent) ghost that communicated that to him; it was Winston's own subconscious. It's understandable that, as a queer boy, he was driven by the desire to right the injustice of having a murdered queer boy framed for an even worse crime. And it adds another dimension to why he finally decides to let Alex get away with Bryce's murder. I don't think he could bring himself to sentence another gay boy (one he'd loved) to the same prison where Monty had become the victim of a homophobic killing.

Dillon did perform in Magic Milo the last year they had it (2016). I always wondered how Bryan Craig (Morgan) got out of doing it. Besides Chase, Curtis, Dustin (who I find incredibly sexy since he was Brody on OLTL, although the actor's social media posts have left me less enamored of him) other candidates would be nuTJ, Peter and Felix. Including Milo, that's more than enough for two years. After enduring unkind comments about his physique, Chad Duell posted on social media about hitting the gym harder and is looking more toned. I felt bad for him because I didn't see anything wrong with his body in the Magic Milo scenes. He looked a perfectly healthy weight and a natural color - not like he visited a tanning salon immediately pre-taping.