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Episode Discussion II: The TFGH


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Culture Check: How can we discuss a character's or actor's appearance without objectifying them? How can we express likes or dislikes and still respect an individual's humanity or be mindful that a character represents a person someone else might relate to or identify with?

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(edited)

I dislike Charlotte and her father so Jason running off to find her is yet another strike against him as a character.

I once told a friend that you could tell a starlet's emotional/mental health on the color of her hair so I'm using the same barometer for Lucky. How is it still so bad when he has access to shampoo and plumbing? I'm not expecting Captain Christopher Pike of the USS Enterprise (as played by Anson Mount) level of fantastic hair but it doesn't even look like Lucky has washed his hair. 

Nice to see Alexa Havin in a role where I don't immediately hate her face. I really, really disliked Babe. 

Edited by Mirabelle
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So Cody, Dante and BLQ all went to camp together where there were separate boys and girls camps and canoeing was all the rage? Was BLQ also an unashamed fan of The Osmonds during this time? Because I’m older than these characters (I think I was in high school when BLQ was born) and camps like what they’re talking about were out of style even then! 
 

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(edited)
10 hours ago, Mirabelle said:

I'm not expecting Captain Christopher Pike of the USS Enterprise (as played by Anson Mount) level of fantastic hair but it doesn't even look like Lucky has washed his hair. 

Agreed - Anson does have an awesome head of hair.  In all fairness, as far as silver foxes go, Rick Hearst can give him a run for the money in the follicle department. MEK was in the running in that category as well before his unfortunate "make-under."

Edited by Winston Wolfe
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(edited)

Remarkable how BLQ shows up down at the stables in what a friend accurately describes as Scrooge McDuck pajamas. Ready to dive into that big pile of gold! 

These folks remain real casual all the time about eating right next to piles of horse dung. But if this was Y&R the horses would be kept in a) the ranch drawing room and b) drawn by the crew's children.

Deeply annoyed the Gio thing appears to be legit - fInally they'd hired a cute young dude who isn’t needlessly related to everyone or giving attractive, viable younger adults under 50 more adult children that age them unnecessarily. Psych! Whether he turns out to be Dante or Cody's (something my pal posited, and I could see it) it is a huge mistake. I actually had thought Dante and BLQ was a solid screwball/straight man pairing at some point but thanks to this, no way. They're all gonna come off even more middle-aged. Chase looks practically young enough to be Gio's fraternal twin if you shave the beard.

Why do Anna and popstar Skye Riley in Smile 2 have the same extra-ass jungle wallpaper? Sonny’s old island girls are looking at it like ‘a bit much’. I think Anna even got this prefurbished from Sasha IIRC. Frank was like fuck it, not changing a thing! Anna's ready to take Jason on safari in the other room, crying all the way. I have said this a million times, but once more: Anna spent half the Cold War taking down the worst kind of people. She has killed God knows how many terrorists yet she comes back on this show in 2012 with Finola clearly worried she isn’t showing enough range and suddenly it’s tears over capping Carlos Rivera, tears over Sonny, Jason, Billy Joel, now this Maniac Mansion mutant child he's created with Lulu's eggs. Ron Carlivati got her right the first time in 2012 in those great scenes with RM’s Heather in the interrogation box where Heather was trying to do a deal to give up where Robin was and Anna very calmly said there’s no deal, I’ve spent my career closing people out, talk or die. And Heather did it too! That's the character.

I love Anna but I hate that this goes on and has become such a part of the latter-day characterization. IMO Finola too often plays against harder material (as she did often this year under Mulcahey re: Sonny, constantly getting choked up over her dilemma with this mobster) to prove she's got more range than being an '80s superwoman, but she has absolutely nothing to prove at this stage of her career. She's one of the greats, and she still does a lot of great work on the show - she just doesn't always do it in the right place. This will never get changed about Anna again but it still drives me nuts practically everyday. I'm out!

