KerleyQ

Remember when they were in Aspen, and Steffy went out to have a talk with Brooke about how she needed to just leave her husband to Steffy's mommy and go home so Steffy could set up a room for mommy and daddy to bang? After weeks of Steffy gunning for Brooke's marriage, including refusing to let her speak to her husband when he was at her house? Brooke showed admirable restraint in not slapping the taste out of her mouth. It was well past time now, after everything came out, for Brooke to confront any of those assholes. And, really, Taylor made the most sense, of the three of them, for Brooke to go talk to. Thomas is a remorseless asshole who Brooke should know damn well isn't going to feel an ounce of shame if she confronts him. He'd just double down on all the shit he's said to her the last two times they talked. And she knows Steffy is the one who did the right thing in the end. On a semi-related note, with Douglas back at Hope and Liam's house, I want to see if Steffy or Taylor can walk the walk on their concern for Douglas to know his Forrester family. Now that he's not in Thomas's clutches, will they go over to visit him at his mother's home? Because Hope and Liam damn sure went over to Eric's house to spend time with him while he was there. Especially since Thomas hammered away to him how revealing his secret could ruin grandma and grandpa's wedding, if that side of his family just dropped their interest in him, it could really screw the poor kid up, thinking that they all don't like him because of that.

Personally, I think you get to get a little pissy to someone who took an active role in breaking up your marriage. Yeah, Ridge should be her first and biggest target, but her giving Taylor blowback isn't out of the question. And I was responding to the comparison of Brooke's visit to Taylor with the idea of Taylor going after Brooke. Taylor has zero reason to do that in this current storyline. It would have been beyond bizarre for her to go yell at Brooke for... not being guilty of making the CPS call?

What, in the existing storyline, would Taylor have right now to go over to Brooke and read her for filth over? Brooke didn't do anything to be torn into over. Taylor is the one who came to LA to go after a married man. She's the one who, along with her kids, kept pushing and pushing for Ridge to ditch his wife for her. She's the one who knew damn well that there was something (Ridge thought) Brooke had done that pissed him off, but she still jumped into bed with a married man and then got engaged to him 5 seconds after he got an annulment. And she's the one who found out that he'd left his wife because he was deceived by their son but was still going to marry him before she even thought about admitting to him what she'd discovered, which she knew would have affected whether Ridge wanted to go through with the wedding. Oh, and the whole time, she was pushing for her son to take their mutual grandson away from Brooke's daughter, despite the fact that her son was not, it turned out, "all better now." Brooke didn't do squat to Taylor in this entire mess beyond being married to the man Taylor wanted.

They didn't really try them. Thomas had a crush on her back when she was being sold to us as the single best thing that had ever happened to FC, hell, to Los Angeles. And Steffy, after seeing the way he was looking at her, had about a minute and a half of worrying that Thomas was going to go all psycho obsessive over her when she was dating their cousin. But then he told her he had a thing for her, and she shot him down, saying she just wanted to be friends. So, now with her specifically talking about how he'd gotten buffer/hotter since the time they were roommates, I feel like they opened the door to revisiting that whole thing. Especially since he has no viable candidate for a love interest (unless they go twisted and have him hook up with Sheila at some point?), and her only real option other than Thomas is another round with Zzzzzende.

I wonder if Taylor noticed that she said the wedding was something that she and her kids had been wanting for so long. There seems to be an important member of a marriage there that was left out of the list of people who have been wanting it for so long. Does that not stand out to her? That it was all her and the kids and not Ridge? Something occurred to me today - that whole weird thing with Paris drooling over Thomas and pushing Hope to agree he was hot - at the time, we all were so focused on the whole Hope angle of it. But, now that we're safe from that, there has to have been some reason for it, right? Like maybe we're going to see Thomas/Paris? She's the only remotely age appropriate woman on the show who isn't involved with someone else. He had a thing for her a year-ish ago. And one of the main reasons they didn't go there was her relationship with Zende. I could see her being into a "bad boy." I think Zende didn't work because she really found him kind of boring. And she was "in love" with Carter because it was a bit exciting and forbidden.

"We both deserve better, but whichever one of us he picks after he takes a day and a half to think things over will fall giddily into his arms." Liam always looks like he thinks Douglas is just the greatest little person on earth. I love Brooke's emphasis to both Ridge and Taylor that Thomas needs serious help from a doctor who isn't Taylor. I'm just so damn glad that it seems like we are truly past Defcon "Holy fuck, they're going to have Hope sleep with Thomas and Liam sleep with Brooke, aren't they?"

