dovegrey

I feel like this must have been the only scene KA was shown to get a sense of the character. 🙃 About the episode: Liam just looked confused. About Hope’s shoulders. 🤷‍♂️ Finn’s travel, social time with colleagues at the hospital, and entire appointment took, what, 45 minutes total, if all conversation with Steffy/Li and Steffy/Taylor was contiguous and not missing chunks of time? He totally didn’t go. I wonder how long Finn will have that scar (also surprised they remembered…unlike no one remembering that Steffy got shot or even giving her a scar). For as much as he’s shirtless, no way they keep the makeup going for long. But I wonder if the writers are slowly building up that he’s not as healthy as he keeps saying. They’ve had dialogue about his health in almost every episode since he was discovered alive (what a MIRACLE Finn is ~ALIVE~), and Finn keeps laughing it all off. Maybe Steffy will get her time not being depressed at his bedside after all. Taylor acts like she and Steffy are sisters. For as desperate as Brooke has been sounding lately, I don’t understand her approach of “let Taylor have her special family moment with him. He’ll probably come back.” I’d love it if Brooke already suspects what happened and is biding her time until she tells him to GTFO. (…and they bring in Jack for a chem test…?) Taylor needs to get a hobby or find a coffee shop, so she’s not flitting around FC when Finn and Steffy want to have sex without her permission. Move out, World Renowned Psychiatrist, instead of inviting Ridge to move in. (Or have Sinn move to a place that hasn't been occupied by all of Steffy's past husbands.)

And from Jack’s perspective, what were the chances that Finn would not only move to LA, and not only somehow meet a Forrester, and not only marry that Forrester, but damn near immediately father a Forrester child? I understand why he never told Finn about Sheila; she's a person you fight like hell to keep out of your life for as long as possible, and Finn would have definitely tried to find her. Jack messed up (and kept messing up, often selfishly), but what a way for a guy's every worst nightmare to keep coming true. I liked Li's semi-concession about hindsight being 50/50, yet I also think Steffy made decent points today. Neither are wrong: Steffy deserved to know, and Li did what she had to do based on decisions that felt right to her in those moments. Just say that and ask what needs to happen to move past the issue for the sake of the person they're fighting over. Done. But Li doesn't fear/respect Steffy, and Steffy certainly can't live with that, so I imagine this will get dragged for a while. When Ridge joked that he and Bill are getting a place together, I thought that would be a hell of a way to finally end the triangle with Brooke and Taylor.

The show needs a lot of new blood in general (that isn’t only used to prop legacy characters) and/or storylines that don’t involve drama from randomly screwing each other. The cast is too small. (Or they need to start looking at endgame, sorry to say. How many years do the last three network soaps have?) I can’t imagine Sinn won’t divorce/separate at least once, which doesn’t leave either character many romantic choices. Steffy has slept with every non-Forrester/Finnegan male character on the canvas, right? Can’t wait for something like Finn/Brooke in a few years...maybe that would finally kibosh all the “Finn is ALIVE! What a miracle!” stuff. 😝

This. Finn was introduced as a love interest for Steffy, was never really developed outside of Steffy, and has really only served as a story vehicle for her. Most of the pre-shooting Sheila story was more about Steffy and the Forresters than Finn. His “death” was and still is more about Steffy than him. His recovery is more about her than him (so far). Stuff happens to Finn so it can be about Steffy. It’s hard to feel the epic OTL romance in a pairing that only has one real character. Then July happened with the Finn/Sheila one-on-one storyline, which showed that Finn (and Novlan) is far better as a deeply troubled standalone character than as Steffy’s Dr. Perfect Trophy Husband. It's boring and disappointing to see him go back to status quo.

LOL Li all but told Steffy that Finn married into declasse tabloid trash, while Steffy's huffing and puffing in tacky leopard print pajama pants 🤣. I’d love to know more about where Li and Jack came from and their wealth. Even when Li told Bill and Liam about Finn being alive, I thought she completely undersold the situation. For all she knew, Finn was still comatose or even dead without her undivided care, but she didn’t tell either of them that (onscreen). Today, she didn’t tell Steffy that Finn was nothing more than a breathing body with no higher brain functions until seconds before Sheila nearly murdered Li. Way to constantly bury the lede, Li. After being pronounced braindead, Finn should be dead or vegetative for the rest of his life, with Li and Steffy fighting over when to stop feeding him. Not exactly the untold, no-stress, no-depression, the-kids-are-alright love story Steffy thinks she missed out on. Either way, Steffy needs to drop it and at all costs avoid putting Finn in the middle. If she meant what she said in Monaco, she'll put him first and not rampage against yet another one of his mothers. (And I hope he gets bad medical news and hides it from her. 🙃) Brooke is coming off as so painfully desperate.

