CEO-ho-ho!: The Bold and the Beautiful Two Scoops for the week of December 16, 2024

Has your week been bold and beautiful? Did you turn your brat summer into a brat winter? Did your playbook end up being identical on every page? Did you remind everyone that you have waffles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? These and more situations faced the Forrester-Logan-Spencer-Walton clan this week!

Holy column before Christmas, Scoopers! I know I promised that the next opinionizing I'd be here for was the big year-end Best and Worst to-do, but there was a little shuffly switchy thing that happened, and here I am, ready to cover Brooke still being able to fit in the CEO outfit she first tried on in 1993! But don't worry, I'll be back next week to recap 2024 for y'all — count on it!

In the meantime...Remy's turning out to be a terrible waiter and tormentor, as he only has one kind of photo in his shop. Over at Forrester, Steffy, Ridge, and Eric are kickin' it like it's 2009 with their quiet quitting, and Brooke actually showed some initiative by taking the reins for a “deer” reason. As for Ridge...like the Sugarhill Gang rapped, “If your girl starts acting up, then you take her friend!” Again! Let's Scoop about it!

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch

Remy must have learned stalking from Google University because he only has one trick in his toolbag — doctoring and distributing photos that make Electra look nude. Sure, Electra couldn't have known back in their hometown that the friend she turned to in her hour of need, Remy, was the very reason for her pictorial discomfort, but having the same thing happen in a different city with Remy in the vicinity is a dead giveaway if ever there was one.

I'm also confused about Remy's address. When we first saw him, he was holed up in a place with Electra images all over his wall. Then Deacon offered him the pad above Il Giardino (even though Deacon and Sheila were already living there). This week, we saw Remy enter an abode with the same pictures in place of wallpaper. Don't tell me this kid put up the same mural in a place where it could be seen by Deacon and/or Sheila!

I'm waiting for Sheila (who once prayed to her own altar, that of her then-infant daughter Mary) to catch on that Remy isn't a very good employee. Every time Sheila tells Remy to get back to work, he just goes back to staring at his phone. How has Deacon not caught on to this? Dead Tom and Dead Hollis are more productive than Remy! Deacon must really be hurting for workers, or Remy would be pink-slipped by now.

So Remy sent his AI'd nude Electra straight to Katie — a nice touch considering Katie heads up Forrester PR. Katie took one look at Electra's electrified elaborations and immediately decided that Electra needed to be fired. Why? No one batted an eye when Stephanie had nude photos of Brooke plastered all over Los Angeles billboards in 2006. But Electra has to be canned for supposedly showing off her cans?

Worse still, when Katie and Brooke decided to lower the boom on Electra's boom-booms, they refused to give a reason for her termination. I'm sorry, but while that's not illegal, it's borderline unethical. Electra has rights. I just learned that employers don't have to give a reason for termination; however, Electra could consult an employment attorney and/or sue Forrester for wrongful termination.

Instead, Electra just cried to Will, who went to see Remy after Electra had to tell Will a third time that she and Remy had never dated. Insecure much, Willie? How very not Spencer. Brooke had concurred with Katie that they didn't need the negative publicity of Electra's all-baring during the repercussions of the coup, but it was really crappy of the sisters Logan to not give Electra a chance to explain the photo.

It's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with coup

It doesn't snow in Los Angeles (unless you count cocaine, LOL), but the fallout from Carter's takeover was blowing around like a winter snowstorm. Not that Carter and Hope noticed, because they officially became management by shagging on the couch that pretty much every other B&B couple has christened at some time in their lives. Ain't enough Scotchgard in the world to keep that thing clean.

Hopefully unable to hear the moans coming from the CEO's office, Brooke lamented to Katie how Ridge had walked out the night before, unable to bear the idea of living on the same property as Hope anymore. Katie couldn't understand what the problem was, given the house Ridge had built for Brooke in 1994 was sitting on, like, a jillion acres. But the bigger problem with this arc has been Ridge's sh***y attitude toward Hope.

Of course, it's understandable that Ridge would be completely torqued off at Hope for her part in the coup that ripped power away from him, his dad, and his daughter. But Ridge has gone too far, especially given his history with Hope. Though Ridge did once worry that Hope's conception was a “stain on the family name,” he was largely responsible for raising Hope, proclaiming that he loved Hope like she was one of his own.

