Has your week been bold and beautiful? Did you realize once again how much your beloved stinks? Did you come up with a retaliatory plan that made no scents? Did you get high on the fragrance from a bottle that was over 30 years old? These and more situations faced the Forrester-Logan-Spencer-Walton-Nozawa clan this week!
Father and daughter are both cookin' with gas on The Bold and the Beautiful
Follow your nose, Scoopers! It always knows! Yep, welcome to my first column of 2025, a year B&B is kicking off by repackaging some aromas and trying out others that don't pass the smell test. Steffy thinks siccing perfumier Daphne on Carter is the key to airing out Forrester Creations, while Papa Ridge is stinking up any room Brooke is in. Only La Logan, of all people, comes out smelling like a rose! Let's Scoop about it!
Would you get a whiff of that
I'm rather at a loss to express exactly how I feel about Bill harboring prison refugee Luna in his house. Didn't Bill start his 2023 by busting Sheila out of the joint and letting her crash there? Of course, Bill was romancing Sheila to frame her; there's no indication the Dollah is warming up to Luna in that way. Though now that Bill and Poppy are buh-bye, the field would be clear for a little May-Decembering.
What bothers me more is the implication lately that, like Luna, Bill had such an unstable childhood thanks to a negligent mother that he, like Luna, did some very unsavory things. Granted, we didn't come into Bill's life already in progress until 2009, and we don't even know who Bill's mother is. We only know it was a woman other than Caroline and Karen's mom, who was said from the show's earliest days to have been named Marion.
So, sure, Bill could have been brought up under any number of circumstances, over and above Bill Sr. not being around. Yet I highly doubt Bill put two people in the ground with poison so he could claim a rich dude as his father, which is exactly what Luna did. Bill's rationale that he “could have easily been in your shoes” is just bizarre, at least without some true exploration of his own childhood. I'd love to see that.
Under the house rule that no one could know, Luna was running around Bill's mansion donning a very fashionable ankle monitor. Bill shooed Luna away when Will showed up to introduce his pop to his boo, Electra. Weren't we in the same soap day that Remy nearly threw Electra off a roof? That's Mr. Sensitivity, our Will. “Hey, babe, now that your stalker's gone, let's go hang with my dad!”
Speaking of Remy, all I can think of is The Wizard of Oz: “people come and go so quickly here!” I don't even know what the point was of having him on. We knew Remy's story from his very first seconds, and, after the very slightest of build-ups, the show had Electra learn Remy's true motives due to a fully contrived reason (“Oh, the Il Giardino bathroom is out of order – here, use the one in Remy's apartment!” For real, Deacon?)
Then Remy's deep fakery got blown up, there was a confrontation with Electra, then Will, and Remy pays the Pryce by getting arrested...off-screen. Now, not 24 hours in soap time after such a harrowing experience, we've got Electra in the orbit of yet another psychopath: Luna. It can't be an accident that Luna was in hiding and taking in the entire saga of Remy, as told in 4K-like detail by Electra.
I can see Bill wanting to hear how his son saved a girl from a nutjob, but it seemed harsh to make Electra relive the whole thing so soon after it happened. Luna looked to be grooving on it all, too, but she nearly gave herself away by bumping into a planter. Bill shrugged it off and gave Luna a scolding once Will and Electra finally flew into non-psychotic airspace. No one was to learn that Luna was there!
Which, of course, is code for “someone's gonna find out real soon.” Bill reminded Luna that he wasn't into kissing her; he just wanted to help her get her head on straight. I'd thought that Luna was going to wear down Bill's resistance with more skin-tight motorcycle outfits, but maybe Luna is about to use her Nozawa power on Will instead! With wacko #2 on the horizon, Electra might want to enroll in the Witness Protection Program.
Common scents
Ridge has been a right ass for months now, but he must have made a New Year's resolution to up his assness, because he completely rejected Brooke's admission that she only became CEO under Carter in an attempt to position Carter into restoring ownership of Forrester to the Forresters. I guess it's consistent that Ridge has been an arrogant jerkwad the nearly 38-year run of this soap. It's just that he's outdoing himself.