Okay, so I apparently have a lot of thoughts about this (after a loooong day at work), so here goes... I really, really, really don’t want the show to handwave what Finn has been through (and I don’t want his storyline to become all about Steffy, like it always does), but… Finn probably hasn’t even been in Monaco for more than 8 hours yet, and he likely hasn’t even been free from Sheila for more than 24 hours, even with the 14-15 hour flight. (It’s still daylight in Monaco, and the LA scenes are still the same night when Lope announced Finn was alive and everyone ate pizza.) Since Finn refused to sleep on Bill’s jet, he hasn’t even slept since the last time Sheila drugged him. Yikes. All that means he hasn’t possibly had a chance to process dying or what happened with Sheila. He’s been in constant crisis since he woke up, he immediately flew across the world once able, and now he finds his wife/support system struggling pretty hard. Steffy's had time to process and fall into a traumatic depression. He hasn't. And he’s not going to unload on Steffy about what Sheila did or that he tried to strangle her to death, which is probably why he keeps foo-fooing Steffy's questions. So, while I’m not surprised his sole focus is Steffy right now, I’m hoping the writers don't neglect to give him a good payoff storyline. Bells ringing and bad dialogue in Monaco ain’t it. What I’m really hoping is that Steffy being messed up and Finn being messed up, but in totally different ways, is the inevitable drama wrench that gets thrown at Sinn after this (anything but Liam). And Finn still doesn’t know Sheila got away from Deputy Chief Hotdog, right? 😬 🎆

I don't think she's giving off "I missed you" vibes, because she's still shellshocked and not able to accept that he's really alive; it's why she keeps defaulting to "this feels like a dream, I saw you die, how are you here." It's not even been a whole day since Finn landed in Monte Carlo, first met with Tridge, and ran off to find Steffy. Maybe going home will help. But Finn's not helping by acting like Sheila and mostly refusing to talk about what happened and shutting Steffy down when she asks. Steffy needs to hear what happened, but he just needs to be with Steffy without thinking about Sheila. I don't trust the writing on this show, but I think he's drowning as much as Steffy is, and they're in very different places. With the anger... yeah. Steffy's gratitude to Li on the phone call surprised me. I wonder if that'll last.

They need to recast Hayes. The poor kid doesn’t want anything to do with filming, and Novlan has spent most of those scenes trying to prevent an infant meltdown. (In the couple of hours Finn has been in Monaco, how many times has Hayes been so ready for a nap LOL.) That said, I liked the emotional cracks Finn showed when lamenting Hayes having gotten so big; I’d take more of that over endless variations of Steffy whispering “this is a dream, I can’t stop staring at you, OMG hoooow.” Beyond that, I liked the Sinn energy when Finn joked about wanting to stay because he’d never been to Monaco, and Steffy, for one split second, reciprocated it. They’re much better when the dialogue isn’t socially inept sap on repeat. Sorry, but, once the shine wears off, I can’t imagine Steffy not taking Finn and their marriage for granted. She spent the better part of the last year ranting about Sheila, Thomas, and even Deacon during makeout/sex scenes. And she wasted their “last” morning together being so fixated on Thomas/Sheila that she completely shut Finn down and scampered off to stir all the shit. I'd love to think Steffy learned from that, but... The minute she sees the Hope+Deacon/Brooke photo tagged at FC, Finn’s going back to Afterthought Land. I give very little cares about Ridge and Taylor...but what are the chances that the helicopter papped them kissing? Ridge was recognized by strangers a few episodes ago, wasn't he?

Reading that review of the episode and with the emphasis on Mabel's trauma causing her to black out - which was never "a thing" last season, despite her estranged childhood friend being the murder victim - has me thinking that it's going to be hard for the show to balance the clues with the ultimate reveal/payoff. What is now so personally traumatic about Bunny's death and the identity of the killer that Mabel is consistently blacking it out? The only person I can think of would be Oscar, but he's nowhere on the show's radar. (If this was a really different show, I'd actually think it was Tie Dye Oscar who was killed that night, and Mabel's been confabulating all memories about it with Bunny. I don't actually think that's what's happening.)

