My baby's got a secret

Hope capitalized on her 'perfect wedding' while the rest of the cast weighed in on whether Liam should tell Hope about his Italian rendezvous with Steffy. Is it a secret if everyone else knows? It's time to go to confession with Mike in this week's Two Scoops!

Has your week been bold and beautiful? Did you discover your iPad came with capabilities you never knew it had? Did you turn your wedding into a product? Did you become an advocate for truth, justice, and the Forrester way? These and more situations faced the Forresters et al this week!

Okay, Scoopers, here's your week in a nutshell: everyone weighed in about whether Liam should tell Hope he almost ran away with Steffy in Italy, and Hope yapped so much that Liam couldn't get a word in edgewise when he did try to tell her. That's kinda it! Sure, there was Marcus' pair of sudden, inexplicable cold feet to shake things up. But, other than that, it was all Leffy/Lope, all the time. If there hadn't been some interesting nuances, it would have been a very boring week!

First, Steffy and Katie's convo. Katie was right to expect that Steffy's hands were dirty, given Steffy's past behavior. Their confrontation could have been a rerun of their usual banter for sure. Except this time, Steffy hadn't manipulated anyone, and, could it be? -- Steffy actually seems to care what happens to Hope. I don't know how long it's going to last, but Steffy may be the only B&B character in recent memory to have actually learned from a mistake. Though I do find myself missing our old, take-no-prisoners Steffy, if I'm forced to be honest!

"Here we go again" was all I could think when Brooke and Taylor went head-to-head for the three millionth time regarding their daughters. So I was as surprised as they were when they both agreed that Liam should tell Hope about Steffy! And what a nice moment, when they sat down and realized they could have been friends if they hadn't spent decades fighting over Ridge. "You're the most annoying person I've ever met," Taylor confessed, "but you have a good heart, and you're loyal." Did you evah!

However, are we really to believe that Taylor and Brooke can just barge into Ridge's office and interrupt the preparations for a preview taking place the same afternoon? Hardly! Ridge should have pulled a Liam and told the busybodies to "get out now!" (Was that actually a glimmer of backbone we saw in Liam? Amazing.) I also could have done without Brooke and Taylor's highly expositional rehash of what happened in Italy. Um, I saw it! I don't need it explained to me in painstaking detail. And do you mean to tell me that Brooke memorized every word from that video in a single viewing?

You know, for everyone's caterwauling about Hope needing to know the truth, including Steffy and Liam worrying about how Hope was going to take it, why was no one afraid that Hope might go back to popping pills after hearing it? Oh, right -- because Hope's "addiction" lasted all of five minutes. Still, I would think that'd be a more tangible concern. And notice how Liam kept saying, "If only Brooke hadn't seen that video!" He didn't seem to care that he made out with someone else on his wedding day -- just that he got caught doing it!

Which brings me to another point many of you have written in about -- the note. Liam has been with Hope the better part of two years. He seriously couldn't tell that wasn't her handwriting? What, do these two only communicate by text messages and e-mails? Hope's never given Liam a birthday card? Even Steffy, who was raised with Hope, should have been able to recognize Hope's penmanship. And this whole "misunderstanding" is based on Liam thinking the note was from Hope? Come on, B&B! Even the berries made more sense than that.

But for one brief second, B&B did make sense when Ridge and Liam pondered the coincidence of Deacon showing up on Hope's wedding day. Why is no one pursuing this? Why is Steffy not ratting Bill out for his interference? Why is Marcus not laying down the smackdown on daddy Justin to find out why Bill was messing with cousin Hope? This is what I meant in my six-month review column when I talked about crappy follow-through.

Speaking of Marcus, what was up with his out-of-nowhere resistance to getting married? He was the one who proposed to Dayzee in front of everyone. Now he wanted to wait to walk her down the aisle. That would have been acceptable if, heaven forfend, we actually saw Marcus once in a while, and watched his enthusiasm wane for ourselves. Just being told about it, and then not being given a justifiable reason for it, blunted any impact that this story was supposed to have.

