Ladies with the gratitude, fellas should be thankful, too

If you lived in B&B's universe, what would you be thankful for this Thanksgiving? Endless money and fame? Being forgiven no matter what heinous act you commit? Loved ones coming back from the dead? Get ready to talk turkey with Two Scoops' Mike, who expresses gratitude here for thirteen years on Soap Central!

Has your week been bold and beautiful? Were you thankful that you had a new lady in your life? Were you grateful you kept the receipt on your wedding dress? Were you thankful your aunt got on board with you? These and more situations faced the Forrester-Logan-Spencer-Walton-Buckingham-Finnegan clan this week!

It's that time again, Scoopers! You know, for that holiday that is getting buried under Christmas more and more every year like a Pennsylvania snowstorm. Yes, Thanksgiving is upon us, and I'd like to start by giving thanks for what is essentially my 13th anniversary column! Yes, our soaper-in-chief Dan J. Kroll took a chance on me this week in 2009, and I'm still here because of you! I thank thee! I thank thee!

I was also tasked with updating our character profiles in 2012, which I've been doing ever since -- and it's partially responsible for me knowing these pretend people so well that I can advise them on what they should be thankful for this year. This'll be better than saying something nice about the person to your right la Hope, so put down that exceedingly expensive turkey dinner and let's Scoop about it, in alphabetical order!

BILL should be thankful that he has a potential match in Li, even though he started sniffing around ex-wife Brooke the moment he had a chance, just like Katie predicted. Brooke may giggle at Bill's stallionesque neighing, but even she has had issues with his ruthlessness; Li is a woman who stole her son's not-dead body out of a hospital morgue, went up against Sheila, and battled back from the dead -- she wouldn't bat an eye at Bill breaking people out of prison and blowing up buildings. Look carefully, Bill -- Brooke may be the trees, but Li is the forest!

BRIDGET should be grateful that her unceremonious return and return to screen obscurity kept her from having any kind of reunion with Deacon. Yes, that's what we all wanted to see, and it should have happened, but listen, Budge -- suppose you had developed even a rudimentary new friendship with Freaky Deak? You'd be in Sheila's crosshairs now, since Sheila has fallen for Deacon's delights, and look what Sheila did to your mother just for threatening her. You wouldn't want that, would you, Bridget?

BROOKE should be grateful that Ridge is out of her life. I can't believe I'm saying that, since I somehow still look at Bridge as endgame (since they're the longest surviving supercouple on the show), but Ridge has treated Brooke like crap all year. First, he shunned her because of one drunken kiss with Deacon when Ridge has done way worse, and now, he doesn't even have the testicles to tell Brooke he walked out on her because of her "call" to Child Protective Services. Could you actually be better off without your destiny, Logan? And also, be thankful that you haven't fallen into bed with Deacon, Bill, or any other man professing their undying lust -- er, love -- for you. Has the Slut from the Valley grown?

CARTER should be thankful for his awareness that he picks the wrong women, even if he falls right back into his old patterns and goes after the next wrong woman that comes along. This year, he nearly married Paris in an attempt to forget about the married Quinn. Then, when Quinn became free and reunited with Carter, he started eyeing Katie the minute Quinn suddenly and incomprehensibly left town because Carter wanted children. Carter is headed into his next rebound with Katie, but at least he does, at times, know he's making the wrong choices. Spend some time alone with your legal briefs and focus on changing your behavior, Mr. Walton.

CHARLIE, the mostly absent security guard, should be thankful that he wasn't given the heave-ho when Pam suddenly left for more general (hospital) pastures. Not that Alley Mills's soap-hopping has made it into B&B's fictional world yet, but, with no other ties to the canvas besides Pam, he could have been permanently disappeared when his long-term GF left Forrester, presuming Pam isn't being kept around off-screen somewhere.