Steffy is all kinds of messed up. For Steffy’s sake, the World Renowned Psychiatrist might have considered that a better plan would have been for Taylor or Ridge to find her, sit her down, gently tell her that Finn survived, have her listen to his voicemails, and then have the two meet up. It wouldn't have "fixed" Steffy and everything they've both gone through, but she thinks she's hallucinating, and the shock of just suddenly seeing him alive out of absolute nowhere was too much of a jolt to her system. But I guess Finn crashing through Steffy's wall like the Kool-Aid man on speed makes a great "happily ever after" love story for Taylor's social media (WTF with that photo, Taylor). Very, very, very tired of Sheila. Someone needs to push her off a steep cliff for the next five years. I'm happy that Finn thought of his dad. That's a reunion and sit-down that I hope the writers don't skip over. (Though for as much talking as all these characters do, nothing is ever really said, so maybe not.) I feel like we’re going to be hearing “Finn is ALIVE! He and Steffy are TOGETHER! It's so WONDERFUL!” through Christmas.

Now that Deacon absolutely sees how absolutely nuts Sheila is… is turning her into the officers that are literally knocking on his door really a stumper? Or is he going to somehow hide her, because he's afraid the police won't believe that he wasn't harboring her? Also not a huge Steffy fan, but I actually felt bad for her when she saw Finn in the distance. He would have seemed like a full-blown hallucination, and that's exactly how she physically reacted to him. I think it'd be hard to ever go back to normal with someone after thinking they were dead for months (and, uh, watching that person choke on their own blood and say goodbye), and I wonder how the show is going to play it for both of them. Other than that, I’m disappointed that JMW couldn’t spare any tears again. Maybe tomorrow. I LOL'd when Finn visibly couldn't have cared any less about Flavia. It kinda did only take 13 minutes, though. 😂 I have a bigger problem with Finn being physically able to navigate the town without any trouble; all the steps, inclines, and declines should be absolutely brutal for a person who could barely walk without grabbing things for support, what, 20 hours ago (at best). These dense mountain villages are built like intestines and take stamina.

I’m hoping that Finn understands now why Jack essentially stole him from Sheila and kept all of it a lifelong secret. I get the sense that Finn deeply regrets ever meeting her and even knowing about her. I don’t see Li forgiving Jack but I could actually see Finn getting there after all of this. If Finn were to not want Hayes to know about Sheila, then I think he could come to accept why Jack lied to him. I’d love to see a “thank you” scene (for making sure Sheila didn’t raise him)…but also an angry “how long were you waiting for me to turn out like her??” scene. There’s a lot there to mine for a story. P.S. I’m on my phone and accidentally took out the quote about Li - I hate jail/prison/court storylines so I’m biased LOL. Let’s just get on with BillLi. 😅

This is more of a general comment on the ramifications Li may be facing... With how the police handled the non-investigation of Finn’s murder, where Ridge and Taylor didn’t even know that he and Steffy didn’t arrive at the restaurant together (which means the police didn’t do even a basic investigation, like talking to witnesses, checking cameras, verifying Finn's work schedule) and IIRC Baker never complained about a missing autopsy/body/coroner’s report, I’ll cry foul if they actually investigate Li and are able to build a case. Maybe if she turns herself in? Because I'd spin it like this: The attending physician said Finn was dead and had taken him off life support, Li accordingly signed the death certificate (real world handwave) and took her son’s lifeless body for burial wherever the Finnegans came from, and some time after that she realized he was breathing but braindead, so she got him hospice care to die in peace, with no expectation that he would live. Her dictated charting will reflect that he showed no signs of brain activity right up until Sheila found them and ran Li off a bridge; at first opportunity, Li got help. Give Baker a hot dog and all is well in Soapland. Total speculation, but I think the ramification will be Jack. Finn's last words to him were brutal, then Finn was violently murdered by a person Jack schemed with, and then he wasn't even able to find Finn's grave or his own (ex?) wife. The guy had his entire world disintegrate on lies. And he's not even an afterthought for Li or Finn.