Edited by jsbt
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13 hours ago, nilyank said:

If BLQ knew Cody way back then, maybe he is the father.

Ugh, that's just as bad as Gio being Dante's son, IMO. It's okay to have people completely unrelated to one another, Show. Why can't you understand that? 

10 hours ago, Winston Wolfe said:

MEK was in the running in that category as well before his unfortunate "make-under."

I'd call it more of a glow-down, heh.

6 hours ago, jsbt said:

IMO Finola too often plays against harder material (as she did often this year under Mulcahey re: Sonny, constantly getting choked up over her dilemma with this mobster) to prove she's got more range than being an '80s superwoman, but she has absolutely nothing to prove at this stage of her career.

If only "play[ing] against harder material" wasn't always tears/crying/wobbly voice. FH doesn't have anything to prove, so why is she turning Anna into a soggy dishrag? The writing certainly isn't helping, but how she interprets it is on her.

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29 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

If only "play[ing] against harder material" wasn't always tears/crying/wobbly voice. FH doesn't have anything to prove, so why is she turning Anna into a soggy dishrag? The writing certainly isn't helping, but how she interprets it is on her.

Anna hasn't been the same  character since the Justice for Dewk days. It's been a downward spiral since then. 

She's not only weepy, but she also needs Jason to come to her rescue and help her with whatever crisis du jour is. I'm surprised she didn't call Jason to help her arrest Cyrus.

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Re: Anna.  I primarily blame the writers for having so completely isolated the character from everyone and everything.  Her friendships with Felicia and Mac are rarely on screen; her romance with Valentin, whose portrayer is gone for long swaths of time, is just depressing; they sent her most longstanding relationship out on an off-screen adventure with Holly; Robin and her family are off screen as well.  Who and what does she go home to at night?  When does she have occasion to smile?  I thought her becoming the police commissioner might give her something to do, especially when all of Port Charles suddenly realized that Sonny is a career criminal.  But that's washed up as well.  

I would love for Valentin to disappear permanently, wouldn't mind if they brought back Finn and Violet, or brought in someone new for Anna.  Give her some female friends, or at least show her with Felicia and Maxie, and maybe Laura.  Bring Emma to town.  And maybe bring a new mystery to town for Anna to solve.  Something.  

Finola is a good actress, she's beautiful, and she is currently completely wasted on this show.

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I just flat out love Genie Francis. Laura's emotions and reaction to actually seeing Lulu awake and standing before her, and then wrapping her up in her arms, brought tears to my eyes. It's right up there with her and Lucky's reunion, and those two are just about in the same category of Robin and Robert's reunion after she was kidnapped and of course in 1985, with wee Robin and Anna's reunion.

Yeah, Brookie can take a dose of mind your own bidnez and stop haranguing Dante and Cody. And of COURSE now all three went to camp together. 

God, could TJ be even more of a block of wood? or Jordan? When you look at how Laura hugged Lulu-such love and emotion, and Alexis and Molly, and then you have  the standing as stiff as boards "hug" with TJ and Jordan? It's very striking.

I thought I'd seen the last of weepy, warbling Anna. The only good thing I can say is I'm loving Finola's hairstyle and her wardrobe.

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(edited)

"Molly isn't grieving!" No, TJ, she's not grieving the way you find acceptable. At least Molly knows that's one of his problems, not that it's helping right now.

What is the relationship between TJ and Curtis? I'm unclear on that.

Of course Jason has no compunction running off to get someone else's child while leaving his own grieving son behind. Way to break a promise you barely had time to keep, you jerk.

LOL (and RME) that Dante thinks Sonny is the king of blended families. The man who's been in multiple custody battles with practically every mother of his children?

Noted Bigot Natalia thinks committing perjury is going to put her on the way to being a better person? I really hope the perjury is discovered and she's tossed into Supermax and we never see her again.

Brennan's assistant's French accent is worse that Tony Geary's Dutch accent, and that was terrible.

