KerleyQ

And he wouldn't be begging the booty call to say she loves him, unless he was particularly sadistic.

I will forever be mad that the psycho killed a young woman, and we've never had the reveal to everyone that he did it. The show clearly plans on pretending it never happened, because they don't want him to have to deal with the consequences. So, why have him do it in the first place?? If she doesn't get nominated for an Emmy the next time the nominations happen...

This is the thing that Deacon is just not getting. Yes, he knows that Hope is potentially going to be mad at him and maybe cut him out for some length of time. But, he's only given thought to what Hope's reaction might be. He's not giving a single second of thought to Sheila's reaction to Hope's reaction. The best case scenario is that she's "only" mad at Hope for hurting Deacon. And that can potentially be scary enough. But, the other possibilities are worse. What if she decides that Hope and her kids are just supposed to be a part of her and Deacon's big happy family, along with Finn and Hayes? And if Hope won't go along with that, we know that Sheila doesn't take rejection well. Worst case scenario, though, with Hope and Finn likely bonding over the marriage from hell, Hope will not only be likely cutting/limiting contact with Deacon, but she and Finn will be supporting each other in dealing with this, including Hope supporting Finn in keeping Sheila out of his life. Steffy has a scar from a bullet that she can show Deacon to remind him how Sheila handles people who encourage Finn to keep his distance from her. And if Sheila sees Hope as discouraging Finn AND Deacon from being with her...

Deacon, you poor idiot. "Listen with an open mind." Um, Deacon? Bitch shot him and his wife and left them for dead. You remember, you're the one who found them in that alley she left them to die in. Bitch didn't even bother to phone in an anonymous 911 tip to try to save her own son's life. She just went right to feeling bad for herself. She is the absolute last human being on this planet that Finn needs to have an open mind towards. "I believe in second chances. Hope has given me one." Yes, you're right, she has. And you're fucking it up ten different ways to Sunday. I know you're all "in wuv" with the psycho killer, Deacon, but you have to accept that the people she's shot, and the people who love the people she's shot are not going to just roll over and say "OK, you love her? That's good enough for me. Come give us a hug, psycho!"

And Deacon will be lucky if the only targeting of Hope Sheila does is trying to push her into Finn's bed. If Sheila feels like Hope's disapproval is hurting her relationship with Deacon, who knows what she'll do to Hope. Yes, right now she's saying all the right things about being concerned about Deacon's relationship with Hope suffering if he marries her, but I think we all know that's just lip service. If she really was willing to walk away from him so that he can maintain everything he has in his life now, she wouldn't have been skulking around the restaurant to hear his lunch with the judge in the first place.

I fully admit to sometimes taking too long to go to the doctor when something is up, but, damn, Eric, there are some things you don't fuck around with. You've been warned about blood clots, and you're coughing up blood, which can be a sign of a blood clot. Clearly, the best thing to do in that case is to sit around listening to classical music and thinking about it instead of calling your doctor to let him know about this new symptom. Way too much Deacon and Sheila this week. Can we fast forward to someone killing her already?

If Paris still exists, she was apparently kind of a friend, but, given that whole thing where she pushed Hope to say Thomas was hot and then had to run to tell him, not the best kind of friend for confiding things.

I haven't watched today's show yet, but if that's what they're saying Eric has, then, yeah, while it's a scary time when it first occurs, it's definitely not a death sentence. My mom had her first attack (for lack of a better term) about 10 years ago. And that immediate time was a dangerous time, while she was getting diagnosed and then her meds were being figured out. But, now, she's fine. She's on blood thinners, and she still has tremors, but she's living a perfectly normal, healthy life. Of course, this is a soap, so I expect Eric's ride with this won't be nearly as smooth.

I thought Dickie told her that "they're willing to wait for you," meaning she could finish the musical.

