Water beginning and watery ending

There's a whole lot of confusion going on in Los Angeles. Rick doesn't think he is Ridge's employee. Thomas can't figure out why Ridge isn't receptive to the new big brother. Liam can't connect with his outer Adam, and Deacon can't talk sense into Eve's inner Quinn. Let's dish on the watery beginning of Ridge and Caroline' family and the watery ending Quinn envisioned for Liam this week on the Bold and the Beautiful.

Early in the week, Eric buttered all the viewers up with sappy laments to Caroline and Stephanie. All the while, Brooke threw gasoline on Rick's fire in preparation for the Ridge turkey roast to come. It's getting hot in the mansion, and if you smell burning Fritos, don't worry -- it's just Ridge's feet being put to the fire. Ridge needs to keep that blowup pool handy because he's about to get burned.

Actually, Ridge already got burned and doesn't even know it yet. While he was off having the baby birth of his life, we learned why Katie thought Brooke would be so great in publications. Brooke vowed to keep her legs shut to Bill, but what she can't do is keep her big trap shut. Brooke was mouth-all-mighty, tongue-everlasting once again when it came to yakking it up about Ridge's personal, intimate business.

Like Run D.M.C. raps, Brooke talks too much, and she never shuts up. She doesn't even have the common sense not to tell Ridge's worst enemy about Ridge's deepest secret. Her brain cells were on a high boil to think Rick would respect what she said about Ridge not wanting it going around that he'd thought he couldn't have children.

The last time Brooke was all up in Ridge's sperm count, she revealed the situation to Liam. It's safe to assume that the amnesic is no longer a threat to Ridge and Caroline, but Rick has a long memory about everything -- except shooting Grant, of course. Rick still harps on Ridge not really being a Forrester, even though Zende is just as unrelated. Rick can rationalize how Myron is Maya and how Nicole's baby is Maya's baby, but not how Ridge is a Forrester.

It's typical of Rick, who found a way to make his tantrum about the house and the portrait Ridge's fault. It's the same as when he made his resignation from Forrester Ridge's fault. And it's the same way that, even though Ridge re-hired him to work on International, Rick fails to see how he's Ridge's employee. "Then what are you, Rick? What are you?" Ridge asked.Rick doesn't even know what he is. He's either got some sort of dissociative disorder, or he's in a twisted fairytale to think that he's Ridge's victim. While Ridge might have gotten one over on Rick with the house, it wouldn't have happened had Rick not been so prideful about something so petty as the portrait. Rick claims Ridge manipulated to get the business back, but the ultimate manipulator was the irrevocable CEO, Rick, who duped Eric into signing away control of Forrester for a year.

We also must recall how Rick got possession of the mansion in the first place. He lied about renovating the guesthouse, moved into the mansion, and tossed Stephanie's portrait into the garage without even consulting anyone. He admitted that he'd commandeered the house unjustly, but Eric let him stay anyway. Live by the portrait, die by the portrait, Rick. Just let it go.

Rick can't let it go, though. He was even so brazen as to accuse Eric of favoring Ridge's new baby over Rick's because Maya is transgender. Eric had a lot of patience for Rick up to that point. When Rick said that about Maya, Eric knocked some respect back into his son really quick.

I don't even know what Maya's gender had to do with the conversation. Is Rick harboring his own negative feelings about it? He seems to constantly bring it up, like when he accused Ridge of removing Maya's portrait because he didn't want the Forrester clients to focus on the transgender lead model. Rick actually does forget more than I realize because he forgot the whole transgender fashion show Ridge threw and the fact the Ridge asked Maya to return as lead model.

After Rick wore Eric out with his brooding, Rick moved on to Brooke for some coddling. Rick quickly reminded her that Ridge's new baby would displace R.J. Brooke revealed that Ridge's baby is a miracle then got an oopsie look on her face when Rick asked what she meant. Babies are miracles in general, aren't they? Why did she have to explain? She didn't, but with gossip glitter in her eyes, she told Rick about the vasectomy.

Brooke claimed it was just between her and Rick, but she guessed it didn't matter because Caroline was pregnant. Rick asked why Ridge would hide it from Caroline, knowing she wanted a child. Well, Rick, it was probably for the same reason Maya hid from you that she couldn't conceive without ovaries.

