KerleyQ

This has the potential to be almost as awkwardly awful as the time All My Children had Kendall and Ryan start playing strip poker with her mother and his father. Also, it's bad enough they're giving Bill another surprise adult child he didn't get to raise (Kelly is right there, show!), but do they think it's going to make the story less annoying to have the unknowing father and daughter catch each other in the middle of getting it on?

And Wyatt did tell him he already found a new tenant, which makes it doubly weird that Bill chose to go there. For all he knew, the new tenant could have already started moving in.

Wyatt is basically the new Thorne. Can't have him outshining his brother, so they don't do anything with him.

I really want to talk to the daughter from last night's show to ask her what, exactly, she was thinking on her first raid. It's like she figured out the strategy of grabbing a big thing, loading it up, and then pulling it out, but then she, what, decided to go with three separate big things? She basically wasted a big chunk of her time on stuff that she wasn't going to get out with. And she won the game to get the vacation, but it wasn't on the big item she was actually touching when she got out, so she didn't get it. The son was a freaking superstar in the big raid. If he hadn't managed to grab that go-kart and teddy bear right as he was getting out on his last run, they wouldn't have won. And he had to be gassed, because his mom wasn't in there nearly long enough on her run to let him get even a little bit of rest after running the hamster wheel and pushing the car out. I noticed that, on this episode, when he was giving the rules for the raid, Damon actually said you just needed to get one body part out, and anything you're touching counts. Was that a new instruction? Obviously, that's been the rule all along, but I don't remember him spelling it out before. And the contestants on both teams certainly took advantage of it more than in previous episodes. And it led to the first episode (I think) where we didn't see anyone not get out in any round. Also, it's starting to get to a point where watching the gabbing stresses me out more than watching the grabbing. I'm sitting there yelling "oh my God, if you don't know it, just say anything. Anything at all!"

Oh, God, shut up, Li. I haven't so completely changed my opinion of a character this fast for as long as I can remember. I loved Li, but the second her niece showed up in town, she became a total bitch. Why is she wandering around FC looking for her niece and sister to bitch at? And why are they even entertaining her bullshit at this point? Poppy should just be laughing and saying "you can keep going, but I'm not listening. You don't have even a tiny bit of the right to tell me or my daughter where we live, where we work, or who we date." How many times are we going to see the exact same scene between her and one or both of them? If this is all the character is going to do, write her off instead of Wyatt. I used to love the idea of Li/Bill, but now I just hope he catches her bitching at Poppy and shuts her down. I'm stunned that we actually got scenes of Wyatt leaving. I figured he was done already. As much as I hate Liam these days, I wish Wyatt's goodbye scenes would have been with both Bill and Liam. Those three together have always been gold. Really, though, Liam is the Spencer son who needs to take a trip out of town to get into a new environment and figure his shit out. Since Wyatt was still around this long, I'm confused as to why they didn't keep him a little bit longer so he could be on screen when Bill finds out Luna is his daughter. Poor girl isn't even going to get her fun older brother, she's going to be stuck with the dud who will probably whine to her about her cousin 24/7. I realized today that they pretty much dropped Donna off the face of the earth once Eric came out of surgery. Can't interfere with spending his screen time as a prop for the RJ/Zende rivalry and incoming RJ/Luna/Zende triangle by having his longtime love or any other relative show up at his bedside. Did Bridget and Thorn just say "he survived surgery? OK, peace out!"? And none of his other kids thought to pop in and visit their nearly died father after their safari?