That was a nice scene with Bill and Ridge. It was also nice to see Ridge without his head up his ass the whole time. The kid who plays New Kelly seemed like she genuinely adores Tanner. And she looks like Liam. Good casting. (But I laughed when Liam low-key reminded everyone at FC, and the audience, that Kelly is his daughter and not Finn’s.) Finn’s reaction to Ridge and Taylor’s effusive joy to see him alive was interesting. He had a freaked out/pained (?) expression at least two times, which I understand with Ridge, but Taylor was being Taylor and even she looked like she picked up on something weird for a split second, which makes me think it was intentional directing. Maybe it was Finn's desperation to see Steffy/the kids, but I wonder if he’s internalizing what Sheila did. I hope he gets to unpack some of what he experienced, rather than the show making it Only About Steffy and keeping Finn oblivious to his own existence. Speaking of... when is Finn going to drop dead for real from being recently flatlined/comatose, being constantly drugged for days, dragging himself around a fake hospital room + strangling Sheila, flying across the world + apparently not sleeping for the 14-15 hour flight, and now launching a one-man search-and-rescue mission? I mean. It's a lot. I’m not Steffy’s biggest fan but I don’t hate her. That being said, the dress didn’t fit her (MAJOR sideboob), her hair was fried and oversprayed, and her makeup was completely overdone. None of it was from this decade. Wardrobe and make-up made her look like a try hard who failed hard. As a less serious comment, poor Finn flew all the way to Monaco, only to end up across the hall from where Sheila confined him. Only now he has Taylor giggling at him. Can’t blame him for immediately leaving and speed walking across France.

No one can find Steffy because she got trapped in 1999. Yeesh.

I’ve been wondering who would have their numbers but wouldn’t be stored as contacts in their phones, since the number didn’t come up with a name (like Mabel and Lucy) on Oliver’s or Charles’ phones. Or it could be literally anyone who used a burner/second phone. Does the building have a resident directory with cell phone numbers listed? (Is that even a thing?) I do think it could tie into why a full SWAT team descended on the building. What was the 911 call and could the text have been a friendly but misinformed warning based on the 911 call? A simple stabbing would not trigger a SWAT response. It would have been a couple of uniformed officers.

A moment of clarity…that she instantly panic-regretted and is now trying to make up for? She’s the anxious type, and Cinda's the type to make due on her threats. Or, she really is committed to screwing Cinda and will do it via Mabel, either by getting a story for a third competing podcast (White Noise) or by helping Only Murders take down Only Murderers. As I type this out, I don’t see Poppy connecting with Mabel out of any sort of altruism. The best I can see is an “the enemy of my enemy” situation. (This show has taught me to trust no one, haha.) As I type this out, I also realized that this show is really good about fleshing out minor characters and breathing a lot of life into them in a very short amount of time. Kudos.

I want to trust Poppy and root for her going independent + getting revenge, but I'm wary that this is an attempt to fool Mabel into giving Poppy information, either to serve Poppy's independent interests or to prove her worth to Cinda. I know it's a show, but I've had the Cinda boss and I've had the Poppy coworkers, and I'm still sad for three of them who, ten years on, are still there and trying to prove themselves, despite being screwed constantly. Didn't Cinda also threaten to blacklist Poppy last season - something about Poppy not even being able to get a job stocking La Croix at NPR? That kind of hold on someone's career and ability to make ends meet can be quite strong. All in all, I'm not convinced that Poppy has turned on Cinda. But I think it'd be interesting if she joined the Only Murders podcast as a behind-the-scenes producer. I'm curious if Poppy recorded her phone call to Mabel, and, if so, what she does with the audio from whatever happened on the train, particularly if the viral video doesn't show what led to the stabbing. (Seriously, Mabel needs to stop with the knitting needle thing.)

Bill and Finn couldn't wait five minutes?! (I absolutely do not buy that either of them would leave Li alone with Sheila.) And Finn forgot to mention that some guy named Mike has been coming around? And no one thought that the police might want to talk to Finn, or even verify he's alive, before he flees the country? C'mon, writers. They shouldn't have wasted the Mike reveal on the useless Bridge interrogation and instead had him immediately bust Sheila out of lock-up. Li is a badass. I forgot to say this about yesterday's episode, but the nostalgic person in me liked that Finn's first scene was with Bill back in July 2020, with Bill now being the first person (in a way) to discover Finn alive in July 2022. All in all, I could really get on board with a Finnegan-Spencer family dynamic via Li/Bill and I never thought I'd say that.

Glitter Person's walk/gait reminded me of Oscar as Tie Dye Guy. I really hope it's not him - or, if it is, there's somehow an innocuous explanation. It would be a twisty way of explaining why Oscar vanished into thin air hours after Bunny's murder. And it had me thinking that maybe the truth about why Oscar served a prison sentence (Tim protecting Mabel instead of helping Oscar) turned into resentment and then vengeance for him. I never got that vibe from him, though. In any event, after what Mabel experienced in this episode with Alice, the podcast, and now the train video, it would be nice to see Oscar turn up as a friend, even if he doesn't make Mabel feel "new." It just doesn't make sense that he's the only season one character who hasn't come back (and wasn't even shown in Bunny's flashback episode, when Oscar would have still been around and celebrating with the podcasters). As an aside, I thought it was odd that Glitter Person was on the same train and essentially right next to Mabel, despite Mabel walking to Alice's studio and then going to the train. How coincidental.

