Jennifer Lopez knows how to make a birthday moment. One piece from her 57th birthday celebration quickly stole the spotlight: a buttery yellow floral sundress that had shoppers racing to find it. Romantic, feminine dresses like hers are having a major moment this summer, and it’s easy to see why.

Lopez posted an Instagram carousel celebrating her 57th birthday wearing a tie-strap sundress with a corset-style bodice, breezy midi skirt and delicate floral print. The look perfectly captured the effortless, vacation-ready style she’s been embracing lately. While her exact designer dress hasn’t yet been tracked down, we found a remarkably similar version on Amazon for just $47.

Get the Scarlet Darkness Floral Corset Sundress for $47 at Amazon! Please note, prices are accurate as of the publishing date but are subject to change.

The Scarlet Darkness Floral Corset Sundress delivers the same summery charm without the designer price tag. With its buttery yellow floral print, lace-up corset-inspired bodice and flowing silhouette, it channels the same romantic aesthetic that made Lopez’s birthday outfit instantly trend across social media.

Related: Copy Meghan Markle’s Slimming Tailored Jeans Look for Only $39

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Every so often, a pair of jeans comes along that makes you question every other style hanging in your closet. Meghan Markle‘s latest denim moment is one of those times. Her pant style is crisp, tailored and elongating. In fact, the jeans somehow make legs look a mile long, giving you a flattering silhouette that […]

Beyond the pretty print, it’s packed with thoughtful details. The midi length is universally flattering, while the front slit adds easy movement and the adjustable tie straps help create a customized fit. Available in sizes S through XXL, it also comes in pink floral, blue floral and several other prints if yellow isn’t your favorite.

Shoppers say it looks just as good in person. One reviewer called it “so flattering” and loved that the corset design “allows for waist cinching,” while another buyer praised the “light and airy” fabric and the “super pretty cottage style design.” With 165 five-star ratings, it’s already earning plenty of fans looking for an expensive-looking summer dress without the luxury price tag.

Whether you’re heading to a birthday brunch, a garden party, a weekend getaway or dinner on the patio, this breezy floral dress is the kind of piece you’ll reach for again and again. Lopez may have sparked the trend, but for just $47, you can recreate her dreamy birthday style without stretching your budget.

Get the Scarlet Darkness Floral Corset Sundress for $47 at Amazon! Please note, prices are accurate as of the publishing date but are subject to change.

Looking for something else? Explore more from Scarlet Darkness here and don’t forget to check out all of Amazon’s Daily Deals for more great finds!

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According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition, a satire is “A […] work in which human foolishness or vice is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.” Far from being a simple parody or mockery, satire plumbs the depths of the human condition and isn’t afraid to acknowledge the truths and faults of a given topic. Ever since movies were invented, satires have played an important role in cinema’s broader contribution to the arts.

Throughout the history of film, there have been some truly great satires, and they cross over into many genres. From pop culture hits like Barbie to horror-themed flicks like The Menu or What We Do in the Shadows, these movies have their finger on a pulse that makes society tick. Out of this rich canon of films, these 10 stand apart. They deserve to be appreciated for their excellence and impact on cinema and are some of the best satires of all time.

10

‘Borat’ (2006)

Image via 20th Century Studios

Borat, also known as Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, is a movie that you either love or hate. It is undoubtedly one of the most divisive and controversial comedies ever done, and it has lost none of its potency, 20 years later. Sacha Baron Cohen plays the role of Borat Sagdiyev, a journalist from Kazakhstan who journeys to America to experience the culture and document what he discovers.

Blending a mockumentary style with scripted and improvised scenes, Borat is a collage of filmmaking techniques. The movie created something altogether different than anything done before, and the line between fiction and reality was fluid. Borat leaves nothing off the table, and everything from politics to racism to religion is fair game. Several of the real people filmed in the movie had no idea they are interacting with an actor, and Cohen is so solidly in character that the setup works hook, line, and sinker. Made on a shoestring budget of $18 million, the movie grossed almost $300 million worldwide. It continues to be quoted by devotees and earned an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay. Borat is a potent satire that takes no prisoners. It does not try to be palatable and instead exposes the ethnocentric behaviors that it wants to.

9

‘The Truman Show’ (1998)

Image via Paramount Pictures

Jim Carrey is one of Hollywood’s leading men when it comes to comedy, but he is also able to carry a dramatic performance very well. One of his best, more serious film roles is in The Truman Show. In The Truman Show, Carrey plays Truman Burbank, a man who has no idea that his entire life has been a TV show. Everyone Truman knows — his family, his friends, his neighbors are all actors, and everything in his world is a masquerade.

The Truman Show was years ahead of its time. Before reality TV had dominated airwaves, influencers filmed every minute of their lives, or The Matrix envisioned a simulated reality, The Truman Show tackled all of these subjects and more. From blatant product placement to the public obsession with celebrity, The Truman Show ticks every mark and has a lot to say about publicity and privacy. As time moves forward, The Truman Show has only increased in relevance. It is a touching and poignant satire that has one of the most satisfying movie endings of all time.

8

‘Shrek’ (2001)

Image via DreamWorks Animation

Satire is inherently bold, and one movie that sent shockwaves through its own genre and the larger moviemaking community alike was Shrek. In 2001, no one had dared to make fun of Disney’s animated kids movies on such a pointed scale. DreamWorks was founded in part by a former employee of Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and this background would become a driving force of the animated ogre’s raison d’être.

Raising stark contrasts about what audiences had come to expect from fairy tales, Shrek blew romantic fantasy tropes apart. Striking underlying notes about self-confidence and beauty standards, Shrek was its own layered onion, tackling surface-level topics as well as more nuanced ones. Bold enough to take on the highly influential studio, Shrek became the defining satire of kids’ films and changed the game forever.

7

‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ (1975)

Image via EMI Films

“And now for something completely different.” Debuting in 1969, Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a TV series that broke the mold. Its droll, dry, and absurdist humor gave the series an affect all its own. Spearheaded by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, and Terry Gilliam, Monty Python was truly original and became a blueprint for modern sketch comedy.

In 1975, the creators debuted their second feature-length project entitled Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Made on a meager budget of £300,000, the film became the first ever to satirize King Arthur and his quest to find the Holy Grail. The movie had all the hallmarks of the fan-favorite TV show and did not disappoint devotees. In fact, Monty Python and the Holy Grail found new audiences and gained even more popularity in the years that followed than the original series. This unique triumph continues to influence filmmaking today and proves that low-budget projects are often the best.