And why have we inserted Thomas into this story? He's got Caroline (another undeveloped coupling), yet now he's acting like he wants Dayzee back. And Dayzee -- hot new hairdo and all -- wasn't much better. "I just wasn't ready to be serious," she said as she and Thomas pondered their relationship's demise. Bull! Dayzee dumped Thomas on his pampered ass when he made a play for Forrester stock by selling out his mother and lying that he'd sexed his stepmother! Dayzee shouldn't even be talking to Thomas, let alone accepting wedding dresses designed by him.

To say nothing of Marcus asking Thomas to be his best man. Since when are they "buddies?" Not that Marcus has a lot of friends on the canvas, admittedly, but I seem to recall he was pretty tight with Oliver, who really needs something to do. Is Oliver even still on the show? B&B really needs to update their credits. As it is, I barely recognize these people anymore after the prevalence of Liam, Steffy, and Hope.

At least B&B returned to their fashion roots this week with a short but sweet showing. The fashion industry -- remember that? The preview was well done overall, and it did succeed in making me think of the good old Forrester fashion shows of old. I even liked the montage of everyone getting ready, but poor Thorne...he was only shown putting a necklace on a model. Why Winsor Harmon hasn't walked by now, I'll never know. He hasn't had a storyline in five years. What is Brad Bell waiting for?

I was at least glad that Hope gave credit for "her" line to its designers, Eric, Ridge, and Thomas. Also, it was unusual, but cool, for all three Forrester men to collaborate together on any one line. But get this -- now Hope knows enough to be running her own fashion preview? She was calling the shots backstage while Stephanie and Eric were up top on the Sky Lounge talking to Marcus. In what universe would that actually happen? Hope is still a relative newbie to the business, despite her relatives. I doubt they would just let her ride the bike without training wheels, if you know what I mean.

Another thing -- would Hope be allowed to layer yet another message into a fashion line? Forrester Creations took quite a hit over all that Hope For The Future abstinence stuff. You'd think everyone from Ridge to poor Jake (another history-laden character reduced to a glorified extra) would be telling Hope to just show the dresses and leave the messages out of it.

Basically, we had one day of story stretched out over four days. Words came out of characters' mouths, but no one really said anything. It just went on and on and on. Finally, we saw movement in the Force on Friday. Steffy deleted Liam's video, and Liam finally started to tell Hope what happened in Italy. Why was everyone so adamant that Hope be told before her preview? Sure, Hope would otherwise be making a liar out of herself hawking "Hope's Perfect Wedding," but telling your wife that you almost ran off with her rival on her wedding day just before said wife faced hundreds of people never seems like a good idea.

One last thing -- why was Brooke so hellbent on Hope and Liam not starting out their marriage with a lie? Brooke was a secret-keeper extraordinaire most of her adult life. I know B&B touched on it ("One thing I've learned, secrets always come out," she insisted), but I would have liked for Brooke to mine her history a little more and cite specific examples. You know, tie some emotion to it. Some real sense of having learned a lesson. Because this way, she just kind of came off like a hypocrite. Especially since she had no problem keeping Liam's torn-up annulment papers a secret from Hope just two months ago!

One consistent message has been coming through in all of your comments lately: it is time for Leffy/Lope to be over. You guys had some other things on your minds, too, so let's explore them here. Tell me what's on your mind, and your comments could end up here, too, so don't be afraid to let your fingers do the typing!