This really stuck out to me, too. He was aggressively confident in what he'd done until the job came up. I think it kind of shows what a shitty job Ridge and Taylor have done with him, because he fully thought he would face no serious consequences for this. He thought they'd just shake their heads "oh, that Thomas," and get past it. The idea of losing his job over it was the only thing that cracked through that. Is it too much to ask that, since we all know Brooke will take Ridge back, she at least makes him grovel some first? Brooke, he hopped a plane to Aspen to chase Taylor through the mountains, so you need at least that much groveling (much more, really, but let's set the baseline). I'll give TK credit, Ridge did really look like he was in misery at the end of the episode. And Ridge actually knocking and then asking, complete with a "please," if he could come in was a nice touch. Taylor seems like she's trying to convince herself they're still getting married, and Ridge just needed to go apologize to Brooke first. Once reality sets in, and with Thomas repeatedly talking about how Steffy is the reason they're not getting married, I have a tiny sliver of hope for my wish for a Forrester family battle with Thomas/Taylor on one side and Steffy/Ridge on the other side. I am eager to see Hope and Liam find out what happened now. Do not disappoint me, show. I need to see Hope rip Thomas to pieces and then take Douglas home, telling Thomas he can talk to her lawyer. Also, I'm a sap who wants to see a Liam/Douglas reunion where Douglas feels bad about pushing him aside recently, and Liam makes him feel better about it.

I know it's not exactly the same, since Thomas is Douglas's father, and Brooke was Thomas's stepmother, but I so want to see, at some point in the future, a similar confrontation between Douglas and Thomas as the one a month or so ago between Thomas and Brooke, where Thomas went off on how (he thinks) Brooke ruined his life. Except Douglas's rant would be both justified and aimed at exactly the right person. Using him as a pawn to manipulate Hope, pressuring him, to an abusive degree, to keep secrets about daddy's crimes, and just in general letting him down when it comes to being a decent human being and role model. Grown up Douglas should consider Liam his "real" father. Thomas deserves that, especially since we all probably know this is not the last time he's going to be a shitty father. After all of this, it would be amazing character growth for Steffy if she takes this all in, thinks back on her parents' history and her own romantic history and tells her mom that she wants better for her, just like she's found better for herself. Being a waffler's backup option isn't a recipe for long term happiness or security. Yes, sure, Ridge loves her. Liam loves Steffy, too. But they both love other women more/differently, and want to be with those other women. Whoever did Taylor's makeup and wig for the wedding must have been drunk. I liked her dress, and I liked how Steffy's dress complimented it. And Steffy's hair and makeup were great (which is not always the case). Taylor, though... That wig looked like it had been in storage for a long time, and someone just took it out and plopped it on her head without any combing or fluffing. And her face looked like she went out and got a facial and peel the night before the wedding. Either that or she was in the hospital with an allergy attack that morning.

Maybe it was regional, but it was still very much a thing throughout the 80's in my small midwest town. During high school (86-90), I worked concessions stands for my old junior high's athletic events, and we always had to have Tab, or the moms would be pissed. And in the late 80's and early 90's, I worked for a local store, and we sold it at a pretty good clip there, definitely more than we sold Diet Coke. We had some customers who knew what day of the week we got our delivery, and they'd be in that day to get multiple cases as soon as it hit the shelves. When it was out, if I told people "but we do have some Diet Coke," they were not pleased. I always found it funny when Diet Coke became THE diet drink at the top of the heap, because I still remember how disgusted customers would be back then when we suggested it as an alternative when we were out of Tab. Even Diet Rite was outpacing Diet Coke in our town back then.

Yeah, what I want most out of this story is for at least one of them to reject Ridge. But, nope. Taylor is going to keep quiet because she wants to get that marriage across the goal line, and then Brooke is likely going to take him back with sobs of relief and joy when he goes running back to her. So, for my consolation prize, I want a huge Steffy/Taylor falling out.