DEACON should be thankful that his never-mentioned son, Eric Sharpe, isn't around right now. Deacon stupidly took Sheila in, knowing that harboring a fugitive could land him back in the slammer. This after he's worked so hard trying to be a better person and a better father to Hope. Deacon might also want to thank his lucky stars that he still has all his body parts intact, unlike Sheila, who could easily come after Eric or Hope if betrayed. This won't end well for Deacon, who could well be spending this New Year's Eve not under the watchful eye of Brooke's security camera, but a jail's.

DONNA should be grateful that marital status doesn't seem to matter to the Forresters. The Delicious One spent years coveting the married Eric, never moving on from him when she easily could have. Yes, Donna finally got her ex-honeybear back, but without bothering to check that Eric had actually filed for divorce from Quinn. As has become commonplace on B&B the last few years, they didn't bother mentioning whether or not Eric got divorced amid Donna moving in and adorning Eric's wall with his portrait. I suppose Eric could have gotten an instant annulment after several years of marriage, like Ridge did with Brooke. Donna -- if you're living in sin, at least it's clueless sin.

DOUGLAS should be thankful that therapists are aplenty in Los Angeles. What hasn't that poor kid been through? His paternity was in question before he was even born, his mother died, and his father turned to the dark side, threatening Douglas and tormenting him in the process. And just when it seemed he had a stable life with adoptive mother Hope and visits with the recovering Thomas, Daddy Dearest backslid and demanded that Douglas keep his secret again. Luckily, Auntie Steffy pulled out of her Team Tridge fog and built on Douglas doing the right thing. But it might behoove Douglas to sit down with a counselor before the rest of his childhood (and psyche) is ruined.

ERIC should be thankful there's always a woman waiting in the wings for him. Not many septuagenarians are so lucky, often spending their golden years alone for lack of any suitable or available companionship. Not so Eric, who, even while married to Quinn, had Shauna and Katie gushing over him. This year, he avoided Quinn and played Pickleball with Donna, who was ready to call U-Haul before Quinn could pack up her jewelry cleaner. Matriarch Stephanie was doomed to fly solo for many years, but Eric will likely die in bed with a lady beside him. Eric, you little dickens.

FINN should be thankful...that he's alive! Look at the year he's had -- cheating death by Sheila's bullet and then her special brand of nursing while he was confined to a hospital bed. Look at the guy -- shot in the side, comatose for months, a spinal injury, his heart stopping, and not a scratch on him. Like the Energizer Bunny, Finn keeps going and going and going. He should be out living his best life, traveling to exotic places and checking off bucket lists instead of jumping on Steffy's Tridge train and doing little else. Life is for the living, Dr. Finnegan!

FLO should be grateful...that she apparently left town with only a few days in incarceration for her part in the baby Beth debacle. Felony Flo must have skipped, because Taylor bought the house she and Wyatt were living in, and only Wyatt has surfaced, with nary a mention of his eternal fiance. Not a bad haul, Flo -- not only did you come to L.A. from Vegas empty-handed, but you also scored a family who neglected to verify your 52% chance of being related to them, you earned forgiveness because you donated a kidney, and you got to keep the $50,000 you got from Reese for pretending to be Beth's mother that no one else ever found out about. What's not to be thankful for?

GRACE should be grateful that she hasn't been back since Carter jilted Paris at the altar this summer -- if only because, were Grace to appear, she'd have to talk about nothing but Paris' love life and ship Zende as her only meaning in life. Can you imagine having such a one-note existence? Grace is a doctor who is Reese's ex-wife, yet all she cared about was whether or not Paris got with Zende. Given that whatever Pende's relationship is now is amorphous, Grace would still be trying to solidify their pairing if she were around. Maybe we're the ones who should be grateful?

