KerleyQ

If Sugar kidnapped Sheila, why would she have gone to attack Steffy? I still think that's the person from her past Sheila was regularly meeting with, and she conned her into helping her. If Sugar did kidnap her and switch places, it would have had to have been really, really recent, because I doubt Deacon and Sheila went more than a half day at a time without sex. He'd have noticed it wasn't her if she was there for more than a day. So, Sugar would have been taking a huge risk to be meeting with Sheila multiple times without kidnapping her. My theory is that Sheila was initially upset to hear from her and wanted her to stay away, but they still met up at some point (maybe Sugar showed up somewhere and surprised her), and whatever her concerns were about Sugar vanished. I like the theory that she had some kind of fatal illness and Sheila talked her into some insane plan. RJ certainly didn't make it easy for Luna to tell him what's going on. Dude, stop interrupting and trying to guess what she's going to tell you.

The only explanation is grief clouding his judgement. I know he's reformed and all, but he still knows how to scheme. If that wasn't Sheila, he should know it's because she is pulling something off. Why alert her enemies to that fact? (Not that I'm rooting for Sheila, because I'm not, but it's a serious mistake on his part.)

I can't remember where now, but I read something recently about how the helicopter parents are being replaced these days by snowplow parents who, instead of hovering over them, are out in front moving every obstacle out of their child's way, so that they don't have to deal with overcoming them on their own. So, basically, instead of micromanaging the kid, like helicopter parents do, they're micromanaging everything and everybody around the kid.

"That girl's tough as nails." Oh, really? Steffy's super strong? OK, then, Ridge, riddle me this - if Steffy is, indeed, tough as nails, why does she need her snowplow parents to come riding to the rescue to paper over any loss or disappointment? Steffy cheats on her husband and ends up losing him? Mommy and daddy accuse her affair partner of raping her, mommy shoots him, and mommy goes out and buys her a black market baby to make her feel better. Steffy's husband is believed dead? Mommy tries to secure her another woman's husband to fill in so that she doesn't have to go without attention or a penis. Steffy kills her husband's birth mother in self defense? Everyone who had an iota of care for her, or for the people who cared for her, should just shut it down, because everyone must rally around Princess Steffy at all costs. It gives her the sads to know that anyone is mourning Sheila. That's not exactly how "tough as nails" works, Ridge. And going over to Deacon to rip him for mourning someone he loved, and to take joy in rubbing her death ("she had to be put down") in his face? Such a dick move. Hey, Ridge, Deacon saved your bitchass daughter's life once. So back the fuck off on how his grief is a problem for her. He gets to mourn for Sheila, even if the knowledge that anyone in the universe is mourning her bothers your little princess. "Zende has learned so much from Thomas." Yeah, and not just about designing. Creeper. I cackled when Finn told Steffy that Deacon thinks Sheila is still alive. Steffy has no chill when it comes to her paranoia about Sheila. She's going to go right off that deep end with Deacon. I'm guessing that, once Liam gets a load of this, he's going to give up on his whole "I'm backing off on love and just focusing on being a good dad" thing in about 0.10 seconds.

That's what I think every time he pulls the "Kelly forgot this" routine. He's pulling shit out of her bag before she leaves.

Luna For Last Night? That special fashion statement for when you still want to feel kind of virginal, but you've also slept with your boyfriend and, accidentally, with his cousin. A message all the young women will relate to. Did they direct the guy who plays Zende to go with that serial killer thousand yard stare when Hope said Luna would be working with him? Or was that just his choice? I let out a loud snort laugh when Finn thanked Steffi for being so patient and understanding. Yeah, she's super patient and understanding. I want the writers to fake us all out and have it turn out that Deacon is just having some kind of grief breakdown. That the body that went into the crematorium did only have 9 toes, and what we saw was his hallucination. Better than Sheila being right back on screen soon. And definitely better than subjecting us to more of that "love story." Just let it be that Deacon has been under a lot of stress between working with Ridge, Bill, and the FBI to turn Sheila in, helping her get off, having to justify his relationship with her to everyone, etc, and it's affecting him now. On a related note, I missed what the morgue guy answered when Deacon was grilling him about the toes. Did he say the body had 10 toes when he got to it?