If Hope stops and thinks about everything Thomas told her, she should realize he's still just not being completely honest. He told her that he wanted to stop Emma for Steffy's sake, because she loved Beth so much, and he knew how much it would hurt her to have her taken away. But, we all, including Hope, know he did it because losing Beth was the reason Hope gave up Liam and locked onto Douglas, and if she found out Beth was alive before Thomas somehow managed to make her fall in love with him (or drugged her to sleep with him and hopefully got her pregnant, so she'd be tied to him), he'd lose her right back to Liam. He's still hedging his bets and not being fully honest about what he did and why. And Hope is so hung up on the whole "but he loves only me and won't waffle" along with not wanting to feel like a fool for believing he's changed, that she is missing the big picture. Here's my thing: If Thomas was really and truly "all better now" and really felt remorse for all he's done, then he'd just finally sit down and own up to all of it. Bullet point that shit if he needs to. The date rape drugs. Exactly how he manipulated and gaslighted Douglas into glomming onto Hope so she'd feel like he desperately needed her to be his mommy. Threatening Douglas not to tell the truth. Threatening everyone else to not tell the truth. Every single thing, along with the real reason behind each thing. Own every single bit of it. Oh, and he'd stop pushing the "I love you" shit on Hope, knowing she's not ready for that yet, and definitely wouldn't have bought an engagement ring for her right after they started hooking up, when she was still being very clear that sex was all it was, and that she couldn't say she'd ever feel anything more than that. He's not "all better" now, he's just better at hiding it because he's currently got Hope and thinks he's on his way to getting her to marry him. Hell, he practically said as much when he talked about what it means that she's wearing the ring around her neck. That ring being where it is is keeping him on the straight and narrow, because he thinks it means his reward is imminent. I know this is probably my one thousandth rant about how shittily they've done his "redemption" writing. One scene in a therapist's office with his mommy at his side, controlling the session, does not mean he's put in the work. Basically, his mommy told him he's better. Then she went to his sister (who was still, rightfully, pissed off at him) and browbeat her into believing he's better, and then his sister joined team "all better" and mommy and sis pushed that narrative onto everyone else. Then, he was handed what he wanted - his job back with no restrictions on his access to the object of his obsession, eventually leading to her kissing him.

I believe it was because PF was leaving, so they wrote Thomas deciding to move out east to try to make a go of being a family with Caroline and Douglas. Sally stuck around and ended up briefly involved with Wyatt, which was fun until they brought in Flo and decided they needed to make Sally batcrap crazy to justify the "twu wuv" that was Wyatt/Flo. (OK, phew, only mentioned her name twice. Don't want to risk a third mention summoning her.)

Pierson Fode's version, during the Sally story was, by far, my favorite. Of course, that was also the best writing the character has had. I suspect that, if they go this route, it's not going to be that it's magnitudes worse than keeping Beth from her, but that it's going to be something that kind of jolts her back to the reality of who he is. It can also be kind of a cumulative thing, like "there's more? How much else is out there that will come up at some random point in the future?" I'm just getting into Friday's show, at the point where Thomas tells her he has to tell her what happened that night. AN is playing it like Hope is in denial and is afraid to hear the truth, because she knows it's going to blow up this bubble of denial she's been living in.

I suspect that, once they go back to Steam, we're going to have multiple scenes of Steffy telling Liam (and everyone else) how she only ever truly loved Liam, but she was just so afraid of being hurt again that she had to shut down her heart to protect herself*, but now he's proven that he truly loves her above all else, and he sees who Hope really is now, so she has no fear he'll ever leave her again, and she has no desire to be with anyone else. So Finn going back to Steffy won't even be an option. At this point, though, he's going to be lucky to get out of this unscathed and involved with Hope, as opposed to Thomas killing him first. *Never mind that we all saw her almost suicidal with grief when she thought Finn was dead. That will have to be ignored for the glory of Steam.

I've noticed that there's usually a foosball table in there. I don't understand how nobody has thought to drag that out and load a bunch of crap on top of it. It'll be interesting to see, if there's a season 2, how having a chance to watch the first season changes people's strategy. I suspect we'll see a lot more of the "just get one hand out the door while holding onto a raft/cart/whatever full of stuff" strategy. I also suspect people will stay far away from those damn scarves, unless they make that the challenge you need to win to get the car, or if you have enough time and you really need the big ticket prize to come from behind, and don't think you can build up a comparable value in other prizes during that 30-35 seconds. My son's half-joking idea for the scarves "go up there, grab the end, run back down and just keep dragging it all over, hoping it fully unravels while you're grabbing other stuff." We've joked about how we'd wear cargo pants if we went on there, but, yeah, really the only things that would be easy to slip into pockets while you're moving on to grab something else are the phones, and you can get those in regular pants/jeans pockets easily enough. Unless the cargo pants pockets are huge, there's really just not a lot else there that will fit in them.

Too bad Vinnie isn't still around so Hope could maybe find out about how Thomas drugged Liam to sleep with Steffy and had plans to drug her so he could rape her.

