Serial Drama

The True & the Awful

Yesterday was a red letter day indeed, because I could relate to Bill Spencer's reaction to something.

 

In cased you missed this spectacular little piece of storytelling, that's a photo of the graffiti Hope had Thomas spray-paint on the outside of Liam's house. A heart with a Spencer sword stabbing through it. (By the way, Thomas is tall, but that was impressive. And fast!) To which Bill had the only possible human reaction:

"Are you freaking kidding me?!"

I wish it were a joke, Bill. I really do. But the joke's on us, the audience.

Anyway, Bill correctly pointed out how obscenely immature that was (naturally with no self-awareness of how obscenely immature it was to fake someone's brain tumor so your son wouldn't divorce your former concubine or to, you know, trap someone in a gondola). But then he went on to be his usual "jackass of the highest order" self. Which, as usual, Katie scolded him for but will then ignore.

In better news, it was finally a new day! Hope's not running around town in her wedding dress and cardigan anymore!

The Hot & the Neverending

First, let's talk about RJ. Who, you ask? Yeah, I'd completely forgotten he exists, too. Despite about half the scenes on the show taking place at Brooke and Ridge's home, despite Brooke and Ridge being on at least three episodes each week, I had completely forgotten they actually have a young son. It's not so much that he doesn't turn up very often -- there's not a whole hell of a lot to do with little kids on a soap (there are some notable exceptions, of course, such as little Starr on OLTL and little Robin on GH for starters) unless they're being kidnapped or in the middle of a custody or Who's-the-Daddy storyline -- but even so, the last time I remember seeing him was well over a year ago right around the time Thomas and Brooke were in that plane crash. Regardless of frequency of appearance, they never even mention his name! So imagine my surprise when Daddy Ridge had a brief phone conversation with him yesterday. Apparently he's at camp and not off getting SORAS'ed into a college student with a chiseled face and six-pack abs, and he's certainly not coming home for his sister's wedding. Why would he? She'll have plenty more. It's kind of her thing.

Anyway, his parents had some sexytimes that were hot, y'all. They talked about surprises and Brooke told Ridge she had a special surprise for him right now.

To which he responded, "Yum." 

No, seriously.

The Subtle & the... Just Kidding, This Show Doesn't Do Subtle

I'm here to explain a few things that The Bold & the Beautiful has been awfully coy about -- things that they expect us to be really sharp viewers to understand because, you see, it's all so between-the-lines. I mean you have to be a pretty clever observer to see through to this subtext. So what I'm going to tell you might shock you.

Did y'all know that Hope is the more conservative, family-oriented, traditional-values-driven choice for Liam? Did y'all know that Steffy is super-fun, full of life, wild and unpredictable, and is always a good time?

You're pretty blown away right now, aren't you? Just reflecting back on the past year of this show and thinking, "Oh! How did I not see this? They were so careful to leave it up to our own interpretation without beating us over the head with it AT ALL!"

Yesterday they drove the point home in a particularly delicate manner.

When Liam's with Steffy, he wakes up after having partied all night!

When Liam's with Steffy, he gets to go on motorcycle rides through the city! 

That Day When Taylor and Rick Spoke Truth to Power

So bizarre, right?

Well, first of all, there were some actually bizarre lines (or line readings) on yesterday's episode. I had to rewind Taylor's line about how Steffy's old college friends could "start a whore on a small island" about five times before I realized she was saying "war," not "whore." Because really, I was wondering what exactly "starting a whore" would entail. She also said of Liam, "If he wants a life of uncertainty, he can have that with Hope all he wants. But if he's going to rely on you, then he's going to have to do the same." The same what? He's going to have to want a life of uncertainty? Couldn't tell you. And then there was Steffy's headscratcher about how she wasn't going to "abandon herself from a life of dissipation," which I assume meant that she wasn't about to ditch her life to go live out some hedonistic fantasy on an island somewhere, but what peculiar phrasing. Abandon herself from? Maybe I heard that one wrong, too.

Since I was clearly having hearing troubles while watching the episode, perhaps I also misheard the most excellent words from the most unlikely sources, but can we just take a moment to bask in them nonetheless?

Taylor's truth-telling was pretty simple, but it never hurts to be succint around there.