I am fully expecting Scott Bakula to be a suspect at some point next season. Bonus points if he lives in the celebrity guest star apartment. When we first saw Donna and Cliff at the start of the season, I suspected one of them would be the killer. Then I got distracted by the theory that Ben was Loretta's son and a twin (or triplet). Once it was clear Dickie was Loretta's son, I went back to Donna and Cliff. And, by last week, I was pretty convinced Donna was the poisoner and Cliff the pusher. I was a little off on Cliff's part, though. I figured that Ben confronted him, since he was the one who brought him the cookie, thinking he poisoned him, but Cliff realized his mother did it, and he pushed Ben to protect her. Instead, he was just tired of the way Ben treated him. I knew Donna was going to use that reprieve they gave her to tell Cliff what was going on, so he'd have a chance to hide. One last attempt to protect him. the show really stuck to the whole maternal love theme for every storyline, including the musical. But, it still managed to be moving and not too cheesy. Credit to Meryl Streep for playing Loretta as kind of shady and "off" for most of the season, and then seamlessly switching to a light, happy turn once Loretta was cleared. And her reunion with Dickie was touching and well done. The show really nailed the casting this season. Meryl was flawless, and Paul Rudd, I think, made Ben way more than he could have been. Uma and Matthew Broderick being there to hate watch the show was a great comedic touch. My theory about what Sazz was there to tell Charles is that Jan is out of prison. That seems, to me, to be the most likely personal issue she'd be coming to him about, considering her relationship with Jan. (Although my son's immediate reaction, before the Bakula text from Joy came through, was "is she there to tell him she's dating Joy now?") So I'm guessing that they'll find out some time next season that Jan is out (or maybe Sazz did tell him before she went to find the Malbec), and she'll be their main suspect, but not the actual killer. I also had an initial fear that Charles will be a suspect, since Oliver and Mabel didn't know where he was for a short time, but it would seem unlikely that he had enough time to get mad at Sazz, leave the building, go across the street, get up high enough to take out someone in his apartment, and take her out. Oh, yeah, and get his hands on a sniper rifle. If he is a suspect at first, that won't last long. It's just too implausible. But Sazz having been there to give him potential bad news could give just a tiny bit of suspicion. Or maybe just Jan accuses Charles of killing Sazz out of jealousy.

Right, but that would have taken one, maybe two days of taping for him. Even if they carry on that storyline in the commercials, he's looking at, at most, a few days of work for each commercial that will probably have a life span of several months. It's not going to conflict with or replace his B&B job. He can do it on the weekend or during times he's on the backburner.

How can Taylor be right, but so completely wrong at the same time? Thomas is telling her that he is delusional. He acknowledged that Hope does not have the same feelings for him, but then he also tells her that he's confident they're going to become the real deal. I can see why, given his history, his insistence on it going the way he wants it to would be alarming to her. But, again, Taylor, that's not on Hope, and it's certainly not on Brooke. It's on Thomas. And it's on all of his family, including you, for insisting that he was all better because he spent 2 minutes in therapy. Also, she missed an opening when he said that line about being an adult who can handle making his own decisions about his romantic life. the beyond obvious response is "well, so am I, and what did you and your sister do for pretty much all of last year?" The less said about Deacon and Sheila, the better. Why does the show insist on selling this fucked up mess, which will ruin Deacon's life, as a grand, sweeping love story? Hard pass.

I'm betting it's more that TN has two kids and he was happy to take a little side job for some extra money. Filming a few (if it even gets to that many) commercials isn't going to pull his time away from the show.

I admit, this did occur to me when he proposed, because it was just so cheesy and unnecessary. Part of me also wondered if he thinks he's throwing himself on the grenade - with all her talk of just desperately wanting to be loved by someone, maybe he thinks he can keep her happy and distract her from Finn, Steffy, and Hayes?

And she was already doing it yesterday, with her "I guess she's more like her mother than we thought" crap. Or, WRP, Hope is her own person who is going to make her own mistakes and decisions, and your son is a full grown adult who is responsible for agreeing to less than what he wants. I know I said I was agreeing with her about their relationship, but I definitely did not agree with that part of their conversation. If her son is going to be this new, all better, man, then he needs to not be told he can just blame Brooke's influence on Hope if things don't go his way.

Deacon, what in the actual fuck? I just can't root for you anymore, dude. I hope Brooke and Hope both dropkick you to the curb, and I'll even allow for Ridge to do a little dance to celebrate when they do. It feels weird to be agreeing with Taylor, but she's right. And I don't know who I feel is more wrong in this Thomas/Hope thing - Thomas for repeatedly bringing up his feelings when he knows she's not there yet, or Hope for repeatedly reminding him that this is just sex. And they're both proving Taylor's point and justifying her fears when they do that. I still think we're headed for another Thomas flameout. All the emphasis on everyone believing he is all better, and now Taylor is going to be the Cassandra, but nobody is going to listen to her because they'll write her off as being overprotective and projecting her issues with Brooke onto Hope.

