KerleyQ

I've never liked Steffy and Finn more than when they were shooting down Thomas's fantasy that he's just going to move right on in and get 24/7 access to Douglas. Also, I think TN needs his character to have adversaries. He's a much better actor when he's going toe to toe with someone. If they aren't headed for a Braylor pairing, I would love to see Brooke picking up on some flirty spark between Deacon and Taylor and deciding to fix the two of them up. (Not because she thinks it clears the path for her to reunite with Ridge, but just because she genuinely likes both of them and wants to see them happy.) Of course, any storyline involving Deacon is destined to blow up because of his relationship with fucking Sheila, so...

I wasn't watching during Amber's time on the show, but is it weird that just from whatever I'd see about the character in SOD that I hated her?

I hope Steffy and Finn both stonewall Thomas when he tries to start showing up constantly. Thomas seems to be forgetting that Steffy is the one who just talked Hope down from considering rehiring him. And Finn isn't going to want Thomas disrupting their lives every day. It's clear that Douglas is looking at this like it's going to be a 24/7 fun vacation. But I do wonder if he's going to start to get homesick once this becomes just his daily life and it's not a constant party like Thomas made living at Eric's house. And even with that 24/7 party, Douglas still wanted Hope there, too. I doubt Hope and Beth are going to be sleeping over at Steffy's house every night, so Douglas may start asking to spend nights back at the cabin soon enough.

I was wondering about that, too. That's another issue Finn should have raised to Steffy. I know that, because this is the BellA legal world, and not real legal world, that bringing Sheila up in the judge's chambers wouldn't have mattered because she's not been charged with anything, so there's no reason to consider her a threat. But, in the family discussions, everyone should be pointing out to Steffy that with Sheila out and about, her house is not the safest place in the world. Hell, Liam should have already been having that conversation with her about Kelly.

I saw some speculation that Finn is going to resent Steffy talking him into this, and it will eventually lead to a split (all the conversations between the two of them and between him and his mother about how perfect everything is between them being anvils). Then she'll get back together with Liam after Hope becomes single-minded about getting Douglas back, to the neglect of everything else in her life, and then Hope ends up getting together with Thomas so the two of them can fight Liam and Steffy for Douglas. I will shoot my TV. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again, pairing up Hope with Thomas is my single "no go" couple on this show. She should never, ever. Yep. I made the mistake of reading some reader comments on an article about this story. After the fifth time I read something along the lines of "Steffy is being the bigger woman by letting Hope take Douglas home. Hope ripped Phoebe right out of Steffy's arms and raced out of there without a single care," I had to stop. Yes, folks, because BOTH Douglas and Beth are Hope's children.

Except we had those scenes of him talking to Li about how poor Douglas just needs some stability in his life. He's totally going to be all on board with him moving in with them so they can provide that stability. This is absurd. First, the judge should have asked Douglas to explain why he doesn't want to live with either one of his parents. Or she should have caught the part where Douglas told Hope and Thomas that he just didn't want them to fight. Then, the best answer here was to say either that he could stay with Steffy for a brief time (provided she and Finn agree), or he could stay where he is, and his parents will be required to engage in some counseling and mediation to come up with an acceptable split custody agreement so that Douglas doesn't have to keep feeling like he's stuck in between fighting parents. But, nope, the judge does none of that. I feel pretty sure that Steffy and Finn are going to end up getting Douglas, and the writers will feel like this is some kind of payback to Steffy's fans who still think that "Hope took Phoebe from Steffy." So Steffy lost her adopted child to Hope and now Hope will lose her adopted child to Steffy. Fuck that. Thomas gets extra asshole points for coming from a hearing where his son asked to live with his aunt, because he hates being stuck in the middle of his parents, and saying "well, this isn't so bad for me, really." I am still waiting for the day that Hope realizes how huge of a dick this guy is and just lands one really good punch on him.

I'm annoyed by both Bill and Deacon being willing to trash all of their existing relationships to be with Sheila, but I admit, I will laugh for days if Ridge comes home, finds Brooke and Taylor both uninterested in jumping through hoops to be with him, and ends up falling for Sheila.