"Lying, keeping secrets. Whatever it takes. Ridge has to control every situation," decided Rick, who lied and kept secrets about his affair with Maya, doing whatever it took -- including lying to Caroline about a reconciliation -- in order to control the family, the house, the company, and well, everything.

Once the secret comes out, Rick will be able to lord it over Ridge that Rick's swimmers hit the mark right out of the gate, but Ridge's swimmers didn't even show up for the Caroline pregnancy race. Of course, that's if a paternity test doesn't reveal that Ridge's swimmers actually didn't forfeit the race.

Here's what some of you on our Soap Central message board posters had to say about Rick's most recent tantrum and his mother's so-called slip of the tongue:

Rick never remembers his own lies, manipulations or wrongdoings or those of his mother or Maya. In his mind, they never do anything wrong, even if it means rewriting or ignoring history, and everyone else is to blame and always in the wrong. We saw that thinking again the other day when he was ranting and whining at Eric about how Ridge manipulates Eric while acting like he himself has never ever told daddy a lie or manipulated him. -- SPF5

I'm shaking my head at basically everything that's fallen out of Rick and Brooke's mouth, but especially Brooke blurting out Ridge's entire medical history to Rick, who she knows loathes him, and then telling him "it's personal" and "just between us." Puh-leeze... -- Xyla

When it was revealed that Massimo was Ridge's Bio dad, Eric NEVER treated Ridge differently -- until the Ridge/Rick rivalry heated back up. Now Rick mentions that Ridge is not a REAL Forester to anyone who will listen. I have a friend who adopted a baby and when the baby was two months old, found out she was pregnant. The boys are both 15 years old now. She cannot watch the show when Eric is having an "I'm not Ridge's Bio Dad" moment. Both those boys are equally her children. I find these references to be very offensive to me, so I can only imagine how distasteful adoptive parents feel about it. -- Carolinabell

Gotta go with you on that one, Carolinabell. It's gotten old, too, and very irrelevant considering Rick's own unconventional nuclear family and Zende's adoption, as I mentioned before. I can't wait to see the look on Rick's face when Nicole's child yells that Maya is not his or her mother. It'll be priceless.

I have to point out again that what Rick spews about the house isn't true. He claims he never grew up there and that Stephanie wasn't welcoming, but I recall a time when Stephanie had the kids living there when Brooke had lost her mind and was stealing sandwiches on the beach. Not only that, but Rick lived in the mansion guesthouse while married to Amber. Stephanie loved Brooke's kid. Rick just grew up into a jackass adult that Stephanie didn't like.

It was a relief when Eric pointed out that Ridge was in the house where he'd grown up, and Rick is now in the house where he grew up -- a house bought by Ridge, mind you! Rick said something about Ridge owning a beach house, although I have no idea what house that is. Ridge got married at his friend's house, and Bill owns Ridge's old beach house. Rick asserted that Ridge needed to find his own house. Ditto for Rick, who still has his in-laws living in a hotel that he's probably rich enough to buy.

While the hater Rick hated on, Ridge was waist-deep in a water birth with Caroline. The scenes were poignant and conveyed the love and wonder of childbirth without minding pesky details like Caroline wearing pants but the assistants knowing how much she was dilated -- or how clear the water was as the baby bubbled up to the surface in the kiddie pool in the bedroom. As Ridge splashed the afterbirth pool water on Caroline and the baby, I could not help but wonder what else exactly was in that water.

Let's just say the water remained clear the whole time, and there was no baby ribbon cutting. There was only Ridge and Caroline wading in the pool with the cutie newborn. After Steffy met the unnamed baby, Thomas asked what he looked like. Distracted by thoughts of Liam, she said the baby was a combo platter. When I looked upon the baby, I saw Stephanie Forrester, believe it or not. As long as the combo platter doesn't have a side of Taylor Forrester, it's all good for Ridge.

It's fitting if Stephanie's new grandchild resembles her. She's back on the wall, presiding over the family who waited downstairs for the arrival of the newest Forrester/Spencer combo platter. To pass the time, Eric pulled out an old box of baby stuff belonging to his and Stephanie's kids. I suppose they dust it every day because it looked like a brand new, topless, cloth-like cube. The Forresters had to believe in hand-me-downs back in the day because there was hardly anything in the cube after raising four children.

