KerleyQ

HT can freaking act. And that is all I took away from today's mess.

I didn't know about Sheila's history using a poisoned necklace, but now that I do, I think there is potential for that to be the story. They've made such a big deal about Bill putting that stupid necklace back on. And they've been making a point to use a lot of old Sheila clips to revisit her history. So it makes sense to me that they would dive back into her history for the current story. I'm also not sure exactly what drug would allow her to control Bill like this, but soap writers could always just make one up that doesn't really exist. It would certainly explain Bill's rather flat demeanor in 99 percent of his scenes the past couple weeks. I completely agree that Taylor needs to go turn herself in. Otherwise, Bill and Sheila will just use that for everything Sheila wants. Pretty soon it would be "let Hayes spend the weekend with us, or I'll tell the police your mother shot me." Taylor will probably get a slap on the wrist. Maybe they can give her a storyline where she's providing therapy to inmates as a community service. I had hoped that Bill was conning Sheila somehow, to ensure she actually got arrested and didn't manage to slither away without being brought in. But, once she was in jail, there was no need for him to continue conning her. I don't get what the plan would be at this point if he wasn't working with her.

I know that Steffy isn't supposed to tell anyone about Bill's blackmail, but she's already told Taylor. And even if she doesn't tell Liam, he's going to, soon enough, discover that his dad is romantically involved 🤢with Sheila. Even that should be enough, I'd hope, for Liam and Hope to cut Bill off from the kids. OK, now Taylor knows (like I thought she did last week for some reason). There is no excuse, no matter what Steffy says, for her to not go turn herself in. Or, at least, she should tell Finn and Steffy to go ahead and testify, and she'll deal with Bill's blackmail threat if he goes through with it. (And then Steffy and Finn can also testify that Bill blackmailed them and appeared to have some kind of relationship with the judge, getting him potentially tossed in jail, too). I had one moment of hope today, knowing that's the judge that Ridge bribed to go against Bill in the custody fight with Katie, that this whole thing is Bill setting people up to bring them down. He plays being all in with Sheila, so she trusts him and doesn't enact any of her own schemes to stay safe or silence Steffy and Finn, and then he bribes that same judge who worked for Ridge so he can ultimately expose him for revenge. Sadly, I do not think that's how any of this is going to go. Why did Sheila look alarmed after her kiss with Bill (at the end of yesterday and early this episode)? Did KB think she was doing a sexy face with that? It was such an odd choice, given what was going on in the scene. Or was she just reacting to how much of a passionless, limp fish kiss that mess appeared to be? And I did at least get a laugh when she listed, among all the reasons she appreciates him, that he doesn't see her as a monster. I mean, he kind of does, Sheila. He told Finn and Steffy, multiple times in front of you, that after all of his mistakes and the pain he caused Steffy, Brooke, and Katie, he knows he can't hurt Sheila. That didn't mean that he loves you so much he would never do anything to hurt you, dummy. It means he thinks you're largely a monster incapable of being hurt by the same kind of antics that hurt the women he actually loved.

One of the spoiler sites had a spumor that this is all leading up to a "Who Killed Bill" storyline. So, help me, if we lose DD/Bill in service of Sheila once again getting away with her crimes...

What even was that kiss scene? I honestly cannot tell what the show was going for there. DD and KB have anti-chemistry. Did Steffy and Finn honestly not figure out ahead of time that Bill likely had the other charges against Sheila taken care of? His plan was clearly for her to go free, so leaving other charges dangling over her head wouldn't have made sense. And that whole weird private hearing with no prosecutor should have raised a red flag for them, too, that the fix was in. Mike is just pathetic beyond words. How many times has she fucked him over? He's in jail right now because she fucked him over.

This is what I kept wondering. The judge (and everyone else in the scene) acted like the only things Sheila had done were shooting Steffy and Finn and breaking out of jail. She assaulted Li multiple times (knocking her out at the apartment and then chasing her down and running her off the road). Since Finn and Steffy aren't allowed to tell Li what's going on, there is zero reason she wouldn't press charges to protect her son and grandson. (Not that I think she'd risk letting Sheila wander around free to protect Taylor from her own stupidity even if she did know what's going on).