6

‘Young Frankenstein’ (1974)

Image via 20th Century Fox

Mel Brooks is the king of comedy, and his parodies are universally renowned. In Young Frankenstein, Brooks aims his magnifying glass of satire at old Hollywood horror. Young Frankenstein pays tribute to the genre and includes all of the well-established tropes cinema buffs appreciate. There is the unsure but never at fault hero, the ditsy, seductive female, and the exaggerated oddities of townsfolk and side characters. It is a delightful dissection of vintage fright flicks and endlessly entertaining.

Young Frankenstein was a huge success that continues to be a favorite for many. The cast includes stellar talents such as Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, and Cloris Leachman. Every performance given is phenomenal, and Young Frankenstein has the best acting in any blockbuster comedy ever.

5

‘Modern Times’ (1936)

Image via United Artists

The title of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times makes its point unmistakable. In his last silent movie before moving on to the new talkies, Chaplin tackled industrialization and modernization in one brilliant film. As a character simply known as A Factory Worker, Chaplin is seen absentmindedly pulling on levers and operating switches that seem redundant to him. A small figure against a towering room full of buttons and knobs is an instant visual depiction of how users feel out of touch with technology, and we don’t really understand how and why it works.

Modern Times continues to offer hilarious commentary on everything from human laziness to job security. In one scene, a feeding machine shoves food into Chaplin’s mouth. Of course, things start well, and even though ridiculous, the invention seems somewhat useful; then things go spectacularly awry. This example and so many more within the movie illustrate how, even in 1936, humanity was trying to negotiate and examine its dependency on gadgets.

4

‘Network’ (1976)

Image via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, Network is a classic 1976 dark comedy that continues to have an impact on the Zeitgeist. Decades ahead of its time, Network seems eerily prophetic in its commentaries about social hysteria and mass media manipulation. Years before “fake news” became a commonly used term, Network aimed to portray what was going on behind the scenes of powerful information distributors.

Network does a superb job of pairing its overall message with more subtle looks into the lives of the people who run large media corporations. It is both a power-behind-the-throne exposé and an observation on the allure of power and popularity. Network took home four Academy Awards in 1977 and continues to be more and more applicable as time goes on.

3

‘Get Out’ (2017)

Image via Universal Pictures

Aptly described by Collider’s Anja Djuricic as “a social satire wrapped in a thriller,” Jordan Peele’s Get Out is a perfect blend of commentary and modern horror. The story follows Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) as he travels with his girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) to visit her parents. Chris feels uneasy at Rose’s family home, and there is something about her parents he doesn’t fully trust. As Chris experiences stranger and stranger occurrences at the quiet country estate, the movie slowly reveals that there is an infinitely more sinister and widespread conspiracy at work.

Get Out is absolutely brilliant. Not only are the horror elements spot-on, but the underlying current of uneasy racial tension and cultural appropriation is thought-provoking. Get Out is one of the few horror movies to win the Oscar for best screenplay. It is a masterpiece in every sense of the word and will no doubt influence filmmakers for years to come.

2

‘Jojo Rabbit’ (2019)

Image via Searchlight Pictures

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In Jojo Rabbit, viewers get a rarely explored viewpoint to consider: that of an indoctrinated Hitler Youth. Jojo Rabbit (Roman Griffin Davis) is a 10-year-old boy who, like many young children in his town, has become enamored with Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi). Jojo’s fascination with Adolf has reached the point where he sees and talks to him as an imaginary friend. Into this interesting dynamic comes a complication for Jojo. He discovers that his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) has been hiding a young Jewish refugee named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in their home.

Jojo Rabbit is a witty, tender, and heartbreaking inspection of one of humanity’s darkest hours. As movies and satires are designed to do, they try to unstring an untangleable knot. They dive deep into a topic and attempt to make sense or discover some pebble of rationality, however minute. Jojo Rabbit is an important piece of cinema that masterfully depicts how powerful media representation, structural racism, and public campaigns of propaganda can be. Jojo Rabbit serves as both a lesson and a warning that should never be forgotten.

1

‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ (1964)

Image via Columbia Pictures

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If there is one satire that has left an indelible impact on the cinema, it is Stanley Kubrick‘s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. In this classic masterpiece, a rogue official launches an unauthorized strike on the Soviet Union, and the US leaders panic and try to decide what to do next. The cast and performances in Dr. Strangelove are exemplary, and Peter Sellers delivers a tour de force caliber in all three of his separate roles.

Although Dr. Strangelove aims its derision against the Cold War, the movie’s insights about fear tactics, hypocrisy, and political disillusionment is still incredibly relevant. It blends subversive comedy with satire and became a model for future films to follow. Dr. Strangelove walks the fine line that the best satires do of jesting about a topic while making pointed remarks that land with the audience. By using the armor of wit, Dr. Strangelove and other satires can deliver a message that few would have been interested in receiving otherwise.

Chile, if this is what 60 is looking like, we might need to rethink everything we thought we knew about aging! Halle Berry had the internet taking notes as she celebrated the major milestone with a series of sultry birthday flicks that showed she was very much in her own lane and feeling herself.

RELATED: Halle Berry Seemingly Claps Back At David Justice For Saying She Didn’t Cook Or Clean During Their Marriage (PHOTOS)

Wait…Halle Berry Is How Old?

Halle Berry kicked off her birthday festivities on Thursday, Aug. 13, sharing photos of herself lounging on a sunny patio while rocking a mostly open lace robe, enjoying chocolate-covered strawberries and sipping a drink. Her fiancé, Van Hunt, also joined her for the intimate shoot, with the couple sharing a kiss on the couch as Berry held a piece of fruit. “Today….don’t give a f–!” she captioned the post. The Academy Award winner had already teased the milestone earlier in the week with photos of herself in a floor-length black mesh dress, writing, “60 here I come….”

The Actress Is Clearly Living Her Best Life

On Friday, Aug. 14, Berry officially celebrated her 60th birthday with another post. The actress shared a selfie of herself cheesing while holding a card that read, “Happy 60th.” In the caption, she thanked everyone for the birthday love and well wishes, adding, “I’m grateful to still be here!!” ❤️

Halle Berry Had The Gworls Questioning The Math

Folks ran to The Shade Room’s Instagram comment section and ran it up over Halle Berry’s birthday flicks. Some were confused by the “60” and questioned how she could possibly be hitting the milestone, while others said Halle had really been fine all her life. Meanwhile, a few fans said she’s been glowing since being with her man, and they absolutely love that for her.

