blackwing

I missed most of the first episode, so I've been wondering about this for the past few episodes. What is the significance of Abe's hat? That grey wool looking winter hat thing that an elementary school kid would wear today. I just saw in the previouslies for episode 2 what I thought was him taking the hat from a dead guy, or giving it to someone else, to make it look like somebody was something? That was really the start of my confusion on this show. Now I'm doing better, largely thanks to all of you posting!

I have never liked Federer and I have called him "Bitter Beer Face" for years. Delicate, prissy and aloof is a good way to describe his play. Of course, all the commentators want Djokovic/Federer so they can talk incessantly about Federer trying to avenge his Wimbledon loss. Has he said that he is retiring after this season? He's ranked #3 and still going strong it seems. Why do all the commentators act like he is retiring? When Nadal withdrew the media was bemoaning the fact that we would almost certainly never see a Nadal/Federal Slam final ever again.

I didn't care for the Forrester card at all. I know Ivy has been a Forrester all her life, but she's been in Australia and to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever talked about her before. As far as I'm concerned, she's an insta-Forrester, just like how Mushmouth became one. She has never been in L.A. or worked at the company. On the other hand, Hope has been around Forrester Creations her entire life. She was raised by Ridge. Ridge has treated her like his daughter. Eric has always treated her like family. Hope has every right to be at the company and as idiotic as she is, she didn't deserve to have it thrown in her face that she's "not a Forrester". She knows more about the Forresters than Ivy does. This is just more evidence that Bradley sucks at his job. Jacqueline Wood quit? No problem, we'll just find another dark haired actress who looks like her, make a new character, and give all of Steffy's lines and story to her. Rinse. Repeat.

That may be true, but Ridge has always been considered a Forrester, blood or not. Eric thought Ridge was his son for 40+ years. His name is almost certainly on Ridge's birth certificate, which makes Eric Ridge's legal father. There was even a scene where Eric told Ridge that Ridge was always going to be his son. Rick and Ridge are brothers.

Her name is Logan because I thought Brooke wasn't married at the time of Hope's birth, and she wasn't going to give her the last name of Sharpe. At one point, Nick was going to adopt her. Then Nick and Brooke broke up, she went back to Ridge, and it was never really clear. Regardless, it was very clear that Ridge thought of her as his daughter, whether as adoptive father or stepfather. He could have adopted her, and they just didn't change her name. It would have been a decision that would have been made by Brooke and Ridge, and perhaps Ridge wanted her to retain the identity and name of Logan. Maybe they didn't want everyone on the show to be named Forrester. Just because her name isn't Forrester doesn't necessarily mean that she wasn't adopted. I wish the show would definitively clear this up once and for all, but family relationships aren't exactly Bradley's strong suit. When Thomas and Rick got into a hissy, the show held it out to be "battling stepbrothers", Brooke and Ridge were married at the time. When really, Rick is Ridge's (half)brother, so it should have been "uncle vs. nephew". During the endless Hope/Steffy wars, they never really played up the sister angle, it was just Brooke's daughter vs. Ridge's daughter. When Aly was first SORASed, Hope introduced Aly to someone as "my cousin", which suggests that she thinks of herself as Ridge's daughter. But then Aly said "she's not really my cousin". So perhaps this is a clue that there was no legal adoption? Then again, people (notably Prick Marone) still claimed that Ridge wasn't really a Forrester, so it could be one of those things. In the end, I guess my point is that Hope has always thought of Ridge as her father, and that Ridge was more of a father to Hope than Deacon ever was. So it disgusts me that all of a sudden now this greasy shifty con man is being treated like family by everyone concerned.

I don't think they were ever really together, except perhaps very briefly. I think she went back to Ridge after the affair was exposed. Deacon has had very little role as a parent to Hope. Brooke has always raised her. During the SORAS years, Brooke was with Ridge, so presumably, Ridge helped to raise her. When Hope was in Italy getting married to Liam, there was the whole "Ridge can't design Hope's dress out of loyalty to his other daughter Steffy" and then "Ridge wants to walk his daughter down the aisle", and I'm pretty sure there was at least one conversation where Hope told Ridge he was like a father to her and Ridge said she was like a daughter. There's always been confusion about whether there was a legal adoption, but it was clear that Hope and Ridge thought of each other as father and daughter. And then there is this shit. What was that yesterday with Hope calling Deacon "Dad" and telling him that she loves him? She doesn't even KNOW him. He was largely gone from her life for the first 6 years, and then presumably the 15 after that. "Your parents, together again!" Made me sick. I despise both incarnations of Ridge, but I would take Ridge over Deacon any day. Can't stand Deacon, and it seems inevitable to me that Brooke is going to marry him. It seems fairly obvious after Brooke made a point to say that Bridget has forgiven both of them for the affair that ruined her marriage.

