In the societal contract, humans developed certain codes to help us coexist despite our differing beliefs and ways of life. We agree to disagree, to live and let live, to mind our own businesses, and to respect each other's differences. We agree not to force our opinions and beliefs upon each other, and if we don't have anything nice to say, we drink the shut-up juice.
None of that would ever do for a soap, now, would it? It certainly didn't do for Maya, who double-blasphemed her own truths in one day. But it was her day, right? She said everyone deserved forgiveness but forgot to add that "everyone" meant those who bow to her. Before giving Bill his pardon, she made him bow in the apology mud for outing her in public. She only wanted him at the wedding as a witness to her and Rick's greatness. The double blasphemy happened when she publicly outed her father, and when he wouldn't bow for his price of admission, she withheld her permission for him to stay at the wedding to behold the Raya greatness.
It doesn't do for Steffy and Ivy, either. Each is scheming to stick it to the other for not bowing to the other's view of Aly's death. Ivy claims she gave Steffy many chances to admit Ivy's version of the truth. Problem is, Steffy has a different truth and ain't bowing for nothing. If Ivy doesn't drink some shut-up juice about her murder theory, Steffy's going to light Ivy's rocket boosters and fire Ivy all the way back to Australia. Ivy, on the other hand, plans to use blackmail kindle to skyrocket herself to spokesmodel fame.
You have the right to remain silent -- unless you're Maya's father
Maya's wedding day finally arrived -- mere days after a Forresters funeral in that very same room. Maya had everything she always wanted. She was a woman in a wedding dress; she'd gotten Rick's wedding gift, which was the chance to deflate Dollar Bill's ego for kicks; and she was marrying the Forrester of her schemes.
Maya's jilted ex-fiancé and worshipping guests had gathered at her altar. She'd kicked Rick's cousin out of the home without an invitation and apparently hadn't invited the grieving Thorne or the other family members Rick needed to heal his relationships with. But that mattered not because she was getting what she wanted out of her own family; her father was walking her down the aisle, just as she'd dreamed of when she'd been a little boy named Myron.
None of it was enough for Maya to be content because Julius' head wasn't completely bowed to worship the bride on "her day." Just as she was poised to become the Forrester matriarch and unite the Avants and Forresters in a ceremony where scarcely any Forresters were in attendance, she overheard a private conversation between her parents during which her father revealed that he had to pretend because he ultimately could not accept that his son was a female bride.
Maya's world was shattered -- even though she already knew her father felt this way and even though all her father had said he'd do was try. With a powerful and quite mature pep talk from Nicole, Maya decided to fake it like Julius was doing. She got what she wanted out of her father. He walked her down the aisle, and he gave her away. Unfortunately, at the altar, Maya's bra shrank two sizes too small at the thought of anyone being there who didn't completely accept her truths. Her garter itched at the nagging idea of her father stewing behind her in transgender misery.
The queen of public outings, Maya wouldn't just stand at the altar and take the injustice of her father silently agreeing to disagree and forcing himself to live and let live. If he wouldn't interrupt with some drama to make people feel sorry for her, then she had to do it herself, and do it herself she did.
I can't help but think that if Maya had kept her mind focused on Rick, where it belonged, instead of policing Julius' thoughts, the couple would have married without incident, and everyone would believe her family had made the first steps toward healing. Maybe in retrospect, Julius would have been proud of himself for surviving the wedding. Making it through the ceremony could have softened him toward the union and Maya's choices. Nicole might even be proud of her father, giving him the encouragement to accept Maya a little more.
But, no. Maya has to have the whole healing cake and eat it, too. She disrupted her own wedding to publicly shame her father. She claimed that "we" interrupted the wedding out of fear that her father would ruin it. I'm not sure what Maya thought Julius would ruin. He'd already done the hard parts, which were walking her down the aisle and giving her away on cue. Nothing was left but the father-daughter dance. Maybe she feared he'd refuse to touch her during the dance.
Up to the point Maya called him out, Julius didn't seem to be on "Mission Ruin it." Instead, he was on "Mission Fake-It-Till-You-Make-It," a mission that called for him to take up his fatherly duties, no matter how begrudgingly, to make his family happy and protect Maya's day. He'd done everything expected of him. He showed up to events. He forced himself to eat the fish eggs. He even took Eric's rejection of the gift on the chin. Heck, he was even ready to play golf with the transgender Nick -- wait. Does Julius know about Nick? He did seem confused by the testosterone joke at the rehearsal dinner.
Was Maya right to call her father out? Was Julius wrong to be there, feeling as he did?
Some believe that Julius is an empathetic character who suffered greatly for Maya's life decisions. Some believe that he did try, and Maya needs to respect that his truth differs from hers. Others think that if he can't accept her, he shouldn't have been there, and he doesn't love his child unconditionally.
If Julius didn't love his son, he wouldn't have subjected himself to things that he believes in his heart are wrong, unnatural, and freakish. His feelings opposing Maya's lifestyle run just as deeply as his love for his child. If one feeling outweighed the other, then he could have been able to let one of them go -- his beliefs or his love for his son. As we witnessed at the wedding, when his beliefs conflicted with his love, he chose to deny his beliefs to walk Maya down the aisle and protect her day.
