Thumbs Up!/Thumbs Down! B&B DAYS GH Y&R

YOUNG AND RESTLESS
Home Alone
Give Y&R credit for scripting a plausible reason for Christel Khalil’s maternity leave by having Lily leave Daniel to go join her struggling daughter Maddie in California. But Lily’s months-long absence meant Daniel reconnected with his ex Heather in a vacuum, so there was precious little drama to Daniel cheating on Lily. The show had the opportunity to make up for that when Lily returned to find Daniel, Heather and their daughter Lucy enjoying a cozy family breakfast in the home where Lily thought she would be reuniting with Daniel. “What’s going on?” she asked as Heather and Lucy scurried away. Daniel explained matter-of-factly that he and Heather were a couple again and he didn’t tell Lily over the phone because he wanted to protect her. Despite Lily being blindsided by the betrayal, there was no yelling, no crying, no making a scene — that is, until Daniel let it slip that her brother knew. Lily hightailed it over to Devon’s office and let him have it, saying she wanted to punch both him and Daniel. Then she grew quiet, recounting how Daniel told her he had never stopped loving Heather. Devon was incredulous — as were most viewers, who have been watching some incarnation of Lily/Daniel since 2004. If Daniel’s statement is true, that means the crackling chemistry he and Lily shared was meaningless and there is no opportunity for romantic fireworks going forward. “I thought what Daniel and I had was special,” lamented Lily. So did we — and at the very least, fans deserve to see Lily on the warpath against those who wronged her.

GENERAL HOSPITAL
Split Decision
The dramatic impact of the abrupt breakup of Josslyn and Dex was undermined by how head-scratching it is that the show portrayed Josslyn as suddenly naïve to what Dex working for Sonny might entail. This is, presumably, the same Josslyn whose first encounter with the guy was while he was pummeling slimy paparazzo Felty, yet chose to sleep with him anyway (behind the back of her comparatively squeaky-clean boyfriend Cameron, might we add). It doesn’t make sense that she would be so taken aback that Dex’s job description included acts exactly precisely like the one she found so unconscionable as to prompt her to dump her lover (his mission from Sonny, which he did not complete, was to murder a defenseless Cyrus in his hospital bed). Joss grew up around the mob, with Sonny as her on-again, off-again stepfather and Jason as her honorary uncle, and prior to this, the show did not portray her as ignorant to the violent nature of Sonny’s world. Yet shortly after her breakup, Joss asked Carly if Jason used to kill for Sonny. Huh?! It’s already been established on-screen that Joss absolutely knew that yes, Jason killed for Sonny. (Case In point: Back when Jason was accused of offing Franco, she noted to Cameron that Jason was a “professional killer” and that given that skill set, she couldn’t believe that he would shoot his nemesis “in the sloppiest way possible.”) We can absolutely buy that Joss might reevaluate what she can and cannot accept from her partner and decide she doesn’t want a future with a paid hitman — we just wish the breakup had been played as consistent with what the audience has already been told about her knowledge of what it means to be on Sonny’s payroll and reflected the savvy a character with her age and life experience should have.

BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL
Hear Them Roar
Hope refusing a marriage proposal from Steffy’s brother Thomas has reignited a deliciously soapy feud that looks like it will light up the whole Forrester/Logan clan. To be fair, Hope — a young mother who recently divorced her fifth husband — simply asked Thomas for more time, saying she wasn’t ready for that level of commitment. But Hope's unwillingness to jump at another wedding proved she didn’t love Thomas, asserted Steffy (who’s in a bit of a glass house navigating her own fifth marriage). Their rivalry is heightened by the fact that Hope and Steffy share an ex-husband (Liam), common parents/stepparents (Ridge and Brooke), and an office at Forrester where Steffy is technically Hope’s boss. Translation: They run into each other constantly. The toxicity of their battles recalls the way their mothers used to go at it: Taylor looked down on Brooke the same way Steffy disparages Hope, only Steffy is more blatant about it. She accused Hope of going “full Logan” and using Thomas like a “disgusting sex toy,” also belittling Brooke’s many marriages to Forrester men — which is funny since Steffy seems to believe the only way to prove you love someone is to marry them. “Why must you insist on interfering?” asked an exasperated Hope, clearly not understanding that Brooke/Taylor 2.0 is in full swing. Can a cake fight be far behind? Wherever this is going, we’re confident that Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (Steffy) and Annika Noelle (Hope) will do it fiery justice.

DAYS OF OUR LIVES
Silent Treatment
After months of waiting for Holly to wake up from her coma and clear Tate’s name, the self-absorbed teen has fallen miserably short in the making amends department. Holly has revealed that Tate didn’t give her the drugs that caused her overdose, but refused to admit that she scored them herself and took them willingly. Her lack of accountability has left Tate stuck doing time in a halfway house and painted Holly in an abysmal light, since she’s doing nothing to help him when she’s the only one who can. While it looks like she will ultimately do the right thing and come clean, her silence in the face of Tate’s desperate pleas was deafening. She seemed to have few qualms about having ruined his life and reputation, even though he’s the one who tried to dissuade her from popping those tainted pills on New Year’s Eve and ran to her rescue when she was convulsing outside The Bistro. It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to understand Holly’s dilemma or sympathize with her when she sees how much Tate is suffering yet does nothing to fix things. Her lack of empathy for the poor guy has been inexcusable. Plus, the whole situation has cast a serious pall on the inevitable Holly/Tate pairing. How are viewers supposed to root for the young couple when Holly has so cavalierly thrown Tate under the bus to protect herself? By the time she does speak up, the show will have its work cut out for them in making Holly seem anything less than cruel and selfish.

We are thrilled that GH appears to be circling back to Alexis being a lawyer, and kudos to the show for the poignant scenes in which Kevin described the biases that likely led to Marshall's misdiagnosis of schizophrenia…. Nice scenes between B&B’s Bill and Luna; his awkward struggling to be sensitive was both funny and sweet…. Y&R’s Eileen Davidson is doing a fantastic job as her character’s alters are starting to emerge. Judah Mackey (Connor) also deserves kudos for his work in his character’s OCD story…. It was a great use of history having DAYS’s Marlena console John after he learned he may have killed Konstantin's daughter as The Pawn by bringing up her own past (specifically, noting how hard it was for her to forgive herself for all the things she did while she was possessed by the devil).

Why did Y&R's Victor wait so long to summon the authorities after trapping Jordan?.... It was a real letdown for B&B’s Sheila to not be given a funeral, especially one attended by Y&R’s Lauren, her OG nemesis…. On GH, Heather’s doctor suspected she was suffering from cobalt poisoning and asked Laura if her behavior had changed in “recent years”. What constitutes recent, if cobalt poisoning is truly meant to explain away her murderous behavior? After all, while she only became a hook-wielding serial killer in 2022, she murdered Ross (a cop) back in 2004, killed Maggie Wurth in 2012 and offed several Wyndemere staffers back in 2014 while holding Carly hostage!.... How clueless are we meant to believe DAYS’s Eric to be that he would agree to let Nicole — his ex-wife, who does not have a good relationship with his current one — host Jude’s christening party?