Erika Breslin

Erika Breslin is a fictional character in the fantasy soap opera The Good and the Gracious. She made her first apperance on February 2, 2009. She is played by Big Brother contestant Erika Landin. She is considered a high school "mean girl" as she has had frequent affairs with married men and had an infamous rivalry with Gretchen Hardman (Gretchen Rossi).

Casting
Casting began for a character to play someone that will "stir up trouble" in November 2008. They wanted her to be someone who could have affairs with married men and not be afraid to "throw a punch." Casting selected Landin for the role at the end of December. She made her debut on February 2, 2009. In February 2010, Landin was let go due to budget cuts. In January 2011, she returned and was put on an immediate contract.

Storylines
In February 2009, Erika began working at Michelle Giovanni's (Patty Weaver) restaurant. She soon got into trouble when she got into a heated argument with Heidi Weston (Niki Taylor), prompting Erika to dump a drink on her head. Heidi's father, Simon Weston (John O'Hurley), sues her for harrassment and she was fined $50,000. After that, things got worse for Erika after she lost her job at the restaurant because Chase Vincent (Chase Rice) burned it down. In September 2009, Erika met Emily Wilde (Vail Bloom) and they became close until she slept with her husband, Chase. However, Emily and Chase reunited and stayed together and they both disowned Erika. She then met Sherri Little (Christine Baranski) to whom she opened up about her childhood, her abusive father, and sister that died. Sherri then tried to get her daughter-in-law April Ryan (Lauri Peterson) to give her a job at her business, Ryan's Botique. April declined because she wanted to honor Chase and Emily's wishes, leaving Erika unemployed. In February 2010, Erika left town to go spend time with her sick mother in New York. But, not before sending a mass text message to those who had done her wrong during her stay in Grove City (Heidi, Simon, Madison Weston (Melissa Ordway), Christine Weston (Krista Allen), Emily, Chase, and April) to watch out because she would return.

In January 2011, Erika returned to Grove City after Sherri asked her to work at her new nightclub, Sher-Tastic. Erika quickly became smitten with much younger Franke Weston (Kellan Lutz), angering his family. To stop the relationship, Franke's mother, Holly Weston (Malin Akerman), brought Franke's last girlfriend, Ashley Caldwell (Ashley Underwood) back to town. But to everyone's shock, Franke stayed with Erika. However, Ashley stayed in town and developed a relationship with Nick Little (Blake Hood). Erika and Franke then began to plot against the Weston's and tried to overthrow Simon as CEO. In order to do so, they teamed up with Simon's archnemesis Mason Little (Terry O'Quinn). However, Franke becomes guilty and drops out of the takeover and confesses all to the Westons. Erika decides to end her relationship with Franke and begins to work at Little Beauty Cosmetics.

In November 2011, Erika met Drew Fox (Marco Dapper) and Gretchen Hardman (Gretchen Rossi) while working at Little Beauty. They became friends and Erika and Gretchen even moved in together. Erika and Drew began dating, but Gretchen had feelings for him. On New Year's Eve, Gretchen and Drew kissed and had sex. Erika found out, threw Gretchen out of their house and even humiliated her when she came to Sher-Tastic the next week. This sparked the rivalry between Erika and Gretchen. In March 2012, after constant bickering between Erika and Gretchen, Mason finally fired them from their jobs at Little Beauty. Erika went back to work at Sher-Tastic, while Gretchen began to work at Weston Enterprises, the rival company. On June 15, 2012, Erika received a mysterious letter from her presumed-dead sister, Dina. She felt that Gretchen was playing with her and confronted her. Gretchen says she did not but Erika does not believe her and they get into an altercation and Erika punches Gretchen in the face. Gretchen presses charges and Erika was fined $50,000, however, she could not afford to do so and was sentenced to one month in prison. While in prison, Erika was visited by a mysterious woman who did not reveal her face. Erika was convinced it was Gretchen, however, it was later revealed to be Holly. Erika was later released from prison and once again got into a physical altercation with Gretchen. However, this time Gretchen did not press charges. In November 2012, to the disbelief and disgust of most, Erika was invited to Holly's marriage to Doug Little (Channing Tatum). Erika caused a lot of trouble and got into a screaming match with Annie Little (Annie Duke) and Kim Little (Kim Zolciak Biermann). This prompted Kim to throw champagne in Erika's face and Erika was then escorted out. Erika pressed charges against Kim but later dropped them.

At the beginning of 2013, Erika was still working at Sher-Tastic and bickering with all the ladies in town. She had a very quick relationship with newcomer to town, Jeff Brooks (Cameron Mathison). She soon developed an idea to become a powerful person in Grove City by pitting the three major corporation in town (Weston, Little Beauty, and Rockridge) against each other. She used an employee from each company to help her with the plans. Kerri Thorne (Nadia Bjorlin) from Weston, Sally Orville (Genie Francis) from Little Beauty, and Destiny Jacobs (Mishael Morgan) from Rockridge. Kerri was able to trick Mike Weston (Michael Stagliano), co-CEO of Weston, into signing over his ownership of the company to Erika. Erika and newfound ally, Justin McTaylor (Stephen Nicolas), began a hostile takeover of all three companies. Erika convinced Heidi into turing against her father and they combined their ownership and fired him. Then, Erika signed the ownership of Simon's part of the company to Justin and they fired Heidi. They gave the rest of the company to Kerri. Sally then came into play as she seduced Mason, owner of Little Beauty, and blackmailed him into signing over the company to her. Justin and Destiny then used Justin's ownership of Rockridge and Destiny's relationship with co-CEO, Sean Blake (Aiden Turner), to overthrow Renee Rockridge (Leslie Charleson). Erika and her allies were now in control of all three major companies in the city. However, the former owners threathened to start a new company all together and take all of their clients if Erika, Kerri, Sally and Justin did not sign over the companies to their rightful owners. Erika and her allies reluctantly agreed and she went back to waitressing. In July 2013, after getting extremely intoxicated, Erika slept with Doug. Later, Holly found out and Doug and Holly got divorced. She then slept with Justin, who was married to Ami Little (Ami Cusack), ending their marriage as well. In October 2013, Erika announced she was pregnant, however, because of the amount of men she had slept with, she did not know who the father was. She later revealed it was one of five men: Doug, Justin, Chase, Jermaine Green (Redaric Williams), or Mateo Lopez (Ignacio Serricchio).