That is unconditional love, isn't it? Sacrificing oneself for the loved one? With every moment Julius sat in silence at the wedding, he was crucifying his beliefs. I can't help but think that if Maya had done the same and accepted her father's actions -- which should speak louder than his words -- then maybe Julius could have kept traveling the fake-it-till-you-make-it road to healing until the healing became true.
Maya lambasted Julius for saying he'd try. Someone needs to teach Maya the definition of "try." Once she learns it, the person should help her apply it to what Julius actually did. "Trying" isn't a fait accompli. Trying embodies a chance of failure. Maya can't dictate how fast Julius accomplishes "trying." Rome wasn't built in a day, but if nurtured, Julius' feelings could change a heck of a lot quicker. If Maya had "tried" with him, maybe it would have happened without the faking. But she didn't try. She just demanded her accept her instantly, or he was banished. Where was her effort to talk to him, invite the family to dinner, and learn about his feelings?
Usually brides pray people don't "speak now" and instead opt to forever hold their peace. Not Maya. In true Maya fashion, she had to push the issue and force him say how he felt -- even when he and Brooke said it wasn't the time or place for it. Maya outing Julius right there at the wedding, in front of new family and media mogul Bill Spencer, was right in line with the treachery she accused Bill of. But that's just how Maya rolls, remember? She outed Caroline the same way.
It's a story layered in emotion and viewpoints. Maya struggled to become herself in the household of a church-going father who had high hopes for his first-born son. It affected me to my heart when Julius told Rick, "I didn't have a daughter, mister. I had a son who was afraid to be a man." The older generation believes in teaching a girl to be a woman and a boy to be a man. What else did Julius know to do with Myron but that? And when he didn't know what to do with the child, he said he'd decided it was best to give her distance and let her be. That's a sight better than forcing manhood on her.
Myron and Julius were keeping their distance from each other. Julius thought he was doing it because he didn't know how to help what he thought was a confused child. Myron knew that he was "supposed" to be a boy, but he felt that he was a girl. He was a girl who feared being near her father because she couldn't pretend to be a boy. Both of them suffered, and Vivienne was caught in the middle.
A mother's love is unique. I described it once by saying a father will go back into a burning building to save his child, but a mother will never leave that burning building without her child. Motherhood seems to know no bounds, and a mother would not even think before dying to save her child. The instinct to protect is more natural than a mother's next breath. I hurt for Vivienne when I listened to her describing the pain she'd felt when she'd denied Maya. That is why she called herself a bad person, and she'll probably never live it down within herself.
Julius loves his son. He tried to love his daughter, but he lacks that maternal instinct needed to instinctually fight and kill anything that threatens his child. He tried to do it, and for that, I wish Maya had loved him enough to have dealt with it in private. I wish she'd had enough love to see what pain her choices had caused him and to acknowledge what he was saying about what he'd gone through. She wants acceptance and acknowledgement, but she has to give it to get it.
When Julius was crying like that, I was upset at Rick for telling him to leave. Julius had a mean reply. It was cruel, but when a man pours his heart out and cries doing it, especially a "man's man" like Julius, it shouldn't just be ignored as if he'd said nothing. Rick's remark interrupted a healing session and turned the tone back to the easier emotion to exhibit, rejection.
In my happy ending, Maya would have had the grace to say that despite what she'd overheard, Julius' effort to try meant something. She could have told him that it was a step toward healing, and even though Julius wasn't ready that day, she had hope that he could be ready someday. I wish she'd done that instead of banishing him the way Vivienne said he'd banished Maya. I wish Maya had learned from the past that ostracizing people does not promote healing.
When Julius dies, Maya is going to wish she'd lowered her expectations and worked more healing and understanding than her need for unconditional acceptance.
I congratulate Bell on picking wonderful actors to give the most emotion-filled scene we've had this year. I would love to see Julius and Vivienne stay longer and to witness Julius' growth. I welcome this family into the fold and wish Julius could open a business in L.A. Unfortunately, I think we've seen them for the last time, just like Thorne disappeared on us in the middle of his emotional healing.
Julius left the ceremony alone. Some hope that Julius is at the end of the driveway, awaiting the garbage pickup. I wonder if he's on the way back to the hotel to await Vivienne and the ticket home that Rick promised him -- or if the new "Forrester Matriarch" deems her father unworthy of a flight home.
You have right to a trial by jury -- unless you choose to forfeit your modeling career
Super lead model Maya has done an outstanding job but needs to focus on her new marriage. In a tale of either bad writing or bad ad-libbing, Ivy informed Wyatt that his mother overheard Ridge discussing finding a second face of Forrester, but she later told Thomas that she herself had heard Ridge say he wanted a new lead model. I guess the main point is that it had been overheard, just as most information is disseminated around Forrester, and she wants the gig.