One Instagram user @bryttain_ said, “I automatically start singing “Baow, baow, baow-baow-baow”…Happy birthday Queen 💐”

This Instagram user @astarrwasborn_ added, “She got that freshly folded like a lawn chair look and I love that for her!! 😍🔥”

And, Instagram user @x_jaddaaaa commented, “She gone be 100 years old , still fine 🥹💚”

Meanwhile, Instagram user @shidrika wrote, “& im no better than a mannnnn😍😍”

While Instagram user @1of1_llbigmatt shared, “I never wanted to be a strawberry so bad in my fkn life 😂😍❤️🔥”

Finally, Instagram user @marishalatreese claimed, “She is absolutely beautiful!! Baby 60 where?!! 😍😍”

RELATED: Happy Birthday! Celebrating Halle Berry & 5 Moments That Had Our Jaws On The Floor

The Department of Justice has charged nearly a dozen people with participating in a multimillion-dollar scheme. In this scheme, hundreds of Chinese nationals fraudulently obtained green cards through sham marriages to U.S. citizens, officials said Wednesday.

RELATED: Luigi Mangione Pleads Guilty To Federal Stalking Charges In The Killing Of UnitedHealthcare CEO

How Much Money Was Earned During The Scheme?

American citizens were paid as much as $30,000 to enter into bogus marriages with immigrants. The immigrants sought lawful permanent resident status as part of the scheme orchestrated from New York, according to court papers. The defendants charged up to $100,000 per green card. Ultimately, they brought in tens of millions of dollars over the course of the decade-long scheme, according to officials.

“This scheme was not a quick, fly-by-night operation but rather a yearslong, multibillion dollar cottage industry to criminally assist people who would not, or legally could not, otherwise become citizens of the United States,” Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters.

Details About The Scheme

Authorities say they believe the group arranged more than 1,000 sham weddings. This makes the scheme one of the largest marriage fraud prosecutions in U.S. history. After recruiting U.S. citizens, the defendants would arrange fake weddings and in some cases stage photos of families at places such as restaurants afterward to make them look legitimate, according to officials. The defendants would then help the immigrants through the lawful permanent status application process.

11 People Charged For The Sham Marriages

The charges come against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration that have sought to crack down on who is able to enter the country or become a citizen.

“These schemes have real cost. They rob our country of its ability to know who should be and who should not be allowed in America,” Blanche said.

The 11 defendants, including people accused of officiating the sham weddings, are charged in an indictment filed in New York. It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether they had lawyers to speak on their behalf.

RELATED: Not Pressed?! Tyler Lepley Seemingly Responds After Viral Cheating Allegations Surface Amid Marriage To Miracle Watts (PHOTOS)

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report via AP Newsroom. 

After bringing Upstead’s romance to life on Chicago P.D., Tracy Spiridakos and Jesse Lee Soffer formed a connection off screen.

Soffer was previously linked to Sophia Bush and Torrey DeVitto before sparking romance rumors with Spiridakos. Soffer and Spiridakos met on the set of the Dick Wolf police drama while playing Hailey Upton and Jay Halstead, respectively. Their fictional characters had a slow-burn romance that led to them tying the knot on screen.

The actor, however, shocked fans in 2022 when he announced his exit from the show.

“I guess the word is out. Jesse, what can I say, you’re the absolute best. Thank you for your kindness, your guidance and your friendship,” Spiridakos wrote via Instagram at the time. “You’re the greatest onscreen husband a girl could ask for. I’ll miss being on set with you every day. I can’t wait to see what the world has in store for you next. #upsteadforever.”

Related: One Chicago Stars Who Left the Franchise: Where Are They Now?

The One Chicago franchise is known for its frequent exits at this point, but Sophia Bush and more stars have not slowed down since walking away from Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire or Chicago Med. Bush, for one, spoke out about her departure from Chicago P.D. after season 4. “I realized that as I was thinking […]

News subsequently broke in October 2023 that Spiridakos was leaving Chicago P.D. after season 11.

“I decided at the end of my sixth season (a.k.a. season 10 of the series),” she told Variety in May. “Which is when I had reached out to [showrunner] Gwen [Sigan] and to everyone at Wolf to let them know that I just wanted to do one more year.”

Spiridakos called the decision “very, very hard,” adding, “I was just curious what was out there for me and wanted to switch it up, and that was it.”

On screen, Upton and Halstead went through a divorce to adjust to Spiridakos and Soffer’s individual exits. While the costars no longer share the screen, Spiridakos and Soffer have continued to spend time together.

Rumors surfaced in January 2024 that Soffer and Spiridakos have been secretly dating for years. Neither actor has addressed the romance speculation publicly but have remained together out of the public eye.

Keep scrolling to relive their romance:

2017

Tracy Spiridakos joined Chicago P.D. in the second half of season 4 after Jesse Lee Soffer was with the NBC series since the pilot. Their characters were paired off — and a romance ensued. Upton and Halstead ultimately got engaged and married during their Chicago P.D. journey.

2018

Jesse Lee Soffer and Tracy Spiridakos arrived on the red carpet for the 4th Annual OneChicago Press Day in Chicago.

2019

Tracy Spiridakos and Jesse Lee Soffer attended the press day for One Chicago again one year later.

2021

Jesse Lee Soffer spoke exclusively to Us Weekly about filming a sex scene with Tracy Spiridakos, saying, “I don’t have time for TV, so if you tell me it was intense, then OK. It was intense.”

Soffer added: “We’ve been playing partners and love interests for so long, that it’s second nature. Also, I was on a soap for a while and she’s worked a ton! It’s like, ‘All right, sex scene? Got it.’ It’s been easy. She’s a great scene partner to have.”

2022

Jesse Lee Soffer announced his exit from the show first — with Spiridakos following one year later. While Soffer returned to direct episodes, Upton and Halstead’s fictional connection took a hit and they divorced before Upton’s exit.

2023

Tracy Spiridakos gushed when Jesse Lee Soffer came back to direct the show before her departure, writing via Instagram, “Tonight’s episode was directed by the one and only, our very own @jesseleesoffer 🥳🥳🥳!! And you guys, it’s a realllllllly good one. You don’t want to miss it.”