I don't think they do get to watch each other. For one, the scarf thing you bring up. There's no way someone with only 30 seconds would go anywhere near that challenge if they'd just watched the other team take at least that long to do it. (And it was clearly not a skill issue as much as it's a "how many fucking scarves are in this damn hat???" issue, so they'd be stupid to think "oh, sure it took him that long, but I can do it!") Second, the team that, a few episodes ago, figured out that, as long as they got a hand out the door, everything they were touching was theirs. They figured that out after their first run, and for their next two runs, they wisely pulled something over towards the door, loaded things up on it, and stayed right in front of the door grabbing whatever was nearby until the warning, sticking their hand out at the last second. If you were allowed to watch each other's raids, the other team would have also picked up on that strategy and used it themselves, but they didn't. And, generally, I can see why it would make sense to not let them watch each other. If you go second, watching the first team go and seeing what they're able to do with their time could be a bit of an advantage for your run, just in giving you an estimate of what you'll be able to do with your time, and also in figuring out the challenges by watching what works or doesn't work for the other team.

This is something I forgot to mention in my last post. He keeps saying that, but it doesn't track with even my knowledge of his history (as someone who hasn't been watching as long as a lot of others here). From what I know, after Steffy married Liam the first time, she was afraid Liam would go back to Hope, so she enlisted Thomas to spend time with her and distract her. That never seemed like a love match as much as a "well, she's pretty and I've got nothing better to do, so why not" agreement to his sister's plan. Then, he was all in on Caroline, obsessing over her similarly to how he'd eventually come to obsess over Hope, leading to Misunderstanding Night. After that, he was in an actual good relationship with Sally that ended because he went to be with Douglas and try to make a go of being a family with Caroline. He was just suddenly obsessed with Hope when he came back to town after Caroline died. I don't know that he's ever been "in love" with her as much as obsessed with having her because he doesn't like that he didn't get what he wanted in the first place. Side note: I know a minimal amount about Thomas's thing with Brooke back before my time. If I'm correct, they never actually hooked up, right? But, I wonder if Hope knows about that whole mess where he pursued her mother and led her to believe they'd slept together to try to keep her and his father apart.

It's kind of interesting watching the writing for Steffy and Hope and how JMW and AN are playing things. Both of them flashing right back to their conversations with Finn whenever they have any time alone, Steffy telling Finn that he has to put it out of his head, clearly cannot put it out of hers, her almost desperate "maybe he was driving to Brooke's house," and things of that nature combined with how over the top they both seem to be in acting like they fully believe in his innocence, and Hope being extra lovey-dovey towards Thomas. It's like there's a part of them, deep down, that knows Xander is one hundred percent right, but they're deep in denial and trying to overcompensate. It's like that quote about how it's easier to fool people than convince them they've been fooled. People don't like to admit that they've been fooled. In Hope's case, especially, I'd imagine it would be hard to reconcile learning this now with the fact that she's been sleeping with him. It was already such a big deal that she was able to get past all she knew of his history and what he's done to her and her family, and she's had to defend her decision and go along with the Steffy/Taylor company line about how Thomas is a different man now so much. So, to realize and admit that he's also a killer? She'd feel like a huge fool. It also caught my attention that she cut herself off while talking to Liam as soon as she said "I may have been naive," like that's one of her big fears, being naive about another man. And, from Steffy's point of view, she was his, second to their mother, his earliest "he's all better now" cheerleader. She pushed the issue of bringing him back to FC and HFTF. She welcomes him around her family. She's defended him to people. He's her family. Her family being united has always been so important to her. So admitting to herself that her brother was responsible for Emma's death would mean she was wrong about him, and it would disrupt her happy family fantasy. You could tell that she knows the truth deep down by her reaction when Thomas told her Xander was right about one thing. Liam is a dick (side note: stop barging into Hope's home unannounced), but he's right about Thomas, especially the part about how, if he'd gotten away with it, he'd be content to still have Hope believe her baby was dead. That's just something I wouldn't be able to get past, and I get Liam's confusion and dismay that Hope has gotten past it to this degree. He's still a dick, though.

OK, yeah, Steffy clearly knows her psycho brother did it. That's why she's so desperate to get Finn to leave it alone, and she's calling it a dangerous and volatile subject, because if it gets brought up, it's going to go poorly for the family's pipe dream that Thomas isn't that bad. I could see if she was just saying that bringing up anything from that time period was a painful subject, given the whole Phoebe/Beth thing. But, instead of even referencing that, she's specifically saying that Emma's death is a dangerous subject. If it was truly resolved with the police investigation, it wouldn't be a risky subject. I totally don't remember those scenes of Xander checking the security footage and checking Thomas's GPS info. To be fair to Finn, he did finally set boundaries with Sheila. I mean he basically did it as Steffy's backup singer, but when Steffy came back from Europe, the two of them went over there and both told her she had to stay the fuck away and wasn't welcome there. It all freaking Steffy out enough to leave him was a wakeup call for him. How many wakeup calls has Steffy had about Thomas, and she still gives him chance after chance? A few days ago, I watched the original scenes because a soap site uploaded the full episode from that day to refresh everyone's memory. She did pick up her phone a couple times to try to text, but she kept telling herself not to use her phone while driving and putting it back down. Then she was looking in her rearview mirror because Thomas was all over her bumper, and she was wondering what the hell the car behind her was doing and why they wouldn't back off. It's not clear to me if he ever made contact, or she just lost control of her car while focusing on the danger of the car behind her being all over her. So the flashbacks today were pretty accurate to what originally aired.

