First of all, I think Gina Tognoni has been doing an amazing job as Phyllis. Y&R was smart to wait a year to recast the role, and it’s clear now why Gina was chosen to play the part. What a great actress.

As far as the flashback scenes, it’s interesting that some of the dialogue that originally took place in the stairwell was recalled by Sharon as having taken place at Cassie’s gravesite, perhaps to get a good closeup of Gina as Phyllis saying “Summer is Nick’s daughter!” Thankfully, a different stairwell was used for the flashback/confrontation scenes because the original stairwell sounded like an echo chamber. All in all, I think the flashback scenes worked, but they weren’t exactly the same as the originals.

A year ago, Sharon was obviously nuts and not making any logical sense. She had already suffered from several years of character assassination by the writers, so it was a brilliant idea to basically press the reset button on her personality by having shock therapy erase her memory of tampering with the DNA test and then have her struggle to remember her “secret.” After the shock therapy, she was essentially restored to the sympathetic character she used to be. Hopefully, with a new head writer coming in, Sharon won’t start acting crazy again for the sake of the story. IMO, she should ultimately be forgiven for what she’s done since her bipolar disorder caused her behavior and her hallucinations of Cassie.

Seriously I was on the edge of my chair watching that scene today! Did the scene work… Hell yes it worked and their facial expressions were spot on!!

My heart broke for poor Jack when he realized Summer is not his after all. I don’t feel sorry for Sharon, Phyllis or Nick– just Jack who was truly innocent in all of this mess. I liked the reveal despite the fact it took so long to come out therefore a bit anticlimactic for me as a viewer– yet it was well acted and thought everyone did a good job with it. As always the Newman smugness of “being right” and demonizing poor Sharon wore thin with me– but hopefully Nick after he gets over being mad and hurt will forgive her since she was off her meds at the time this all went down

It was very bittersweet for me to see all of this unraveling. Michelle Stafford was one of my very favorite actresses on my favorite show and when I heard the part of Phyllis was being recast my heart sank. I so looked forward to her scenes each and every day.

That being said, I think Tognoni is doing a respectable job, although I’m not completely sold on her yet. I’m hoping I warm up to this new take on Phyllis, but her diminutive stature isn’t really helping much.

Stafford was such an imposing force, not just in her acting ability, but her size. Gina doesn’t have that trick up her sleeve, so they must rely on a lot of shots of her physically dominating others, like her looming over Sharon on the staircase yesterday. With all due respect to Gina, I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to come in with so much dialogue and have such a huge amount of pressure on her to measure up. I wish her well, but really miss my Stafford. Sigh.

On another note, how fabulous has Sharon Case been? She is one of the most consistent, and overlooked, members of the cast and it’s about time she got her due!

All that being said, I love Y&R, and will — of course — continue to watch, because it’s ridiculously fun entertainment and a bright spot in my day! 🙂

Best was Victor’s expression at the bottom of the stairwell. The classic moustache smirk as he’s the only one there besides the girls that knows exactly what went down!

I’ve never bought this whole “case of the bi-polars” diagnosis to explain away poor story choices because now it’s just a license for Sharon to get away with every awful thing she does. What could have been an educational story about a very real mental illness has instead been reduced to an all purpose “get out of jail free” card: Burn down the Newman ranch? I gots the bi-polars. Alter DNA results? I didn’t take my bi-polar meds. Knock a recast down the stairs? You guessed it.

I know that ultimately Nick will forgive Sharon (her bi-polars flaired up, y’all) but all that does is emasculate him and give him an IQ slightly lower than a yam. Nick’s one constant is his love for his children and Sharon’s actions with the DNA switch should be unforgiveable. Even if you buy the whole “poor fragile me” shtick Sharon is working for all it’s worth, the woman is still a trainwreck and life is just too short to put up with that. Who cares if she’s the mother of his kids — if I was Nick I’d have 99 problems but Sharon wouldn’t be one EVER again.

The stairwell scenes seemed a little too easy: after months of Sharon struggling to remember her big secret all it it took was for Phyllis to say “you know what you did, Sharon” and suddenly Sharon was all “oh yeah, I do”? C’mon… (And I’m not even going to get into how ridiculous it was that Sharon would trust her arch enemy to drive her to her wedding.) As for the recreated scenes…well, I guess it was a necessity since they want to wrap up the whole Summer’s paternity story (whatever happened to putting a big secret on the back burner and leaving it there for a few years until its reveal could result in the greatest amount of story ripples?) but all it did was make me realize how much I miss Michelle Stafford. Gina Tognoni just doesn’t work for me in the role — her Phyllis seems pretty much interchangeable with her Kelly Cramer and her Dinah Marler.