Not only is she always the default choice but, despite her big words to the contrary when she headed to Aspen, she's perfectly happy with that situation as long as she gets to marry Ridge. Not only is she the fallback plan again, but he also has been lying to her all this time about how he just chose her, and brushing her off every time she asked if Brooke did something, until he finally admitted the truth the night before the wedding. Is it wrong to kind of hope that she starts acting bitchy towards Steffy after Steffy is the one to blow up the wedding? Both because Taylor is so pathetically desperate to be with Ridge that she's made it gets stopped (I'm assuming the wedding doesn't happen after that revelation), and because Steffy has been pushing her to admit she wants Ridge and get back together with him from the moment she set foot in town, and now that it's happening, Steffy is the one to blow it up at the last minute. (I mean, we all know that's not Steffy's fault, and she's actually doing the right thing here, but I want to see Taylor be all bitchy and irrational about it to her, because their relationship since she came back to town has been so immature that it would be in keeping with that for her to blame Steffy for everything instead of blaming herself or Ridge for rushing headlong into a doomed wedding.) Instead of those nauseatingly cheesy "Forrester family!!!" dinners, we can see the Forrester family battle lines drawn with Taylor/Thomas on one side and Ridge/Steffy on the other side.

After the truth fully comes out, I want to see scenes of Hope eviscerating Thomas. I want her to point out that shit like this is why, even if Liam wasn't in the picture, she would never, ever be with him. Ever. I want her to say she's pissed at herself for meekly going along with Douglas living with him because whenever he has unfettered access to Douglas, he emotionally abuses him. I want "I will never forgive you. For Douglas, for my mother, I will never forgive you and never look at you with even a thread of respect. I gave you so much benefit of the doubt. I wanted you to be better because that was what was best for my son. But you can't be better, can you? Not even for your son. You just can't stop yourself from manipulating and harming everyone you come in contact with." And then she needs to get Douglas (Liam should have been upstairs helping him get packed while Hope read Thomas for filth), and take him home, where she calls her lawyer and prepares for a custody battle. I swear, if they yadda yadda Hope finding out about this and whatever confrontation she has with him, I will throw shit at my TV. We need to see all those beats, show. After having to sit through months of "Hope and Thomas: BFFs!" complete with sleepovers, I need some payback.

Credit to the writers for not having Steffy pretend that she was indignant about what was done to Brooke. If Steffy is going to be mad about this, they had her mad about in character reasons - what he was doing to Douglas and that all their mother wanted was for their father to choose her without some "well, Brooke fucked up" reason behind it. And now the only way to be sure that he does truly choose her is if he knows that Brooke didn't make that call. And, credit to Steffy, from a parenting angle, she handled Douglas really well (other than her repeated "are you sure your father did this?" questions, which, to be fair were probably the typical soap opera repetition to set the scene for a new day's episode.) She kept reassuring him that he did the right thing by not keeping it secret, reassured him that she would handle his father, stood up for him to Thomas, and then got him out of the room for the big confrontation. And she was smart enough to snag the phone so Thomas wouldn't get a shot at grabbing it himself. It's a shame that we all know she'll go back to being insufferable soon enough. Bill, I'm embarrassed for you. Please stop. And Katie should have walked in and told him off for pulling that "she's my Katie, you stay away from her" bullshit on Carter. Also, Katie gave Bill's spiel more respect than it deserved. No, girl, don't hold back on laughing at him on this one. He absolutely should have been laughed at and then told "you realize that you're pulling the same crap you criticize Ridge for, right?"

Hang on, Katie, let me just repeat for you everything Bill just said to Brooke about Ridge. Not that I think Katie is going to actually fall for this shit when she knows damn well that he's there because he was begging Brooke to give him a chance. So, let me change that to, hold on, Bill, let me repeat to you everything you just said to Brooke about Ridge. Grab a hold of some dignity, man. Are you just this hard up to get laid? You're a wealthy, attractive, charismatic man, just go pick someone up at a bar or something and get it over with so you can start thinking clearly again. Douglas is in the midst of a lesson that none of his paternal family is worth shit. Steffy pressed him to tell her the secret, telling him how it was bad to keep secrets. And now we all know she's so damn thirsty to see her parent trap fetish to fruition that she's going to turn right around and tell him that this secret is the exception, and he needs to keep this one. Agreed on the inappropriate mother/son chemistry KA throws out there every time she's in a one on one scene with MA. But, to be fair, TK probably has more chemistry with JMW than he does with any of his leading ladies. Their one on one scenes aren't quite as cringe inducing as Taylor/Thomas scenes, but I've always gotten an "ew" vibe off the two of them. Maybe it's just a Forrester family thing. Or maybe JMW is only capable of generating chemistry with older men? (Because Bill is the only love interest she's really had that kind of chemistry with. Although, that may just be the magic of DD, who has chemistry with every cast member and some inanimate objects.)

