KerleyQ

As Finn and Deacon are telling Hope about Sugar, all I could think was "are y'all hearing what you're saying here?" Sheila ruined that woman. She made her look exactly like her and planned on setting her up to take the fall for her crimes, so she could just skate away free. Caused her to completely break down and end up in prison for her own (revenge) crimes, and now she's dead because that's how badly Sheila broke her. And they're all smiling away while being super thankful that it was one of Sheila's victims who died instead of Sheila. For them it's just "oh, yeah, Sugar was this woman who Sheila forced into plastic surgery to make her look just like her. You know, as you do sometimes." Still, though I cannot wait for Steffy to see an alive and well Sheila, all 9 toes of her, next to a beaming Finn. Suck on it, bitch. I agree, their marriage is definitely abusive. Finn hasn't been allowed to have his own thoughts about Sheila since the moment he found out who she was. I get that she's done bad shit to Steffy's family. No argument there, but Finn still deserved to have time to process it, to have some conversations with her and figure out how he feels about her on his own. Steffy would have been perfectly within her rights to say "while you're dealing with her and figuring out where you two stand, I don't want her near the kids," but she couldn't allow him any time to wrap his mind around it, because she had already decided what his feelings on the subject should be. But, flip the story, and have the relative in question be her psycho brother, and Finn was also not allowed to have his own feelings and concerns about Thomas. He has to embrace him and trust that he is all better now, because Steffy has deemed it so.

Same. I was so disappointed when she headed back to her house with Liam instead of proceeding to Deacon's apartment as planned. I guess getting Liam locked away from Ivy's clutches was more pressing than telling Deacon how he can and can't mourn.

"Sugar wanted me to be punished for her crimes!" Yes, Sheila, what kind of monster would do something like that? Something in Sheila's face when Finn was gushing about her made me think that this was some convoluted evil plan of hers.

It seems like such an odd choice, if they want to redeem her, to go out of their way to bring Lauren to town and remind us of all of her crimes. Yes, Sugar has committed crimes, too, but Sheila dragged this mentally unwell woman into her life and essentially forced her to become her doppelganger, so she could let her take the fall for her crimes. Who wouldn't become unhinged and vengeful in Sugar's shoes? Sheila has pulled so much evil shit and gotten out of so many dead end situations that it honestly would not surprise me to find out, down the road, that she engineered this whole thing. Yes, she was seemingly in really bad shape when they found her, but that could have been a calculated risk. I think, for now, the show is sticking with her as the victim, but when they decide they want to evil her back up again, they could retcon this whole thing to be one of her plots gone awry.

Is Ivy sticking around, or was this just a quick drop in to renew Steffy's interest in Waffle? I can't wait to see Steffy's head explode when she gets a load of everything Sheila related that has gone down over the past few episodes. I can't stand Sheila, but I hope that, if having a relationship with her is what Finn wants, which it seems to be, he stands firm on that. She has never allowed him to spend more than 10 seconds thinking about his own feelings on her being his birth mother. And, damn, Deacon is never going to be over her now. I was really hoping that hearing Lauren's experiences with her might turn him off, but now that he found her in that kind of danger, and her story makes her out to be some heroic victim, he's forgotten all of that and is all nauseatingly heart-eyed about her.

I couldn't decide if Steffy was acting because she's bothered by Hope's friendship with Finn or because she wants Thomas to not have the option whenever he returns, but the one thing that was not on her mind with that whole "Hope, how are you, anyway? Want to get back together with Liam?" conversation was Hope's happiness and well-being. It was probably some combination of wanting to keep her away from Finn and Thomas. Steffy and Finn's next scenes should be interesting. First, she'll be ranting and raving about Ivy and Liam kissing, and then he'll be all "hey, remember how we all thought you killed my mommy? Well, you killed someone else, and Deacon and I hit the streets and found her, nine toes and all, in a warehouse and saved her life. When do you want to have her over for dinner?" As I watched today, I realized exactly what was going to happen. Ivy is going to get the exact same storyline she had last time. She and Liam will get together, and, right when things are starting to look serious, Finn and Steffy's marriage will fall to pieces. Then the dumbass is going to dump Ivy for Steffy again. Let's hope Ivy gets out uninjured this time. Although Liam conking his head and ending up thinking he's married to Sheila would be hilarious.

Quinn was a much more fun villain than Sheila. Take some notes, Sheila - push Steffy off a cliff. There's one right there at her house.