No, it wasn't good enough that Brooke had stepped in as secret CEO. Ridge still viewed the move as a betrayal because Brooke didn't use her “Hi, I'm CEO again” presser to talk smack about Hope and Carter. I can almost understand that, but maybe if Ridge had looked at his phone before the livestream and seen that Brooke wanted to talk to him, he might indeed have gotten the heads-up Brooke had intended to deliver.
This is a fact Ridge missed, because he whined that Brooke hadn't come to him first. However, I think this is yet another story bit the show itself forgot, and it's certainly not the first one of late. Ridge later raged to his fam that he'd given Brooke an executive position, which is the closest we've gotten in months to an acknowledgement that Brooke was co-CEO...before she suddenly wasn't!
Ridge stank up the entire Forrester living room with his piss-poor attitude, accusing Brooke of “aligning with the enemy” and again taking the opportunity to show off his mastery of derogatory terms by attaching each and every one of them to Hope. But then a development occurred that actually surprised me – and in a good way. Brooke's resolve to get through to Ridge faded. Something clicked. Brooke had had enough!
Brooke informed Ridge that his rampant name-calling wasn't just beneath him, it was wrong. Finally! But then Brooke took the sentiment one step further and determined that Ridge “turning to Taylor at breakneck speed” was also both of those things! I grumbled recently about B&B characters never growing, but Brooke sure exhibited some evolution by calling Ridge out. Whenever they had problems, Brooke fumed, Ridge always took up with Taylor to get his ego stroked!
And not just his ego, eh, Brooke? She decided she didn't want a man who also had a thing for his ex – and when Ridge basically said that Brooke wasn't family because she was running “my family's business” (ask R.J. how you and Brooke aren't family, ya dolt!), Brooke hauled off and smacked her “destiny” into the middle of next week. Good! Yeah, yeah, not condoning violence, but the jackass deserved it.
“Have fun with Taylor, your second choice,” Brooke sneered as she left (touché; I was one a hardcore Tridger, but history does maintain that Ridge was involved with Brooke first and married Taylor the first time to offset his feelings for his Logan). When said second choice, who never works, arrived at the Forrester mansion, Brooke gave Taylor a good hard shove. Hard to believe Braylor was BFFs two years ago!
I know that many of you hate Brooke, but I was glad to see her go off on Ridge. It's certainly happened before, but not for many a moon. And how much more of Ridge's crap was Brooke supposed to take? As for Taylor, she swooned to Steffy about what she and “her father” had, but Taylor has been down this road with Ridge so many times before you can find it on Google Maps. Have some self-respect, woman!
Eau de Cluephone
Steffy, Ridge, and Eric all met to share some faux outrage about Brooke having pushed Taylor. I'll concede that there was some merit in Ridge's concern about Brooke possibly exacerbating Taylor's heart condition, but it's not as if Brooke...oh...locked Taylor in a tower! Bill did that to Katie, who had an actual heart transplant, but you never hear that coming up whenever characters try to re-ship Batie.
There was also too much ado about the shove and Brooke's manicured hand making contact with Ridge's face as Brooke lamented about it to Hope, then Katie. If Stephanie had gone on that much about her bevy of bitch slaps in the '90s, '00s, and '10s, there would never have been time on the show for anything else. Brooke slapped Ridge; big deal. And she and Taylor have had worse scraps. Move on.
Steffy announced to Eric and Ridge that she had come up with a “creative” plan to wrest Forrester back from Carter. But Eric pooh-poohed any such “cloak and dagger.” Oh, really? He was all for that category of tactics when he helped create the ugly Dare line to undermine Bill's takeover in 2009! Now Eric wants to sit on his butt and avoid any direct action. Maybe he's retired after all?
