Jared Banks – Coffee At Cafe Russe
Posts about Jared Banks written by Norrth
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Coffee At Cafe Russe
While all of daytime has me rolling my eyes lately, OLTL – in particular wins the ‘shut your pie hole’ awards.

Jared wants to tell the truth because it’s the right thing to do? While I can appreciate the fact that even JARED sees the irony in his statement about what’s morally appropriate, it still galls me that he’s shown little concern for how the news of the real Chloe’s death will impact Jessica. Nat wants to protect Jess and now feels sorry for her? Both of you, SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE! This whole mess got started because Nat wanted to stick it Jess and Jared wanted to help her. I’m sickened at the thought that Jess will lose Chloe after losing Nash – both lost because of Jared and Natalie. IF ONLY there was some way to make that child hers. If not? It’s time to bring Tess back and let her finish what she started! It’s time for Jared and Natalie to go.

As if causing Jess even MORE grief wasn’t bad enough, what about the pain Jared and Natalie are causing ME!??! I’ve struggled hard to accept the new ‘grown up’ role for Starr Manning – I have. The problem is that it’s just not working for me. I don’t know how you feel, OLTL fans, but this new set of storylines does NOT play to Kristen Anderson’s strengths. I think the writers moved Starr into pseudo-adulthood too soon. The emotional scenes appear forced and far too artificial for me to connect to. Starr’s scenes with ‘Chloe’ make me cringe. The thought of more scenes of “Starr” and whining Marcee McBain locked in a custody battle over Hope (we’ve lost Hope, we need Hope, our Hope is gone – UGH) makes me want to set my television on fire. Damn you, Jared and Natalie, damn you!

Nora vowing to take down Cole? I’ve officially had my fill of Nora “the ethically flexible D.A.” The truth is that I was done with her years ago, during the fights with Lindsey and the affair with Sam when she passed ‘Sam’s child’ off as Bo’s. (Apparently no one knows how to perform in vitro in Llanview. They’re GREAT at trauma medicine since it’s the only thing docs in Llanview ever practice.) Had it been someone else’s child, Nora would have most likely been fighting to get Cole into drug and alcohol treatment, family counseling to reunite him with his mother, and had him doing community service by talking to high school kids about drug use. She’d have railed at the system for letting a villain like Todd go free while a young man who made a horrible mistake is being severely punished. She MIGHT have even quit her job in protest and defended Cole, herself, if the D.A.’s office chose to press charges.

She’s always been ‘flexible’ when it comes to helping her pals and granting them the grace and mercy of the courts. Intimidating a teenage boy and making him feel as if he should be buried UNDER the prison for his actions? Bite me. Does Cole deserve jail time? Sure. He chose to take drugs and get behind the wheel of a car disregarding the possible harm to others. Does he deserve Nora’s disdain? Sure! But just ONCE I’d like to see the self-righteous Nora Buchanan choose to exercise discretion and say nothing. Nora? SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE!

BTW, SoapNet is linking to this appearance by Kristen Alderson and Brandon Buddy on the Tyra Banks show. The OLTL actors demonstrate different aspects of teen dating violence:

Ray Montez now faults Todd because Tea didn’t work fast enough to get him out of prison… REALLY? REALLY? Buddy, SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE! Is there some right of passage for Llanview residents that states that they MUST have conflict with Todd, of any sort regardless of how ridiculous it is, before the other Llanview citizens will play nice with them? Ray could have hired another attorney. He could be angry at Tea, alone. OR he could have realized that Tea wasn’t capable of moving any faster because his daughter didn’t know her well enough to open up to her. The idea that Ray now hates Todd inspires me… to YAWN. There’s far too much for this guy to do onscreen instead of going after Todd Manning over something so trivial.

Stacy Morasco, a potentially fabulous character and a throwback to what a TRUE bad girl should be… so I guess it makes sense that the writers made her a cartoon villain in record time. WHO takes a completely fabulous gift like Crystal Hunt, sees the awesome mess she’s able create onscreen through Stacy, and turns her into one of the most unlikable characters in daytime?