I don't know why I thought I saw a scene of that. Maybe this storyline is so bad that my mind is creating its own reality? Also, this just gets more ridiculous by the day. Sheila sitting there looking smug, Finn seems constipated, and JMW is busting out facial expressions only seen in parodies of telenovela dramatic scenes. I am one hundred percent positive I've seen her exact facial expressions on a Kristen Wiig character. Taylor was apparently out of town, and her first two stops are at Steffy's for a pep talk before Sheila's hearing and then right to Brooke? You'd think that, as a therapist, she might have some recognition that she's replaced her codependency on Ridge with Brooke. I do buy it more with her and Brooke, though, so there's that. Deacon, Deacon, Deacon... Are we going to get scenes of Bill finding out exactly how recently Sheila was banging Deacon? Or is Deacon going to keep quiet because Sheila will remind him how much he has to lose if people find out? (And I wouldn't even put it past this show to let Sheila out with no charges hanging over her head but then also haul Deacon off to prison for harboring her.

How has Taylor not already broken land speed records to get to the police and tell them "I shot Bill Spencer, and he's using covering for me to blackmail Steffy and Finn into not pressing charges"?? This woman shot your daughter and son-in-law, and you all consider her a huge danger to them and your grandkids. In her shoes, if that was the only thing standing between the woman who is that big of a danger to my child and grandchildren being free or locked up, I'd go to the police without hesitation. Sure, Steffy doesn't want her to do that, but screw that. ETA: OK, wait, I just started watching today's show, and Taylor doesn't seem to know. I could have sworn we had scenes last week of Steffy telling her. Am I hallucinating now?

KA has chemistry with everyone but TK. And KKL has some small level of chemistry with him, but she has better chemistry with everyone else. At this point, TK has only had chemistry with LG during the Ridge/Caroline storyline, and with DD in every single Bill/Ridge scene. Oh, and he did have chemistry with RS, too, but that Ridge/Quinn storyline was bad enough to override the chemistry. Maybe the show should figure out if they can lure Alicia Minshew out to LA to play a completely new love interest for Ridge.

Yep. Like with the Beth story, I hated that they took Hope's baby from her, but the performances kept me engaged, and I had to keep watching to see the resolution. This? The chemistry isn't there. DD is playing it like someone's got a gun just offstage forcing him to say his lines. JMW and TN aren't selling their side of it for me. And the holes in the whole big master evil plan are too plentiful and obvious. The only real selling point to any of this is the limited Liam/Wyatt scenes we've gotten out of it.

I still think DD is playing this like Bill is somehow being controlled. None of his scenes, since the moment Bill walked into Steffy's house, have been the Bill we know. How bad would Lt. Hot Dog be at his job if he didn't think there was anything up with Steffy and Finn, who just a couple days earlier were hysterical over Sheila being on the loose, begging him to catch her while the cop was chasing her, were suddenly like "you know, she's Finn's mommy, and we don't want to press charges, let her go"? And he also didn't think there was anything up with Bill, the man who called 911 and urged them to hurry and come get Sheila, is visiting her in jail and will, if she is released, take her home with him? Even if the victims of a shooting being able to say "no, no, it's fine, don't prosecute" was a thing, everything about Sheila and Bill's plan would scream "someone is being blackmailed or threatened" to a halfway competent cop.

They have more charges to file against her that don't depend on Finn and Steffy's testimony, though. There's Li's testimony about her attacking her, holding her hostage, and running her off the road, and I'm guessing she's not going to back off on getting Sheila locked up and away from her son and grandson to just to protect Taylor. And there's the escape from prison and faking her death. I'm sure there is more, too that I'm not remembering right now.

Come on, do some math, Finn. Liam kisses Sally, Steffy fucks Bill, needs paternity test. Liam thinks Hope kissed Thomas, Steffy fucks Liam, needs paternity test. And while Sheila absolutely is nuts and not safe to be around his child, I still kind of want Finn to be like "so, when I was curious about getting to know about my birth mother, you repeatedly brought up her shooting people making her not safe to be around. But I don't hear about your mom's trigger finger until Bill tries to blackmail you with it?" There is definitely something off with Bill. Also, I want to see the police bring up the big hole in his story. Wyatt and Liam called the police because they were at Bill's house, he wasn't there, and there was evidence Sheila had been there. Then, Bill calls them later, from home, and acts like Sheila just showed up there now, and he called the police right away. They've got to have questions about what happened between whenever Bill left the house, and when he called the police. Bill could probably still sell some story that he was out, he came home, and Sheila was there (and that she must have hidden when Liam and Wyatt were there), but that's not a point the police should skip pursuing.