The ABC website is absolutely no help to a non-viewer. They need to have a scorecard indicating who is still there, who is gone, and who is with whom. A lot of these guys look the same to me. StalaCtites come down from the Ceiling and stalaGmites grow up from the Ground.

I was confused as to why the one guy (I think it was Ben Tallmadge) fell out of the boat. Obviously it was an accident, but why him and not anyone else? And what was the point of it from a plot perspective? Was it really so production wouldn't have to show an actual battle? So they could just talk about Washington being successful? I am also still confused about Charles Lee and Philomena. And the visit by Rogers, who I formerly called Funny Hat Guy. Philomena is working with Andre. Is Charles Lee on the side of the Americans or the British? Rogers is British. Are they trying to get American secrets out of Lee? Not all of those slaves belonged to Sela and Anna Strong, did they? They were all cheering and dancing, but did she really own all of them? Seemed like a lot. So her slaves got freed by the Attainder (thank you, helpful AMC explanations during the commercials!). Then some British guy says the men have to fight in a regiment to get their freedom. And Abigail gets sent to be a slave for Andre. What happened to all the rest of the women? And what was supposed to happen to that boy, who I think is Abigail's son? Wouldn't it have made more sense to send him to Andre with Abigail to help out? They were leaving him behind with Anna, and I thought the whole point was to punish Anna by taking away all of her slaves. I agree that the varying accents is odd. I've always wondered when and how the American accent developed. People who had recently come over from England would sound like English. But colonists had been in America for 100 years so maybe the accent had already changed? It is distracting that some Americans (Abe, Anna) have English accents while others don't. And the soldier Baker who lives in Abe's house is supposed to be British but he has a very strange sounding accent too, it didn't exactly sound English but didn't sound American either.

Am I the only one who thinks that Deacon doesn't look so good? One of his eyes is noticeably bigger than the other. Or is that just a squinty "acting" choice?

I too thought he was leaving for primetime. Seems like an injustice. GH gives Y&R one of its most craptacular actors, and Y&R gives GH back one of its best.

Why would Brooke even be interested at all in Deacon? Her fling with Deacon severely damaged her relationship with her daughter. Wouldn't any thought of Deacon recall the pain that she caused Bridget? Why would she even entertain the thought? Surely there are plenty of other men in Bell A if she isn't interested in Ridge or Bill anymore. The show is also doing a huge disservice to longtime viewers by not bringing back Ashley Jones, now that Deacon is permanently in the cast again. I bet most people would rather see her than the Continually Amazing Adventures of Hopeless, Chicken and Beady Eyes.

Jesse appears to be a tool and a douchebag, but I don't get the point of those women standing around and crying about it and then getting angry and determining that he "wasn't going to get away with it". That whole "I'm standing up for womankind" crap was bizarre. They are on a show called "Bachelor in Paradise". They willingly choose to come onto this crapfest and have "relationships" with strangers or semi-strangers, knowing that they are going to be on public display in TVs all across America, and then get all self-righteous about everything? Whatevs. I wish he had just slammed the door on her arm and told the driver to drive off. No doubt the driver was instructed to wait for these three harpies who were intent on giving him a piece of their mind.

Tough to see Genie Bouchard lose, but she got outplayed. In that last game she looked completely out of gas. Now it is time for me to be mean. Ekaterina Makarova is one of the oldest looking 25 year olds on the tour. And wow, that huge unfortunate looking nose. It kind of looks like it has been broken multiple times

He hates Asians, blacks and gays. How awesome that he's going to be on a tribe with one of each. I hope he gets voted off first.

