KerleyQ

I don't know about that. Natalie was largely the Liz to McBain's Jason on that show. When she did finally get a real love interest of her own who fans loved, they killed him off. And, even outside of the love stories, she was always the "lesser twin" to Jessica. So, playing Liz would be like a comfortable shoe for MA. "OK, you're here to play plot point prop for other characters' stories, and if you get involved in a pairing that the fans like or that has potential to move you out of the periphery of the guy we want your character always pining for, we'll kill that bastard off."

I'd like that. They never know who is going to show up from one challenge to the next, and there are a lot of ways they can go with exactly how they work that format (in terms of the missions themselves and eliminations after). If, say, you're doing an Exes or Rivals type format, where the cast is on teams of 2, then you could bring in a team of two old timers, and the cast is all competing to beat their time (or their count if it's a mission measured in that way). Every team who doesn't perform better than the old timers is eligible to be voted into elimination (so the only way to remain safe is to beat the old timers). Maybe the old timers get to pick one team, and the cast gets to vote in the other team. Even better if the cast doesn't find out who the old timers have voted in until right when they're voting, so there's no time for the cast to plan and manipulate to get the exact result they want.

Which seems just incredibly petty and juvenile.

Not to get too off topic, but the worst was when, on GH, Jax was kidnapped and forced to have sex with his female captor to protect his family. His wife essentially viewed it as cheating, and she and her male BFF laughed at the idea of Jax being raped by a woman. It was so very, very gross. I swear, all three soaps I watch (this, GH, and Y&R) are at points where it's sometimes really hard to figure out why I'm hanging in there. I guess I'm hanging in for TK's return and Detective Hard-on here. Also, is Ivy just really and truly gone now?

Was Zay around in season 1? I thought he didn't appear until season 2.

I prefer doing a Fresh Meat season to bringing in AYTO kids just because of the odds that we'll find more interesting people. With a FM season, we get a bigger pool of newbies (upping the odds that we'll find a few that end up being "keepers"), and those newbies are all paired with returning cast members, so we have a little more reason to be interested in them right out of the gate. With most formats of this show, any AYTO people brought in will likely be contained to each other (Rivals, Exes, Seasons), or grouped in with a bunch of other relative newbies (Rookies vs. Veterans). If they're not tied to someone we're already interested in, it makes it that much more difficult for them to catch our interest.

I always knew Liz would be the one thrown under the bus. The men never pay on this show (unless they are Sonny opponents). And the first time they had Nik/Hayden interacting, it was pretty clear that Nik was going to come out of this all with a new bed mate, while Liz would be the one who lost.

The specific details aren't the same, of course, but the general outline - an amnesiac is living with a woman who knows his real life and is lying to him to keep him with her for her own reasons.

I think that was Jason's biggest flaw (of many) - his complete inability to see exactly how dangerous the mob life would be for kids. He and Sonny had this arrogance that they could just keep everyone safe, because they're just that awesome (and Sonny still has this arrogance, despite the numerous awful things that have happened to those around him). I mean, he didn't need to predict a coma, exactly, but he should have been able to guess that, with all the enemies he and Sonny had, bad shit was going to happen to the people closest to them. I'll give Jason credit for eventually figuring that out, which is why he agreed to Lucky being Jake's father, and why, when Sonny got involved with Emily, Jason wanted to be the one running the mob. Although I only give him partial credit on that last one, because he and Sonny should both know by now that saying "oh, I'm not doing that any more" is not a get out of jail free card to no longer face danger from rival organizations. I think, at various points in time, Jason has gotten the fact that it's not fair to innocent kids to choose this life for them (Sonny has NEVER gotten that), but his attitude towards adults, like Sam, evolved to "hey, they know the risks."

Considering that she ended her engagement in 2000, and her oldest was born on Halloween of 2001, that seems an easily debunked rumor.

I think that's part of why that obnoxious shit, Spinelli, was always able to emotionally manipulate her.

It will be bizarre if this show is simultaneously doing two storylines that GH has been doing just ahead of them. We've got Quinn sleeping with an amnesiac Liam after Liz slept with amnesiac Jason. On GH, it's believed that Sonny fathered Ava's baby (Ava being his son Morgan's girlfriend at the time, and she and Sonny had a quickie in a crypt), but a lot of viewers think we'll find out soon that Morgan's mother tampered with the paternity test and it's really his baby. We have the reverse here - son having a cringe-worthy night with his father's girlfriend, followed by the baby being believed to be the son's, but, will likely end up to be the father's. I know soaps recycle the same stories over and over, but it's weird to have two shows running two stories so close together like this. Who needs a DNA test when you have sword necklaces?