Katie arrived with the bubbly to get the party going, but Bill quickly nipped that in the bud by deferring the Champagne until after Caroline delivered. Good for husband Bill for not gassing up the Katie Show. Katie eventually got her glass, though, and with a tolerance like hers, it probably didn't even affect her.

Bill put on his usual happy in-laws mask in front of the Forresters, but he went a little bit overboard with accepting the couple-shifting in the Spencer family. In his own bout of dissociation, he hinted that Wyatt and Steffy would soon have a Spencer child.

Didn't Bill just call Liam the other week and demand he come home to claim what was his? Now I know Bill is fed up with Liam's disappearing act, but is it like Bill, the gondola-sabotaging and Cabo-mariachi-band-hiring father to jump off the "Steam" train so easily? Maybe so, because he sure as heck jumped off the Brill train and forgot that he was the one coming on to Brooke when Katie caught them talking in secret.

Steffy wasn't studying future babies with Wyatt. She was lamenting a past baby with Liam and starting to wonder if Liam was even alive. As I said in a past Two Scoops column, she and Bill obviously are not communicating, or else Bill would have told her about the latest "Liam" text, and Bill could have told her that Liam supposedly was off at a retreat somewhere, finding himself.

Steffy is right. It's weird -- more than weird -- that Liam is not communicating with his family and wrote off his job. What I find even weirder is that Liam's phone still works. Who's paying his bills? Maybe he has them on auto-draft, and he just happened to keep enough money in his accounts to keep the bills paid without doing any banking. Or is wifey Eve doing the banking?

Why hasn't Katie suggested that someone GPS locate Liam's car or cell phone? Oh, I forgot. It's because Bill will accuse Katie of spying, and Katie can't give Brooke that satisfaction. Plus it's too easy and will drain the plot of all its watery possibilities.

The baby's oldest brother is acting more like he's about to be a father instead of a big brother again. And it might be because it's true. At least that's what all the dopey smiles from Thomas, tension from Ridge, and revitalized vasectomy talk lead us to believe. Add to it Ridge's wolfish protectiveness over his family where Thomas is concerned, and we know that this baby secret is coming to a boil.

Are the writers laying it on kind of thick with Thomas and all this brotherly and fatherly love? Was Thomas this excited about being a big brother to R.J.? Does Thomas even know he has a little brother named R.J.? If Thomas is earnest in his feelings and desire to heal the family and be a part of things, giving R.J. a call and taking him skiing might be a good start. After all, Thomas can't do anything with the baby, anyways, until he's SORASed to five next year.

Do viewers really believe in the redeemed Thomas? And how many times is Thomas going to grovel to Ridge and Caroline to be included in the family? Isn't living on the same estate progress enough to make him stop campaigning about being a changed man? Here's what the posters on our board think:

So sick of Thomas groveling to Ridge. If Ridge won't forgive him, move on. -- enoughrope

SMH at the "kinder, gentler" Thomas -- even with a better hairstyle, I'm still not buying his reformation. He's told us over and over, but we haven't seen it happening. -- Katbert.

Katbert, I can't agree more about the hairstyle. Just a couple weeks ago, I was wondering what was going on with Thomas' hair. I looked back at past film and figured out they'd combed his hair part to a different side, and so it seemed his hair refused to lay in the new direction they'd combed it in during the scenes in which he rushed Caroline to the hospital. So glad they got that part under control.

I hear Thomas. What he says might be genuine; however, I feel it's as plot-driven as Ridge not getting a second opinion on his sperm count. Thomas will not be so magnanimous once the secret surfaces. He will show the worst side of himself in anger toward Caroline and Ridge.

I hope for a plot in which Thomas takes Caroline to court over his parental rights with an emotional twist that eventually leads to a much-needed paternity test. I'm still rooting for Ridge's swimmers, but a storyline in which parents who don't want to be together must co-parent might be an interesting change of pace from the romantic storylines.

Some viewers think Ridge is wrong and dictating his own twisted fairytale by pushing the baby's real father out of the way. While Thomas is certainly confused by Ridge's erratic behavior, it remains evident that Ridge is in protective mode. He says he's protecting the baby and Caroline, but is he really only protecting himself? Is there a chance that Caroline and Thomas can bond over the baby and leave Ridge as the odd man out?