HOPE should be grateful that she hasn't been kidnapped a second time by Thomas. The one person in the world who should remain wary of Thomas' behavior, even after the brain operation that apparently turned his Mr. Hyde back into Dr. Jekyll, has been perfectly content to let adopted son Douglas stay under Thomas' roof as long as Thomas wants. Thomas' confession that Hope is the only woman for him went in one ear and out the other, and even the return of THE MANNEQUIN didn't faze her. On some level, Hope must know she's damn lucky Thomas hasn't gone completely cray-cray on her again...yet. It's rather amazing it hasn't happened, considering the trodden track we're on.

JACK should be thankful he's managed to stay far removed from the chaos in his son's life over the past year. He seemingly crawled into a hole once telling Finn that he is Finn's biological, not adoptive, father. In doing so, Jack didn't have to buy a sympathy card for Steffy or console Li while Finn was "dead" (granted, Li seemed to have pushed Jack out of her life). Mr. Finnegan ended up staying well out of Sheila's target range. And he presumably hasn't had to deal with a divorce, since, like Eric with Quinn, the show never told us if Li filed papers. Maybe you should stay gone, Jack -- at least you won't have to deal with "Lina."

KATIE should be grateful Bill doesn't want her back. Their pairing was permanently doomed when Bill nearly left Katie for Steffy in 2011, and surely Storm would not have wanted Katie to get his heart only to have the Dollah break it over and over again. Bill might be swoonworthy from top to bottom, but Katie was caught and recaught in Bill's endless cycle of backstabbing and desire for her sister. Katie dodged a more figurative bullet this time when Bill campaigned for a reunion yet again in one breath and rang Brooke's doorbell in the next. And kudos to the youngest Logan sister for knowing she's worth more than being Bill's second choice and sticking to it.

LI should be grateful that defying death seems to be a Finnegan trait! First, Li was able to save her near-death son, then, she rose from her own ashes after Sheila turned Li's escaping SUV into a pile of them. That's tenacity not often seen on this particular soap (it's almost more a DAYS thing), and that Li still stands after brief homeless insanity and Sheila still on the loose appears to be a testament to a certain indestructibility. Now, if Li would just focus that tenacity on Bill, the only man in town who can handle her!

LIAM should be thankful that he's not Steffy's "sweet husband" anymore. And not by actually being married to her, but from her waking from her coma, thinking she and Liam were still together. Imagine the mess and Leffy/Lope redux that would have ensued had Steffy remained amnesiac one second longer than she actually did. Liam may have 99 problems with Thomas right now, but Steffy isn't one of them. Liam and his marriage emerged from Steffy's misdirected memory perfectly intact, and Liam didn't even waffle over to Steffy when she thought she was a Spencer. Did you ever think? Breathe a sigh of relief, Liam, and don't mess things up by hating Thomas to the point you sleep with Brooke.

PARIS should be grateful that she gets to model all those cool clothes, despite not being a model and not having a storyline of her own. She also managed to dodge a bullet she didn't know was a bullet in Carter, whose heart was really with Quinn. Paris might want to give her guardian angels an extra nod for not letting her pursue Carter again now that he's free; she and the other Buckingham women are well rid of him. Maybe by next Thanksgiving, Paris will either depart for greener pastures or get something more substantial to do on the show. Take your pick.

RIDGE should be thankful he always has beautiful women throwing themselves at him, no matter how poorly he treats them. This year, he demonized Brooke for one stray kiss after she forgave far worse infractions, and he wouldn't give Brooke the benefit of the doubt re: the CPS call. As for Taylor, Ridge knows how vulnerable she is to him, yet he signed her on as a placeholder for Brooke and proposed the second he got his implausible annulment from his Logan. What if both Brooke and Taylor were to kick Ridge to the curb? By next week, he'd be courting someone new, as he's consistently been doing since 1987. It's either his cologne, pheromones, or something else he's got that makes pheros moan.