"I'm your children's uncle." OK, great, and Sheila is their grandmother. What else you got? Unless JMW was getting the emoting all wrong (which I'm not discounting as a possibility), Steffy is pretty sure her psycho brother did kill Emma, but she'd really just like to pretend that he's all better now, so she doesn't have to deal with facing that fact. She's probably going to cling hard to the whole "he's a different man now," bullshit. Do they just think that the actor who plays Xander can't handle the heavy confrontation scenes with Thomas, so they're giving them to Finn instead? Other than Thomas's repeated Sheila-like "family" threats towards Finn, the rest of their scenes would make more sense with Xander in Finn's place. Oh, no, wait, as I finish typing that, I realized that the show is doing this shit because they need it to inject issues in the Sinn marriage via his distrust of Thomas and his protectiveness of Hope, so that Steffy can look like the victim when she cha cha chas her bad wig over to Waffles. Luna, honey, you can just leave. You can find it completely weird and creepy that your boyfriend's cousin lured you to a romantic dinner and leave. Related: Zende, you're being weird and creepy. For the love of fuck, go visit your grandfather and ask him if you can help him with his line. Stop whining at RJ, who has said he doesn't care if you help them with the line. (Which just seems l like the obvious solution here. Why can't the three of them work together on the line? This story is so stupid. And, I swear, if it ends up in Misunderstanding Night 3.0...)

Same. The combination of his overall evil vibe along with the character's history just make it uncomfortable for me. All of this. I loved Thomas/Sally. Despite how short-lived they were, they were probably one of my favorite couples on this show. One of the reasons they worked was because Sally wasn't one of his previous victims/obsessions. It was an equal footing relationship in terms of their interest in each other. And he wasn't all creepily intense. That's one of the reasons I think that what they need to do is hold auditions and find an actress who has that kind of instant chemistry with MA, and bring her in as a whole new character to pair him with. I really wish that, instead of bringing him back to FC after the fake CPS call, they would have had him go work somewhere else or strike out on his own have some time where we saw him really working on himself, and then meet a new woman. I can see someone making requests for their own character, but it's absolutely insane to give in to letting her make demands about another character. It would be one thing to say that she didn't want Taylor cheating or having babies with more than one man. But putting limitations on another character? And as for divorce, I mean, come on, it's a soap. If you can't handle your fictional character being divorced, it's not the right job for you.

He has resting evil face.

It's going to be a while before I stop being mad about this.

Complete with Mike and Taylor on the outside, trying to slip Sheila and Thomas weapons?

Did they just lift Thomas's scenes with Finn from old Sheila/Steffy scripts? The whole "we're family whether you like it or not," and "if you don't start trouble, there won't be any trouble" shit? Straight out of Sheila's lines to Steffy. The writing seems on the wall for where the romantic pairings are headed. Finn's being so worried about Hope and going against Thomas is going to end up splitting him and Steffy, which will free her up for her waffle. And then we'll get Finn/Hope. I'd still prefer Wyatt and that it was him worrying about Hope so much in this story now, but, honestly, I'll take whatever gets Hope away from both Liam and Thomas. At some point, this show needs to actually fix Thomas and, for the love of God, bring in a love interest who isn't Hope. He'll never be "all better" as long as he's obsessing over Hope. Let him get bowled over by some new woman in town and try to have a healthy relationship where they're equally into each other. Oh, and I'm kind of disgusted by how little remorse Thomas seems to have for Emma's death. Yes, she ran off the road because she was driving too fast. But, why was she driving too fast? And who was it that witnessed her accident and didn't call for help for her, because her being out of the way worked for his agenda? Even if they want to say he didn't directly drive her off the road, he was still chasing her at a high speed, in an aggressive and threatening manner. There was little difference between what happened then and what happened when Li went off the bridge trying to get away from Sheila. (Hey, maybe they should just go ahead and pair Thomas and Sheila up, they have a lot in common.) And he failed to report the crash. Him not giving a shit about that doesn't speak well of how much better he's supposed to be and how he supposedly feels bad for his past actions.