Soffer, meanwhile, took to social media to celebrate Spiridakos’s legacy. “I got to watch Tracy’s last episode of Chicago PD (airing tonight) and she’s FANTASTIC in it! 🙂 you should all go check it out!” he wrote via Instagram at the time.

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Related: One Chicago’s Most Heartbreaking Exits

If there’s one thing Dick Wolf isn’t afraid of, it’s killing off a beloved character. A fact that fans of the One Chicago universe know all too well. The franchise kicked off in 2012 with Chicago Fire. Chicago P.D. was added in 2014 and Chicago Med debuted in 2015. The cast of each show has […]

August 2024

The pair went on a European vacation together to Portugal, which they shared photos of on social media.

“Europe is kinda cool 😘😘,” Jesse Lee Soffer wrote via Instagram alongside snaps that included Tracy Spiridakos

February 2026

NBC announced that Tracy Spiridakos and Jesse Lee Soffer were reuniting in the three-part One Chicago crossover special. According to the synopsis for the March 2026 episode, Upton “returns to her former stomping grounds, but this time on the federal level as a Special Agent of the FBI.” She “joins her former P.D. allies after a drug enforcement task force case out of her Detroit field office leads her back to Chicago.”

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Halstead, for his part, “took a job with the Army in Bolivia, tracking drug cartel targets.” Most recently, “he’s been deep undercover that leads him on a path to the same case that Upton is investigating.”

February 2026

“You guys, this is Cali 🙂 She was surrendered to a city shelter in California by her owner with a degloving injury, (when the skin is separated from the jaw bone) and was listed as an at risk pup. When my wonderful friend @kingaphilipps told us about her, Jesse and I knew right away we were adopting her,” Tracy Spiridakos wrote via Instagram.

August 2026

In a profile on Spiridakos pegged to her new show, Anna Pigeon, Soffer was referenced as her partner.

A decade is long enough for hype to die. That helps. Movies arrive with festival standing ovations, awards campaigns, box-office records, and declarations of instant greatness. Then people live with them. Scenes get revisited. Performances deepen. Weaknesses become harder to ignore. The truly great ones somehow keep gaining weight despite all that. The Godfather is a great example of that.

And the six films on this list have already survived that first test. They represent radically different ideas of modern cinema, from historical epic and social horror to queer romance, intimate character study, class satire, and full-throttle action. Every one feels complete enough to define a career and ambitious enough to represent its era. Ranking them hurts. But this is a good problem to have. Let’s get started.

6

‘Oppenheimer’ (2023)

Image via Universal Pictures

Christopher Nolan built Oppenheimer around J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the theoretical physicist who led the Los Alamos laboratory during the Manhattan Project and later faced political humiliation as his security clearance came under attack. That gives the movie an enormous historical canvas, but the actual drama lives inside one man’s relationship with knowledge. Oppenheimer wants to understand the universe, wants recognition for understanding it, and eventually has to live in a world permanently altered by what that brilliance helped create. The Trinity test is only one part of the story. Power after the bomb becomes just as important as the bomb itself.

Three hours move with the nervous momentum of something half the length. Ludwig Göransson’s music score rarely lets the mind settle. Not to mention the fragmented chronology turns hearings, conversations, scientific breakthroughs, and political grudges into pieces of one accumulating psychological portrait. Cillian Murphy sits at the center of an absurdly deep ensemble, and Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) gives the political material real venom. Seven Academy Awards followed for this film, including Best Picture. Fair enough. Oppenheimer is massive filmmaking about the terrifying possibility that intelligence can outrun wisdom.

5

‘Get Out’ (2017)

Image via Universal Pictures

At first, Get Out is about Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) spending a weekend with the wealthy white family of his girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams). He is already uneasy about whether she told them he is Black. Her parents respond with excessive friendliness, strange compliments, and the kind of racial reassurance that somehow makes everything less reassuring. Then Chris notices the Black employees around the property behaving in ways he cannot explain. One awkward family visit begins sliding toward something far more calculated.

This was also Jordan Peele’s first feature as director and it turned social discomfort into horror mechanics with almost frightening precision. The Sunken Place became an instant cultural image because it captures helplessness without needing a monster costume. The teacup, the camera flash, the garden party, and the casual fetishization of Chris all work because the danger grows from recognizable behavior before the movie pushes it somewhere extreme. Daniel Kaluuya’s face can carry entire stretches of the film with tiny changes in fear and disbelief. Peele won the Oscar for Original Screenplay. The film effortlessly remains entertaining while dissecting race, liberal self-image, ownership, and desire.

4

‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019)

Image via Pyramide Films

Portrait of a Lady on Fire takes place on an isolated island in eighteenth-century Brittany, where painter Marianne (Noémie Merlant) has been hired to create a wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) without Héloïse knowing she is being painted. Marianne therefore studies her during walks and reconstructs those details in secret. Observation slowly becomes intimacy. The entire premise is built around looking at another person, then discovering the difference between seeing someone and merely recording their appearance.

Marianne notices Héloïse because her work requires attention. Héloïse begins noticing the ways Marianne sees her. Their conversations gradually change who controls the gaze, and the portrait itself becomes part of the argument about memory, ownership, and how women are represented. Both the characters spend long stretches communicating through pauses and glances that would collapse in a less precise film. Music is used sparingly enough that its arrival feels almost physical. Romance this control should feel cold. Somehow it burns. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the movie to choose when you want longing treated as something intelligent. It’s like the films in Before Trilogy but the two people involved are an artist and her subject.

3

‘Moonlight’ (2016)

Image via A24

Chiron (Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes) grows up in Miami across three chapters of Moonlight, first as a bullied child called Little, then as a guarded teenager, and finally as an adult who has rebuilt himself into someone almost unrecognizable from the boy we met. His mother struggles with addiction. His sexuality leaves him vulnerable in an environment obsessed with masculine performance. Juan (Mahershala Ali), a local drug dealer, offers him tenderness and guidance while carrying an uncomfortable connection to the conditions hurting Chiron at home. Nothing about this life fits into an easy coming-of-age shape.