I'm kind of surprised the verdict in Ava's trial isn't the Friday cliffhanger.

ETA: Over/under on when Carly storms into Brennan's office braying about betraaaaaaaaayal?

Edited by dubbel zout
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That was really obnoxious of Jordan telling Isaiah not to sign the contract. Is she is agent? And since when is he her client? I wanted to smack the smug off her face, or whatever the actress was going for.

I thought Cody was Dante's bestie? Didn't he just go to him to talk about his feelings? My eyes couldn't roll hard enough at him telling Mooby he was the "best" at blending families. UGH.

I laughed my ass off when Cujo, along with Anna, Jason and Jar-Jar, overheard Brennan's call to Valentin.  And this is my shocked face that he's been lying:

😆

Now, I wasn't on the barge when the Floating Rib exploded. And I was watching when Lulu dropped into a coma. She was STILL BLONDE. More like Barbie Golden-Haired Blonde, but still blonde.

So who's idea was it to have Alexa wear that hideous brownish/black wig? The ONLY time Lulu had dark hair was when she was born and played by cute twins when she was a toddler. She showed up as blonde when she was SORAS'd into Julie Marie Berman as a teenager.

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(edited)
2 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

ow, I wasn't on the barge when the Floating Rib exploded. And I was watching when Lulu dropped into a coma. She was STILL BLONDE. More like Barbie Golden-Haired Blonde, but still blonde.

I watched the YT video--her hair was covered in black soot, so the ~dark hair in the faux-flashback does match.

Kristina flat-out lying to Natalya that Ally-Blaze wanted to parent Iredella.  She said the exact opposite.  You suck, Krissy.

Edited by Cheyanne11
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3 minutes ago, Cheyanne11 said:

I watched the YT video--her hair was covered in black soot, so the ~dark hair in the faux-flashback does match.

They couldn’t arse themselves to sprinkle fake soot on Alexa? Rhetorical question because we all know Frank is cheap as FUCK.

4 minutes ago, Cheyanne11 said:

Kristina flat-out lying to Natalya that Ally-Blaze wanted to parent Iredella.  She said the exact opposite.  You suck, Krissy.

I know, right? Sure they had that one conversation about a fantasy of having a baby, but Ally told her straight up she wasn’t and didn’t want to raise the spawn baby she was carrying, after Kristina told her she wasn’t going to her up to Molly and TJ.

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12 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:
18 minutes ago, Cheyanne11 said:

I watched the YT video--her hair was covered in black soot, so the ~dark hair in the faux-flashback does match.

They couldn’t arse themselves to sprinkle fake soot on Alexa? Rhetorical question because we all know Frank is cheap as FUCK.

*Shrug* It's actually a decent match, if an obvious wig. And a wig would be more expensive than soot, so not sure the cheap applies here.  They got the wardrobe right! 

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Mad at the show for making us wait on the Maxie/Lulu and Tracy/Lulu reunions. 

I don't know why Molly and TJ aren't considering couples counseling, nor why none of the older adults in their lives have asked about it.  

Krissy still doesn't acknowledge the issues raised in her planning to renege on the surrogacy.  It sounds like they are not even on her radar, and I think it will probably have to be Alexis who confronts her on that.  

Dante's state of confusion was obvious in his holding Sonny up as a model for creating a blended family, this conversation coming just after Sonny has encouraged his daughter in her desire for vengeance. 

Dante's concern for Scout and Danny in the face of Rocco's being reunited with Lulu tells me that he is the only one who should actually be raising them. I doubt Jason and Drew will see it that way, because they do not have their eyes on the right prize.  

I think it's appropriate to bring Charlotte back to see Lulu.  But I would be very content never to see Valentin again.  

 

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3 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Now, I wasn't on the barge when the Floating Rib exploded. And I was watching when Lulu dropped into a coma. She was STILL BLONDE. More like Barbie Golden-Haired Blonde, but still blonde.