I was hoping Ivy would be back before everyone finds out Sheila is alive. I just wanted one scene of her finding out Steffy killed her and saying to Steffy "oh, you got another one?" Everything about the Deacon/Finn scenes today was unintentionally hilarious, including the big nine toes reveal. Meanwhile, Steffy's Sheila senses were tingling. I'm waiting for the scenes in, what a week or two, where Liam is explaining to Bill that waffling between Ivy and Steffy is an entirely different thing than waffling between Hope and Steffy. Entirely different! Between the preview of Steffy getting all snarly over seeing Ivy kiss Liam, and Finn all "mom! mom!" over Nine Toes, I'm thinking we can pretty much call time of death on the Sinn marriage now. Maybe he should be the one who gets together with Ivy. She's the non-Botoxed, no Sheila baggage version of Steffy.

I never saw her on B&B, but just reading about her in SOD back then, I had this visceral dislike of her. I saw a little bit of her when she did a guest stint on Y&R, and it did zero to change that gut reaction I had about her. So, yes, please keep her far away.

I think he had already dumped her to get back with Steffy, and that's why she was on the plane to go back to Australia. Ivy had just fallen down the stairs during another confrontation with Steffy, and Liam was worried about her flying right after leaving the hospital. So he took her to the airport and helped her get on the plane. (I also suspect that he really wanted Ivy to tell him that he was still a good guy, because heaven forbid anyone not like him). If I recall correctly, when he found Ivy at the bottom of the stairs and Steffy at the top of the stairs, he got pissed and said something about how this keeps happening with her (first Ally's death, then Ivy being electrocuted, and now Ivy's fall down the stairs), and he was done with it. That's why Steffy, after Liam didn't return, figured he must have been done with her, so she hooked up with Wyatt.

This. Or since the writers love to throw around "misunderstanding," there could have been an actual misunderstanding (one that didn't involve a woman drunk/medicated/drugged enough to think she was with someone else) like Luna seeing RJ with one of the FC models and misinterpreting what she saw as something inappropriate, so she falls into bed with Zende.

If it's not a big deal, then how is it going to provide drama?

Saw this interview with Ashleigh Brewer, and one line jumped out at me. (Bolded by me): But, since she's Eric's niece, they're not actually blood relatives, are they? Also, I had totally forgotten that there were two separate incidents of Steffy almost killing Ivy. I had the electrocution and fall down the stairs mixed up into one incident in my memory. Bold & Beautiful Preview: Ashleigh Brewer Lets Loose On Ivy’s Imminent Explosions With Steffy and Hope — Plus, the Master Plan That May Light the Fuse!

Luna was still a virgin just like three months ago. So I'm guessing it is a huge deal to her. And from Zende's perspective, that's his cousin's girlfriend who literally just told him, like an hour or so earlier, that she was in love with and committed to RJ, and had no interest in Zende in that way. Now, personally, in my family, we don't bang each other's significant others just because there's no marriage license yet. Even if they weren't monogamous, you should generally keep that shit outside the family. All of the factors involved in this should have meant that Zende slowed things down and had a conversation with Luna before having sex with her. "Now, see, Zende, RJ is too young to have erectile issues, but, if you get lucky, maybe he'll get into an accident, or he'll get sick and need a med that fucks with his ability to get hard. Then you've got a clear path to meet Luna's needs." And if Steffy didn't become a more and more obnoxious character by the minute these days, Steffy and Deacon probably could have been hot.

Seriously. Luna has not had anyone talk to her about all of this who was almost entirely focused on what she's experienced before this conversation. Her mother was dealing with her guilt over her mints and wanting to fix that by advising her. Zende is basically just trying to figure out if there's a way he can turn this into a relationship with her. RJ is dealing with how it makes him feel and his anger with Zende. And Luna, herself, has been focused on the effect it has on RJ. It was nice to see Brooke, even though she's RJ's mother, putting most of the focus on Luna and helping her deal with what happened to her.