Ridge now calling Hope a bitch was already just stopping short of bad taste, but for him to one-up himself and brand Hope a slut was just ridiculous. OK, the show did it for shock value, obviously. But it's out of character, even for the perennially pompous Ridge. If Brooke had slapped those labels on Steffy (which Steffy has more than once deserved!), Ridge wouldn't have stood for it for a second. Nor should he have.

So Ridge stomped right over to Steffy's...where he knew Taylor was also in residence. Not surprisingly, Taylor and Steffy kept pumping sunshine up Ridge's ass, agreeing with everything he said about how awful Hope was and how terrible Brooke was for sticking up for her daughter. Which made it actually surprising when Ridge — Ridge, of all people! — took some much needed responsibility for his actions.

“The words just kept coming out of my mouth,” Ridge admitted. “I could have handled myself better.” I do have to give Ridge points for this, as it shows awareness that he not only stepped but sprinted over the line. The damage has been done, though at least it's an acknowledgment. Not that Steffy could follow in her father's footsteps. To her, Hope was just skanky and nasty and scheming.

Steffy has become so two-dimensional that I'm surprised she isn't drawn with some of Ridge's design pencils. All Steffy does is scowl and piss and moan, and everything is someone else's fault, and nothing is her fault. This is why I started hating her and her anti-Logan shtick back in 2009 and 2010, and she's regressed right back into it. I liked Steffy much better when she made a sincere attempt to form a blended family with Hope. How does Finn stand her?

Later on we'll conspire

The next day, Ridge, Eric, and Steffy decided they were not going in to work, not with Carter now calling all the shots. Speaking of 2009 and 2010! That's the exact behavior they exhibited during Bill's takeover of Forrester during those years. Though at least then, they were under contract and under threat of termination and blackballing if they didn't show up for their shifts. Are they not contractually bound now?

I also have to say that Forrester Creations has seen its share of control-taking over the years, but at least it's been 15 since we last saw this plot. Given that length of time since its last implementation, this storyline seems almost fresh, and at least there's more conflict with friend-turned-foe Carter in the big chair instead of Bill, whom everyone hated. Including Brooke!

I half expected everyone to come in and put together a hideous collection as they did with the Dare line during Bill's reign, especially since Carter wasn't around the company then and hasn't seen that trick before. Eric, Steffy, and Ridge huffed that Carter couldn't run FC without them, and Hope wouldn't be any help, not since she was an idiot who ran her own line into the ground.

Hope for the Future was only ever as good as its designers, so I'm surprised Zende, who decided to side with his adoptive family, didn't take any heat for that collection's failure. (And co-designer R.J., who has pretty much been AWOL since Luna went to jail. Is R.J. off somewhere licking his wounds? And can I watch?) But Ridge's earlier clarity opened the door to one more groupthink bit of recognition.

Ridge and Steffy agreed that they should have looked closer at Carter's LLC papers. Ya think? Even if your bestie is in charge of such things, even if such person is someone you trust implicitly, you still don't barely skim an important contract, like one establishing an LLC because you're distracted by your ex-wife, and just scribble some ink on it. That was Ridge's excuse, anyway; I don't know what Steffy's was.

Still, at least they had a little bit of intelligent hindsight. Which is good, because their brains needed the palette cleanser to handle what was coming next. Even though Carter was now managing the company through his LLC, he still needed a CEO. I thought the CEO managed the company, and that, by removing co-CEOs Ridge and Steffy, Carter was the CEO?

Well, what do I know about business? Not noticing the stains he missed on the couch, Carter told Hope he wanted someone with a proven record as his CEO. Someone who was qualified. And Carter was as merry as the wreath that had been stealthily hung over Forrester's famous “F” window. “When what, to my wandering eyes should appear, but the creator of BeLieF, who wore babydolls here!”

Yep! Carter wanted Brooke to reclaim her mantel of CEO! As a business decision, it's actually sound because Brooke not only ruled that roost thusly from 1993 to 2003 in real-time but also, under her tenure, she created the men's line and Brooke's Bedroom, both of which made the design house more money than you could stuff into Santa's bag.