So who's idea was it to have Alexa wear that hideous brownish/black wig?

Someone posted a photo on Twitter of ER’s Lulu after the accident and her hair was almost black from the soot and ash. So while it was very jarring to see AH with black hair, it was also accurate.

8 minutes ago, JMO said:

don't know why Molly and TJ aren't considering couples counseling, nor why none of the older adults in their lives have asked about it.  

Jordan asked TJ about it. He just shrugged it off.

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(edited)
4 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

, I wasn't on the barge when the Floating Rib exploded. And I was watching when Lulu dropped into a coma. She was STILL BLONDE. More like Barbie Golden-Haired Blonde, but still blonde.

So who's idea was it to have Alexa wear that hideous brownish/black wig? The ONLY time Lulu had dark hair was when she was born and played by cute twins when she was a toddler. She showed up as blonde when she was SORAS'd into Julie Marie Berman as a teenager.

So that confused me, too, so I hunted up the original scene with ER on UTube and she was wearing a black wig. Was the explosion in halloween night? was she in costume?

Edited by Jeni
23 hours ago, Mirabelle said:

I dislike Charlotte and her father so Jason running off to find her is yet another strike against him as a character.

I once told a friend that you could tell a starlet's emotional/mental health on the color of her hair so I'm using the same barometer for Lucky. How is it still so bad when he has access to shampoo and plumbing? I'm not expecting Captain Christopher Pike of the USS Enterprise (as played by Anson Mount) level of fantastic hair but it doesn't even look like Lucky has washed his hair. 

Nice to see Alexa Havin in a role where I don't immediately hate her face. I really, really disliked Babe. 

I’m waiting to see how much bigger Pike’s hair gets in the upcoming season.  And does Mount’s hair now have it’s own dressing room?

The downside of Molly and TJ breaking up is now we have to endure more the misery that is their scenes.  It won’t so much soapy as it is grating.

 

molly and TJ suck.  Which is weird, because the actors are actually ok.

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On 12/3/2024 at 8:52 AM, KerleyQ said:

That was a really good episode. And after suffering through weeks of Lucky at that damn poker table, I'm glad that they didn't drag out Lulu running into her loved ones. I loved all of her scenes with Rocco and Dante, and I really liked the Lucky/Laura scenes, as well. 

Molly and TJ have been overdue for a split, and this is such a realistic way to do it. A lot of couples don't survive the loss of a child. And since little fractures started becoming apparent in their relationship during the pregnancy, and since the baby's death, it makes perfect sense that this is happening now. And this Molly had more chemistry in her one set of scenes with Isaiah than she's had in all of her scenes with TJ combined. 

I say this as someone who actually liked the Drew/Willow stuff, but damn are they a really making Drew an unlikeable asshole. He was totally willing to fuck his daughter over because he's pissed that Jason hit him. The only thing wrong with Jason hitting him was that it should have been Michael growing up and handling that himself instead of winding up Jason and sending him spinning over to Drew. Drew, dude, you know damn well you've earned some punches with all you've done. Him acting like the innocent injured party, solely because he knows that Jason won't tell anyone why he hit him, is a shitty look. Again, I liked Drew/Willow, but Drew needs to have some kind of guilt or complicated emotions for the story to continue working. And currently? He has none. He was so close to Michael, and he feels nothing at all about fucking Michael's wife?  And he feels no guilt at all about the fact that he's been fucking Willow's mother?  Nothing complicated happening in Drew's emotions at all?  That's boring as fuck. Also, if Willow is supposed to mean something to him, even if it's just him having her up on some kind of pedestal, they should have had her be the one to talk him into not taking his anger at Jason out on Scout's life. Drew pre-emptively broke up with Carly when Jason came back, because he was that insecure about her attachment to Jason. It makes no sense, to me, that he'd give in to Carly urging him to cooperate with Jason. He'd just resent what he saw as her, once again, taking Jason's side. 

