KerleyQ

It was especially rude of Brooke and Ridge to hold up the plane when, clearly, Thomas has to get directly to the set of an a-ha video in the 80's when they land. I mean, he's already cutting the timing so close that he had to get into wardrobe and have his hair done before they left Rome. Today felt like they skipped airing an episode. At the end of Friday's show, Liam kisses Steffy in Rome, and at the start of Monday, he's back in L.A., and she's on the plane in Rome, not even aware of Liam having left. And Hope was traipsing around Rome, hand in hand, with Thomas, and now she's on the plane, trotting out the Vegas tourism tagline without us ever seeing her have even a single moment to herself where she expresses any confusion or remorse about kissing another man. Other than his relationship with Flo, I've always liked Wyatt, and I love scenes wth any combination of Liam, Wyatt, and Bill. But, Wyatt/DB deserves more than just being Liam's talk-to. Let him explain to everyone that Flo left him at some point, and then give him some storyline. Let Liam be Wyatt's support system for a change. I feel like there's two possible reasons for this. 1) Because Thomas's POV will show us that, once again, he's somehow been manipulating and orchestrating. And they somehow think that it will be a huge surprise to viewers when that's revealed. (Spoiler alert, writers, it will not be a shock.) 2) This isn't really about him, beyond the tongue baths the character has been getting for everyone. It's just about dirtying Hope up and trying to take away her moral high ground over Steffy (and Liam, but mostly Steffy's the one the writers are concerned about positioning as the show's moral center).

I agree. Everything about it felt awkward to me. The conversation and physical lead up to it, and the aftermath. The Liam and Steffy kiss was super awkward, too, and just seemed so weird in the scene. It would have probably been a lot less "off" if Liam had just done it as soon as he saw her, like it was some kind of "sign" to him that he ran into her right after witnessing the Thope kiss. Or even after her initial response to the news, when she told him something like "you're such a great man who doesn't deserve this." (Side note: Steffy, he so very much deserved it, just not with Thomas being the other man. It would have been so much more interesting if, after the line did poorly with Eric and Zende designing, FC brought in some new designer who was a "bad boy" type, and Hope had the same fighting her attraction trajectory with that guy. Liam would have deserved the shit out of that.)

Bonus points if Ridge goes to Taylor to lick his wounds and walks in on her and Finn in bed.

I agree, that was all weird. It's like Hope doesn't even have any kind of internal conflict over the fact that she's doing something that goes completely against all of her moral stances. It's just a happy go lucky, "I just made out with a man who isn't my husband, and now we're going to carry on with a romantic sightseeing tour, no big deal." This might as well not even be Hope for how out of character this is.

Back when it seemed like they were heading to a Liam/Brooke hookup, I thought they would swerve and actually have Taylor be the one to hook up with her daughter's husband. After today's show, I feel again like they might go there, unless Monday's show starts with Steffy tearing Liam a new one over him trying to destroy her marriage right alongside his own (which she absolutely should do, but I fear she won't.) I could so easily see Taylor and Finn, heartbroken over the Bridge and Steam developments in Rome, confiding each other and then one thing leads to another. On one hand, I feel like some kind of storyline needs to happen to bring some long overdue conflict into the Steffy/Taylor relationship. Steffy should have some deep rooted issues with her mother (that she's been suppressing because she is afraid that, if she starts letting those feelings out, her mother will just up and leave again). On the other hand, I can see Steffy not having a fuck to give about her mother hooking up with Finn is she has Liam. It would be more interesting and present more Taylor/Steffy conflict if the Steam kiss goes nowhere, with Steffy getting angry at Liam for trying to use her as his backup plan (again), but Finn finds out about it (maybe someone in Rome snapped a picture that ends up in the tabloids) and is, understandably pissed off, refusing to listen to Steffy's excuses, because, in his eyes, this would be exactly what she did to him before, hooking up with Liam the second he was vulnerable and easy, proving that she wants Liam more than she wants Finn. Meanwhile, Taylor is having a hard time dealing with Ridge choosing Brooke (again), and when she tries to confide in Steffy about it, Steffy doesn't want to deal with it, because she has her own issues and, like she told her a week or so ago, she's not up for playing parent trap again. Then, one night, Taylor is over helping Finn with Hayes again, they start commiserating about everything that happened in Rome, and one thing leads to another. Then you have Steffy, who has been trying to convince Finn nothing happened and save her marriage, feeling betrayed by her mother, and all those suppressed issues come flooding out. And Taylor's buried anger over Steffy interrupting the wedding to tell Ridge about the CPS call instead of letting Taylor marry him first comes spilling out, too.

