It's no secret that I'm a bit of an "apologist" when it comes to B&B's Brooke and Amber. In Brooke's case, I feel like she's been unfairly painted as the villain in the drama surrounding Thomas and their kiss. As for Amber, portrayer Adrienne Frantz makes her scheming character so sympathetic that I often ended up feeling badly for her — even when Amber had done something wrong. That said, today's episode left me and my colleague, Mala Bhattacharjee, outraged and made me want to shake both characters.

Let's start with Brooke. Until now, I've held Thomas accountable for most of the issues surrounding their "scandalous" relationship. He's the one who surprised her with a kiss on the runway and then gave her another smooch while she was sleeping. However, he's been very honest about his attraction to her and yet she keeps working with him on the Taboo line! Yes, Thomas insists that he respects her marriage to his father, Ridge, but he's already kissed her without permission and keeps creepily staring at her. To me, this is Brooke's cue to run. I'm not saying that she shouldn't support her stepson, but she can encourage him in ways that don't require her to spend time alone with the young man who has designs (pun intended) on her. She really needs to step back and put some distance between herself and Thomas before anything else happens. And that means not trying on his showstopper — or having him zip her up!

Meanwhile, Amber and Liam's sex scene was extremely uncomfortable to watch. On paper, it was described as a "seduction," but it didn't play like that on screen. What I saw was a desperate Amber aggressively throwing herself at Liam, who didn't appear to be turned on at all. He could barely look at her when she kissed him and even had tears in his eyes. And then suddenly in the next scene, they were shown having done the deed. I could buy a "love the one you're with" scenario where he gave in to her charms, but Liam was so not into the act that it made me feel dirty for viewing it.

Part of why I enjoy watching soaps is to see how flawed characters like Brooke and Amber manage to pick themselves up and learn from their mistakes. But when they reach a point where they start to become unlikeable, their stories are no longer entertaining.