So, we've gone from Kristina being troubled by the idea of her father being violent, to the point where she almost had an issue with the pregnancy after seeing him beating on Dex, to her being soothed by the idea of him offing Ava? OK, then. 

Alexis threw all kinds of truth at Ric.  The panic room, his relationship with Kristina, using Kristina to get to Sonny... And NLG and RH have always bounced off each other so well. 

Michael only hits people if they’re senior citizens (Scotty), or he sucker punches them  (Chase).  That won’t work on someone like Drew.  Despite the writer’s intentions, Michael always comes off like an entitled little bitch.  Hence the monicker ‘SLS’ here.

On 12/3/2024 at 11:15 AM, Sake614 said:

The thing about Drew is that he still has no idea anyone knows he fucked Willow. As far as he knows, this is all over ONE kiss and he’s completely innocent. It totally isn’t his fault that he’d practically been stalking her for weeks/months before finally giving in to her wicked seduction! Or that he’s refused to stay away from her ever since, no matter how many times she’s asked him. Because we all know that she really didn’t mean it. If she did, she would’ve done everything possible to stay away from him. <sarc>

As currently written, Drew would make a great sleazy college professor.

1 hour ago, Sake614 said:

Someone posted a photo on Twitter of ER’s Lulu after the accident and her hair was almost black from the soot and ash. So while it was very jarring to see AH with black hair, it was also accurate.

Jordan asked TJ about it. He just shrugged it off.

Counseling would interfere with TJ being an overbearing asshole and cut into his daily sulking/brooding quota.  The writers have accomplished the extraordinary feat of making TJ, who has suffered a horrific loss, almost completely unsympathetic.  And completely miserable to watch.

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48 minutes ago, Winston Wolfe said:

I had to go look this up on Google. I'm a life-long foodie and had no idea what that was. You guys teach me so much, I tell ya.

It's from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas: "He took the Whos' feast, he took the who pudding, he took the roast beast. He cleaned out that ice box as quick as a flash. Why, the Grinch even took their last can of Who hash."

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(edited)
8 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

What is the relationship between TJ and Curtis? I'm unclear on that.

TJ grew up with his Curtis as his uncle, because he was the son of Jordan and Thomas Ashford. Thomas and Curtis were brothers. When TJ was a teenager (or maybe he was past age 19, I can't recall), he found he was actually the result of an affair between Jordan and Shawn Butler, a friend of Thomas. Then Jordan was married to Curtis for a few years, so he was also TJ's stepfather.  They still consider themselves to be uncle and nephew. Curtis has been TJ's long-term father figure for all the years TJ has been a character, since Thomas was killed by Shawn a long time ago ("self-defense") and Shawn went to prison rather than "betray" Sonny, then left town for an opportunity. 

6 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Now, I wasn't on the barge when the Floating Rib exploded. And I was watching when Lulu dropped into a coma. She was STILL BLONDE. More like Barbie Golden-Haired Blonde, but still blonde.

So who's idea was it to have Alexa wear that hideous brownish/black wig? The ONLY time Lulu had dark hair was when she was born and played by cute twins when she was a toddler. 

Yes Lulu was blonde when the Floating Rib exploded, but it was turned a dark brown ashy color by the smoke/soot. @Jeni The Show leaned into the "explosion! dirty" look too hard for the re-made flashback of Lulu and Maxie. It looked like AH wore a very dark, cheap wig. Whereas when ER was in the explosion scenes, I think it was still her hair, just "very dirty" - certainly not black. 

Edited by Bringonthedrama
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Dear Santa, this year for Christmas please bring Molly some jeans that fit and bring Kristina a coat that doesn't look like she's trying to smuggle an entire family of four plus a few aunts and uncles either out of or into the country.  

"Dad you're the expert on blended families", yeah that tends to happen when you've impregnated half the town and then babynapped a few others.  