Barry Jenkins adapted Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue into a film where identity develops through accumulated moments rather than explanatory speeches. Water, touch, food, music, silence, and the way people address Chiron all become part of his emotional history. Three different actors portray him at different ages, yet the same watchfulness somehow survives across all three bodies. Mahershala Ali won an Oscar for Juan despite appearing only in the first chapter, which tells you how deeply that relationship lands. Moonlight eventually won Best Picture, but trophies barely explain its power. This is one of those films that makes gentleness feel enormous. Give it quiet. It gives plenty back.

2

‘Parasite’ (2019)

Image via NEON

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The Kim family lives in a cramped semi-basement in Seoul, folding pizza boxes for money and searching for usable Wi-Fi wherever they can find it. Then Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) gets an opportunity to tutor the daughter of the wealthy Park family. His family recognizes an opening. One by one, they find ways into the Park household under fabricated identities, creating an ingenious little ecosystem where the rich family believes it has hired several unrelated professionals. Parasite could already survive as a brilliant con movie. It has much more loaded underneath.

Bong Joon Ho turns architecture into class analysis without ever making the movie feel like homework. The Parks live high above the street behind walls and glass. The Kims are constantly climbing upward to reach them and descending when they return home. Smell becomes a class marker more brutal than money because it cannot be convincingly performed away. Comedy keeps the film loose, suspense gradually tightens the space, and every genre shift exposes another part of the same economic structure. Parasite won the Palme d’Or and later became the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Those milestones are historic. The movie itself is simply electric.

1

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

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Talking about electric, this film is the king of adrenaline that never drops. Mad Max: Fury Road has one of the cleanest premises imaginable. Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) steals a war rig from tyrant Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and escapes across the desert with the women he has kept as reproductive property. Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) becomes attached to the convoy almost by accident. Joe sends his War Boys after them. Most of the movie is movement. Yet inside that movement sits an entire civilization built around water, fuel, fertility, mythology, disability, worship, and control.

George Miller returned to Mad Max after three decades and somehow revived it in the most physically exhilarating blockbuster of the modern era. The vehicles were built. Stunt performers actually swung from poles. The geography stays readable even when dozens of machines are tearing across the frame. Charlize Theron’s Furiosa has enough history in a few looks to carry another movie entirely (and the character did have that later) while Max gradually learns that helping other people may be more useful than simply surviving them. It is angry, beautiful, ridiculous, sincere, and almost indecently entertaining. Witness it again.

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Mad Max: Fury Road

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Release Date

May 15, 2015

Runtime

121 minutes

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Director

George Miller

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Writers

Brendan McCarthy, George Miller, Nico Lathouris

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Ryan Lochte‘s ex-wife, Kayla Reid, has made candid comments about their failed marriage of eight years.

In a new interview, the 35-year-old realtor, who finalized her divorce from the Olympic swimmer last year, revealed how she learned he was dating her former close friend, Molly Gilihan.

However, Ryan Lochte and Gilihan have pushed back on Kayla Reid’s allegations, insisting their romance only blossomed after the marriage was over.

Reid had thought she was leaving behind a toxic marriage when she filed for divorce from Lochte on March 26, 2025, only to discover later on that a supposed friend of hers had been circling her soon-to-be ex-husband.

“I’ll use the term ‘friend’ lightly,” Reid said of Gillihan during a chat with People Magazine, pointing out that both of them had exchanged invites to happy hours and Mother’s Day parties, and even discussed business plans together.

According to Reid, she had at one point helped Gillihan “with some real estate work,” noting that they had “a ton of mutual friends. She followed me on every social platform and would often send me encouraging messages and want to hang out.”

Unfortunately, those friendly gestures went down the drain when she discovered Gillihan was seeing her husband, and doing so while offering Reid emotional support over her marriage struggles.

At the time, Lochte and Reid were already facing serious challenges and had a fraught relationship.

Kayla Reid Says It’s ‘Quite Sick’ How Her Former Friend Comforted Her During Her Divorce From Ryan Lochte

Reid went on to claim that Gillihan was very aware of what she was going through, and even made an effort to comfort her while encouraging her to move on from Lochte.

The real estate agent shared that her ex-friend spoke negatively of Lochte, claiming she “deserved better” than the famous swimmer.

“It’s honestly quite sick when I think about it,” Reid told the publication, remembering how Gillihan, when they were friendly, was “encouraging me (after filing for divorce) that I will find an amazing man and complimenting how beautiful and lucky I was, and how he, Lochte, was a coward and how I deserved so much better.”

According to Reid, she even “confided” in Gillihan early on in her divorce process, and before the public had caught wind of the split from Lochte.

“We had an hour and a half conversation on the phone,” Reid recalled. “She knew a lot of the struggles that I was dealing with. And she had gone through some similar stuff. … And lo and behold, she was dating my husband.”

Kayla Reid’s Bitter Texts With Molly Gillihan

Reid and Gillihan have had very bitter exchanges over the alleged timeline of Gillihan’s romance with Lochte.

Last June, while celebrating son Caiden’s eighth birthday in Las Vegas, the real estate agent had sent a text to Gillihan calling her a “desperate piece of sh-t.”

“Want to explain?” Gillihan replied at the time, adding a question-mark emoji: “Or just wanted to send that.”

This prompted Reid to furiously respond, “No need. I think you have a few brain cells.”

About two weeks later, Gilihan called Reid, which led to another tense exchange: “Wrong Lotche,” Reid texted back the next morning, to which Gilihan replied, “Nope, but let’s stop this back and forth”

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The texts are just a fraction of the evidence she had collected, with the aim of narrating her own side of the story.

Molly Gilihan Has A Different Story To Tell

Gilihan, however, is having none of it with Reid’s narrative. She told People that Lochte reached out to her while he was still married, and she made it clear to him that she had no interest in pursuing a married man.

“After that, I never spoke to Ryan during the course of his marriage,” she noted.

In 2025, Gillihan recalled Reid calling to ask if Lotche had been seeing her. “I mostly just listened because I know how painful divorce can be”

“Looking back, I wish I had never taken that phone call,” Gillihan added. “At the time, I felt for both her and Ryan, and I wanted to be certain their relationship was truly over before I allowed myself to even consider anything.”

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Molly Gillihan Says Ryan Lochte Has Become A ‘Strong’ And ‘More Honest Man’

Regarding her romance with Lochte, Gillihan praised the Olympian for being able to learn and grow from his past mistakes, noting she was initially “incredibly hesitant” to date him.