SHEILA should be grateful that she's a medical marvel. She might have one-time experience as a nurse, but she somehow managed to cut off a toe like she was clipping a fingernail, bearing a perfectly healed stump the very next day and not even limping for her efforts. Not bad for someone who only had crude instruments to use, and surely nothing hospital grade to cauterize or disinfect the wound. By that metric, it's amazing Sheila didn't just grow a new toe in place of the old one. For her next trick, Sheila might want to explain why she has her original face when she had plastic surgery to look like someone else in Genoa City. Or did her face grow back, too?

STEFFY should be grateful that she has a husband who can get stiff instead of being a stiff! Seriously, Steffy underwent the horror of witnessing Finn's "death" then being shot herself, breaking through amnesia only to suffer months of depression dealing with Finn's loss. Miraculously, Steffy got him back! So, has she been spending every waking moment letting Finn know how important he is to her? Nah. Pretty much as soon as he turned up, Steffy got back on the carousel of trying to push her parents together, acting on nothing else. Great wifely skills, there, Steffy. I think I liked you better the other way!

STEPHEN should be thankful that he's got a new woman in his life! After ditching Beth and their kids decades ago, fooling around with Taylor, ultimately losing Beth to Alzheimer's, and trying to drive unstable Pam back to insanity, Stephen and Cupid certainly butted heads a lot. Now, we've only just met Lucy, but in her one scene, she seems to friendly, loving, and level-headed, and it's already obvious Stephen is the better for it. Hey, it took Papa Logan 'til the sunset of his life, but it looks like he's finally gotten it right and should cherish that every day.

TAYLOR should be grateful that no one ever brings up how she once shot Bill in cold blood. Only Steffy, Hope, Liam, Brooke, and, of course, Bill know about it, but Brooke never rails against Ridge choosing a woman who could pop him, and Steffy continues to act as if Taylor is a saint. Even Ridge proclaims the Tay-Tay truthful and faithful, when Taylor knows she cheated on Ridge and kept it secret for years, which is how their last marriage ended in 2006. Taylor must be keeping everyone on a steady diet of the psychedelic berries Thomas brought home from the tropics for them to forget she used Bill for target practice.

THOMAS should be thankful that he never really suffers any actual consequences for the crap he pulls. Yes, Steffy is mad at him right now for faking Brooke's CPS call, and Taylor has actually gotten to see the diabolical side of her son up close instead of hearing about it from halfway around the world. Plus, Ridge isn't exactly going to be thrilled if Taylor tells him what Thomas did instead of saying "I do." But will Thomas pay any price for his actions? Doubtful. He already barely got a slap on the hand for playing a part in Emma's death and keeping Beth's aliveness from Hope. It's appropriate Tommy has a bod made to slather baby oil on, because that's probably how he'll wiggle his way out of this one, too.

WYATT should be thankful that he has a roof over his head, even though we don't know where that roof is. Until recently, he was kickin' it at the beach house Bill owned, but his pop unceremoniously sold it out from under him and let Taylor move in instead. Pretty cold, though Wyatt seems unfazed as he makes his sporadic appearances, being as Wyatt as ever. Also, if Wyatt and Flo, who were engaged and living together, have gone the way of Wyatt's silver camping trailer, Wyatt looks no worse for the wear for it. Maybe Wyatt's just secretly thankful nobody, including us, knows what's really going on in his life.

What do you think, Scoopers? Do you agree with my choices for our characters' gratitude, or should they be thankful for something else? Stuff yourselves in the Comments section below or the Soap Central message boards, or simply click here to submit feedback. Your comments could end up in a future column!

Well, Thomas got snagged, Douglas is literally holding the phone (because Steffy handed the telltale device back to him), and Taylor's probably wishing another horse would interrupt a wedding to Ridge so she doesn't have to stop it by ratting Thomas out to Ridge. And is Stephen back for a while, or just to introduce us to his girlfriend and talk to Brooke about Ridge? Once you're over your tryptophan coma, there's gonna be a whole 'nother week of B&B that looks like it's gonna be a good one, so keep watching, be alert, and most of all, be bold. Happy Turkey and see you in two weeks, my Scoopnesses!

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