I'm not counting them out, I just think that the way they've written Bill over the past few months is a deeply shitty lead-in to a romantic pairing. He asked Katie to take him back, she shot him down. Then he found out Ridge left Brooke, and he went tearing over to her house to profess his love. And he's continued to do so, practically begging her to give him a chance. If he goes right to Li after this, it's just going to feel like Bill is desperate for a relationship, and while he'd prefer Brooke, he'll take anyone else if she's not an option. Also, I don't want to see Li as basically another Taylor - the woman a man rebounds to when the "love of his life" isn't an option for him. After finding out that almost her whole marriage was a lie, Li should be holding out for an uncomplicated relationship with someone who only wants her.

I read an article a couple years ago about this. It was some combination of it filming well and being an easier style to maintain continuity with, because you don't notice as easily if a strand or two is out of place (like you do with straight styles).

What really pisses me off is how much they're teasing us with Bill and Brooke. Has the entire purpose of all of their scenes been leading up to Carter overhearing them so he can (I'm assuming) run back to Ridge and get him jealous? If I thought they had a shot at at least having a couple years together, I want Brooke and Bill, no question. But if all we're going to get is this, or maybe like five minutes of Brooke deciding to move on with him but then going back to Ridge, then what's the point of doing this to Bill's character? How are they going to sell us Bill and Li in the near future after all of this? Can they just bring back VI as the doctor (whose name escapes me) to be with Li? At least it would be a pairing where neither person is truly hung up on some other person as the love of their life. Li is no Taylor. She's not going to be all giddy to be someone's consolation prize. (Side note: I'm assuming that Li and Taylor are supposed to be around the same age. Could there be a bigger difference between these two doctors? Li is a strong intelligent woman who knows her worth. Taylor is Giggles McShoulderblades, twirling around Eric's living room like a high school girl who just got a call from her crush, as she prepares to marry the guy who's like "well, the woman I really want pissed me off, so I guess this one will do.") You've got to love how all of the Forresters recognize that something is up with Douglas, but none of them give a single fuck enough to actually take him aside and talk to him or to think it's odd how dismissive of it all Thomas is being. It's been two days of him acting really quiet and withdrawn, and nobody is talking to him beyond pushing him to get excited about the wedding? After all the talk at dinner last night about the CPS call, Ridge sees him all down like this, and he doesn't pull him aside to check in and make sure he's OK? All so desperate to drag that kid away from his mother, but now that they have him, he's just another trophy on the shelf. A score over the evil Logans.

I also want it to put a fine point on what a shitty parent Taylor is. I can't help wondering if Steffy was genuinely concerned about her father's reasons for marrying her mother, or if she asked Ridge that question because she knew her mother was immediately going to have that concern, and she knew her father would, when put on the spot like that, lie his everloving ass off about how that's definitely not the reason he's marrying her. Because I don't buy that Steffy would raise doubts about the wedding she's been bulldozing them towards for months if she genuinely thought it would lead to her father admitting the truth. And then she was in a hurry to get her mom out of there, likely so she couldn't press him for any further one on one conversation on the topic. What I think I really want to happen here is for Taylor to stop the wedding and reject Ridge, because she knows she's just the fallback again. And then Douglas, thinking that his father's reason for keeping the truth hidden (to not disrupt grandma and grandpa's wedding) is no longer valid, lets loose with the truth. Ridge goes to Brooke and tells her what happened, and she kicks his ass to the curb, too.