“Behind closed doors, we’ve had many difficult conversations and didn’t know if I could be with someone with his past actions in his marriage, but it honestly made him and I stronger and lean on each other.”

“I’ve watched him put in the work to become a stronger, healthier, and more honest man,” she said of her fiancé.

Lochte proposed to Gilihan in June 2025, and after he was done with his divorce process with Reid in early July, he shared with People that he was excited for their wedding plans.

“It’s so crazy this is happening so fast, our connection, but we can’t hide it,” Lochte said at the time.

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Reid, on the other hand, is also moving on from her bitter split with Lochte as she is “rebuilding her life.”

Unlike Lochte and Gillihan, who have relocated to Missouri, Reid remains a resident at Gainesville, Florida, and has primary custody of the children she shares with the swimmer.

“In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight.” That’s the beginning of the DC hero’s Green Lantern oath, and it’s also Watch With Us‘ central mission. Rain or shine, day or night, no bad show shall escape our sight, which is why we’ve curated a list of three new must-watch shows to stream this August weekend.

At the top of our list is, of course, Lanterns, the HBO Max series that stars Friday Night Lights‘ Kyle Chandler and Rebel Ridge’s Aaron Pierre as intergalactic space cops investigating a murder in Nebraska.

Also high on our list is Netflix’s My Brilliant Career, a new period drama about a young woman determined to become a writer even though her family wants her to marry a nice, rich man.

Netflix is also streaming the creepily absorbing docuseries, Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes, which spotlights one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.

‘Lanterns’ Season 1 — HBO Max

When the evergreen (pun intended) DC Comics character Green Lantern got his own feature film in 2010, with Ryan Reynolds playing Hal Jordan, the results were so disastrous that Reynolds still jokes about it 16 years later. That won’t happen with Lanterns, a new take on the franchise that is as far away from the 2010 movie as you can get.

Related: 48 Best Shows on HBO Max Right Now (August 2026): ‘Lanterns’ and More

HBO Max continues to be the premier destination for the best shows in television. House of the Dragon season 3 has been killing it all summer long, and The Big Bang Theory spinoff, Stuart Saves the Universe, is continuing to bring in new viewers each week. Thank You! You have successfully subscribed. Subscribe to newsletters […]

In Lanterns, Hal (Kyle Chandler) mentors a new recruit, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), as they investigate a gruesome murder in small-town Nebraska. Wait, why can’t the police handle what appears to be a routine murder investigation? Well, Hal thinks the killers are somehow linked to the Manhunters, a collective of shapeshifting androids, and one of the few beings who can help him solve the case is his old nemesis, Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen).

Part superhero spectacle, part True Detective-style crime show, Lanterns represents another bold swing at shaking up the comic book genre. The effort is largely a success – Lanterns is both gripping and action-packed, with enough narrative twists and VFX-heavy fight sequences to satisfy both comic book nerds and mystery enthusiasts. It’s also an excellent buddy cop dramedy, with Chandler and Pierre displaying a prickly chemistry that’s fun to watch.

Lanterns is good enough to expel any memory of the 2010 movie, so Ryan Reynolds will have to pick another one of his bad movies to make fun of going forward.

Lanterns premieres on Sunday, August 16, on HBO and HBO Max.

‘My Brilliant Career’ Season 1 — Netflix

Is it too much to ask that the world leave Sybylla (Phillipa Northeast) alone so she can pursue her dreams of becoming a writer instead of marrying some boring dweeb? In 1901 Australia, the answer is yes. “I’m hot-headed,” Sybylla confessed at one point, “with a snub nose, and that’s why I prefer a direct gaze.” Her stubbornness gets her sent to her rich grandmother’s estate, where she is encouraged to snag a husband and tamp down her literary ambitions. While she still desires to write, she can’t help but fall for not one but two men: the dashing Harry Beecham (Christopher Chung) and the Englishman Frank Hawden (Jake Dunn). Will Sybylla give up her dreams to pursue love or, worse, marriage?

My Brilliant Career is a period drama with a lot of life in it. Its anachronistic flourishes (get ready to hear a lot of ‘70s and ‘80s songs on the soundtrack) highlight the show’s relevant themes of a woman struggling to choose between what’s expected of her versus what she really wants. While Sybylla’s story is central to the series, there’s plenty of subplots and supporting characters to keep you engaged. It’s been a minute since a show has felt this lively and energetic, with the perfect blend of drama, comedy, social commentary and romance. My Brilliant Career lives up to the adjective in its title – it’s indeed brilliant, and it demands to be watched immediately.

‘Conversations With a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes’ — Netflix

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Since 2019, Netflix’s popular Conversations with a Killer docuseries has profiled some of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th century, like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and the Son of Sam. It was only inevitable that the show would profile one of the most infamous mass murderers in American history: Charles Manson.

In the engrossing three-episode Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes, creator and director Joe Berlinger uses archival footage, dramatic reenactments and newly released audio interviews with members of the Manson Family, including Charles himself, to chronicle the events leading up to the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, and the media circus that occurred when Manson and his followers were captured and tried in the early 1970s.

If you’re a true crime fan, you’ve probably seen most of what Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes has to offer. There are no real revelations, just the usual observations that Manson was charming enough to lure people who didn’t know any better to do his bidding and that he went full-blown psycho when he couldn’t strike a music deal with Doris Day’s son. But the series does a great job of capturing the mood and feel of the late 1960s, and how a predator like Manson could take advantage of the free love movement to enact his bloody agenda.

Jennifer Morrison is best known for her starring roles in shows like Once Upon a Timeand House, as well as memorable/recurring roles inHow I Met Your Mother and Star Trek. But lately, she’s been killing it behind the camera as a director, in particular with the Paramount+/Showtime series Yellowjackets. The spooky woods where teenage soccer players descend into madness and cannibalism, surviving a plane crash, are very different from the Enchanted Forest Morrison’s Emma Swan often inhabited on OUAT – despite both filming in the wilds of British Columbia. In an interview with Perri Nemiroff for Collider Ladies Night, Morrison talked about her creatively fulfilling experience at the helm of two episodes in Yellowjackets Season 3 and one episode in the upcoming fourth and final season.

“Yellowjackets is like a part of my soul at this point,” says Morrison. “I have not come to terms with the fact that the show is ending, because it has felt so like a creative family for me to be able to go there and do what I do.” The two episodes that Morrison contributed to as director in the third season of Yellowjackets are Episode 4, “12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis,” a.k.a. the one with the trial; and Episode 7, “Croak,” a.k.a. the one with the frog people. Both of those episodes were absolute game-changers; “Croak” is the highest-rated episode of the season on IMDb, but “12 Angry Girls…” is weirdly underrated.