Ugh, if Thomas, by virtue of being with Hope, gets custody of Beth, that is way past a bridge too far.

Phone issues have really been doing a lot of heavy lifting this week. I wonder if they actually intend to do a Thomas/Hope pairing, or if this little diversion has all been to dirty Hope up so she's on more equal footing with Steffy and Liam. I really do not want to see "good guy" Thomas be a thing, because MA is just so "golly gee" dippy as a good guy. It just does not work for me on any level. Also, yeah, he definitely was trying to "subtly" encourage that kiss. He's heard from Steffy about her belief that Hope has feelings for him, and he figured he could play things so that she made the first move. I had a brief moment of hope when Brooke was wandering around on her own that Bill had decided to get off the plane and do a little exploring in Rome before getting on with his plans, and they'd encounter each other. Instead, once Carter looked through that keyhole, I knew that, when Ridge looked through, we'd get a scene of Brooke being perfectly framed in his view. (Although bonus hilarity points if she had encountered Bill and Brooke with Bill was what Ridge saw when he looked through). On a related note, how annoyed do you think everyone else in that line was with Carter and Ridge? I'd have been walking around them to take a look myself while Carter was sitting there begging Ridge to take a look. If Liam goes right from seeing that kiss to fucking Steffy, and Steffy has a third WTD pregnancy, after spending the past couple months judging Hope and assuring Liam "I don't want to interfere in your marriage, but..." I will laugh for days. Finn had better kick her ass to the curb if she does this to him a second time. If he doesn't utter the words "I get that Liam was upset about his marriage, but, last I checked, you claimed to be happily married to me, so what was your excuse," I swear.

I really wish shows would just stop with that whole thing in general. People know that actresses get pregnant without it being written in. All the antics to try to hide their bellies become distracting and silly.

So, is the HFTF target audience young women with values who are attending an awards ceremony? Because that's what those dresses are for. When Liam inevitably walks in on some questionable moment with Hope and Thomas, let's see if he can show some growth and stick around to talk to her about it instead of running off to bang Steffy.

I was wondering the same thing yesterday. I hate how fickle they've written Bill, but their chemistry is so good that I'd be right back on that ship if they go there.

"I wish I could give you a sign." Oh, just chuck a pine cone at him, Brooke.

Steffy has been watching Hope and Thomas like a jealous lover. There's one way she takes after her grandma. (The entire Marone branch of the Forrester family seems to have picked that creepy trait up from Stephanie.)

I wish Brooke would take that power out of his hands. Say something like "while my friendship with Taylor didn't work out too well, the reasons behind that friendship and pact still exist. I don't want to be in that constant uncertain back and forth drama. I'm here telling you right now that I love you and I want to have a future with you again. But, I want to be in a relationship where both of us are completely committed to each other and there is no uncertainty. We've both had time to think about what we want out of life and who we want to be with over the past several months. If that's not me, for you, without reservation, then I will back off, and we can each get on with our lives."

Yes! It's really distracting when they do the close up shots of him as a scene is ending. Because even when he's not supposed to appear to be plotting in those shots, it looks like he is.

I really don't know if I can ever see this Thomas as the good guy. And it's not solely all he's done, but he just has that evil/conniving look to him. I think it's his eyes. I swear, if you just showed someone who has never watched the show pictures of Liam and Thomas and asked which one was the bad guy, most would point at Thomas. And MA is good at playing sinister. He's kind of a bore when he's trying to play good guy.

Just caught up on the past few days. Liam, for fuck's sake, Thomas is not some run of the mill colleague. He's the grandson/son/brother of the three people in charge. It's his family's business, and he's the person who designed every last stitch of the line. You know Steffy. Do you think there is any way in hell she's going to allow things to play out so that her dear brother doesn't get to take his bows for this collection in Rome? She'd sooner tell Hope to stay the hell home if she can't share credit with her lead designer. I felt bad for Hope, because she looked genuinely excited by the idea when she suggested Liam go with her to Rome, and he just shot it down because he doesn't want to seem like he's chaperoning her. No, dumbass, she's not asking you to chaperone. She's asking you to show up and support her in her big career moment (like you failed to last year), and then spend some time with her, as her husband, in Rome. Besides, we all know Steffy's got the chaperone duties on lock. She's so obsessed with watching Hope and Thomas that she doesn't even care if her father fucks Brooke in Rome. And we all know that preventing that pairing has been her (failed) life's work. Meanwhile, Finn's over here like "for the love of God, go to Rome! Preserve your marriage!" Because we all know Finn has a vested interest in Liam staying happily married. Related: I crack up every time Steffy tells Liam how much she doesn't want to cause issues in his marriage. Yeah, right. Shallow note: Hello, Scott Clifton. When did that happen?