One person who refuses to be the odd-woman-out is Quinn. She won't even come in second to a supposed picture of her younger self. You have to hand it Deacon. He did a pretty decent job on the photo albums he delivered to Quinn. Even she was surprised when she and Liam thumbed through them. The only problem was that Liam liked them too much. He could have passed out from a heat stroke due to the jealousy flaming in Quinn over his reaction to "her body" in the pictures.

Deacon superimposed Quinn's face over pictures of Steffy in black lace on a motorcycle and some of the Ajax Mountain wedding. The scenery didn't jar Liam's memory, but he drooled over how "smoking" hot Eve was in the photos. Her legs seemed a little long to Liam, though. Quinn grew agitated, saying that she didn't like his attraction to another woman.

Believing that it was really "Eve" in the pictures, Liam didn't get it. Quinn claimed that the woman in the picture was from her bridal fairytale, but the real "Eve" wore ordinary clothes on an ordinary day. Liam claimed to love the ordinary woman on her ordinary day. What Liam doesn't know is Steffy ain't half as smoking hot as Quinn with her leather, whips, and chains can be -- but his daddy does. Eww.

Pretty-in-pink Quinn is jealous of a woman Liam can't even remember but thinks is his wife, Eve, who is "quintessentially" Quinn. Now that's a psychiatrist's dream patient. It wasn't a psychiatrist that Quinn sought, though. It was a neurologist A.A. buddy of Deacon's, who she hoped would tell her whether Liam would regain any of his memory.

Without evaluating the patient in person, Dr. Leeds couldn't competently render advice about Quinn's friend with back-to-back concussions; however, the doctor couldn't rule out that the memory loss might be permanent. It was what Quinn wanted to hear, but Deacon warned that she couldn't keep Liam caged up in a mountain cabin forever.

Deacon relayed that one day, Bill would file a missing persons report, or someone might recognize Liam on the streets. Just like the cake adage, Quinn wanted her love pet and to take him for hikes, too, but what Deacon was saying finally sank in. Deacon felt that her only option was to fall on her sword to Bill and plead for mercy, but Quinn envisioned another way out -- murder.

Is Quinn going to really mate and kill? The biblical Adam fell from grace when he trusted Eve, but Quinn envisions her Adam falling from a cliff. Why not just cut Liam in half like in another Bible story? I'm sure Deacon can conjure up a magician from one of his A.A. meetings. Well, Quinn wants all of Liam, not pieces, and if she can't have him, then she's hoping the third concussion will be a charm.

According to next week's preview, Quinn lures Liam out to some rocky cliffs, where Deacon lies in wait. I've heard that love makes people do crazy things, but I'd never thought Deacon would be foolhardy enough to help Quinn commit murder -- not after how the whole thing went down with Ricardo and the diamond.

Yeah, Deacon accused Quinn of having something to do with Ricardo's death the other week, and Quinn did not deny it. I'm convinced she did it. Deacon is as dumb as the nails in Liam's coffin if he thinks there won't be a double dose of murder. Why would Quinn keep Deacon alive if he knows that she killed Liam? That's a lifetime of Deacon blackmail that Quinn could do without.

Quinn's in love with the bearded Liam. Though she's a mother who'll literally kill to keep her son happy, will she kill the man who's changed her life and made her view herself positively? Maybe Quinn loves Liam so much that she'll fall off the cliff with him in a Romeo and Juliet sacrifice of love. Yeah, now I'm living in my own twisted fairytale. It's more likely that Wyatt and Steffy will find Liam washed up on one of their beach dates before Quinn sacrifices herself for love.

As soapcentral.com reported last month, Kim Matula is on the way back for a few episodes, and Ashleigh Brewer returns as Ivy. When Steffy learns that Liam hasn't been with Ivy, Steffy suspects he's with Hope. It sounds like we're in for a gathering of Liam's exes. Will they team up to find Liam or to mourn his death? It will be very interesting to hear how Ivy and Hope feel about Steffy's engagement to Wyatt, won't it? What will Liam's trio of exes think if Quinn shows up, weeping in black?

Let us know what you think about Caroline's water delivery and Quinn's visions of murder-by-drowning. Could it be the beginning of the end of life as Ridge and Liam know it? Whatever turns the plots take, we know it's gonna be bold and beautiful, baby!

What are your thoughts on ? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.