Maybe Jack in a Bill mask? Pissed off that he's been left out of the family? And, yes, Bill was full of shit. Brooke and Katie don't want to fuck or marry him, but they both consider him one of their close friends and would absolutely care if something happened to him. And all three of his sons love him. Plus, he has Kelly, Beth, and Douglas. Sign up for a dating app for that one aspect of your life that's missing, Bill, but stop acting like nobody in the world cares about poor little Dollar Bill. I'm impressed at how fast Liam and Wyatt figured out Sheila was involved. The only way it could have gone faster would have been if Douglas was with them. They should go check in with him now, with the evidence they have. This whole blackmail thing is ridiculous. At this point, Sheila has multiple charges against her that Steffy and Finn aren't going to have any say over. She faked her death. She stole at least one car and went on the run from the police. And when it comes to the crimes against Steffy and Finn, the police aren't just going to handwave a double shooting, and the faked robbery to go with it. And then there's her crimes against Li. Li isn't going to sit back and let the woman who almost murdered her and her son go free for Taylor's former stupidity. And, like others have mentioned, Bill would need evidence that Taylot shot him. What evidence does he have? Taylor can deny it and Steffy and Finn can say that he accused Taylor to try to force Steffy to let Sheila go free. If anything, Bill is just asking for another stint in prison himself for aiding and abetting Sheila. Taylor would be the hero of this story if she just said "fuck it, let him turn me in. If that's what it takes to protect my daughter and grandchildren from a psychopath, then I'll go pay for my crime." I do think drugging is possible, though. The way DD is playing all of this isn't very Bill like. He's not as fiery as he usually is, and he seems like he's robotically reciting a script. At this point, the only way I see out of this story for him is if he is being drugged. Li can figure it out and save him while also putting a silver bullet through Sheila's heart. This whole Sheila has a rich guy with an ax to grind pulling strings for her story would have worked better with Thomas, personally, but I guess they didn't want to dirty him up quite that much. Also, come on Sheila. Don't let this whole family bitch session you've orchestrated end without Finn finding out about Stallion Night and Kelly's paternity test. Hell, really go for the jugular and suggest that Bill get a new paternity test, since he can't trust one Steffy got on her own.

On one hand (and it is the predominant hand, by far), I hate what they're doing to Bill. On the other hand, there's that small part of me that both loves that Steffy is experiencing not having Bill on her hook and kind of agrees with Bill on the whole "speaking of letting someone off the hook for shooting you, have you seen the scar I bear from your whacked out mother shooting me?" thing. But, yeah, as bad as Taylor has been at times, she's no Sheila, Bill. I can get why you might not appreciate the difference when you're the one who's been on the other end of her trigger finger, though. Count me in on a Brooke/Taylor relationship. I just want to watch Ridge, Steffy, and Thomas have a collective head explosion. I was definitely getting those vibes off their scenes today. Of course, I also got those vibes from Taylor/Sheila before Taylor found out Sheila was the shooter. Maybe it's a KA thing?

Just got caught up on the past two days' shows. You just know Thomas went into that meeting thinking "I'll offer Brooke an apology I don't mean, but look really sincere in doing it. She'll be the bitch she always is and refuse to accept it. Then my dad and Hope will be frustrated by how she always has to think the worst of me, and I'll be fine." Yeah, no, dude. They're all onto you now. And I'm so confused by Carter's timeline over these two episodes. He was in the meeting with Thomas when it was already storming. Then we see him and Katie come running back from dinner, soaked, talking about how they couldn't beat the storm in walking back to the office. Are there two Carters now? One who was in the meeting to boot Thomas from FC while the storm was already going on, and another who was at dinner with Katie starting before the storm? I'd like to think that Bill isn't going to help Sheila, especially after he helped Finn escape from her and helped him get to Steffy. But, the show has made such a big deal over him putting his sword necklace back on, and how it's such a bad sign that has Liam and Katie worried about him, and Bill has been so pathetically desperate for someone, anyone, to be with. I fear Sheila may have thrown him a roll in the hay, and now he's somehow under her spell. We already know she fucked Deacon stupid, so why not Bill, too? Also, if she played the right heartstrings, he could somehow feel like they're kindred spirits, just trying to get their loved ones to come around and be a happy family. I am going to be so pissed if they're ruining Bill like this. This would be WAY worse than his love affair with that damn building.