Over at Forrester, Carter and Hope met with some chick, Fanny, who had come in to present a potential perfume that could go with the design house's collections. And Hope acted like Carter was quite the revolutionary! Maybe she can be forgiven, considering she was a tyke when Ashley Abbott migrated from Genoa City to create her own scent for the company in 2007. Whatever happened to Ashley's lab, anyway?
Fanny no sooner got her pitch started when her fanny was fried by another new face, this one belonging to a Daphne Rose. Apparently Daphne was such hot ish in the perfume world that Fanny suddenly became worshipful and essentially let Daphne take her almost job. Fanny's gonna go places, ain't she? Daphne waved around a scarf dabbed with such an alluring odeur that Carter and Hope needed a fainting couch.
But Daphne was no rando! Miss Rose reported straight to Steffy, who cracked open the Cristal upon hearing Daphne's recon. Daphne predicted that Carter would be putty in her hands, a claim she emphasized when Carter called during Daphne's visit with Steffy and offered Daphne the gig. Steffy and Daphne toasted the fact that Carter's control over Forrester would soon be a thing of the past!
Alone with Finn later (remember him?), Steffy went into full detail about her plan. Daphne was going to seduce Carter away from Hope, and once Hope was out of Carter's orbit...well, then what? Steffy seems to think Carter will just sign Forrester back over once he's no longer involved with Hope, but there's no guarantee of that. We know Hope didn't put the LLC idea in Carter's head; he's just as likely to hang on to the company single as not.
Was Daphne swooping in and upstaging Fanny just a coincidence, or did Steffy somehow know Fanny was going to be there and sent Daphne in at exactly the right time? Either way, it's contrived; Steffy would have had to have known that Carter was looking to pair a perfume with the design house, and Steffy's only been home stewing and bitching since Carter took over. Unless Zende tipped her off? If he did, we should know that.
Steffy's used seduction to retake Forrester before – only in 2010, Steffy did the seducing. It was a much better plan for her to tease Bill into signing on the dotted line then than it is to inflict a maneater on Carter today in the hopes that he ditches Hope. Steffy lovingly regarded a pic of Stephanie and told Finn that she had learned from the best. I think Gangsta Granny would have a few well-chosen words to say about your half-baked plan, missy.
Smells like dream spirit
Back at the Forrester compound, Donna and Eric were out, and Ridge didn't want to talk about Brooke or Hope or Carter anymore. As he and Taylor were alone, Ridge was in the mood for love. Wait, did he check to see if Zende was also not at home? What about Ivy and/or Electra? Ridge's "other" brain always gives him tunnel vision, but he should know he's a guest in that house as much as his more distant relatives are.
Ridge gifted Taylor with a gown accessorized by a Kelly green wrap. It was, Ridge bemoaned, the final Forrester original. If so, Ridge, you better be glad you're not designing anymore. And how would Ridge even have this dress? Did he make a special stop to retrieve it and take it home before he stomped out of the office? Was he already planning on giving it to someone? Brooke would have been its likely recipient, leaving Taylor to inherit Brooke's hand-me-downs yet again.
Then Ridge did something that he should damn well have known not to do. He poured champagne for himself...and Taylor! Holy AA, Batman! Taylor is a frigging alcoholic! B&B also pulled this history-erasing stunt before Christmas, as Taylor shared Ridge's drink. We've gotten no hint that Taylor is off the wagon, so this can only mean that the show has forgotten – or is ignoring – a story point that has existed since 2006.
That was also the year Taylor started drinking...on the heels of her final failed marriage to Ridge. That's right, aside from her aborted man-and-horse wedding to Ridge in 2009, and the Aspen-chasing that preceded their following wedding attempt in 2022, Ridge and Taylor have been kaput for almost two decades in real time. And why did they split up in 2006? I'll tell you.
Ridge had found out that, during their first marriage, Taylor had devirginized her friend/mentor James Warwick as a dying wish and kept it secret for years and years and years! (Ridge also took off because he labeled Taylor's constant judgment of Brooke's sex life hypocritical.) Only now, Ridge was ready to get his life with Taylor back owing to Taylor's honesty and integrity. Is your head spinning? My head is spinning.