Taylor: I'm sorry, I don't trust Liam. I like him, but he can't make a decision and then stick with it.

Truth! And sure, Ridge responded with some nonsensical comment about how Taylor used to say the same of him, which is how he knows this time is going to be different. (Huh? Ridge was still waffling just over a year ago! Shouldn't this mean he knows they have decades of Liam changing his mind ahead of them?!) But it still needed to be said. I'm so sick of both mothers of the women in this heinous triangle rooting for their daughters to "land" this loser who's also in love with another woman.

The End of My B&Bleeping Rope

What can really be said that hasn't already been said a thousand times? But of course since Brad Bell doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong with the show saying everything one hundred thousand times, perhaps it bears repeating.

Liam: You know you sound like Steffy. This is exactly what she said last night.

Bill: Steffy was here?

Liam: Yeah, but nothing happened. I mean --

Bill: Good. That's probably for the best. 

Uh-huh, uh-huh, okay, Liam. Sounds great. Stand-up guy, right? Poor heartbroken thing, right?

Just in case any of us have a different dictionary from Liam Spencer's, I'll now take this moment to show you his definition of "nothing happened."

Those are some seriously creative linguistics.

The Good & the Better!

Holy crap holy crap holy crap, y'all! My prayers have been answered! Finally someone told off that waffling douchenozzle Liam Spencer and it was glorious.

Wow. I need to collect myself a bit. It really was a special experience. And while in a way I'd rather it have been Steffy (since she's been playing the role of "I'll pine and do whatever you want forever and ever" for so long), it doesn't even matter at this point. Steffy, Hope, Hope, Steffy, it makes no difference because for him they both represent the same thing -- as Hope aptly pointed out today!

I am seriously stunned and thrilled.

Shall we review just a bit? I mean for one thing, Hope told Liam she's glad they're not married. And then let's review some highlights...

Hope: I remember how everything seemed to be my fault. I was weak, I was too busy, I was too afraid of sex, I was just too emotional. Now here we are again and you're trying to make me the problem this time, too. [...] But the truth is, there is something wrong. There is something very wrong. With you. And you can't even see it. 

Sweet mercy what a gift. But it didn't stop there!

Liam: The way that you feel now, after having watched [the recording], it's kinda how I felt when I thought that note was from you. But I'm here. And I really believed that we were done.

Hope: Why did you believe it? Why didn't you have any faith in me? Oh, that's right, that's right, because I'd done it before! When I caught you making out with Steffy. 

She makes some most salient points. And it got even better...

The Ewwww & the PSA

It's not that I mind Ridge and Brooke as a couple so much. It's fine, it's done, too many years of back-and-forth on that one. So despite his pretty heinous past, I can accept them as a tentpole stabilizing pair. BUT THEY NEED TO CUT OUT THE DIRTY TALK. Because really? 

Ridge seriously used, "Want me to upload something to your hard drive?" yesterday as sexual innuendo. Was the week-long olive-based dirty talk not enough? I ask you! 

And after she called him her "sexy computer geek," he returned the alleged compliment when it turned out she knows about desktops and folders. Seriously? I'm one of the biggest luddites around (case in point: the only music I listen to is on my record/CD/tape/radio player, and the CD player is the component I use the least) and even I know about freakin' desktops and folders. (Thanks to Serial Drama I did learn how to make screencaps, though! Trust me, it was a serious feat.) 

Of course the purpose of all this technology talk was just to lead to Ridge finding and watching the not-so-deleted-after-all video of Steffy and Liam before the wedding, but... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The main event right now is really the hard-to-make-soapy in-show PSA about the dangers of texting and driving. I don't mean to sound glib about it because of course texting and driving is dangerous and has absolutely been the reason for many accidents that led to injury or death. But unlike other "issue-based" soap storylines like those on drinking and driving or about abuse or disease or what have you, I'm not sure where I see any real longevity in this story. Unless they're really going to try to make an argument that texting is a legitimate addiction, the only possibility here seems to be about the secret he's keeping. But since it looks like an arrest is going to happen, even the secret can't last long enough to have that much fallout. It's not as if Anthony is a regular character on this show who's now going to turn around and start plotting revenge.

