Serial Drama

The Bold and the Beautiful: Week in Review

First, my apologies for being a terribly delinquent B&B blogger. As you may know, I also cover One Life to Live, which only has five episodes remaining of its 43-year-run, so you can imagine it is taking up most of my heart and most of my attention. Obsessively so. Plus I recently broke my foot, so I'm frequently in painkiller-induced haze. These are my excuses.

But really? What is there to say about The Bold & the Beautiful these days? I've struggled to come up with the words that would be appropriate for this train wreck of a worse-than-a-bad-telenovela on-location storyline that we've been subjected to over the past couple of weeks in the story that will apparently never end, and I've proven it over and over again without any doubt: there are no words. There just aren't. So indulge me for a moment in this wordless recap of the week's events, and those of you who didn't have the "pleasure" of witnessing it yourselves, I promise you: none of this is fake. This is what happened this week. For real.

This Show Makes My Face Hurt

It makes a few other things hurt, too, since I opted out of my 6pm painkiller for my broken foot because I knew I'd want to be sharp enough to really absorb today's One Life to Live and be able to write about it. So here I am, un-drugged and achey, but it was worth it. 

But my face hurts not from a broken bone or lack of drugs, but from smiling. (Okay, and maybe a little ugly-crying.)

Now before I say this, a disclaimer: I would trade all of this to keep the show. But as good as it is right now, we wouldn't be getting this stuff if the show weren't ending. Again, I would trade it to keep the show. But I'm trying to find an upside. And this is an upside. They wouldn't be delving into all this history and getting all these great returns if we weren't nearing the end, and they really pulled out all the stops to go out with a bang.

I am never going to complain about Mitch showing up to babble creepily about prophesies.

Oh my! And can I just say again how incredible Roscoe Born and Melissa Archer are in scenes together? Holy crap! They are just skin-crawlingly good. I half wanted the rescue to take a couple of days so these two could just work together for a little while longer. More actors I want to write a play for! (The list is getting long.)

And With That, I Have Become a Soap Crazy

Because we have grown so close over the past few years, I feel that I can admit something incredibly embarrassing to you and that there's a small chance that you won't judge me for it and a(-n even smaller) chance that you have experienced something similar: today, I shouted spiteful things at a fictional character. Such is the intensity of the dislike I harbor for Michael Corinthos and his limitless rage and his complete self-absorption and his blatant disrespect for his parents that led me to actually think today, "God, Michael, don't talk to you father like that!"

And I don't mean the common kind of shouting one does at a fictional character, if one were the type to take television too seriously. Like, if someone murmured, "You go, Sonny. You go"?

Sonny: This is not about trust. Can't you get it through your head that I don't want you in this life? I want a better life--
Michael: How I decide to live my life is up to me.
Sonny: Yeah, it's up to you. It is. And you know what's up to me? How I run my business. And I'm telling you, you're never going to be involved in it. End of story.

Normal!

Or groaning-slash-laughing at this bit of utter melodrama?

Jason: I thought you liked your job at the warehouse.
Michael: You know what I also liked? Waking up to Abby every morning. Things change. I have no reason to stay safe.

Normal!

No, all of those reactions are expected. What I did...well:

Jason: I know you wanted to go to New Zealand to scatter Abby's ashes--
Michael: DON'T SAY HER NAME!!!

I actually said, "Oh, yeah? ABBY ABBY ABBY ABBY ABBY! HA! TAKE THAT, YOU SELF-ABSORBED PIECE OF HUMAN GARBAGE!" To an empty room. Because an obnoxious soap opera character got on my nerves. I am filled with shame*.

*But I'm also kind of right, right? BECAUSE HE IS THE WORST TO EVER BE.

Ode to Joy and Natalie Banks

As we wind down, I'd been planning to do some character sum-ups as we start to say goodbye to them as characters. As there are no perfect people on this show (thankfully!), I'll try to remember the bad along with good, but it's way more fun to focus on the good. Unfortunately the holidays happened and I broke my stupid foot and life got insane, so I don't know that I'm going to be able to do it justice. However, I'd already started on Natalie and today seemed a perfect day to go ahead and celebrate her anyway because OH MY GOD HOLY CRAP Y'ALL NATALIE WAS SO AWESOME TODAY.

Now, this year has not been my favorite Natalie year. I've admittedly been very critical of the way she's been written since her decision to conceal her child's paternity during her pregnancy because I don't think it's been consistent with her character. She's a girl who misbehaves, but never because she's acting pathetic. She's never been pathetic. I love my bad girls (obviously), but this bad act and the way she's handled it since has not been "bad" for the reasons I loved this bad-girl-with-a-heart-of-gold. And considering as little as John's been willing to give her over this whole arc, it made me angry that they had her sink into trite insecurity and desperation. She's just not that weak. That said, let's not pretend I hated everything about her in this storyline. She kicked ass in the battle scenes with Marty, especially in her boots and wedding dress with a shotgun. One of my favorite moments of the year.

And now that I've made my disclaimer about my endless frustrations this year (which, like everything else, are just my opinions -- many of you may have loved the ways she's been featured in the past year and a half, and I envy that, I do!), let's move on. Let's start with the actress herself.

I saw Natalie's spicy portrayer, Melissa Archer, in the Off-Broadway play My Big Fat Italian Wedding this past winter, and while she was really only there for a night to make a special appearance and therefore wasn't given much to do, I believe it was the first time I'd ever seen her in person and she took my breath away. I'd always thought she was super-hot and, as I've expressed in these "pages" many times, got annoyed when the show seemed to downplay her looks rather than emphasize them, I got even more burned up about it then. Because until I saw her in person and was a few seats away from her, I really clearly had no idea. She is stop-traffic stunning. And not just for the reasons we already knew, but she has got killer legs on top of all her other spectacular attributes. And no, I don't just mean the most obvious spectacular attributes. Those wouldn't mean that much without everything else backing them up.