Yeesh, it took Deacon long enough to get to showing Finn a picture of Sugar. I was sitting here yelling at my TV "just show him the article about her that has her picture in it!" You know it's a insane, hard to believe story, show him the one solid piece of evidence you have to back up the insanity. Brooke: "Hmm, well, RJ asked me not to tell Ridge about Luna and Zende. Let me throw this Deacon "ten toes!" story at him to occupy his attention." I gagged at her and Ridge talking about how Ridge was such a great father to Hope. Well, you know, except for when his bitchass daughter has decided to ruin Hope's relationships. Then Ridge has got to kiss her princess ass and act like Hope is a villain for not wanting his bitchass daughter to ruin her relationships. I hope Finn gets fully on board with helping Deacon, solely because I want to see Steffy's face crack when he tells her he's going on a detective mission with Deacon to find Sheila. Oh, and of course Steffy was only being halfway decent to Hope because she wants her to shut down the Finn/Deacon conversations and keep Finn from being convinced Sheila could be alive.

I was laughing all through Carter lecturing Zende about betraying RJ by sleeping with Luna. Hey, Carter? Remember Quinn? (They were absolutely hot and all, but Carter is one of the worst people to be criticizing in this scenario). I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I thought that the guy who plays RJ did a pretty good job today. When he walked into the office and saw Luna, you could actually see him kind of instantly light up to see her. It's the first time I've thought RJ legitimately looked like he's in love with her. And he was better in his scenes with her today than he normally is. Maybe that kind of more quiet scene is what he's best at? All the loud, yell-y scenes he's done the past few days were cringeworthy, but these quiet scenes were kind of, dare I say, good. This legitimately may have been his best episode. Everything Steffy/Hope/Finn felt very anvil-like today. And not at all subtle. You had Steffy gloating in front of Finn (again) about Sheila being dead and gone. You had Finn not telling Steffy about Deacon's text. And then you had Hope telling Steffy how lucky she is to have such a great husband and father in Finn, especially with how loyal he is. It was like Steffy could sense the anvils, too, because she seemed to have a moment there where she was debating warning Hope off of her husband.

Well, there's one question (of many) answered about the logistics of the whole Sugar thing - Sugar isn't in prison anymore. Nice to see Brooke, even while still worrying about RJ, placing a premium on how Luna must feel in all of this. Not even Luna has centered herself in this whole thing.

I'm assuming Sugar didn't cut off a toe, since the corpse had "ten toes!" But you'd think it would be easy enough for Sheila to at least raise some doubt with the prison (if Sugar did manage to swap places with her and leave her locked up) by showing them her missing toe (that's obviously healed and not a fresh cut).

I just kept thinking "as far as you know" whenever Lauren mentioned her being locked up. Knowing soap writing, I'm going to assume that she escaped and, somehow, it didn't get publicized. But, it just occurred to me, and this might solve both my and your issues with this, maybe Sheila had been going to visit Sugar in prison when she told Deacon she was visiting someone from her past. And, somehow, on her last visit, the day that Steffy killed who she thought was Sheila, Sugar managed to swap places with Sheila. I know that's not something that happens, but it's a soap, so... My issue with that, though, is how did Sugar know to go after Steffy? And why? I'm pretty sure that was actually Sheila who Steffy confronted earlier at Deacon's apartment. If I recall correctly, she went out after that, and Deacon said she had been taking off regularly to go meet with this person from her past. So, if Sugar pulled off a switch, it would have been after Steffy confronted Sheila at Deacon's, but before Steffy killed her. If she was planning on just taking over Sheila's life, why go after Steffy and call attention to herself like that? If she'd killed Steffy, Sheila would have been the first, and only, suspect. So if she was living as Sheila, that would throw her right back into prison as Sheila for killing Steffy. Or, her switcheroo would be discovered, Sheila would be released, and Sugar would still end up being charged for killing Steffy. Why not just leave Sheila in prison in her place, go break up with Deacon, and then head off into the sunset to live free? And I've officially probably given this more thought than they have.