AJ seemed like a decent dude. Too bad he picked Liddy. Liddy was messed up, she is so clearly passive aggressive and I can understand why she is single. She got jealous at the drop of a hat because he was talking to Meg. AJ and Liddy had decided the previous night that they weren't right for each other. So he talks to Meg to get to know her better, and Liddy gets all jealous. She announces she is going to bed and then cries when he doesn't knock on her door? WTF. That second guy Joe was so clearly out of place. Whereas most of the guys on this show have been very fit, here we had an extremely pale and slightly overweight guy. It was painfully obvious that Liddy didn't like him at all, and it was so pathetic when after not talking with him all night, he still tried multiple times to invite himself into her room. The only thing interesting about Meg was her enormous fake bosoms. I was a bit surprised she didn't do a pole dance after Liddy did, I'm sure she would have put her to shame. Steve was a complete jerk, and it didn't help that he said at the final rose ceremony that he was more interested in dating the girl with the big cans than Liddy. Again, obvious why he's still single. He has a very high opinion of himself. I really liked Xandra a lot. I thought she was perhaps the coolest contestants we've seen on this show. Witty and sassy and comfortable in her skin. Seemed like she and AJ had a good connection. Not sure at all what happened between the time their date ended in the afternoon and when they all met by the pool post-dinner. She turned into a complete grumpnoid. Acted really cold to him, and then outright refused to get naked and get in the pool. Too bad, I think he matched better with her than he did with Liddy.

Thorne and Taylor decided to stay in L.A., right? During the "Aly forgives Taylor" story, I thought Taylor was going leave town and go back to Paris, but Aly said she wanted her dad to be happy. So presumably, Thorne and Taylor are still in town, but just offscreen? As seems to happen with many characters? If Bradley has been content to largely shove Thorne "in town but offscreen", why is he so committed to cramming Ridge down our throats? I always thought that Bradley had some kind of weird fixation with Ridge, like he saw Ridge as his alter ego, or that he had some mancrush on Ronnnnnnn Mosssssssss and that's why Ridge always got treated with kid gloves. But now Stephanie is gone, and Ronnnnnnnnn is gone, so what's up with the continued fixation on Ridge? He used to be a complete mama's boy. Has he even said anything about his mother's death? The two of them were very close, almost unnaturally so, and he couldn't be bothered to explain why he didn't come to her funeral or even call. Now he flies helicopters and recites poetry and has forgotten how to bathe. It's very evident that he's a completely different character. So I say, it's time to let go of Ridge. Keep him "in town but offscreen" like what happens with so many others. What is the current on-show explanation for where these characters are: Thorne? Taylor? Thomas? Mushmouth and Daisy? RJ? Jack? Donna? Caroline? I'm glad we saw Felicia in Paris, I thought she got lost in the supermarket or something. And it was nice that there was at least a reference to Steffy still being in Paris.

I've always liked Amber. Back in her younger days (when Rick was Jacob Young's first run and then Justin Torkildsen) they treated her as a classic young soap heroine. She had some really good stories. I always wondered what became of her twin, April Knight, who was in a porno and everyone thought it was Amber and that she had shamed the Forrester family. Later wondered if there was some connection between April and Owen Knight. Then they made her a little crazy and had her leave town. She was completely wasted on Y&R. Y&R treated her as the comic relief. They also made her into this poor struggling designer just hoping to get noticed. She was married to a Forrester. She should have had plenty of money from the divorce settlement and she should have had plenty of connections that would have made her career. Really odd. When she came back on B&B for a bit they acted like she and Rick barely even knew each other. The two of them hardly interacted, which was ridiculously odd, but then again, on this show, that happens a lot with exes. Oliver hardly ever talks to Hope.

Hunter Tylo is no longer on the show. She played Taylor Hayes and for many years was generally the second choice in the Ridge waffling sweepstakes between Brooke and Taylor. She is the mother of Thomas (not currently on the show), Steffy (of the Liam/Steffy/Hope waffling, also not currently on the show), and the dead Phoebe (of "What the hell's going on here, you already took Phoebe away from me! Now you're taking Steffy?! It's not gonna happen, Rick! NOT GONNA HAPPEN!) fame. (Memo to Ridge, since he seems to have lost his memory.... it happened.) She used to be really beautiful and then she got plastic surgery and jacked her face. Hunter Tylo claims it was her decision to leave the show, but I think what happened is that they took her off contract and offered her a recurring role (essentially a firing), so she "quit". They had hired The Great Heather Tom and I think they found Taylor to be extraneous. They no longer had a need for Taylor to be the third wheel in the Great Love Story of Ridge and Brooke because they now had Katie. Around the same time, the actress who played Steffy decided to take a break (hence Steffy finding out she was barren and fleeing to Paris). The actor who played Thomas had seemingly been fired again. So Taylor no longer had any real ties to anyone. She was perhaps Stephanie's closest friend, and once Steph died and all of her children left town, I guess they couldn't figure out what to do with her anymore. As for Amber and Little D. Little D was the son of Deacon and Amber's cousin Becky. Becky was dying or dead and gave him to Amber to raise as her own. Amber and Rick raised him as Little Eric, until Deacon came in and said he wanted him back. Amber freaked out, fled with the child, and I believe she jumped off a cliff with him, but was saved. Her mental instability caused Rick to dump her. Deacon took the child. Then Deacon went to prison. Little D went to live with Becky's family. And Deacon has never thought about him again. (I think that's briefly how it went, someone correct me if I made any errors.)