Ridge wants Steffy for the job. Ivy threw her hat in the ring, and I'm surprised Nicole didn't put in a bid for it. After all, she's got a fresh face, and she can be-bop down the runway. I wonder why Ridge can't see that Steffy is so busy kissing Liam, modeling lingerie for him, and critiquing jewelry with him that she has no time to add changing into and out of gowns to her and Liam's agenda.
Ivy, who performed a mean model-off while avoiding bird poop with Hope, would be a viable choice. I'd say ask Liam, because he'd seen Ivy in action, but I have no patience to watch Liam try to choose which brunette is more suited to flounce around him in panties for a living. He sided with Steffy in the meeting, probably because he was afraid of another "Steffy smash" session at his house. After all, we saw how she sicced herself on Thomas when she sensed that he wasn't siding with her about it.
Thomas sided with Ivy -- and for a good reason. Steffy modeling prison stripes isn't a good look for California Freedom. Unbeknownst to Steffy, while she was busy cooking up a low-quality jewelry scheme to oust the suspicious Ivy, Ivy was in Wyatt's bedroom in nothing but a shirt, giving him blue balls while she hatched her own plan to blackmail herself into the new modeling position.
Ivy spent the night at Wyatt's beach house in his bed after Maya and Rick had appropriated the mansion for their wedding. Don't worry. There was no hanky-panky. Aly's spirit, which hasn't earned its sunshine bubble yet, saw to it as it kept Ivy company in her sleep. Aly's ghost was probably playing hall monitor, making sure Wyatt stayed on the couch all night and didn't slide on top of Ivy as the living Aly had caught him doing to Hope in Paris.
Ivy awakened after dreaming that Aly was pleading for justice, and later, Ivy was so busy poring over her video for what she'd missed that she couldn't even give Wyatt a proper kiss good morning. Or maybe the problem was morning breath? Wyatt needs to invest in guest toothbrushes. Ivy did manage to assure him in passing that when she gave herself to him, there would be no looking back -- well, none except for constantly looking back at the video.
Ivy decided that justice for Aly meant modeling as the second face of Forrester, where she could ensure that Aly's wholesome values prevailed. Besides, the Foresters and Liam owe it to her for not doing her civic duty as an American citizen by reporting a murder.
Wyatt wholeheartedly agreed, adding that he was tired of Liam, who waffled between women and vice presidencies more often than he waffles between boxer shorts. Wyatt felt that he and Ivy had both been burned by Steffy and Liam. Someone needs to tell Wyatt that his wet dreams might have gotten burned by Steffy, but that's about it.
Ivy's blackmail scam is already off to a bad start. First, she is supposed to be the honest Forrester, Taylor reborn. She's supposed to be out for justice, not a modeling gig. A boomerang must have knocked her in the back of the head for her to think Aly's idea of justice is for Ivy to shake her little tush on the catwalk.
Next, it is out of character for Ivy to willingly hide murder for her own benefit when she couldn't even hide her citizenship for her own benefit. B&B characters have become painfully situational, which is probably why Maya loves the modeling break instead of being her competitive, threatened, and clawing true self. No doubt Quinn's going to love it. She gets the jewelry department back to herself. "Aw, you're leaving me to model. I'm so sad," Quinn will say and grin devilishly once Ivy exits.
Lastly, Ivy's barking up the wrong blackmail tree. Thomas doesn't even have the power to resurrect his designs from the trash can. She should have taken her video straight to Liam, Ridge, or the cha-cha-cha sex kitten herself if she wanted to get somewhere.
Steffy is one little kitty who's already got a trap set up for her mousy cousin from Down Under. Steffy's been watching some Donald Trump reruns and is practicing her best, "You're fired!" routine for Ivy.
If Ivy doesn't stop promoting the idea that Steffy murdered Aly, Steffy's going to murder Ivy's chances to make rings for the gumball machine. Just like Julius and Maya, Steffy and Ivy can't sit down, talk about the past, and correlate their own truths into real facts about what happened.
A little communication might get these ladies out from between the rock and a hard place they're in -- literally in -- because the thing Ivy keeps scanning her video for but can't see is the rock in Aly's hand moments before Steffy clobbers her. Lieutenant Baker will probably have Aly's hand analyzed for rock fragments, and we'll see it's all been a big misunderstanding.
In the meantime, Ridge and Caroline figured out that it's mating season again for Wyatt, who, in their view, had to be supporting Ivy because he'd hooked up with her -- because no one can make a business decision around there unless they have their tongues down another employee's throat. Ridge is worried about why his children aren't supporting nepotism, and Caroline thinks it's cute that his kids missed him while he was on one of his plethora of honeymoons.
As Steffy inventoried the arsenal she can use against Ivy, Thomas told his sister that she might want to put her knife away because Ivy has her finger on the detonator of a video that depicted Aly's death as anything but self-defense. Choosing the next top model is just as easy as "rock, tire iron, video." Will Steffy bank on the rock of self-defense? Can Ivy make the case for tire-iron murder? And just how will the police judge this video?
We'd love to have your opinions, and unlike our citizens this week, we promise to "try" not to blackmail or ostracize you if you don't quite see things our way. Until next time, stay bold and beautiful, baby!
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