The best case scenario for the Sheila's not dead storyline is that Deacon, while he's talking to people and trying to put the pieces together also puts together the pieces of how awful she is. He seemed to have a bit of a moment there with Lauren, even admitting that he's not sure why he fell for her. I guess when she's not there to call him "daddy" and literally fuck him stupid, he has some sense and distance. I feel like it's a bit of an anvil that we've had two episodes' worth of them juxtaposing Liam/Steffy scenes with Hope/Finn scenes. I don't want any more Sheila, we had more than enough of her over the past couple years. But, at the same time, after listening to Steffy go on and on and on and on (and on and on and on) about how she knows she killed her, and bitching about Deacon, I am going to enjoy the eventual moment of her having to eat crow when Sheila's alive and well and in her face. I'm still confused about the idea that Sugar must have kidnapped Sheila. I can't imagine that Deacon and Sheila ever skipped a day of sex. And they were living together. He would have noticed if the woman he was with had ten toes ("ten toes!"). And we know Sheila was going off for meetings that she said were with someone from her past. So, was she meeting up with Sugar multiple times and Sugar just kept letting her go home, risking her turning the tables on her plan? And then one day she pulled the trigger, kidnapped Sheila and hustled over to Steffy's house? I said I want the reveal to see Steffy eat crow, but I don't want the reveal to lead to "poor victim Sheila" who Finn and Deacon are going to be falling all over themselves to pity. The only person I would have found it impossible to believe would write off the possibility of her still being alive is Lauren. She would have to be dumbed down to an insane degree to not consider the possibility that Sheila had faked her death, given all of their history. When it looked like she was ready to walk out and not hear Deacon out last week, I was ready to throw things. Thankfully, she shook that off and actually listened.

I hate to defend any aspect of this mess, but didn't RJ and Luna only have sex one time before this? Or maybe a couple? And she was a virgin before that. So, I can kind of see her not being fully knowledgeable about all of RJ's moves. Especially when you add in that she was impaired. RJ is the only person in this storyline who has the proper reaction. Yes, Zende took advantage. He knew Luna did not want him. They literally just talked about it yet again. He knew she was in love with RJ and not interested in being with anyone else. And if someone is drugged enough to have hallucinations, you can tell something is off with them. Zende just wanted to have sex with Luna, and he put that above making sure she was all in with him there. And Poppy. Ugh. She's so focused on her guilt over the "mints" that she isn't even focusing on what actually happened to her daughter. She's more worried about her potentially losing RJ than she is about the fact that her daughter was drugged and then had sex with someone who she wasn't in the right state to consent to. Then, of course, you have Zende who, upon finding out that Luna thought he was RJ, didn't launch into any concern for her well-being, but, instead, kept reiterating to her that "it was consensual." Luna, I can kind of partially understand. She doesn't want to see herself as a victim, and she's so focused on feeling guilty for "betraying" RJ that she can't delve any deeper into it. Then there's her misguided fear of damaging RJ and Zende's relationship as cousins. Focusing on making it all OK for everyone else isn't an uncommon reaction. I'm not really sure what the writers were going for with the Hope/Liam scenes. I don't know if the writers fully knew what they were doing. It's like they don't want to completely toss the Hope/Thomas relationship out, but MA is gone for some length of time, so they are treading water. All I got out of it was that Hope wonders if Finn was right, that she went after Thomas out of some reaction to something, because she spent all of her life not wanting to be like her mother, but finally tried to break free of that? She says she feels certain her feelings for him were real, though. But, she's also seemingly setting her love life aside to focus on work and being a mom. That part was a really refreshing turn for Hope, who has always been focused on love. Almost as refreshing as Liam deciding to back away from the waffle iron and focus on being a dad.

I think the show would be smart to leave her offscreen for a while, at least six months or so. Have Hope and Finn convince Deacon that he was imagining things. Have him believe that it happened so fast, and he's become so used to her nine toes, that her feet just looked normal to him. (Obviously, we all saw the ten toes, too, but since him being confused about what he saw is way more logical than that not being Sheila, I could see him eventually becoming convinced of that, as time passes and there's no sign of Sheila). Or, if not that, spend the next few months with Deacon looking into various leads, and then he takes off for a few months, telling Hope he's just going on a trip to clear his head and deal with his grief. Eventually, he comes back with Sheila. Whatever it is, I just really hope they don't make her into some kind of victim, complete with some people feeling like they need to cut her a break after whatever ordeal she's been through. We know Ridge and Steffy never will, but Finn, Hope, maybe even Eric?

Where does Steffy get off making any demands of Deacon? There's a reason other than the one she's repeated over and over to everyone?

But she still was regularly meeting up with her. Which is where I can't get my mind around the idea of Sheila being a victim. Yes, she definitely did not want anything to do with her at first (unless those are fake texts she planted on her account), but she came around at some point, enough to keep meeting with her. I still think they were both outside Steffy's house that night, and Sheila is the one who said that Steffy was going to die that night. Maybe Sugar went in as the distraction so Sheila could sneak in and finish Steffy off. But that plan went to hell when Steffy killed Sugar, and Sheila took off. Now she's hiding somewhere regrouping and trying to figure out how to make this all work for her.