Hero or Zero: Will The Bold and the Beautiful’s Justin Barber save Forrester Creations or sink it?

On The Bold and the Beautiful, is Justin Barber (Aaron D. Spears) about to be the thorn in Ridge Forrester’s (Thorsten Kaye) side? We know Ridge contacted high-flying lawyer Justin Barber to try to clean up the mess that Carter (Lawrence Saint-Victor) created, but there could be another angle at play here. Justin told Ridge and Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) that the situation could be worse than Ridge thinks. Was that a foreshadowing that the coup could go even more pear-shaped for Forrester Creations?

We've been focused on what Carter and Hope (Annika Noelle) will do next, and rightfully so, but maybe the better question is: What is Justin really doing?

Justin Barber is back on The Bold and the Beautiful

When Ridge called in Justin to save the day, he handed him the paperwork and asked him to take a look. Justin did, and then he sat down and read some more. Justin pored through the entire LLC’s management structuring document and then told Ridge he was going to take a copy back to the office and show it to a colleague to be sure of what he would advise the Forresters.

This brings me back to a thought I had when I saw this scene: What is Justin really doing? Is he buying Carter time so he can file the papers? It seems absurd (in the best, soapiest way) that Justin wasn't curious if the paperwork had been filed, as he had just been hired to stop Carter from pulling a coup.

Sure, Ridge believes Justin is on the up and up now, and yes, Brooke even noted that Justin worked for a prestigious law firm downtown, but of course, there's a possibility that things are not what they seem. Justin once tried to overthrow Spencer Publications, so he knows how to do it properly. He was Forrester’s lawyer at one point, and, as it just so happens, Justin was the Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions at Spencer. Sound familiar? And if you think I might be onto something here, let’s also remember that Justin has a biological son named Marcus (Texas Battle) — who just happens to be the adoptive brother of...Carter.

Now, this could all be a coincidence, and it might even just be that Justin is the most experienced person that Ridge knows and the expert he needs right now. But if that’s the case, Justin should have been all over it, putting Ridge’s mind at ease because the papers, in fact, had not been filed — a rather important point to overlook for a lawyer and a previous coup-wannabe. If anything, that should have been the first and only thing that Justin needed to research before knowing the full status of the situation.

Justin has a history, and it’s not that legendary

Let’s not forget who Justin is. Not only was Justin the right-hand man of Bill Spencer (Don Diamont), but he was his henchman when needed. He was the guy who dumped Ridge out of a helicopter into the Persian Gulf and left him for dead. He locked Thomas in a cage. He did all of Bill’s dirty work, and sometimes he wasn’t even asked to. He was just that loyal.

But, when he felt rejected and undervalued, Justin got angry and wanted revenge by taking Spencer Publications. His coup failed, and he lost Bill as his BFF. Eventually, Justin came to Forrester and asked for the chance to prove to Ridge that he was a changed guy. Ridge hired him as the company lawyer, and Justin did a good job convincing him he was a new man.

It may be true that Carter and Hope might be the only ones to blame for this company takeover. But bringing back Justin to save the day, only to have him drag his heels right out of the gate, should be a red flag. Is Justin back to make amends with Bill? Is helping to take Forrester Creations from the “dressmaker” Justin’s way of extending an olive branch to his old buddy?

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Time will tell on this nailbiter, but someone please send Justin a memo that time is of the essence. Hopefully, I won’t run out of fingernails to chew in the meantime.

Watch full episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful weekdays on CBS or stream on Paramount Plus.

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