Over a romantic dinner and some slow dancing, Ridge even decided that he and Taylor should get her old beach house back (gonna kick RJ out, Ridge? Some father! You don't even remember your son lives there) and move in together. Taylor should have been at full-on red alert upon hearing that. As I said before, Ridge's rush to forget Brooke was how he and Taylor ended up at the altar in the first place in 1992.
Taylor and Brooke became besties two years ago because it finally dawned on both of them that Ridge was only ever going to bounce between them ad infinitum. The women mutually – and wisely – kicked the inveterate waffler to the curb. And now Taylor wants to take him back...not long after he walked out on Brooke? I think Taylor was misdiagnosed. She's clearly being ravaged by broken brain syndrome, not heart.
And when Ridge addressed her ticker, Taylor assured him that it was getting better every day. Well, of course it is. You don't have to worry about psychosomatic symptoms from a deep loss when you're no longer experiencing that loss, do you? Taylor got to hear everything she'd been waiting for the last couple of decades as Ridge regaled her with talk of them being meant to be and how he'd always loved her.
And this fool bought it. Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. Whatever further heartache you endure from here, you walked right into it. Witness to this dumbing down was Donna, the one everyone always thinks is dumb. The middle Logan sister overheard Tridge's plans for nookie and...well, all right, what Donna did next was dumb. She called Brooke, who had spent her day not CEOing but bumming over Ridge, with a news flash!
Didn't it seem cruel for Donna to hit Brooke with word that her ex was about to shag his ex? Was that something Brooke really needed to know at that moment, or at all? Brooke already assumed Ridge and Taylor were bumping uglies from Tridge's non-denial of it the first time. I don't know what Donna was thinking, but her bulletin came across as thoughtless to me.
Ridge, on the other hand, had put some thought into his mood setting. He had strewn his bed with rose petals. Poor Taylor; yet another gimmick Ridge used on Brooke first. Ridge and Taylor finally did the deed (at the same time their daughter and son-in-law were getting it on; eww), but, for Ridge, anyway, the afterplay included some constipated looks. You guessed it! Ridge was in doubt! He couldn't have been thinking of Brooke, now, could he?
As you can tell, I'm so not here for this three-trillionth Bridge/Tridge-go-round. What part of “it's not the 1990s anymore” does B&B not get? Nobody wants to see this, especially not with a recast Ridge and a twice-recast Taylor. Oy. Putting a fresh face on Taylor doesn't make this triangle fresh; if anything, it feels like Taylor was brought back just to be demeaned. And did I mention Ridge is an ass? He's an ass.
First column of 2025 in the books, Scoopers! What do you think of the new year in B&B so far? Does it seem to you that Luna is going to go after Will? Is it too soon to put Electra in any story, let alone one involving another wackjob? Is there merit in Steffy's plot to regain control of Forrester by splitting up Carter and Hope? Was Brooke right to try and slap some sense into Ridge? And should Taylor know better than to believe any sweet talk that comes out of Ridge's mouth? Comment below – you know my opinions; now I wanna know yours!
If this news somehow hasn't reached you by now, CBS is launching a brand-new soap (the first since Passions premiered in 1999!) on February 24 called Beyond the Gates. It was created by long-time B&B writer Michele Val Jean, it features essentially an all-Black cast, and it looks to be quite juicy, if what we're learning about its fictional residents is any harbinger.
We've been writing up primer articles about this coming sudser, so check out our growing Beyond the Gates section; I myself have done a dossier on Val Jean and the characters not necessarily tied to the core families. With more to come!
As for B&B, this was kind of a meh week, but it'll be interesting to see if Brooke stands her ground in terms of Ridge, and it seems that Luna's paternity may not be the settled matter we thought it was! So, as always, keep watching, be alert, and, most of all, be bold!
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