Morrison Directed “Pivotal” & “Massive” Episodes in Season 3

In “12 Angry Girls…,” the yellowjackets finally try their hand at something resembling conventional society. They put Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) on trial for burning down the cabin where they used to sleep. Misty (Sammi Hanratty) and Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) are the lawyers, and Nat (Sophie Thatcher) is the judge. However, none of them are in control. Slowly, and painfully, Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) whips the entire jury in her favor, and they sentence Ben to death. It was the first time on the show that the yellowjackets decided on someone’s fate as a group, and out of a warped sense of justice rather than necessity.

“Ashley [Lyle] and Bart [Nickerson], the showrunners on that show, infuse every moment with so much character. It’s unbelievable. Like, I was aware of it watching it, but until I was actually breaking down a script and trying to decide where I wanted to approach the scene and what I wanted my shot list to be, what entry point I wanted to take…” Morrison told Nemiroff. “You could make a thousand different versions of the show because there is such a density of story and character on every single page, and you are forced as a filmmaker to choose a perspective, because otherwise you can’t shoot it. You have to. You absolutely have to. There are too many people, there are too many stories, so you have to choose a way in and 100% commit; otherwise it’s just kind of a mess.”

Morrison went on to explain that she knew “12 Angry Girls…” would be a turning point for the series going in, she told Nemiroff, “Ashley and Bart […] were like, ‘In Yellowjackets, there will always be before the trial, and there will be after the trial. Before the trial, everyone pretty much is off the hook in terms of they were doing what they had to do to survive. After the trial, everyone is culpable of crimes.’” Knowing the weight of the episode, Morrison was honored to helm such a pivotal moment in the series. “And I was like, oh my God, what a huge, pivotal episode for a show. Like, not just a season, but just the turning point of the show. And so there was a lot of pressure on that to make sure that it felt special.” She continued, saying:

“I knew that they were deeply inspired by 12 Angry Men, which is one of my favorite films. I mean, I’d say top 10 in terms of just craftsmanship and intentionality, and just a total classic that I’ve always loved. So I watched that a million times and very intentionally designed the episode to reflect the math equation that was put in place with 12 Angry Men. It’s very rare that you could go to showrunners and say, like, ‘I’m going to do this crazy thing all the way through and totally commit to it,’ and they were like, ‘Great. Go ahead. Go do it.’ They were so supportive and so excited about it.”

Morrison went on to talk about how she connects with the show’s very specific tone and the privilege of filming “Croak” — which serves as another massive turning point for the series. A huge risk of an episode, “Croak” introduced three new characters played by Joel McHale, Nelson Franklin, and Ashley Sutton via flashback. The girls, who have just become totally adult-free for the first time in their lives, do not take well to the newcomers. It’s one of the most violent and shocking episodes of the violent and shocking show.

“It was massive and insane, establishing three new characters, throwing a guy over a cliff, putting an arrow through someone’s shoulder, putting an ax in someone’s head,” Morrison says. “Usually, on an episode of television, you have one thing that gets talked about a lot — every scene had something like that. It was just such an absolutely dense undertaking […] We were able to just tackle an immense amount of wild shit. I don’t know how else to put it. It was just wild.”

Morrison Teases What’s to Come on ‘Yellowjackets’ in Season 4

How can Morrison and Yellowjackets top that? Well, the episode she directed for the show’s fourth and final season intends to do just that. The initial plan was for her to do two episodes, but scheduling (and shooting her own pilot for Amazon with her Yellowjackets Season 4 DP Corey Robson) got in the way. Morrison couldn’t reveal any plot details about her next episode of Yellowjackets but she promises fans are in for another wild experience. She told Nemiroff:

“I can’t talk about the episode, but I would say the episode I got to do this season […] I would say it is as wild, if not wilder, than Episode 7 of Season 3. I just am coming out of another experience of, I would pitch all these wild things to them, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, go do it, go do it, go do it.’ […] We did some wild shit again, and it was really exciting. It’s so satisfying. It doesn’t matter how crazy the hours are. It doesn’t matter what you’re up against. You get to the end of a day where you feel that creatively supported, and you are just given such rich material to deal with, and then you’ve got these actors who are just game. They’re just game. Like, they’re perfectly cast. They have range like nobody’s business. I would tell anyone and everyone in this industry to hire everyone who’s ever worked on Yellowjackets. They’re just incredible.”

As fans of the show and the cast, we would agree! Every single one of the adult actors is an established icon getting to stretch their range in new and exciting directions; and every single one of the younger actors deserves to reach that icon status for the range they’re showing on this show alone. It’s so tragic that the show is ending so soon, but at least it’s not going to go out with a whisper. We’ll be screaming all the way to the Yellowjackets series finale, baby! Buzz buzz!

You can watch Morrison’s full episode of Collider Ladies Night below.

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Release Date

2021 – 2026-00-00

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Network

Showtime, Paramount+ with Showtime

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Showrunner

Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, Jonathan Lisco

Directors

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Benjamin Semanoff, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Deepa Mehta, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Liz Garbus, Scott Winant, Eva Sørhaug, Jamie Travis

Writers

Liz Phang, Sarah L. Thompson, Ameni Rozsa

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The Bold and the Beautiful has Deacon Sharpe (Sean Kanan) absolutely crushed because Taylor Hayes (Rebecca Budig) turned down his marriage proposal. And it looks like he might be questioning everything and wondering if he made the right choice when he left Sheila to get with Taylor because the rejection is hitting him hard.

We’re going to talk about how Deacon Sharp may realize that he made a mistake and he may dump Taylor Hayes and then go running back to Sheila Carter (Kimberlin Brown). And now let’s talk about how things are shifting and where we’re going.

Bold and the Beautiful: Taylor Shoots Deacon Down

We just saw Deacon get down on one knee and he asked Taylor to be his wife. And poor Deacon did not get the response that he was hoping to get. It looked like he really thought Taylor was going to say yes. And she didn’t. She told Deacon no. But she says not because she doesn’t love him.