I kind of want Hope to say something to Steffy like "I'm trying not to focus on my anger with you over all of this. Finn and I had a long talk about it, and I told him I'd try." Because you know that would get way under her skin.

And then how long after that will it take him to mentally handwave it and still insist that she's a different woman now?

I feel like Liam and Steffy having to sit together and watch Finn and Hope have a happy life is exactly what they deserve. Because I don't think either one of them will be fully happy. They'll both be jealous, and it will be in their faces all the time, because, between the four of them, there are three kids with ties across both couples (four if Douglas comes home). So they're going to have to see each other a lot. (Oh, and I'd put solid money on Finn wanting to maintain a relationship with his former stepdaughter than Liam puts into maintaining any kind of bond with his former stepson.) That's what's kind of been wiggling around in my mind, too. Sheila found out she was dying, or maybe Sugar even reached out to her to get some closure or something when she found out she was dying. Then Sheila sold her a sob story about her son, probably portraying it like Jack and Li all but stole him from her womb, and then, wouldn't you know it, her son ended up married to someone who hates her ('and for no good reason! She's stuck on ancient history. I'm different now!") and his wife won't let him spend any time with him or her beloved grandson. So, if Sugar could just help her get Steffy out of the way, Sheila's happy family can be reunited.

Wouldn't Deacon have noticed if he was with a Sheila with 10 toes?

Steffy also has a dash of her grandmother in her. Particularly a dash of that borderline incestuous overinvolvement in her family's love lives.

Least surprising "surprise" ever. I've been waiting for a shot of that dead woman's 10 toes ever since Steffy stabbed her. SK was really great today, but I could have done without the "call me daddy" reference. It was probably the most cringeworthy element of their "love story." They're definitely going to do Finn/Hope. I oddly look forward to finding out exactly how bad the actor who plays RJ is going to be in the scenes where Luna finally tells him what happened. The preview was already kind of funny. And the writing is so hokey. "We'd like you to work closely with Zende. We're sure he's got some secrets he can pass along."

But how are we going to know that Hope is a character who enjoys hot sex now if we don't see side boob?

I'm not spoiling this, since it has no actual information, but one of the writers (I think that's who it was, anyway) tweeted out last night to make sure you stay tuned for the last ten seconds of today's show. Just about every reply to the tweet was some variation of "we all know Sheila's alive. This isn't going to be a shock." My favorite was "ten seconds? So one second per toe?"

You'd think, after all she's been through with Sheila, Lauren would want to hightail it over to that memorial so she can open the casket and make sure there is a sincerely dead Sheila in there. And doesn't she know who Deacon is? Wasn't he on Y&R at some point? There's Steffy acting all annoyed that Hope went to the memorial. Once again, it's only Steffy's family members who deserve support from their loved ones. Hope supporting her own father is some kind of insult to Steffy's world view. Does she think she's unique and super special in loving her family? She can't fathom that other people have those same feelings for their own families? And there's Liam kissing Steffy's ass. The only scene he has been tolerable in for months has been that cute scene with Beth the other day. I want to say "where's Bill," but I fear he comes with a side of Poppy.

Funny how Steffy wants full control over Finn's every thought and feeling, but she never considers that he might not want her discussing their marriage with the ex who keeps sniffing around her. What, exactly, do Liam and Steffy think is going to happen at Sheila's memorial that it's so awful for Hope and Finn to go? Are they going to be required to absorb some of her spirit? Her ghost is going to hitch a ride home with them and never leave? She's dead (as far as any of us know), she can't do anything. If having a memorial helps Deacon and Finn deal with all of this, what's the harm? Nobody asked Liam or Steffy to go. They didn't take the kids. What's the big freaking deal? And Steffy had to be a bitch when Liam mentioned he was there checking to see how Hope is doing. "She's here living her best life while my brother is in pain." Oh, fuck off. (I find myself saying "oh fuck off" multiple times per episode when Steffy talks these days. There's so little she says that doesn't warrant that response.)