Stacy tells Gigi that she deserves to have Rex because she’s a million times hotter/way hotter? Juvenile, but HILARIOUS that it’s her meter for determing what ‘love’ is. God bless gorgeous Farah Fath for not slapping the writers when she read that script. If the writer who added that line isn’t on crack, I don’t know how else to explain that comment. With true ABC sensitivity to women, I thought the line might be followed up with “and I’m the REAL Gigi”. It was an awful thing to do to Fath.

As for Stacy, there’s no ‘love to hate’ left for a character who tells her grieving sister that she either has to give up the man she loves, the father of her child, or watch her child succumb to leukemia… SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE, Stacy, you whack job. What could have beeen ‘love to hate’ has just turned into utter disgust. What were the writers THINKING? If Crystal Hunt can pull the writers’ fat out of the fire after this blackmail plot, it will be a miracle. The whole scene was ugly from start to finish!

If there was a Brass Cojones award for daytime males, I’d have to nominate the following four characters:

3 – The YnR’s Victor Newman. Victor recently referred to rival Jack Abbott as an arrogant S.O.B. As soon as I regained consciousness from laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe (hence the passing out), I realized that Victor has a brass pair so big that the man must wear TWO pairs of pants to contain them.

This is the man who told the love of his life, mother of most of his children, that she would still be a stripper in the dive bar he found her in if it weren’t for him (a bitterly cruel thing to say to a woman at midlife, dontcha’ think?). Apparently, he helped her grow a brain, get a little ambition, and become a person of virtue. ::swoon:: Sure, if it weren’t for him, she’d still be sliding that pole, not a thought in her head, gigglin’ and jigglin’. Victor just wanted her to know that. And they say romance is dead! Victor should be happy that he married Nikki and not a woman who would have taken half of everything in a divorce, including half the brass.

2 – OLTL’s Jared Banks. Jared recently offered to help Clint Buchanan keep hot-stuff David Vickers from finding out that he was the rightful heir to Buchanan Enterprises. He wants to make sure the company stays in the hands of the ‘original family’. Oh yeah, people, he used THOSE words.

In the process of agreeing to help Clint, Jared- the soulless recast his own attempt to defraud the Buchanans, by pretending to be the rightful heir to Asa’s fortune, as an act of ‘protection’. He and Natalie were only ‘protecting’ the Buchanans from David’s evil greedy dirty deed doing self. The problem is that Jared stole David’s share of BE from the ‘original family’ before finding out who the real heir was. He did it out of greed – and revenge against Tess. It’s an act that cost the family its company and allowed Dorian Lord to take over. It was also an act that resulted in Nash Brennan losing his life.

Will someone let me know when Jared is gone? For good, that is.

Tied for second is the dark shadow, prince of pain, the man who works at trying to make morose look hot: Johnny Boy McBain. Does it astound anyone else that John is self-righteous about Marty drinking and sexing her anger away? Does it strike anyone else as odd that it’s how McBain was introduced, and how he’s lived as a character the entire time he’s been around?

Does McBain care because he wants what’s best for Marty? Does he care because he’s jealous? Is it just the case that it’s hard to look at the female version of himself (down to the black clothing)?

I keep waiting for someone to ask John why it’s ok for him to turn blue skies gray and grunt his way through relationships that end up leaving the women who love him shattered and feeling used. I was hoping it would be Marty who took him on.

3 – ATWT’s Jack Snyder. It takes a lot of nerve for a man to bring second mortgage papers for his ex-wife to sign for the home she still lives in with their children. It takes even more nerve to ask her to let you take out a second mortgage to allow you to buy your new wife and her kid a home. You’d think that would be enough, right? You don’t know Jack, then.