I think I said yesterday that it won't be long before he "accidentally" lets it slip to Douglas that he proposed to Hope, and she's wearing the ring "close to her heart." And then we'll be right back to where we were back in 2019(I think it was?). He'll be enlisting Douglas to put pressure on Hope for them to be a family.

Steffy and her whole "he's my brother, you have to support him." Um, not that I don't agree with wanting Sheila out of their lives, but if you get to not support his criminal birth mother, then he can be wary of your criminal brother. I do think that Steffy is struggling with this, and isn't as all in on Thomas's innocence as she claims. She just wants to push it back into the past and pretend it never happened. I've always liked Hope and Finn as a friendship/familial type relationship, I am not so sure I'm ready to see them as a romantic pairing, but I'll be shocked if that's not where this is headed. (Dammit, bring back Wyatt, show!) Thomas is slowly amping up the creepy now. All of the "change your mind? No, no, I'm not going to pressure you" stuff is icky. If you weren't going to pressure her, you wouldn't have bought a ring after a few months of hooking up, you wouldn't have insisted she wear the ring around her neck, and you wouldn't be "jokingly" asking her if she's changed her mind or insisting that you know the ring will be on her finger some day. That's all pressure, creeper. I'm just happy to have Bill in a storyline, but, again, I'd really rather he not be Luna's father. Let the father end up being some old rival of his, and he doesn't find out until he's fully in love with Poppy and adores Luna as a potential stepdaughter. Or it can just be some strange guy who maybe isn't good for Poppy and Luna, and he ends up defending them from the guy. Anything but him having his third surprise adult child. I've noticed that, ever since Eric's illness hit its peak, the show has been much tighter with spoilers. I used to be able to find a full week of spoilers the previous Wednesday afternoon. But, it's Thursday night, and I can't find a good full week of spoilers, only day to day spoilers and speculation framed as spoiler-ish.

Not to defend him, but he wasn't actually the one who kidnapped her. That was the doctor (who then sold her to Taylor for Steffy). He just found out about it and then took the lead on keeping it quiet so that he could dangle Douglas in front of her as a child she could be a mother to. But, yeah, Beth would be the main reason I just cannot deal with the concept of Hope marrying him. I hate Liam these days, but he'd have every right in the world to go scorched earth over the mere idea of Beth living under the same roof as Thomas.

AN is really doing a great job with this turn in the story. You can see her walking a tightrope between placating Thomas and her own fears and concerns. You can see exactly how freaked out she is without her having to say a single word. That scene at the end, when he hugged her and she put her hand to her forehead was so well done by her. If this was a soap where characters had friends, we could see her actually talk this out with someone. But, she has no one she can talk to about this. She told him that they should keep this between the two of them, but how long do you think it will be before he "accidentally" lets it slip to Douglas, so he can put some pressure on her? If he does, that should lead to Hope having flashbacks to the whole Beth storyline. I'll be genuinely surprised if Thomas losing his shit isn't where this is all headed. You've got Hope looking freaked out interspersed with Steffy talking about how Hope should just end things while Finn's freaked out about the possibility of Thomas being an actual murderer. And I don't think they would have bothered to revisit the Emma story if they were just going to whitewash Thomas's behavior (especially since they're using flashbacks of him threatening people). Yes, I cared that they just let that go. And I'm sure a handful of other viewers cared, but, by and large, it was not something the majority of the audience was complaining about, and there was nobody left on canvas who was connected to Emma (hence them having to bring back Xander, who was never a very important character). Thomas wasn't suffering anything for that whole thing, so I don't see the show thinking they needed to dig up a character who'd care and dragging that whole thing back into everyone's minds, just to say "never mind, it wasn't really anything." And to bring it up right when Thomas is suddenly pressuring Hope to move things further along? We're definitely revisiting crazy Thomas. And I'm here for that, because I've never bought his being reformed, and I was always pissed he didn't suffer any consequences for Emma. But, I also fear that this is being done now to lead to Hope/Finn and Steffy/Liam. I laughed when Bill said "you know her nephew. He's married to Steffy," and Liam got all bitch-faced. That's right, asshat, nobody wants you. I could get into Bill/Poppy, but he doesn't need to be made Luna's father for them to be a couple. Just leave her father as the doctor she had the affair with. He doesn't have to be on the canvas. And Bill doesn't need another kid he didn't get to raise. If they want to give him a daughter, Kelly is right there.