Three's a crowd: How to learn your place in a love triangle

Paris unwittingly wound up in a romantic contest with her sister, Zoe. Shauna bested Quinn out of her own home. Baby daddy Liam roamed free at the cliff house but warned Thomas to learn his place. Three's a crowd, but Zoe, Quinn, and Manne-Hope intend to put the competition in its place on The Bold and the Beautiful.

First, Scoopers, tap your spoons together for a newcomer to Los Angeles named Paris Buckingham, played by Diamond White. As a welcome gift, I got her a Forrester swag bag. In it, she will find designer sunglasses from Quinn's accessory collection, an Intimates Line flingable thong and bra top, and an HFTF boho trench coat with a tassel belt. Believe me. She'll need every bit of this for the brand-new, shiny, romantic triangle she just walked herself into.

Paris, Zoe's spunky younger sister, waltzed into Forrester and straight into a crush competition with her sister over Zende Forrester. Zoe flashed danger signs all over the place to Paris about Zende, but Zoe needs to chill. Paris is just having fun crushing. It isn't like she's sleeping with Zende and dipping pregnancy sticks in toilets to trap him -- yet -- or sneaking backstage to put on his ex-wife's wedding gown like Ivy did.

Wait. Did I say ex-wife? Apparently, the verdict is still out on that one. Zoe warned Paris that Zende might not even be divorced. Zende was amazed to have worked so closely with Zoe without learning that she had a sister. I'm amazed that they work so closely together, but Zoe can't figure out whether Zende is married or divorced.

There is another Forrester marriage we don't know the status of, either. That marriage belongs to Quinn and Eric. Quinn stupidly threw herself out of her own house, and three became a crowd when Quinn tried to come home, only to discover that Eric had moved Shauna in. Quinn felt betrayed, but Shauna swore she was only living there to convince Eric to take Quinn back.

Right...I suspect that the woe-is-me Shauna might be harder to get rid of than concussion-faker Sheila.

Quinn isn't the only one with killer competition. Manne-Hope is fed up with Liam, and she just gave Thomas the order to execute him. If Thomas can't go through with it, can the mannequin do it on its own? I'm only asking because I could have sworn I saw that thing move on its own!

Let's get two scoops deep into the new array of romantic triangles on The Bold and the Beautiful.

Paris, the sister of lights, gets dimmed

Paris is a sparkling new addition to the Forrester landscape. Beautiful enough to model, Zoe's younger sister chose to go into social work and is in town to help her friend with the homeless. As Zende said, it's noble work. Work like that became a part of the very fabric of the show when Stephanie twice took the viewers on a journey through homelessness on Skid Row and then opened the caf with Dayzee, her stepdaughter-in-law.

Wouldn't it be nice if Paris stirred the nostalgia of the Forresters working on Skid Row during the holidays? It might be hard to finagle it with social distancing, but I like imagining the heartwarming scenes that would be most welcomed after such a tough year. Bringing back Dayzee's caf, and volunteer work would fit into HFTF's theme and give Paris a tie to Forrester.

Paris' personality is like a spray of new perfume that awakens the senses, and she's just as mysterious. First of all, I can't recall Zoe ever telling anyone that she had a sister. The siblings seemed to share a common recollection of the kind of man their father was, but it isn't clear whether the sisters lived under the same roof with the same mother. Reese was an absentee father who'd left Zoe and her mother alone most of the time. This made me wonder if Paris has a different mother.

Maybe we'll learn more about Paris' history and her purpose in Los Angeles soon. Whatever direction the writers take her, we already know that she's destined for triangle city romantically. Paris is crushing on Zende just as hard as Nicole did when they first met during the Forrester internship interviews, but Zoe crunched Paris' feelings like glass beneath her heel when she warned Paris not to get ahead of herself with Zende, who might still be married.