Wasn't the brain thing just responsible for the Hopequin stuff? I thought that was the result of the brain injury, which was the result of him hitting his head around that time. And the stuff when he came back after Caroline's death, where he manipulated Hope, abused Douglas, and kept the Beth lie going was all him. His nature is manipulative conniving asshole, the brain damage just added hallucinations. He just periodically sucks up to Hope, his parents, Steffy, and Douglas after whatever stunt he pulls that they finally deem to be too far, and then pretends to be changed for a while until they all let down their guard and he gets the urge to manipulate again. Brooke and Liam are the only ones in town who have memories longer than 2 minutes when it comes to Thomas. (And even Liam got sucked in for a while during the whole Vinnie's death storyline.)

I came in right around when Thomas was going after Hope to keep her distracted from Liam for Steffy. Did Thomas ever previously have a thing for her, or was that the start of it? Of course, I also remember him being perfectly happy with Sally, without a hint of pining for Hope, and him being obsessed with Caroline to the point of the "misunderstanding" night. So, I guess what I'm wondering is, was Thomas being obsessed with Hope when he came back after Caroline's death a new thing they established then, or was there some hint of it before?

I haven't watched today's show yet, but I was shocked enough yesterday when we had a Steffy/Finn/Kelly scene where it was acknowledged that Liam is Kelly's father. And now you're telling me Kelly actually spent Christmas with Liam, Hope, Beth, and Douglas? It's a Christmas miracle!

With as much time as she and Taylor have spent at FC, there must be some kind of portal from FC to a medical office building.

I've always liked TK, but as Ridge, he has only had genuine chemistry with three people - Caroline, Quinn (although I may just choke that up to Rena having chemistry with everybody), and Bill. I doubt they'll get rid of him, but I think they should retool the character a lot. Bring in an entirely new actress (after some time of him being single and figuring his shit out) who he has actual chemistry with. I know he's capable of it. He and Alicia Minshew were fucking magical on AMC. And he had insane chemistry with just about everyone in that cast. In the meantime, give him more scenes with his grandkids. He was magical with children on AMC. I know he's capable of more than this, but the way they're writing Ridge now isn't doing him or the character any favors. After decades of this shit, KKL must have felt just as giddy as Brooke and Taylor at getting those lines and scenes this week.

I was genuinely stunned we actually got those scenes. What I really liked is how both actresses played it like "OK, we're going to say this stuff because he needs to hear it...but, I still love him," right up until they simultaneously hit the "no, wait, we really are going to be OK without him," moment of clarity. I really hope this sticks for a decent length of time. I want to see scenes of Steffy, Finn, Hope, and Liam hearing from their mothers what happened, and while Steffy and Hope are maybe stunned for a moment (Steffy more than Hope), all four are actually proud and supportive. Because on some level they probably hadn't previously accessed, it has to feel like a relief to know your mom has enough self-respect to jump off that shitty merry-go-round. Yeah, Steffy wanted her parents together, but maybe the thought that Brooke also doesn't have him and that her mother was standing up for herself and her own well-being might help her see that this is the best, healthiest thing her mother could do. Considering how at odds some Taylor and Brooke fans have been for decades, it will be kind of hilarious to see some of them break out of that mold and start writing Brooke and Taylor fan fics after today's episode.

It is weird that, as far as I can tell, the only mention of either of them is Brooke saying that Ridge left town. Unless I missed an episode, we didn't see Ridge leave town or tell anyone he was leaving. (The last time we saw him was when he left Brooke's house, right?) And isn't this the second time that Taylor was in Eric's house one minute and then just gone the next? If Taylor is out of town, too, I'd put money on her chasing after Ridge, wherever he's gone. Also, when are we going to get to the fallout for Thomas beyond people yelling at him? Is he losing his job at FC? Is he still living with Eric? Has he already stumbled across Sheila, and in a week or so, we'll see the two of them in bed at some hotel? If the show had a deadline before TK was off for a break, they really should have hit some story beats a couple episodes earlier, so we could see some follow up and resolution before he left town. Maybe we could have had one less family dinner?

Has Steffy been watching The Nanny reruns? Bill, honey, I'm embarrassed for you. Please stop. All I can think watching his scenes today was "Li can do better." I still want to know what the off ramp is for Deacon here. Are they just going to write him off after everyone finds out he's had Sheila living with him all this time? I really hate that they've written him into this corner. Deacon and Bill were the only adult men worth shit on this show earlier this year, but they're both being ruined.