It cracks me up how Taylor is always thinking that, since she's a WRP, she can use her mad skills to manipulate people through conversation, but it's always blatantly obvious what she's trying to do, because she's a really shitty WRP. You'd think he would remember the last fashion show, and how he really hurt Hope by refusing to stay and see her with Thomas, which ended in her staying late celebrating at Eric's and Thomas trying to kiss her. Given that he has Steffy's voice in his head about Hope having feelings for Thomas, you'd think he'd fear what would happen if he failed to support her again and she was on an entirely different continent with Thomas. You'd think that all of his jealousy would practically demand he be there to prevent that. Even the Thomas attempted kiss thing aside, he should see this as the chance to make up for how much he hurt her last time.

I think Taylor's thing is that she wants to be on the trip to Rome with Ridge. She wants him to say "yes, I think you should come with me," because then it would mean he wants here there. If she wasn't holding out for Ridge to invite her/agree to her idea of coming along, she could have just gone to her daughter, the other CEO, and said "hey, you know, I'd really like to be there for Thomas's big moment, do you think I could tag along with you guys?" She can add in "and I want to help you keep an eye on him so that Hope doesn't lead him astray" to seal that deal. I kind of wonder if they've changed their minds about what they're doing with this story along the way. At the start, she was definitely a bit out of control. There was the freak out at her mom, and the fantasies she was having about Thomas didn't seem to be under her control at all. She seems more in control of that now. Now the fantasies seem more like she was sitting around day dreaming. At the beginning, she was under a lot of stress. There was the custody issue, then she was told her line was failing, and if she didn't bring Thomas back, it would end up being cut. And, of course, even thinking about bringing him back was getting her a constant stream of feedback from everyone in L.A. And then all of that stress collided with her whole thing about not wanting to be how her mother used to be. It definitely seemed like they were sending her into some kind of breakdown. We had that night where she was seeing Thomas's face while having sex with Liam, and then she went to talk to her mother about it, and she finds Brooke, who she thought was "no longer like that," looking too cozy in her lingerie with Ridge. And she had a bit of a mini breakdown then. She doesn't seem out of control now. She's not that ball of tension she was at the beginning of the story. Now, she just seems pissed off that everyone doubts her. And some of that stress from before is gone, because Douglas is back with her, and she's worked with Thomas and put out a line that is being very well received, so she's no longer stressed about losing the line or about not being able to get through putting a new line out because Thomas ends up acting up again. So it feels more like they're shifting it into a story where she's just pissed off that everyone is constantly questioning her, and Thomas is attractive because he's the only one who isn't. And, to that I say, of course he isn't, because her decisions now favor him. Personally, I'm still holding onto some thread of possibility that Thomas is doing something. There have been little moments where it seems like he knows exactly what is going on and what he's doing. Like him putting is hand on hers while they looked at the design, and the way he speaks about them working together. I forget exactly what wording he used when he was talking to Brooke the other day about her coming along to Rome. It was something about how good that was, because it would give her a chance to see how completely in sync he and Hope are. Something about the way he worded it had me feeling like he was talking about them as a couple and not as coworker.

Taylor really thought she was going to show up and manipulate Brooke, didn't she? Just fake a little twinge of remorse and reel her back in. But Brooke was done with that shit and knew exactly how insincere it was. I can see the idea that this story isn't actually about Thope, but about Hope being tired of everyone trying to tell her what to do and not trust her to make her own decisions. I just hope that she doesn't violate her own morals and cheat as part of it. She can come into her own without doing that. Not to mention that sleeping with Thomas would just prove them all right. I'd rather see her say to everyone "no, you know what? You're right, I am attracted to Thomas, but that doesn't mean that I can't control myself or that I have to sleep with him. I've been working side by side with him without cheating. The problem isn't me finding someone who isn't my husband attractive. Everyone finds other people attractive. The problem is that nobody in my life trusts me to not be a cheater when I'm the only person in my life who hasn't been a cheater. You're all projecting your crap onto me and then deciding I can't handle my own life because of it." And what the hell is she wearing?