Jack earns the ‘Brass Cojones’ award for telling his ex-wife, as the second mortgage papers are sitting on her desk, to not accept a loan from the town’s mustache twirling villain: Craig Montgomery(pictured right). Craig, it appears, is so evil that Carly’s utter devastation and loss of all of she has left, professionally, is better than accepting his money. Sure… It’s much better that Carly be unemployed and in debt from a bad business venture. It’s much better that she spend her days hoping Jack and Janet take a break from sniffing the fantasy laced room full of flowers and sunshine in the new home built from her children’s financial security long enough to pay back the second mortgage so that she doesn’t lose her home, too.

If you’re keeping count, Jack wears FOUR pairs of pants to hold his brass in and even then there’s a little spillage. It’s not pretty.

The Bold and the Beautiful

Clearly there are new writers on board. There HAVE to be! How else can you explain the highly emotional grief scenes following Phoebe’s death!?!? It’ s been a long time since I’ve cried over BnB scenes because they were so highly emotional. Usually if I’m crying over a BnB scene, it’s because of the self-pity I feel knowing I haven’t been able to break my BnB viewing habit.

Jacqueline MacInnes Wood was pitch perfect and completely sold me as the soul shattered twin sister unable to fathom living the rest of her life without her other half. Together with Ronn Moss ‘Steffy’ and ‘Ridge’ broke my heart opening the bag containing Phoebe’s personal effects and gingerly removing each time… a shoe, a bag, a hair clip, on their own -each with seeming no real value, now invaluable because of the fact that Phoebe wore them in her last moments.

I shuddered when I saw the door to the hospital morgue. I waited for the gratuitous and exploitive “bloodied and battered” Phoebe images. I was wrong. The writers handled those scenes with a sensitivity rarely seen on this show. They’ve done us proud. For the record, if there is a new team at bat, HIRE THEM… they’re good. If it really is the same writing team, what the hell? Why aren’t we getting this level of writing more often? I don’t even need it daily, just more frequently than we’ve been treated to the past… say… 6 or 7 years!

Young and the Restless

I’m sorry. I think I’m losing my hearing. I thought I heard Lauren express shock at Gloria’s self-centered behavior and her willingness to allow an innocent party to be blamed for something they hadn’t done. I was shocked that SHE was shocked. Two words: Ashley Abbott… Two more: Face Cream.

Are the writers confused? Is there another character named Gloria living in fictional Genoa City? There has to be, because otherwise the writers could never have written those lines. Instead, they would have had Lauren tell Gloria that it’s time she STOPPED allowing others to pay for her lies and her selfishness.

Apparently Kay Chancellor isn’t the only GC resident with a look-a-like, and not the only one suffering from memory loss.

BTW, Phyllis, seriously? It’s not like this is the FIRST marriage you’ve broken up, what’s up with that plan to split Jack and Sharon? What would make her think that Sharon would immediately run to Brad? If Sharon is getting close with Nick, again, and she becomes a free woman, wouldn’t it make sense that she’d have to keep an eye on her wandering, philandering husband? Great going there, big red. Phyllis is just a little rusty at manipulating others.

One Life to Live

Oh sure… kill off Nash, bring back Tess, add new alter for Jessica, and then hook her up with the ‘new Nash’. In this case, I think the writers think WE’RE new. Can Jessica please have a love life that doesn’t revolve around alternate personalities and psychiatric care? Please? I’ll admit, I love Jess/Tess/Bess and Brody, I just wish the writers hadn’t used the same plot line they used to pull Tessica and Nash together.

I can only assume that it’s tacit admission that getting rid of Jess and Nash was a FOOLISH move, especially for a storyline that had enormous potential ending with a whimper and not a bang. The revenge storyline became diluted and distracting when it got in the way of other, less compelling, storylines. Natalie and Jared replacing Jessica and Nash as the show’s hot young couple felt like a pipe dream from the beginning.Nared-Jatalie (whatever couple name they’ve earned) are a chemistry challenged couple that makes ‘romance’ feel like a four letter word -and not fun dirty four letter words, either.

