KerleyQ

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.

I don't think her hair was cut before. I think they just had it pinned up and under so it looked shorter. If you looked closely at the back, you could see that, instead of cut ends, the hair was looped upwards.

Thomas is truly delusional. Did he really think Hope was going to listen to him and be like "Oh, well, OK, I didn't realize that you really, super duper wanted your parents to get married. It's totally fine, then, that you framed my mother, broke up her marriage, and emotionally abused our son, again. Do you want to go fuck in a supply closet?" Everyone comparing him to Sheila is dead on. The same whiny, nothing is ever my fault, I only do bad things because all of you force me to by not just doing what I want you to do in the first place mentality. I want a scene of Hope and Steffy combining to tell security to escort Thomas out of the office, both of them standing by watching without an ounce of sympathy. And, show? No more brain injury magic crime eraser. No donating an organ or bone marrow. No saving children from a burning schoolhouse. He needs to suffer. A lot. Or just permanently become a villain. Nobody should trust any reformation he tries to sell at any time in the foreseeable future. "Yeah, sure, thanks for the kidney, now go fuck off forever."

Yeah, I'm kind of pissed that they just dumped that angle. The two of them had chemistry, and it would have been an offramp out of triangle hell. Now that he's been harboring Sheila for so long and involved with her, it really kind of kills his potential as a love interest for anyone else. And it seemed like such a good setup for the two of them. Deacon was the one who saved Steffy's life, and Ridge had, at that point, decided to stay with Brooke. Why have Deacon be the one who initially saved Steffy (and, as it turned out, Finn) in that alley, then give us those rather endearing scenes between him and Taylor, but then just turn around and essentially drop him into Sheila's purse, largely cut off from the rest of the canvas and hiding the same person who was responsible for Steffy and Finn lying bleeding in that alley?

This. I still remember Taylor busting Brooke's pregnancy (with Bill) at a party at Katie's house, in front of everyone. Brooke's confrontation with Taylor, over something that was actually her business (unlike Taylor having shit to do with Brooke being pregnant) being something quiet and private can't ever come close to touching that mess. I've always wanted more Bill/Douglas scenes. I have this feeling they'd be awesome. To clarify, it's not that I particularly want scenes of Taylor/Steffy with Douglas, but just that I'm guessing we won't see them making any effort, because he was mostly just a trophy to be won in the war against the evil Logans. Now that they don't have much room to stand on to demand he be given to Thomas 24/7, they'll likely lose interest, and the poor kid is going to find out how little his daddy's family actually gives a crap about him.

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.