I love how Wyatt goes to trying to stop the trip from happening or trying to keep Thomas from going instead of just saying "hey, why don't you just go with her and coordinate our coverage of the show?" I'd pay good money to see Hope tell Steffy that she's creating a hostile work environment. First she basically tells Hope "work long hours, very closely, with the guy who is pathologically obsessed with you and has committed numerous crimes against your family or else your line is getting killed off." And now she spends every single day asking Hope if everything she does means she's thinking about banging Thomas. "You were making eye contact while talking to him about the line, does that mean you want to fuck him?" "You didn't respond instantly when I came to your door. Is that because you were thinking about my brother?" "You dropped your pencil, was that because you were thinking about Thomas's dick?" That kind of feels like it would be a slam dunk case. Yes, Hope is having feelings about Thomas, but that still doesn't make a single thing about how Steffy has handled all of this remotely OK coming from the CEO of a company to an employee. And, I mean, speaking of the nepo baby thing, did the family just decide to make Steffy CEO because she didn't inherit any design talent? Wasn't her main achievement to recommend her for the job the time that she got shares back from Bill by almost fucking him and then threatening to tell his wife? (I wasn't watching then, but I could swear that was what I saw was going on when reading SOD back then). And what does she actually do now as CEO? As far as I can tell she hangs out in the CEO office gossiping with her mother and making out with her husband (neither of whom work there). Well, to be fair, the Hope/Wyatt sex scenes weren't that bland. Wyatt and KM's Hope had some pretty steamy chemistry, and she wasn't having the same hang-ups about sex with him as she had with Liam back then. When Wyatt was going on about how great she was, I had the thought of how hilarious it would be if she ditches Liam and Thomas both and ends up with Wyatt.

Hope absolutely has a mile wide blind spot for Thomas, and Liam has the same for Steffy. The best thing that could ever happen for their relationship is to move far away from the Forrester siblings. But, of course, they each share a child with their blind spots, so this crap will never end.

Is the entire Marrone branch of the Forrester family a bunch of middle schoolers? Ridge might as well have said "well, I heard that your mother heard that Steffy says Hope likes you. Like, she like likes you."

I haven't watched today's show yet, but, Jesus, it was bad enough when Steffy tried to drop a hint about it to him in yesterday's show (or maybe the day before, they all blend together). Even if Taylor and Steffy fully believe, with no hesitation, that he's "all better now," he'd still be rather freshly recovered, by anyone's standards. Why would you dangle that in front of him? It would be like handing a fresh out of rehab alcoholic a bottle of whiskey. If they're genuinely concerned that Hope might try something with him, they would do something about him working long hours, one on one with her. Steffy would invite Liam on the trip to Rome so Hope's husband is there to distract her from any potential feelings she might have for Thomas. Instead, it's like "hey, we're taking you two on a trip where she'll be away from her husband and kids, and the two of you will be thrown together a lot, so, before we head out, let's tell you that we think she has feelings for you." No way that could derail his so called recovery, right? Related note - if Steffy had walked in on them going over the dress design, when Thomas had his hand on top of Hope's, would that have been all about Hope having feelings for Thomas, or would Steffy actually acknowledge that her brother was being inappropriate? (Yeah, we all know the answer to that. That "Logan woman" Hope must have slid her hand right under his and forced him to remain like that somehow.)

Taylor looked pissed when Steffy said she wasn't going to be parent trapping anymore. She was totally counting on laying out the "I still love your father" and "I suggested I could go to Rome with all of you" bread crumbs and Steffy picking that trail up and running with it. You could tell by how she tried to downplay the Rome thing "oh, well, I hadn't really made any plans, it was just a thought." She was fully expecting that, in five minutes, Steffy would have her place on the plane secured along with getting her a hotel room that shares a connecting door with Ridge's room. The whole reason he was even vulnerable to the parent trap shenanigans last year in the first place was because he was pissed that Brooke wouldn't just get over Thomas's many crimes. He has always gotten bitchy with Brooke over her understandable disdain for Thomas and all he's done to her loved ones. And he also certainly never stands up for her or Hope to Taylor, Steffy, and Thomas. He spent months last year sitting around at "family dinners" listening to them drag Brooke. Even when Brooke's daughter and grandson were part of those dinners, he didn't put a stop to it.

I don't think he's choosing Brooke over his kids. That's two entirely different relationships. His kids with Taylor are full grownass adults with their own kids. He's not walking out on toddlers. He can be married to Brooke (or any woman who isn't Taylor) and still have relationships with Steffy, Thomas, and their kids. And since he's never really had any kind of antagonistic divorced relationship with Taylor, the two of them can co-exist as a presence in their kids' and grandkids' lives without it being uncomfortable (except for when they make it uncomfortable by pressuring him to leave his wife). And, not for nothing, but Brooke also has a child with him, so, either way he goes, he'd be choosing one woman over the other and the kid(s). Steffy and Thomas don't somehow have more of a claim as his kids than RJ does. I mean, I know they think they do, and that they're his "real family" or some such shit, but he has a family with both women.