• "Please end this [Leffy/Lope] storyline once and for all. It sucks -- as people are really sick of it." -- Linda

• "Hopefully that Liam and Steffy video did not accidentally get sent to YouTube. LOL That will get Hope right back on the pills." -- Ron

• "Your 'good list' shows me how far B&B has fallen. With the exception of redeeming Steffy, all your positives could be seen as negatives...[Leffy/Lope] might have been tolerable if they had other stories on our screen while they cut back to [Leffy/Lope] every so often instead..." -- Steve

• "I used to love this show a few years ago!...I just wanted to vent my frustration on this never ending storyline between Liam, Hope, and Steffy. Who the hell is writing the story these days?" -- Sylvie

• "If Brooke truly loves her daughter, she needs to bust this thing wide open. [Liam] can't make up his mind to save his life. Can you imagine if [Hope and Liam] went Christmas shopping and got separated at the mall? By the time Hope found him, he'd be lip-locked on Steffy, sure that Hope had broken his heart again." -- K

• "I wrote to you a few months back complaining about your negativity toward B&B -- well now I'm starting to understand and I want to complain to SOMEBODY! Is there any way [B&B] can be contacted about their show? I want to continue to watch but I need something other than Steffy, Liam, and Hope!" -- Brandy (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Try [email protected] and give 'em a piece of your mind!)

• "Somewhere in the 'worst' of B&B needs to be the mention of the "fly-over" views of L.A....wasting precious seconds of storytime...also, the flashbacks...what are all these things, a way to save money? If so, please let us see more flashbacks of days long ago...or just total episodes of days long ago..." -- Anneke

• "I have been watching B&B since 1988. The last 6-8 months have been the worst ever. Most days, I delete the show because I am soooo tired of the boring [Leffy/Lope story]...what a waste of a hugely talented cast." -- Gordon

• "Thank you so much for your awesome [6-month review] column...you have hit the nail on every point. We are tired of this incessant triangle. [Hope] cannot carry this show for the next 20-something years!" -- Joy

Brad Bell, your viewers have spoken. I'm thisclose to starting a petition. In the meantime, y'all know I have some Points to Ponder:

Why was Brooke, who has worked in the fashion industry for over 20 years, running around in a dress that looked like she just came off the farm?... Liam and Steffy reminisced about Steffy's fall into the Adriatic. Great, except that did nothing to advance the storyline... "I'm sorry I've been a part of hurting you," Steffy told Hope, which was pretty amazing. Yet she made that comment while trying to tell Hope what happened in Italy, right after she'd told Liam that he needed to be the one to tell Hope himself!

"I think you'll find Hope is very forgiving," Brooke told Liam. Like Liam wouldn't already know that, given his makeup-breakup tango during the Amber situation... Can Steffy really just walk right into Ridge and Brooke's house? Brooke doesn't lock the door? You'd think she'd keep it triple-bolted, considering she was raped in that house five years ago... The exterior parking gate of "Forrester Creations" was actually the disguised exterior of CBS Television City, in case you didn't know...

Pam is a receptionist, and a co-receptionist at that. So why was she running around with a clipboard and a headset during the fashion preview? For that matter, why is she allowed near debuting fashions, considering she leaked the last set to Jackie M?... "This family sure has a way of telling people when to marry -- and who," Marcus noted. You said it, brother. Although I couldn't believe he told Eric, "You are the best Dad a guy could have." What about Justin? Moreover, what about Mr. Walton, who only spent eighteen years raising Marcus? Ouch!

If I weren't still updating the character profiles here at Soap Central (have a look at your favorites here!), I would seriously start to think that B&B has always been The Hope, Liam, and Steffy Show. Seriously, for the two or three viewers that still think this is worth the airtime, give these characters their own show and give us back the real B&B!

Maybe we'll get lucky and find out that the entire past year has merely been a dream of Steffy's, brought about when she whacked her head on the side of that bathtub. Because only that would explain her sudden shift to Liam and all of Liam's rapid-fire waffling, wouldn't it? Ah, one can hope. Especially with Dr. Holden Snyder about to return. Take heart, my fellow Scoopers...this Leffy/Lope stuff can't last forever...so keep watching, be alert, and most of all, be bold!

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