So, clearly, nobody at B&B does even a tiny bit of research into their legal stories. My husband (a lawyer) wandered into the room while my son and I were watching, and he was so pissed off at the stupidity of it all. Also, since apparently a little kid can just pick to live anywhere, and it has to be legally binding because his parents agreed to let him pick, we all agreed that Douglas should have blown right past Aunt Steffy's house and decided to live at Disney World. And that whole "and this is where you will live and who will make decisions for you until you reach maturity" thing is beyond laughable. At most, the judge would agree to let Douglas stay with Steffy for a limited time (provided neither parent has a legitimate objection to that placement), while all three of Thomas, Hope, and Douglas get some counseling and the judge makes a determination on custody (because, clearly, the job of having to decide between his two parents is too overwhelming for Douglas). It's going to be beyond absurd if Monday sees the judge saying "OK, Douglas lives with his Aunt Steffy until he turns 18. Tough luck, mom and dad." Also, show, reminder, split custody is a thing that exists and is very common. Precisely because this kind of all or nothing shit is absurd. You know, this hearing should have taken place after Taylor moves in with Brooke (if that is going to happen). Douglas could have picked living with both of his grandmas.

Hope has her hopes up so high for this that you just know the show is going to pull some bullshit and Douglas will end up with Thomas. Although it would be great if Steffy does the right thing and tells the judge all about that whole scene at Eric's house on the day of their parents' non-wedding. And now that I say that, I'm confused - if the whole deal is just supposed to be that Douglas is going to say who he wants to live with, then why does Thomas need a witness? Is Steffy supposed to appeal to Douglas on Thomas's behalf? Or is this actually going to be more of a custody trial than Thomas let on to Hope and Liam, so he can blindside them? And, seriously, even taking into account that the Forrester family has money and influence, there's no way Thomas magically got a court date for tomorrow like that. Unless it's an emergency, the court isn't going to let you drag someone else in with no preparation time or time to consult with their own attorney. Not to mention that, being smart for his age aside, Douglas is too young for the whole "the kid can tell the judge where they want to live" thing. Bottom line, though, I feel like Thomas is going to somehow manipulate Douglas. Or we're going to get some bullshit about how Douglas only told Hope he wants to live with her because he didn't want to hurt her feelings, but he really wants to live with his asshole father, who has no home. If they don't pair Brooke and Taylor up, they're trolling us pretty hard with their scenes. I would love it if the two of them found out about the custody hearing, busted in, and both went to bat for Hope, with Taylor saying that she loves her son, but he has some work to do on himself to get to a better place for his son.

At least the doctor in the storyline eventually got around to some skepticism. But, yeah, they all just wanted her to be dead and gone so badly that they collectively just went with it.

I think that the scene she set up was supposed to be that the toe was somehow all that was left of the bear attack, as opposed to her having just somehow lost the toe, and it causing her death.

My initial reaction to this was that Sheila knows they all hate her, so she would be suspicious. But, giving it more than a few seconds, I remember that Sheila is the master of magical thinking. She truly believes that she is owed everyone loving her and giving her what she wants. And she is still convinced that, despite shooting Finn and Steffy and leaving them for dead, she's going to have a close relationship with Finn and Hayes. So, yeah, if everyone started doing a 180 and saying things like "oh, we were wrong, we see how good you are for Bill, and how happy he is. We're so sorry we've misunderstood you in the past. We want to welcome you to the family," she'd just tell herself "they finally get it!"

Even if they don't want to give the whole thing away yet, they've got to give us a little bit more than the complete blank slate we've got now.

Are we building up to Sheila killing Katie? Because I've noticed that, other than angst for Taylor (to bring her closer to Brooke?) the focal point of this storyline seems to be moving solidly to Katie. And Katie has clearly shown Sheila that she is a threat to her relationshit with Bill. We know what Sheila does when she thinks someone is in her way.

This storyline is a showcase for HT. Not so much for anyone else involved. Unless comedy is their goal, they really need to stop doing those end of scene closeup shots of Steffy's dramatic reactions. JMW is so laughably bad at those.