I really think we might get this. I think the show really wanted to go there with Brooke/Liam, but KKL and SC probably both said "hell no" to that mess. KA and TN don't have that kind of sway. I could see the show deciding that they can still get their MIL/SIL story and it will be a huge surprise, because everyone was expecting it to be Brooke and Liam. Finn could think Steffy was involved in the fake CPS call or just that she's known about it and kept quiet (because he knows how obsessed she's been with getting her parents together). Taylor is going to be pissed and hurt. If the two of them end up alone, commiserating... As for today's show, how does Taylor not immediately nope out of this wedding once she hears Ridge admit he left Brooke because of the CPS call? She was so clear that she wanted Ridge to come to her because he chose her, not because he was pissed at Brooke and she was the fall back. Not only is it exactly the truth that he came to her as the fall back when he got pissed at Brooke, but he's been lying to her since the moment he set foot in Aspen, assuring her he chose her. I loved Douglas's "no" when Thomas tried to drag him out of there once the call came up, along with his disapproving glare at his father. After Douglas blows the lid off this one, people in town are going to start going to him whenever there's something they can't figure out. "Hey, Douglas, do you know who the thief/kidnapper/murderer is?" He's going to be the only kid in elementary school working as a consultant for the LAPD. Please, please, please let Brooke tell Ridge to go fuck himself when this all blows up and he goes running back to her.

Geez, Steffy, leave the kid alone. Even not knowing what's actually up with him, you can clearly see that Douglas is not feeling very festive right now. Just let him be. Or, instead of repeatedly pressuring him to get on board your stupid Parent Trap fantasy, how about if you crawl out of your own ass long enough to say to your nephew "hey, Douglas, what's going on? You feeling OK? You seem down about something. Do you want to talk about it?" You know, be a concerned aunt at some time other than when you're pushing for Thomas to grab him away from his mother to add him to your Forrester Family trophy case. Of course they're getting married tomorrow. Ridge doesn't trust himself to stick to it if he has too much time to think about it, and Taylor wants to lock this shit down before he waffles again. Was the HFTF preview the only time any work has been done in that office since Steffy decided it's home base for Parent Trap?

And what is Thomas going to do then, if he does? He has to know that it wouldn't take long of Douglas being 24/7 exposed to Hope and Liam before he's spilling his guts. Is he going to hold his son hostage? Not even let him see Hope and Liam at all? Try to get Eric to kick Donna out of the house, so she can't be an intermediary?

In the same episode where one of their spawn divides his time between trying to harass and intimidate his former stepmother and then working his way towards emotionally abusing his young son. Yeah, stellar job there, you two. Great work on the parenting. Oh, and, by the by, Giggles, didn't you go try to murder your daughter's former FIL after she banged him like a screen door in a hurricane because she was pissed off at her husband/his son? Yep, make room on that mantle. The Parents of the Century committee should come calling any day now.

So fitting that Ridge didn't even actually say the words, and Taylor just said "yes." He probably should have brought Steffy with him to pop the actual question. And Taylor, who was so desperate for Ridge to just want her and not fall back to her because Brooke pissed him off, clearly knows that Ridge is pissed off over something (he thinks) Brooke did, but she keeps letting him brush her off and still accepts the proposal. So much for all that self-respect she pretended she had when she headed off to Aspen. And are we supposed to believe that Brooke could, through her "destiny" tie to Ridge, actually feel the moment the proposal was happening? Why did Thomas go over to Brooke's? Did he decide he needs a sample of her voice again for some new evil plan? Because he really kind of showed his hand there. Donna had just been telling Brooke that maybe Ridge's problem was simply that Brooke can never trust Thomas. But then Thomas made it pretty clear to her that he did something, even if he tried to backtrack and pretend she misunderstood him. So, Douglas will be saving the day again. How does Thomas really think he's going to keep this from happening? Despite his best efforts, his son has a very well defined moral compass. And he's probably righteously indignant that dad's been giving him so much shit about this app only to have it turn out that he's the one who's really been up to no good with it. If Thomas starts rebuffing Hope's visits to see Douglas, she's going to know something is up. And it will undermine his entire plan to get her back, too. And if he doesn't keep Douglas and Hope apart while he's being menacing to Douglas to keep quiet, there's so little chance that Douglas isn't going to tell her. After this, Hope had better never, ever give this asshole the benefit of the doubt again.

This. There should be nowhere for him to turn and find any sympathy. If there are any charges that can be filed against him for the fake CPS call, I hope his family all sit back and let him face those charges. They need to realize that bailing him out of all of his consequences has only made him worse.

It just occurred to me - Douglas said he lost all of his voices on the app, right? If the same thing happened to Thomas, it would be hilarious if he went to play it to himself again, and someone walked in and heard "this is Brooke Logan" in Thomas's voice coming from his phone. Well, as long as it's not Hope who walks in. She'll believe whatever BS story Thomas sells her about it, and then she'll agree not to mention it to anyone "to keep the peace."