As a personal decision...both Carter and Hope were cognizant that, should Brooke step into the CEO role again, it would put her on a collision course with Ridge. Carter pitched the idea to Brooke, impressed that Brooke had been the decision maker in Electra's firing. Except...Katie had decided to unelect Electra before she even told Brooke about it. But we'll attribute Carter's slip-up to the Scotchgard fumes.

Despite being on the outs with Ridge over Hope's moves, Brooke made a move of her own – call her Miss CEO if you're nasty! Zende came in with news of the amassing press core downstairs, afraid they'd revolt if they didn't get some kind of message from Carter about the coup. So Carter opted to put Brooke on social media to smooth out all the ruffled feathers.

At the Forrester compound, while Ridge, Eric, and Steffy continued to play hooky, Taylor inserted herself into the situation, because...well, why should a world-renowned psychiatrist do anything silly like spend time with patients? Ridge took aim at Hope again, complaining about what Hope had done...to Thomas? Yes — Ridge is now blaming Hope for Thomas' descent into insanity, which Hope was the major victim of!

I'm surprised Ridge hasn't taken possession of the Hope mannequin already and begun to use it as a piñata. Ridge didn't look at his phone, to which Brooke had texted a message that she had something to tell him – but Steffy looked at hers after it dinged, notifying her of the Forrester Creations livestream. And did they get a stream, as their bandwidth informed them that Brooke was once again CEO of FC!

Oddly, Brooke announced that Steffy, Ridge, and Eric would all be taking leaves of absence. How did Brooke know that? Just because none of them happened to show up at work? Brooke hadn't talked to Ridge since the night before; the reason for the truancy of the trio was only an assumption at that point. Though she only said it to reassure the press, Brooke shouldn't have popped off with that until she was sure.

Steffy probably briefly thought of taking inspo from Luna and locking Brooke in a cage, but instead, she fumed that she and Ridge and Eric needed to do their own press conference. Eric thought taking that tack would only make things worse. And Ridge grumbled to Taylor that Brooke's betrayal had been even worse than Carter's — one of the few motivations of Ridge's this week to make absolute sense. Boo-boo Ridge!

And a (part)Ridge in a pear tree

Zende nearly turned as many colors as his shirt when he learned that Brooke was CEO, but still facilitated her stint on social media. You'd have thought he'd have balked and let Carter put La Logan online. Once alone with Brooke, however, Zende let his true feelings out. How could Brooke be all in stealing FC the way he had stolen a camera from Kristen and Tony, which was how he'd met them?

All right, Zende didn't make reference to his first encounter with a Forrester. But he did get taken into the confidence of a Logan. Don't let on, Brooke advised him, it was just that the whole CEO acceptance thing was part of a plan to win Forrester Creations back for Ridge! Now that was something Zende was down with. It was a time buyer so Brooke could convince Carter to refile the LLC documents and put Ridge back in charge.

Look at Brooke, using her devious powers for good! That's actually quite the clever twist, one that I did not see coming. Brooke could have easily taken the CEO seat to support Hope, but instead, she held to her contention that Hope and Carter had misstepped by taking control of the company and decided to outfox them. I like it. Too bad Brooke's plan came with a fatal flaw, sold separately.

If she wanted to avoid any misunderstanding by Ridge — and you really have to spell it out for this guy; he's the one who thought it would be OK to bone Morgan after reading an e-mail from “Taylor” in 2001 — Brooke should have made up an excuse to stall Carter and the livestream until she could actually talk to Ridge and tell him what she was up to, or at least leave Ridge a voicemail if he wouldn't take her call.

Yet all Brooke did was shoot Ridge a quick, vague text that gave him no heads-up whatsoever. What convinced her that was the direction to go in? We all know that misunderstandings make the soap world go round and that such misunderstandings are often built on shaky foundations, but Brooke's thumbing didn't paint her in the most level-headed of lights. Not even Christmas lights.

Did Ridge even get the text? I don't think so because he didn't mention it; he just stomped back into Casa Forrester and started making goo-goo eyes at Taylor. To send even more signals, mixed and otherwise, Ridgey started rubbing Taylor's shoulder. It's achin' make it feel all right! ch-OOH! Ridge should have known it doesn't take much for Taylor to want him workin' workin' day and night. Hee hee.