Does this mean that Julius, the ghost of marriages past, showed up and blessed his still-married son-in-law's itch to get scratched by another woman? Steffy referred to Zende as single while talking to Hope. Steffy must get her definition of single from the likes of Ridge, who was carrying on with Shauna before returning to his wife, Brooke, or from Eric, who moved Shauna in for martini evenings after his wife, Quinn, left. You have to be legally divorced to be single, people. Just FYI, for the young Forresters who aren't so experienced at this.

We'll be getting to the bottom of Zende's married or divorced status soon enough if Paris likes mysteries as much as Charlie does. The big question on my mind is whether Zoe was looking out for herself or for Paris when she issued the warning about Zende. Zoe seemed to dim the romantic light within Paris and put her in her place with the mere hint that Zende could have a wife.

Or did Zoe actually succeed in deterring her sister? Paris might just be the Shauna type, who wouldn't mind waiting. If Paris is attracted to married men, that swag bag with the thong I mentioned earlier just might come in handy sooner than we think.

I pity the frenemy

Speaking of married men and Shauna, what the hell does Shauna think she's doing moving into the mansion with her best friend's husband when her best friend isn't living there? All I have to say to Quinn is: friends who "hussy" together turn on each other. Am I right, or am I right?

You cannot tell me that with all the wild things Shauna and Quinn got into in Las Vegas, Quinn never knew Shauna to slip in the back door and take someone's husband. Or is that a trick Shauna learned after Quinn moved out of the desert? Shauna's stealth move on Eric marks the second time Shauna has played her pitiful act for a married man to get an advantage for herself at the disadvantage of someone's wife -- this time, her so-called best friend.

How did we get to the point that Shauna is living with Eric? Does Ridge even know Eric moved Shauna in there? We don't know. With the fast-forward storytelling, the viewers miss a lot of details that a soap opera generally provides. Ever since the show resumed in the summer, flashing forward in time has been the preferred method of storytelling, and viewers have become frustrated because we typically never get the backstory of how we got from point A to point F.

It would be nice to know if Eric called Shauna over there or if he happened upon her while she packed after her canceled wedding. We'd have a lot more context to the story if we knew, for instance, if Shauna had intentionally weaseled her way into the mansion or if it had really happened innocently.

I guess we already know it wasn't innocent. If it was, why didn't Shauna tell Quinn about the invitation? What was Eric's motivation for letting Shauna stay? Is it his attraction for blondes? Does he get that it's just as inappropriate for him to fraternize with Shauna while estranged from his wife as he'd thought it had been for Ridge to do? He must get it because it seems that he hasn't told Ridge about it, either.

For now, all we have to go on are Quinn's accusations against Shauna, Eric's claim that Shauna was Quinn's victim, and Shauna's devious smirk when Eric insisted that Shauna remain at the house after her attempt to leave. That smirk is a strong indication that Shauna will go after Quinn's husband. Earlier, I asked if Quinn didn't know Shauna well enough to know that she went after women's husbands. By the same token, I wonder if Shauna doesn't know Quinn well enough to fear for her life if she crosses Quinn.

Shauna versus Quinn for Eric's heart has been the story I expected the writers to tell ever since Shauna arrived in town. The story pits Quinn against her only friend and forces their children to choose sides. Will Flo approve of Shauna busting up Quinn's marriage while Wyatt, who desperately wants his mother to move out, disapproves of Shauna's husband heist?

The story also draws in Brooke and Ridge, who have vowed to mind their own business -- except when it comes to Brooke meddling in Eric's. Ridge just wants to concentrate on his life with Brooke, but I doubt he can resist weighing in if the woman who'd just been his mistress suddenly becomes his father's mistress. And will Brooke approve of Shauna for Eric if it keeps Shauna away from Ridge and "karmatizes" Quinn at the same time?

A family big enough to burst

All week, Hope and Steffy kept cooing about their nice big family and how well they got along. Sure, everything is all kids' books, giggles, and baby monitors for a four-year-old on the surface, but with all the underlying tensions, it might be a family big enough to burst.