I don’t understand the writers’ fascination with Natalie and Jared as a couple and I also don’t understand the sudden forgiveness for their actions. It was Jessica who was angry, and felt betrayed. Jessica watched her husband die. Jessica held him in his last moments. Jessica had to tell him about a child he’d never get to hold. I don’t want Jessica to hate her sister the rest of her life, but the idea that she’s now beyond what’s happened, and that it’s ok that Natalie and Jared are caring for her children just seems odd. At the very least, what should make Jessica’s recovery so difficult is being conflicted, both feeling guilty that Tess took things so far -but still feeling betrayed and feeling angry about their role in Nash’s death, and their role in her family’s financial difficulties in losing BE. To have Natalie and Jared back in good stead just feels hollow and rings false.

Thank goodness I have Gigi/Rex/Shane to take my mind off of the rest of it. I love that Shane still loves his hero father, Brody, while being willing to slowly get to know his biological father, Rex. I think it’s realistic for Shane to be confused and still love the man he’s thought of as his father his entire life. I love that he’s a sensitive and loving child. I love that Rex is patient, and respects Shane’s feelings. I’m actually looking forward to more of this little family.

Days of Our Lives

Oh, I should have known. Nicole Walker Dimera (emphasis on Dimera)! What have you done? WHY, writers, WHY? She loves Brady so much, to think that she would try to send him back to his addiction to protect her pregnancy lie? That’s far too vicious, even for Nicole. How could I have fooled myself into thinking the writers would make the character capable of anything else? Oh well… I’m in for the long and the short of it. Nicole will have to face whatever she has coming. It will be well deserved. If she succeeds in the long run, move me to the ‘love to hate’ column for a while. Eventually I’ll find a way to forgive N.W.D. for her dastardly actions… I’m so weak. The writers always get me when it comes to this character.

As The World Turns

Oh dear. I’ll bet you thought that Carly would be vindicated! I’ll bet you thought that the magnificent Snarly had Janet and her demon seed dead to rights, right? HA! What are you, NEW? This is As The World Turns. Everyone turns on Carly, including her own children.

Parker forged Carly’s signature, Liberty encouraged it, and it was ‘all good’ because their criminal activity was only about making someone else happy, namely Janet. Sure, Janet is more deserving than most people. It’s ok for her to want a 5k wedding gown, marrying a man with three children, making a cop’s salary. Seriously? That she never looked at the price tag is no excuse, in some ways, it’s WORSE that she didn’t look. Did she really believe that an upscale boutique would have cheap gowns?

Parker has to humiliate his mother in front of Janet and Liberty. Great. He forged the signature on his trust fund check to make Liberty happy… and that’s Carly’s fault. They were willing to continue lying about it until they were caught… and that’s Carly’s fault, too; she’s just an evil angry jealous bitch out to stop their happiness (uh, huh, despite the fact that she AGREED to let her jackass ex- take out a second mortgage on their house to pay for his wedding to another woman). This is the man who attacks Carly for the kind of mother she is, NEVER thanking her for raising a child HE brought into their marriage (JJ) after initially abandoning her and their other children, for JJ and his mother, batshit crazy Julia2.

I’m ready to give up on As The World Turns. It’s not JUST the Kick the Carly storylines that are doing it for me. The KTC storylines are symptomatic of a larger problem- the overall lack of balance on this show. I think I’ve had my fill. Someone contact me when the ‘Kick the Jackass’ storylines start (Jack-Janet, take your pick!)

Just a word of caution, writers… viewers who are raising, or have raised, children are NOT entertained by a smart-assed obnoxious kid like Parker. It’s tiring of having the show held hostage by the writers’ interpretation of teenaged hormones gone awry. Liberty-Parker sex scenes, groping, lusting, crying, conspiring, and now attacking Carly for having LEGITIMATE concerns. Get a clue, folks. Surely JJ is missing his brother, by now. It’s time to send Parker and Liberty away to school.