Phyllis is an awful person. She has no redeeming qualities. Playing the victim doesn’t sit well with me – she ran over two people with her car and barely got hollered at.

Nick might or will forgive Sharon, he is badly ….. whipped..
But-
Victor, Summer, Jack, Phyllis, Abby and others will not forgive Sharon..
She near destroyed Summer and two families .. wow!
Imagine what the two families will go through..
Sharon will be hated by many, for sure..
It’s just not about Nick..

Y&R’s casting department has been doing a VERY good job lately. I was distraught when my beloved Michelle Stafford left daytime’s titan Y&R for a show beneath her talents. However, Gina Tognoni is knocking it out of the park. The year-long hiatus from Phyllis has lessened the typical jarring effect of a recast, but I imagine GT could have taken over the role even sooner and made it hers. Now, I’m sure Ms. Ordway and Mr. Jenkins are delightful wonderful individuals, but can we fix the Abby and Billy recasts stat please? Let’s get Mr. Tom back where he belongs, and let’s find a less grating portrayer for Abby.

I think Nick will ultimately forgive Sharon, BUT he will NOT remarry her and reunite their family.

I’m so sick of everyone forgiving Phyllis & Victor for all the terrible things they have done, but Sharon who has a mental illness & lost her memory after the shock treatment is not forgiven. Sharon did not push Phyllis down those stairs. It was an accident. I am going to be so disappointed if the writers put Nick & Phyllis back together. I do feel sorry for Jack though.

I feel sorry for Faith in all of this, too…
but so glad this secret is finally out!
The scenes have been great.

Next up- when will Phyllis find out about Kelly?

I am so sick & tired of E.B. being right and boosting about it. That man makes my skin crawl. That whole damn family stinks and I would love just once to see Sharon call them out on it. Victoria has been married how many times? doesn’t even know who the baby father is. Nikki’s a drunk and a past stripper and Nick the P—k has had so many affairs on Sharon it makes me ill. Even when they lost Cassie that idiot turned to Phyllis. Now he’s sticking his nose down at her REALLY!! She wanted to remember, you told her it wasn’t important. You’r father pushed her into the shock therapy that erased her memory. She even wanted to see a fortune teller and you said you we’re sick of this damn secret and you didn’t care what it was you loved her anyways. MAN-UP you spoiled little punk. Sharon Was Ill ! Here’s what you need to do. Tell you’r father he need’s a hobby and he’s a meddler & to stay out of you’r life, Tell you’s sister to stop looking down on Sharon because she’s a slut, Tell you’r mother she’s an ex stripper and a drunk, then man-up and go marry Sharon and stop whining. And this so called year you claim to have lost with Summer do you really believe an 18 year old is going to hang out with Dad? Let’s remember she’s alive because of Sharon. Sharon found her at the bottom of the staircase when she was on pills, Sharon had the other girl fired, Sharon got her to the hospital & called you not Jack. When she was freezing outside modelling Sharon saved her sorry but and got her out of there. Sharon also helped her with her wedding.

Just thinking… Victor did not have enough time to get another DNA, so maybe he used the one he had from Faith’s DNA. Jack said he was going to get another one just to make sure wouldn’t it be something if Summer turns out to be Jack’s after all and although Phyllis did hear Sharon talking in the graveyard to Cassie, she only imagined that she changed it! I for one would love to see old Vic’s face and all the other little Newman’s look then and Sharon could then kick him (Nick) to the curb.

Here’s what happened to poor little Summer this last year. She got two fancy cars, two huge trust funds, got a brand new fancy apartment and a felony husband to boot never had to work for a living got to manipulate two daddy’s what one would not do the other would. She also got to run around town whining and complaining and everyone jumping thru hoops to please her. Yep that poor. Little Summer sure had a tough stressful year. Sorry Summer signed evil Sharon!!! 🙂

Phyllis may be an awful person with a treacherous past, but she’s interesting. Boring is the biggest sin in daytime drama. I certainly hope I’m not the only one way back then who was rooting for Phyllis to squash “the bug”. hehe