First of all, Liam apparently still can't let Steffy have her own life. Even after he promised to concentrate on their family, Hope has noticed that Liam is at the cliff house more and more. He sees Kelly twice as much as usual. One would never think a four-year-old who slept all day needed so much attention. In Liam's eyes, Kelly apparently needs more attention than Beth and Douglas, about whom he didn't even ask while he was busy telling Hope that he was going to watch Kelly sleep again.

I'm not knocking Kelly needing her dad, but I am knocking her dad using her as a pretext to always conveniently be over at Steffy's house, even more than Steffy's new boyfriend. Finn also questioned the amount of time Liam spends at the cliff house and just whom he was really there to see. Hope must sense something off about that, too, because she keeps flashing these funny looks every time someone brings up how much time Liam is spending over there at Steffy's.

A broken clock is right twice a day, and so is Thomas. He might be crazy, but he can see what Liam can't -- that Hope isn't thrilled with the amount of time Liam is spending at Steffy's house -- and neither is Finn. Liam thinks he's justified because Steffy is just "part of the package" with Kelly, but can you guess how Liam would feel if Thomas showed up at the cabin at all times of day on no kind of decent schedule to read books to Douglas?

Actually, you don't have to guess. Liam barged into Thomas' place to tell Thomas that he'd better not even talk to Hope about anything but work or Douglas, and Thomas had better learn his place or else. You can bet Liam doesn't think Thomas' place is hanging out with Douglas and Hope over in Brooke's cabin.

As I said, Thomas is right; however, Liam is kind of right, too. Thomas does need to stay away from Hope. In fact, the way Thomas was telling her that he admired her and wished she could be in his head almost made me concerned that he might show up in a Hope wig and dress to knife Liam to death in the shower.

After Thomas said those things to Hope, you'd think those alarm bells she told her mother that she had would be ring-a-linging in her head, but no. Instead of thinking Thomas sounded a little bit obsessed, Hope decided that Thomas respected her boundaries and should be on the HFTF team. I mean, come on. He told Hope that he wished she was in his head, and for some reason, that didn't sound creepy to her.

When Liam tells Hope about Manne-Hope being at Thomas' crib, maybe Hope will realize once again, for the fifth time, that her instincts about Thomas stink. Or maybe she'll fall for Thomas' lame excuse about using the mannequin as a sketch prop.

Thomas had Liam's number when he said that if Liam's visits to the cliff house were about Kelly, then Liam would pick Kelly up and drop her off instead of hanging out at the cliff house. By the same token, Liam had Thomas' number when he said that if Manne-Hope was a work prop, it would be at work. I mean, duh, right? How in the world is Thomas trying out sketches on a life-sized mannequin, anyway? It doesn't even make any sense.

Soap Central had a chance to chat with Matthew Atkinson, who plays Thomas, to get his thoughts on Manne-Hope, B&B's most jaw-dropping moments, and whether he'd like to see his on-screen mom return. You can read that entire interview here.

And to find out what fans are saying, here is what some of our message board members think about Thomas and his descent into mannequin madness:

"Somehow TPTB made it so both Thomas and Liam are right at the same time. Everything Thomas said was true, and everything Liam said was true. The strange part was they were both coming from completely different points of view." -- Sweaver

"Liam jumps from drama to drama -- before he was all up in Finn's face. Now it's Thomas. Next, it will probably be Zende." -- Boldfan4ever

"I was wondering why Charlie has not already looked at the surveillance footage of the parking lot and watched Thomas put the big box into his car!" -- zenstella

I agree, Sweaver, that both men are right about a lot of things. Thomas is right that Liam is recreating Hope, Steffy, and Thomas' childhood issues about Ridge, Brooke, and Taylor. Thomas is also right that Liam's need to stretch himself between two households and love the woman in each one will have negative effects on Liam's daughters. On the other hand, Liam is right about Thomas being an obsessed nutcase that his own mother can't even crack.

Zenstella, I remember the days when the first thing Charlie did to solve a mystery was to roll that beautiful surveillance footage. Charlie must really be slipping these days.

Thanks for scooping with me this week. Please leave your comments about the wacky week below. Until we scoop again, stay bold and beautiful, baby!Chanel

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