Sorry, no, Mabel is on the roof and talking to the guys when the knocking happens. The knocking is not basically at the same time as Mabel going down to her apartment. And your original post said that the knocking happened AFTER Mabel went down, which isn’t what 2x3 showed. Sorry.

Respectfully, I just watched this sequence from 2x3, and this isn't right. The podcasters, including Mabel, are still on the roof when the knocking happens and when Bunny gets up to answer the door. Bunny gets up to answer the door, and the scene immediately cuts to Mabel telling Charles and Oliver that she'll get more champagne. The scene then cuts to Bunny opening the door. So, Mabel was definitively shown on the roof in the two scenes that bookended the knock on Bunny's door. I do think there is time missing from what we've been shown, as Mabel should have witnessed something in the timeframe shown...or the murderer worked very quickly to incapacitate Bunny and walk/drag her to Mabel's apartment, escape through the vent, and possibly call the police (I've been assuming the murderer called the police). I think the writers are holding back, and we'll get a surprise totally-not-a-retcon Mabel memory from that night that would have made the entire mystery very clear from the start.

This was a good episode, the useless, regurgitated Taylor/Ridge scenes notwithstanding. Also, today I learned that I need talking head reaction shots from Liam at the bottom of every scene. 😅 So, I don’t think Sheila really let Finn go. It looked like she was waiting for him to collapse…and it didn’t really look like he was going to make it very far on his own two feet. She was absolutely playing him. If Bill hadn’t come, he would’ve been back in that bed for the fiftieth time, with Sheila going “I told you so; it’s not me stopping you; you're not well, and creepy mommy’s here…” VERY good timing, Bill. 👏👏👏 I really respected Finn’s honesty and firmness with Sheila here. He was preying on her weakness, but he never lied or hedged, and he never went along with her delusions. That's not new but the manipulative backbone is. Welcome to the game, Finn. I'm loving Bill and Li together, even though I’ve been kind of pulling for a Jack/Li reunion. Speaking of… Where did Jack end up after that one random scene a few weeks ago?

I agree. It'll be a real disappointment if this storyline ends, and the Finn character devolves back to being All About Steffy. I even agree about a break-up, but the problem is that he's usually only talked about as an afterthought to Steffy or how what happened to him affects her. Without Steffy, where does that leave him on this tiny, incestuous canvas? I was thinking, though, that it looked like Sheila specifically describing what happened with Steffy at the restaurant had Finn thinking. I don't think that scene was put it in there for nothing. Once the inevitable honeymoon reunion wears off, I hope he verifies with Steffy what happened and rips her for nearly costing him/them everything in her obsessive, nonstop quest to be right. I hope it becomes a major source of friction for them. (Okay, so, it always bothered me that Steffy never stopped for even a second to consider what being right about She's a Monster Sheila would emotionally mean for her beloved husband. I'm sure Steffy thought she was protecting him and her family, but, yeah, she's also the one who was so distraught at Finn being Sheila's son that she refused to sign the marriage license and told him she couldn't bear to look at Sheila's DNA, i.e., his face. And he stayed. 🧐) That being said, if Finn keeps this backbone+ability to express emotions and Steffy's character develops some humility, I think they could be an enjoyable couple.

But Oliver luckily stumbling onto one good solve isn't what this episode depicted. The episode depicted him as quite skilled and smooth in identifying a single liar in a crowded room multiple times. None of that was mentioned or shown in season 1, such as when the podcasters went to a couple HOA meetings to try to identify the killer and Oliver pretty much obsessed over dip and made an ass of himself. I said something similar as @Milburn Stone somewhere else in this monster thread; Oliver's skills in this episode are not consistent with his sleuthing in season 1, and it doesn't make a lot of sense that he wouldn't have tried to bring this lifelong skill to the Kono investigation. If Charles or Mabel had called him on it (or call him on it in the future) and they played it for laughs, I'd take it. It does. There have been a few other things I think they've retconned (like the podcasters talking to Bunny minutes before she was killed, which didn't even come out in 2x1), and I'm "concerned" (heh, it's a TV show) that they're going to keep retconning stuff to explain the murder. I'm enjoying the individual episodes this season, but I'm not enjoying the overall story. I even forgot a new episode dropped.