Their kid, Steffy, went home to whine to Finn (remember him?) about how awful Hope was. And how her parents should be together; they were so much more suited to one another. Soap gods forfend, how the hell old is Steffy? Thirty-four, if you go by the metric she was 18 when she first started in the mail room in 2008. Do these people ever stop wanting mommy and daddy to reunite? Grow up, y'all! Beth is more mature. When we get to see her, that is.

Seeming to realize that he was about to tread on all-too-familiar territory, Ridge excused himself from Taylor...only to grab a bottle of booze while he was heading upstairs! Ridge, Ridge, Ridge! You know how that ends! Every time he did that in 2020, he ended up either sleeping next to Shauna, kissing Shauna, or marrying Shauna. Ridge is a special kind of drinker; he only boozes it up when he's about to shag someone other than Brooke.

Did Taylor recognize all the signs she'd seen before, refer to her extensive psychological knowledge, and high-tail it home? No! She grabbed a couple of glasses and followed Ridge and his bottle up to his room! What, so we're gonna have #DrunkTaylor now? She's supposed to be sober, through 12-step programs or not — unlike Deacon, who seems to have jumped off the wagon without a mention of him eschewing his sobriety.

The Tay-Tay returned Ridge's longing gazes, and before you could say, “Look what you made me do,” Taylor swiftly responded to her ex's admission, “I just wanna love you” with “Then do it.” And now we got bad blood! I shook my head so hard, my neck muscles went into spasms. Then Brooke, deciding she needed to tell Ridge right away about her secret CEO scam, showed up on the Forrester doorstep after the livestream.

Well, this time, it ain't Taylor's chakras. Brooke is gonna catch Ridge re-aligning! B&B must think we don't remember what happened on the show in either the recent past or the distant past. Worse, it casts the characters as not remembering, either. These people, Brooke, Ridge, and Taylor, especially, don't grow. I'm sure there's merit in audiences wanting to see their faves and love-to-hates doing stupid things, but this trio is pulling the same stuff they did in the 1990s.

Brooke should know that whenever Ridge is upset with her, he's going to run to another woman. It used to be Stephanie, but by the millennium he'd moved on from mommy to women who could wipe away his tears with sex. And Taylor is soooo desperate. The Taylor of 1994 would have the Taylor of 2024 sent away for serious psychiatric evaluation for taking seriously any of Ridge's I'm-mad-with-Brooke come-ons!

Hell, just two years ago, Taylor took Ridge back in Aspen knowing he and Brooke were on the temporary outs. She can't see the pattern here? I was once a huge Tridge fan, so no disrespect, y'all, but even in the '90s, Taylor knew Ridge's heart was always with Brooke to some extent, to the point she wouldn't keep seeing him because he kept crying to her about Brooke. Thirty years on, Taylor remains blind to Ridge's shifting.

And truly, Ridge is the biggest offender — and non-grower — here. For real: This doof was said to be 30 in 1987, making him 67 now. He and Taylor were both unprecedentedly de-aged, but, even factoring that in, Ridge is in his 50s. How is he still ping-ponging to whichever ex-wife he's not involved with to feel better through his penis when he has a beef with one of them? Ronn Moss, Thorsten Kaye, it doesn't matter. This character is a child. How lazy it is to write Ridge this way and how difficult it must be to play him written this way.

So, Scoopers! We go into Christmas with Ridge stuffing Taylor's stocking. Did any of you not see that coming? Do you think it was a good idea for Brooke to take the CEO position to pull one over on Carter and take the company back for Ridge? Does the eternally snarky Steffy need to take some of Poppy's “special mints” to chill out? Was Electra entitled to know why she was fired from Forrester? And does Remy need to pick up a new skill to torment Electra with besides deep-faking naked pictures of her? Comment below — I wanna hear all about it!

Now! About that year-end column! It is really, truly and surely, coming next week. I've already started putting together my thoughts for the B&B that was in 2024. And I've been doing these Best and Worst beauties for 15 years, so you ain't gonna wanna miss it! In the meantime, well...it'll be interesting to see if Brooke still wants to use her CEO position to snatch Forrester back from Carter once she catches Ridge and Taylor in a few different positions, so keep watching, be alert, and most of all, be bold!

(Purchase Adam-Michael James' books on Amazon.)

(Listen to isletunes, AMJ's podcast featuring nothing but the music of Prince Edward Island, Canada.)