I think that every time we see someone who's done a lot of these without winning end up in a position where the win finally looks possible, they act like Cara Maria has been acting. I think it's kind of natural, when it finally seems like you have a real shot at it, to be at a kind of heightened emotional level towards the whole thing. For the first time, really, she's in a position where there's no reason she shouldn't win. She's trained for this, she and her cousin have been among the top performers all season long, she knows a lot of people were angling to get her out of there, and not only didn't they succeed in getting rid of her, but she beat John in an elimination round. I think there's a special kind of pressure when something is seen as "yours to lose," and I think that's how she's feeling. She knows she's performed well all season, she knows that everyone viewed her as a threat to win, and it gets to you. And I think the carnival game really freaked her out and threw her off her game, because it would really suck to have it boil down to "well, you didn't win because you couldn't get the beer stein in the barrel quickly enough." I think that once they got past that game and got to the third level, she was more composed.

I'm with you. I've thought from the beginning that the baby would end up being Ridge's. I still question whether anything really did happen that night or if Thomas just said it did. I'd prefer the latter. While it's still a gross violation of their friendship and trust, it's the better alternative.

I was out shopping during the show today. I gather I should just delete it and move on? I was out shopping during the show today. I gather I should just delete it and move on?

I don't think he felt bad, specifically, about Michael missing out on being a Q. But, I do think that he always felt he had to hang in there and keep an eye on Michael as he was raised by Carly and Sonny. I also don't think he would have remained all BFF with Carly were it not for Michael. He would have stuck with Sonny, I think, but the lure of Carly was always Michael for him.

And pushing his Harley. Uphill!

I'll be really disappointed if the two of them go to just "we're in love and it's all peachy" without examining any of the very real issues they've had in the past, and without figuring out what he's going to do with regard to the mob. Yeah, the kidnapping accomplice was cool with his mob life when it was the two of them. But, she's had time to live, as a mother, without the constant threat of the mob over their heads, and she's been through believing her son was dead and then his cancer. She should want better by now. It would be regressive for her to not want to know where he stands with the mob now. Also, I think she needs to be honest with him as to exactly what their issues were in the past, even the stuff that doesn't make one or both of them look particularly good. Better to get it all out there now then to let it trickle in in bits and pieces over time when someone says something he doesn't get and he finds out "oh, yeah, about that, you didn't want me to have Danny because we feared he might be Franco's via rape," or "oh, yeah, there was that time I slept with my stepfather, you slept with Liz, you two had Jake, I watched him get kidnapped, and you threatened to kill me," "but, it's all good now!"

Am I the only one who's noticed that BryDog and ThighBolt haven't proclaimed their love for each other on Twitter in weeks? I'm almost positive their love will wither and die without a steady diet of attention.

At minimum, they could have Thomas realize that, despite what he thinks about that night, it is something that Caroline feels violated by, so he needs to cut the shit about "love" and leave her alone. He shouldn't be about defending that night, and he should understand that she trusted him as a friend when she was emotional and vulnerable, and he exploited that in the absolute worst way.

But they really only half-assed it in '05, because SBu was never going to commit to really playing it. They could have done it right this time. Or they could have done something else that would have been interesting to watch. This is just so blah. Even the reunion of the greatest love story ever told is just "welp, you were in peril, so I guess I could get to know you or something," after he moseyed through a burning house like he was trying to figure out where he left his phone instead of frantically searching for someone he cares about.

Seriously. As someone who worked while my husband went to law school, I sincerely hope he dropped out after like one semester instead of 4.

Yep. The guy who raped me in college pulled the same "love" crap on me, saying how it was "beautiful" because "we're in love." Naturally, I wanted to punch Thomas in the balls when he started spouting that shit. The show definitely doesn't want to put legitimate work into fixing Thomas. "Oh, we'll just keep him off screen for a while, and then we'll bring him back on talking about how he's different now, and emphasize how he sexually assaulted his 'friend' out of love. That'll take care of it!"

And I don't get that. What a poor story telling decision. It would have been compelling to see a guy disgusted with what he's done in the past and horrified that most of the people who love him seem to want him to go right back to being the friendly neighborhood hitman. Or, hell, he should have just shown some real initiative to genuinely want to know about his past. He's just been a blank slate, ready to be whatever each person he encounters wants him to be. Hell, I'm surprised Helena had to use any mind control. She could have just spent five minutes with him, being remotely nice to him, and he would have been all "OK, I'm your henchman."

You couldn't just let me have that for a while? Yeah, I'm sure it will end up that he'll become to mob doctor or something - stitching up stab wounds and removing bullets without asking questions. Only for the "good" mob, of course.