This got me thinking that, if Tobert is undercover, possibly Ben was working with him. Telling everyone Tobert was filming a documentary about him would have been a good reason to have him around. If he had a history of drug use, but was clean now, he would have been a good potential source for Tobert, because he knew some of the players. And maybe when Tobert called Mabel to go down to the club with him, he had actually been following the doctor, thanks to Ben's information.

Good Lord, is there anyone on this show who doesn't fall somewhere on the "annoying" to "what in the dumbfuck is wrong with you????" spectrum these days? All I could think during the scene of Finn staring at the pictures was that he should take this time to go find wherever Steffy stored that giant Steam picture that used to be hanging on that wall and use it to start a bonfire.

Plus, he served as the thing that the guys could be mad at Mabel about, when they were all mad at each other over various issues. If she hadn't been seeing him and involving him in the investigation, she pretty much would have been the innocent blameless one in their blow-up.

I noticed that the description of the episode included a line about the trio having "a plethora (yes, a plethora) of suspects." Didn't we know, last season, as the penultimate episode was wrapping up, that the cop was involved? I remember seeing someone suggest, back when Tobert told that story, that he was actually talking about seeing Ben fall down the elevator shaft and not saving him, but he used the elephant story as a cover. Kind of like he was dealing with his guilt and used a fake story to partially unburden himself. (I don't think it's Tobert, but at the same time, I could kind of see that being the story). I agree. It just seemed obvious, after we'd seen the whole bit about him needing to stay away from cookies because he has no self control, that he was ranting at the cookies for tempting him. My guess on the whole story is that Donna poisoned the cookie, but she didn't push him down the elevator shaft. I think Ben thought Cliff poisoned him, since he was the one who came around to his dressing room with the cookies. He then confronted him by the elevator, and Cliff, realizing his mother must have done it, shoved Ben to protect his mother. The only little hiccup in my feeling fully confident in that theory is Loretta's reaction when they showed up in the courtroom. Instead of being relieved that it wasn't Dickie, she said that she's already gone so far down this road. That just seemed like such an odd reaction to finding out that her son was innocent and, theoretically, she'd be able to stop pretending to be guilty, so neither of them would need to go down for this. That scene left me a little piece of doubt about my Cliff theory, that maybe instead of him pushing Ben, either Loretta did it or she saw (or thinks she saw) Dickie doing it.

It's like when Taylor was sleeping with Eric, and Steffy and Thomas stopped calling him grandfather.

Yeah, when Thomas was going on to Hope yesterday, all I could think was how, even if I didn't already know a guy was stalkery, some red flags would be waving for me. But, when you know that not only does he have a stalker past, but that you are also the person he stalked, how are you not seeing the parade of red flags? I don't care how good the sex is, she knows that, if she doesn't develop the same feelings for him, shit's going to get ugly. Again. And, Deacon, you just got yourself free. Why are you letting her reel you back in?

It's so they can hit us over the head with Hope, Douglas, and Thomas being a family, even though they never really have been. Other than, of course, a very brief period of time which Hope and Douglas shouldn't have any warm family feelings about Thomas from, given that he was gaslighting and abusing them the whole time. If this show last long enough, it would be kind of interesting to see what Douglas's feelings towards Thomas are as an adult (or even an older teen). Younger kids often tend to still cling to an abusive/manipulative parent, just wanting their love. I'd imagine that's even more of a thing when one parent has died. But, when they get older and realize how fucked up it all was, they can sometimes pull away and/or be angry with them. I'd also imagine he might have some thoughts about how fast his father tried to replace his mother after her death.

It just occurred to me that it's possible Dickie has seen pictures of young Loretta at some point. Since, if I recall her story correctly, he was adopted by a family her family knew, it's entirely possible that he may have known some little bit about her or has seen pictures of her from around the time of his birth. So, she may seem familiar to him, even if he didn't place that familiarity (while she would still look similar, people's looks can change enough over that span of time that they aren't going to look enough like their younger self that it's obvious who they are). So, he may not absolutely know she's his birth mother, but she may feel/seem familiar to him without him realizing why.

Yeah, he'd basically be a combination of season 1 (love interest of one of the three) and season 2 (killing someone to do a story about it). That would be so lazy of the writers. I was wondering this, too. I still wouldn't rule him out as being responsible for at least one of the attempts. Maybe he knew who Loretta was and didn't like how Ben was treating his mother? On a related note, is it just me, or does Jeremy Shamos (Dickie) have some kind of vague resemblance to Meryl Streep?