So, Hope started a fashion line to help promote her values to young women. And now she gets one lukewarm review for a new collection, and she wants to bring back in the designer who emotionally abused her son, placed a fraudulent CPS call to break up her mother's marriage, and manipulated her to try to seduce her and break up her marriage. Way to hold firm to those values, Hope. WTF? I still fear the show wants to put Thomas and Hope together at some point in the not too distant future. And that should just be a permanent no-go for Hope after everything he's done. I saw some speculation, based on that Liam/Hope conversation about the night Bill was shot, that we're going to get a reveal that Liam is really the one who shot Bill, and that Bill has been keeping that secret, but somehow Sheila found out, and she's using that to manipulate Bill. And at first I was thinking "OK, that makes some sense" (other than how in the world Sheila would have come across this information). But, if Sheila was basically blackmailing Bill into blackmailing everyone else, why are we getting the vomit-worthy lovey-dovey scenes between the two of them when nobody is around?

OK, wait, so we had all those scenes of all the time involved in preparing to launch new designs for HFTF, and it hasn't been very long at all. But now, after exactly no scenes or discussion about how hard everyone is working to get the new designs ready, they've already had a new launch out for reviews? I'm not remotely surprised to see that Thomas is staying with Paris and that Paris and Zende are now "just friends." I totally predicted that they'd have Thomas and Paris hook up after he got the boot. But they couldn't do any of this onscreen? Because heaven forbid we lose a single second of the countless scenes of Sheila monologuing to Bill about how much he loves her? And I just don't buy that Thomas is so super duper special that the combined experience and talent of Eric and Zende just can't possibly measure up. I hope Thomas gets tired of waiting for their call and goes to try to present himself for them to apologize and beg him back, and they all just laugh in his face. Deacon, I have two requests. First, send Sheila away and just stay out of her mess. Second, put the glasses back on. Thank you. I swear if they're going to write some bullshit where Sheila and Deacon pine for each other while she has to stay with Bill to ensure her plan to remain free, I will vomit.

I feel like Brooke is the only one who recognized this at least a little bit and brought it up, wanting Sheila to stop speaking for him. I hope that whole portion of her visit doesn't get ignored, and she talks to everyone about how Bill supposedly wants Sheila to speak for him. His loved ones need to come up with some kind of plan to lure Sheila out of his house for an hour or so, and get a doctor in there to check him out. That would be a good point to bring Li into the story, since she'd obviously do anything to help defeat Sheila, and she may feel like she owes it to Bill to check on his well-being after he saved her and helped her save Finn.

I'm completely with you on that. I hate what the show has done to them, because their chemistry just leaps off the screen. I get waiting to put them together, because soaps always do that, but then tearing them apart five seconds later over that stupid building was such a waste. And it's especially irritating when you realize that they tore them apart solely for a Steffy storyline, not because the split was a good storyline for either Bill or Brooke. It would probably be easy enough for the show to sell me on them again at some point, and I'm sure I'd enjoy it while it lasted, because of how good KKL and DD are together, but in the back of my mind, I'd just be wondering when they're going to find the stupidest way possible to end them again.

Maybe Sheila waved it in front of him to hypnotize him? (I'm probably half kidding there.)

I wonder if the show would even acknowledge that it's rape. Their track record in recent years is not great on that score.

I've been noticing that, too. It's like she's disappointed or something. My current theory, which can change hourly, is that she is somehow controlling him (like hypnosis or drugging). So, she knows that, no matter how much she keeps reciting her spiel about how she finally has a man who loves her fully, she knows it's complete BS. Maybe, because this isn't something he's truly wholeheartedly into, she can feel the lack of passion in his kiss, and that keeps bringing her down to earth for a brief moment, to remind her that it's all a façade?

That whole scene earlier this week where Sheila was saying that Bill did everything right, and he was still rejected by Brooke and Katie was basically the incel mission statement - "I was nice, you owe me sex."

Exactly how many of the exact same scene of Sheila gushing over how now she knows what it's like to have someone truly love her, and how she truly loves Bill, etc, etc, etc, are we going to get? Yeah, sure, they sometimes throw in a flashback or something, but all the Bill/Sheila scenes have been the exact same thing. The only way this is acceptable is if we find out Sheila has him hypnotized, and this is just her repeating things over and over to him to keep reinforcing this whole disaster.

I saw a spoiler that, during February, "Bill and Sheila's passion will explode, and they'll make love." Yeah, I'm going to need an exact date on that episode so I don't accidentally watch it. Same spoilers also said Brooke was going to enact a plan to protect everyone. What are the odds she throws herself at Bill to get him away from Sheila?