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12 hours ago, Sake614 said:
12 hours ago, JMO said:

don't know why Molly and TJ aren't considering couples counseling, nor why none of the older adults in their lives have asked about it.  

Jordan asked TJ about it. He just shrugged it off.

Couples counseling would mean TJ has to admit he's been a complete jackass during the whole surrogacy process, and he'd never do that. It's all Molly and Kristina's fault—mostly the latter—for what's happened to him.

9 hours ago, Bringonthedrama said:
17 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

What is the relationship between TJ and Curtis? I'm unclear on that.

I was being sarcastic, @Bringonthedrama, because Curtis and TJ called each other Nephew and Uncle to a degree I found completely comical. Sorry to make you rehash their dumb history.

 

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1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

I was being sarcastic, @Bringonthedrama, because Curtis and TJ called each other Nephew and Uncle to a degree I found completely comical. Sorry to make you rehash their dumb history.

If there was a drinking game for every time they called each other "nephew" and "uncle" we'd all need liver transplants.

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4 hours ago, sashabear21 said:

"Dad you're the expert on blended families", yeah that tends to happen when you've impregnated half the town and then babynapped a few others.  

Yeah, not exactly a brag to have several failed marriages and kids from ages, what, 8 to 40, all from different women. (Anyone ever listen to Dr. Laura? She'd have a field day with Sonny.)

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(edited)

How Molly managed not to punch Kristina in the mouth is something

Kristina and TJ should get together and make each other miserable. Molly is not grieving to TJ's liking and Molly is not angry or vengeful because she really wasn't Adella's mother per Kristina. These two miserable individuals should be shot out of a cannon into a volcano. They should take Sonny with them. And Portia.

I enjoyed the Stella/Brad scenes. Stella is too pure for this show.

Edited by YaddaYadda
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While watching the lack of feeling from Molly compared to TJ and Kristina, I was thinking she wanted it just over and moving on like how does one lose a child and just ok with things to tie in a bow.  Then Kristina said what I was thinking, Kristina is right.  Molly wasn't biological parent she doesn't show any real grief. 

She got what she wanted and time to move on is not how losing your child works. 

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(edited)

Oh, god, we're back to Lois and her accent? I CANNOT.

10 minutes ago, YaddaYadda said:

These two miserable individuals should be shot out of a cannon into a volcano. They should take Sonny with them. And Portia.

And Noted Bigot and Perjurer Natalia.

9 minutes ago, Artsda said:

She got what she wanted and time to move on is not how losing your child works. 

It is for Molly. People grieve differently, and there's no right way to do it. As Molly said, just because she doesn't throw herself on the baby's grave every day and sob uncontrollably doesn't mean she's not grieving.

Edited by dubbel zout
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Lucas and Lulu have been cousins since Lulu was born, and his reaction to hearing she's awake and functional is "I'm sure Sam would be pleased"???  Was it the director's choice to have nuLucas act like he's never met his cousin? I liked Elizabeth's side of the conversation though. She's not counting on/investing in Lucky being concerned about her and her job.

The most satisfying moment was Aunt Stella calling Portia out on being unprofessional in her workplace.  Great job VW.

Kristina has way too much of Sonny in her. I felt sorry for Molly. 

Hard to be invested in Trina's anger and hurt toward Kai when she's the one who decided to walk away from an opportunity in Paris to mope and cry over Spencer. She wouldn't be desperate for a "redemption" with this so-called important professor if she hadn't had poor judgement in recent history. I could understand throwing away her future temporarily if it had been a parent or spouse who died - but acting like she didn't want to go on or ever return to Paris because a guy she's known maybe two years and fell in love with died tragically, just seems really weak to me. 

Looking forward to the Lucky-Elizabeth scenes on Monday. Will he actually she's changed and grown while he's been away for more than a decade?

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Culture Check: How can we discuss a character's or actor's appearance without objectifying them? How can we express likes or dislikes and still respect an individual's humanity or be mindful that a character represents a person someone else might relate to or identify with?

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