It's fun watching the Steffy blinders slowly fall away from Finn's eyes. He looked like he was fighting off an eye roll at one point today, and he looked just flat out exasperated by her at multiple times. Slowly, he's moving away from being the Finn who was so blindly whipped that he proposed to Steffy right after she cheated on him and didn't know who her baby daddy was. "We don't have to agree on everything," certainly flew out the window the second it looked like Finn was going to disagree with her about whether he should go to the memorial. And how lovely of her to rehash how she killed his mother "right there." Like she doesn't know how difficult that is for him. And Donna? "We can come more often now that Sheila is gone." Jesus. You all know he cared about her. Yeah, he's aware that she was a pariah, but you can have like an ounce of sensitivity to not gloat over her death in his face at his place of business, maybe? I have zero care for Sheila and thought Deacon was a dumbass to keep getting involved with her, but still. Beth is adorable, and Liam is only bearable these days in scenes with kids (where that's the primary focus of his interactions).

Wasn't he involved with Beth a long time ago? I wasn't watching in the early years, but I could swear I remember reading, at some point, about a triangle between him, Stephanie, and Beth.

If Finn and Steffy do split, I hope it's not Sheila-specific, but, instead, is because of stuff like that bitchface she pulled today when he dared to disagree with her about Hope being the biggest evil ever. He is really not allowed to form his own opinions on anything, is he? "She was laser focused on my brother. She had him designing her line." Um, bitch, what? Who had him designing Hope's line? Because I very specifically remember her being ready to say "no" to him coming back on her line, until you told her it was basically take Thomas back or the line was being cut. And "after everything hope has done to my brother"? Do I even need to reference that scorecard again? At one point, at the end of their first scene, Finn legitimately looked like he was trying not to laugh at Steffy. "Maybe a guy will come along who's worth saying 'yes' to." Yes, where is that brother of yours, anyway, Liam? Luna, forget worrying about any Forrester family relationships. The first time you're working with Zende and he tries his shit again, look him right in the eye and say "I've already told you, more than once, that this is not happening. Are you going to stop, or do I need to talk to Steffy or Ridge about sexual harassment?" (I can't stop using the word "bitch" about Steffy these days, but I need to find something else. Maybe I'll borrow one of @GHScorpiosRule's names for GH's Carly, and start calling her Slagbeast. She's certainly attained Slagbeast status.)

Hey, Waffle, unless they're taking Kelly and Beth to the memorial, none of this is any of your concern. And, Steffy, you know how much trouble Finn is having processing all of this. If going to the memorial feels like something he needs to do, then you should support him. It's not like he can bring her home with him, she's dead. I get hating Sheila and not wanting her around, but from the moment Finn has found out she was his birth mother, Steffy has never allowed him to figure out how he feels about it. And, again, I get it, she was dangerous. But, she's dead now (as far as we all know), so she's not a present danger. It's time to back the fuck off and let him deal with all the conflicting emotions he's been facing. Steffy is treating Finn exactly the way she treated Thomas - diving in when his emotions are all over the place and telling him how he should feel and act, based on what is most comfortable for her.

When Steffy blocked her slap, I was hoping Hope would follow it up with a good swift kick. "You should have been honest with him that that was all you were interested in." Um, she was. She was very clear when they started hooking up that it was all she was interested in. Thomas was the one who decided it was going to turn into a grand love story and marriage. Thomas was the one who bought a fucking ring months into it and kept pressuring her to turn it into more. Hope was always very direct about what she wanted and what she wasn't ready for. I sincerely hope that Hope steals Steffy's husband. Brooke should have walked right out of that conference room. Ridge is a dick. Zende, please, stop. You're creepy, dude. You know that Luna never wanted to sleep with you. You know that she has turned you down multiple times. You know how upset she is about what happened between you. And you're still pulling the "do you ever think about us?" bullshit on her? You have to know that that is just going to make her uncomfortable. Go hit a bar and pick up a woman, for the love of fuck, and stop creeping on this girl.