Taylor told Deacon she loves their relationship just the way it is and she doesn’t see any reason at all to get married. Taylor thinks at their age and because she and Deacon have both been married and divorced before that things are different and Taylor was saying, “Oh, you know, we don’t need a ceremony.” Plus, she said she’s afraid that if she and Deacon get married, it will change their relationship for the worse.

But Taylor also told Deacon there are just too many complications because of Steffy Forrester (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) and Sheila. And honestly, that shouldn’t even be a factor for Taylor because at this point, Sheila’s leaving them alone. And right now, all Deacon’s ex cares about is having a relationship with Finn Finnegan (Tanner Novlan) and her grandson Hayes.

But as we know, the drama is off the charts where Sheila, Finn, and Steffy are concerned right now. Sheila gave Deacon a divorce and she’s leaving him and Taylor in peace. So, she’s really a non-issue for them. And as far as Steffy goes, she has mostly accepted Taylor’s relationship with Deacon. And of course, it would be a little of a bit of a shock if Steffy found out that Taylor and Deacon were getting married. But Steffy would accept that eventually as long as her mom’s happy.

Deacon’s Proposal Rejection and Sheila Comparison on B&B

So, it sounds like Taylor is just coming up with every excuse in the book to not marry Deacon, to not say yes. And he told Taylor, “It’s okay. They don’t have to get married as long as they’re still together.” But you could see the heartbreak. Poor Deacon was crushed. So much so that he asked Taylor if he made a mistake by divorcing Sheila to be with her because Deacon definitely thought they were going to have a future as husband and wife. And now Taylor’s telling him that’s not going to happen. And it sounds like she meant never. So Deacon’s taking it hard.

I absolutely don’t blame him at all for getting his feelings hurt like this because if Taylor really loved him, you know, if she truly cared about Deacon, she would let nothing stand in the way of marrying him. And Taylor tried to say if they were in their 20s, it’d be different. No. Love is love and Deacon loves her and it looks like he loves her a lot more than Taylor loves him. And of course, she still wants to be with Deacon, but the fact that she’s not willing to legally commit to them as a couple might be something that Deacon can’t get over.

Taylor’s kind of reminding me of how Electra Forrester (Laneya Grace) was with Will Spencer (Crew Morrow), where she always put her family and others ahead of Will, whereas Melissa Dylan (Sydney Bullock) is the person who puts Will first. And Deacon definitely puts Taylor first. I mean, he risked a lot divorcing Sheila for her. Deacon could have lost half of Il Giardino. And if Sheila went berserk, Deacon might have lost his life. But Taylor’s putting her anxiety over Sheila and Steffy before her love for Deacon.

Bold and Beautiful: Taylor Worried About Backlash

I also suspect Taylor’s worried about how Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye) will react because, you know, he won’t take it well if he hears that Deacon and Taylor got engaged. I’m sure Ridge and Steffy are hoping Taylor and Deacon would eventually fizzle out. So, they’ll be happy that Taylor said no to Deacon. By comparison, Sheila would have done anything to stay with Deacon.

Yeah, she overstaffed when she kept the Luna Nozawa (Lisa Yamada) secret from him, but that wasn’t about Sheila not loving Deacon. That was her also loving her granddaughter and trying to protect her. I mean, really, Sheila worshiped Deacon. And now we’ve got Taylor rejecting something that Sheila would jump at the chance to have.

So, things are out of balance with Deacon and Taylor. They were not with him and Sheila. When Deacon was with Sheila, she loved Deacon completely and unconditionally. And there was nothing that Sheila wouldn’t have done for Deacon. Nothing that I can think of. Aside from Finn, we know that Deacon is and was Sheila’s everything. She even loved Deacon enough to let him go when he said he wanted Taylor.

Sheila didn’t like it, but she agreed because in the end, she wanted Deacon to be happy, even if that was with Taylor. And Sheila really didn’t interfere a lot in his relationship with Taylor. After some initial begging, you know, please don’t do this. Sheila did hold back the divorce papers and was trying to negotiate, but in the end, she signed them because it’s what Deacon wanted.

Deacon Second-Guessing Himself on B&B?

After Taylor rejected him, Deacon may be having some buyer’s remorse about giving up Sheila. And of course, being with Taylor looks better for Deacon. He’s not with the town pariah like Sheila, somebody who everybody’s scared of. Deke Sharpe (Harrison Cone) even told his dad Deacon that the Il Giardino staff didn’t like her. And of course, Sheila shouldn’t have lied about Luna. However, Sheila never did anything malicious to Deacon and she never wanted to hurt him. And she never would have rejected him like this. And all of this might be on his mind when it comes to Taylor and her rejecting his proposal.

How long ago was she engaged to Ridge? It wasn’t that long. About a year. Not only that, but it was Taylor who proposed to Ridge. A little over a year ago. It was June 2025. Taylor asked Ridge to marry her. She was only a year younger than she is now when she’s saying that they’re too old to be getting engaged and married. So, I wonder if that’s weighing on Deacon. It should be.

And then a couple of months after Ridge accepted Taylor’s proposal, he turned around and dumped her for Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang). So, all this may have Deacon reconsidering being with Taylor. You know, why is it okay for her to get engaged to Ridge and plan to marry Ridge, but not Deacon?

Bold and the Beautiful: Taylor’s Not Giving Deacon Her All

And honestly, Taylor has to know Deacon would never do her like Ridge did her when he dumped her and ran off and married Brooke. Except now that she has, you know, rejected him, maybe he will. In the end, Deacon may decide what Taylor’s offering isn’t enough. Why should Deacon settle for Taylor’s non-committed love when he could go back to Sheila, who saw Deacon as her everything?

And yeah, Sheila came with some baggage, but she absolutely adored Deacon. And Taylor seems to have a bunch of priorities that she puts before Deacon. Meanwhile, he’s totally smitten with Taylor. So maybe Deacon’s in that mindset of seeing Taylor as somehow above him and that Deacon’s lucky to be with her because he’s got her on a pedestal. But how long can he live like that? Right?

Seems like Sheila might actually wind up getting another shot with Deacon before all is said and done because at this point Taylor is in control of their relationship. She’s clearly not giving Deacon everything that he needs. And I doubt that he is going to accept this in the long run. I’m looking forward to seeing him in scenes with Sheila once she’s back from Monte Carlo. And I wonder if Deacon will tell his ex-wife that he proposed and Taylor said no. And I wonder if Sheila will tell him, “Come back to me.” I kind of hope so.