The Still & the Planning (!)

Well, we The Bold & the Beautiful viewers (or The Boldviewers, as it's referred to by our southern hemisphere friends) have been clamoring for another storyline for months and months and months now besides the omnipresent Steffy/Liam/Hope triangle. Well, they finally gave it to us, and boy did they deliver!

We have finally been given relief in the form of a SUPER DUPER EXCITING storyline in which people sit around talking about potholes and planning Marcus and Dayzee's wedding! What did we do so right in another lifetime to deserve this fascinating gift? I personally cannot think of anything more interesting than listening to people chat about wedding plans -- and this isn't just any wedding. Why, this wedding is so special that they're going to pull out all the stops by holding it in someone's living room! And doesn't it feel like it's been years since anyone on this show had a wedding? So refreshing!

All right, I might be overreacting to it, but how many times have we been burned by the alleged introduction to a new storyline only to have it wrapped up in two days? I can't help it.

Naturally, the triangle continues. Hope insta-forgave Liam for insta-making-out with Steffy right before their wedding, and Steffy deleted the video of their horizontal hook-up session from her phone so that Liam can continue to lie to Hope about the extent of what really happened, since Liam is such an honorable guy who cannot tolerate dishonesty directed toward him but has never had a totally forthcoming day in his life.

And then...

Steffy: We all know the circumstances. Hope knows that we kissed, but she'll never find out anything more -- how close we came to -- how we close we were to leaving together. But that, that didn't happen. It didn't happen. Hope's your wife, and you committed to a future together. But look, um... what you said in that hotel room, that you wanted to start a life with me again and that you'll never stop loving me, Hope doesn't know...but I do. I'll always remember that. 

The Bold & the SERIOUSLY?

There I was, going about my merry way, thinking, "Oh cool! Dayzee and Marcus have started turning up on the show more often, so that's good! Variety!" Being the skeptic that I am, I did wonder if we'd just get a few days of seeing them, a quick wedding, and then a one-way ticket to Backburner City so that they could continue torturing us with the only storyline they'd bothered to flesh out at all in the last year.

But then I noticed that some of the B&B actors were giving a real indication on Twitter that this is actually the launch of a legitimate summer storyline. And then the show actually acknowledged twice in one week that Dayzee and Thomas actually used to be a couple and treated that fact as if it had some importance at all.

There even looks like there might be a bit of longing wistfulness on either part there, yes? (And sure, they can't go too far down Memory Lane, since they'd then have to acknowledge that she dumped him because he pretended he'd had sex with his stepmother while high on boinkberries. Let's face it, the characters are really never going to mention that again, are they?)

The Magnanimous & the Procrastinating

I have to admit I wasn't even a little embarrassed watching yesterday's episode of The Bold & the Beautiful. Not even a little! Sure, it was a little silly that it basically had the same ending as the day before (Brooke's about to see the video of Liam and Steffy! I can't have been the only one who chuckled at Brooke's ethical qualms with watching it, right?) and, sure, it was all about the same three characters it always is. It's a distinct possibility that I just have Stockholm Syndrome.

Can I mention, though, how irked I am that Bill and Katie are having a boy? Look at that damn smirk.

He can raise another little misogynist now! Yay! He's so happy! I guess it's a good thing he's not having a girl because then he might actually have to learn something about women. That would be terribly emasculating.

To be fair, though, the scenes between Bill and Liam yesterday were actually quite lovely. As were the scenes between Hope and Steffy. I wasn't born yesterday, so I do realize that this detente between Steffy and Hope is only so that everything can blow sky-high when the pre-wedding events come to light and when they start this whole damn triangle over again from the beginning, but I can't help but find it a little delightful to see two people actually evolving and trying to behave a little. (Not that I'm really in a position to judge, as "behaving" really isn't in my wheelhouse.)

I admit I cracked up, though, at Steffy's one little attempt to try to rid herself of the newlyweds...

Hope: Oh god, I loved everything about Italy, the -- the people, the beauty, all that history.

Steffy: Well, you know, maybe you and Liam could live there, start branches of Spencer and Forrester publications.

Ha! If only all three of them would move to Italy, sort this out offscreen for a year, and return to new storylines.