I hope that Liam does decide he's really in love with Hope after all, and when he goes to tell her, he walks in on her and Finn in bed.

I really hope that Hope is one thousand percent done with Thomas now. He's not changed, he was just behaving because he was getting what he wanted. As soon as things didn't go his way, he used Douglas as a weapon to hurt her. Sending him in there to tell Hope that Caroline is his mother and he wants to leave was the single most painful thing he could do to her, and he knows that. A decent father would have told Douglas that the romantic relationship between him and Hope does not affect his relationship with either parent, that they both still love him more than anything in the world, just like they were both his parents who love him when Hope was married to Liam. Instead, he sends Douglas in there with the "why aren't we good enough" line. Whenever he comes back to town, he should be dead to her, period. No sex is good enough for his bullshit. And all of his assurances of how "I would never hurt you," meant "as long as you do what I want." And his bitchass sister? Oh, fuck her. Get her good, Hope. Tear her marriage to pieces and then help Finn fight for custody. I want to see RJ tear into her, too. And who holds Forrester stock? Let's see Steffy get booted from her position for decimating what seems to be the company's most successful line. Let's see her start facing some consequences for her bullshit. And, Ridge, it's past time you have a talk with your little princess about how you, Brooke, and her sainted mother were all responsible for the decisions and mistakes that were made over the years. Brooke didn't singlehandedly bring chaos into their lives. He brought chaos into their lives when he couldn't decide between two women and flitted back and forth. Taylor brought chaos into their lives when she stayed away for years at a time, even doing it still to this day, not staying in town to be with her kids and grandkids if Ridge's dick isn't included in the deal. Hell, throw Eric into the mix with the other three, since he was certainly involved in all of that mess at various points. And, of course, the fifth adult, who was probably the biggest agent of chaos - her dear granny. Stephanie interfered and manipulated (you know, just like her bitchass granddaughter) in everyone's love lives whenever things weren't going how she wanted them to go. She was probably responsible for more than half of the chaos, and another quarter or so of it was everyone's reactions to her chaos. Ridge needs to get some balls and tell her that she needs to treat his wife (or whatever they are now) with some amount of respect, and if she has complaints about her childhood, she needs to direct them to him, because he was her father, and he was the one who made choices that affected her and her siblings. The buck should stop with him.

I have a feeling I am going to get a little rage-y when I watch today's episode.

I don't want to agree with Thomas about anything, ever, but... I do agree that Hope does not love him like he loves her. And she knows she doesn't. She loves him to some degree, but a lot of what she loves is that he's so into her. She loves that he's Douglas's father. She loves the sex. But, she isn't as deeply in love with him as he wants her to be. And, even though she's fighting right now to save the relationship, she's not ready to put any kind of timeline on being ready to marry him (which is the one thing that would reel him back in). I don't blame her on that, at all, but this is why she shouldn't have ever gone there with him in the first place. No matter how "all better" everyone thinks he is, he's been obsessed with her from the moment he and Douglas came back to L.A. The odds of ever being able to have a healthy, balanced relationship are pretty non-existent when that's the starting point. The best thing Hope can do for herself and Thomas is to let him go and spend some time being single and focusing on her kids. Which is not, of course, to say that she should just let him take Douglas out of the country right this second out of anger. She should be firm in saying "you can go now, and we'll discuss a schedule for Douglas to travel back and forth. He has school, he has friends, he has activities, he has a sister he loves. You can't just completely uproot our son because you're pissed at me."