Yes, the link to the website is very helpful, thanks!

I finally got around to watching this episode, and I agree that she just wasn't right for the show. However, I don't think she was necessarily mean-spirited about it. She said she was a free spirit, and that this was something she thought she could do, but I guess when it actually came time to do it and she saw penis that it all got too real for her. I didn't think her comment about his butt was that bad (it did look blindingly white compared to the rest of him), it seemed to be good-natured ribbing, like a defence mechanism to help her get over her own self-consciousness about being naked. I thought the comment from Ashley that Greg's penis was really small compared to the rest of his body was way worse. I get that she didn't say it to his face, but it was worse, she said it to all the TV viewers and he doesn't hear it until months later. As far as 6 couples matched and still being together, I thought that was good, until I figured that 1) it's only been 2 months, and 2) there's up to 20 potential couples if the guy and the girl choose other people. Now in the first episode they picked each other, and then in the one with Mike the accountant he picked her but she picked someone else, so I know there's not 20, but still. All of the "and they lived happily ever after" lines at the end of each episode always make it sound like the couple is still together, but they can't all be.

Fantastic, thanks so much to all of you, this is very helpful. I remember Caleb (who I had called Beard Guy) escaping in the boat in the previous episode and didn't really follow what was going on. I know Simcoe because of his unusually high voice. The ones I now am not sure of are John Andre and Robert Rodgers. Is Andre the guy that was caught with the "prostitute" who pretended she was being tortured? Is Rodgers the guy I have been calling Funny Hat Guy?

Just watched today's. I thought Wyatt was spot on today during his convo with Beady Eyes. 1) Everything always happens TO Liam. Liam is such a victim, he's always playing the victim card and never takes any responsibility for his own contributions to his woes. 2) Did he even call Steffy when he was in Paris? They're supposed to be friends. 3) Ivy probably wouldn't have drowned. Hah.

I am watching these for the first time as they are airing. I am glad to read that others had had issues with the characters. The only characters I know are Abe, his wife, the barmaid that is in the spy ring with him, and his dad (the judge?). I'm embarrassed to say that I don't really even know who is on which side. And if you take them out of their wigs and fancy uniforms, forget it. No hope. They referred to the guy getting whipped as Baker. That was actually a name I recognised from an earlier episode, but I couldn't recall him or what he did. All I know is that I really could have done without seeing his extremely hairy armpits in HD. I hope this show gets better and easier to follow?

Thanks again for the book recommendations, I will have to check some of them out when I have time. Missing this show a lot, I thought it was very well done for a historical drama. I shouldn't have raced through the disks so quickly! Probably one my favourites in recent years. Much better than the Borgias and the Tudors. Currently watching the re-airing of Turn: Washington's Spies on AMC. Wow, talk about confusing. Way too many characters. Four episodes in and I don't know some of the characters names, can't tell them apart, and can't tell who is on which side. Didn't have any issues at all like that with the White Queen. Sniff. Looking forward to seeing Rebecca Ferguson in the next Mission Impossible. Not really sure what Max Irons is doing next, but I think it's great that this son of two famous actors is making a name for himself.

Exactly. He's the biggest hypocrite. Back in Italy, the shenanigans of Bill and Deacon made Hope late, he thinks she has rejected him and immediately flies home with Steffy. Now in Paris, the shenanigans of Quinn made Liam late, she thinks he has rejected her and marries Wyatt. How can he be so upset with her when he did the exact same thing? They are both at fault. She at least seems aware that a misunderstanding has occurred. Whereas he just seems to blame her 100%. He's an ass.[ She's dead. That's what graced us with Liam in the first place, she died and told Liam his father was in L.A. so he came looking for him.