Sometimes, it's the principle of the matter -- at least that's what Ridge indicated to Rick after Eric collapsed during a barometer-busting argument with Ridge about respecting Quinn as Eric's wife. Eric's sons took vigil at Eric's hospital bedside, and after seeing his father weak and unresponsive, Rick didn't put too much stock in the family's principles.
"What are we left with? A father fighting for his life and us with our principles," Rick lamented angrily. Eric's life hangs in the balance, and some of his family members, like Thorne and Rick, vow to stand by Eric while others, like Ridge and Steffy, persist in trying to keep away the one person whose presence might have the healing touch -- his new bride, Quinn. But if Ridge takes pushing to shoving, will Rick and Thorne be there to protect their unconscious father's best interests?
In case you missed it, Eric was devastated when only Ivy and a string quartet showed up to his wedding. Quinn didn't think they should go through with the ceremony if none of their family members attended. Maybe Eric and Quinn forgot that Ivy is a person and not plant filler for the floral decor.
The couple decided to get married, anyway, in an "empty room" that actually had Ivy and the string quartet in it. Perez Hilton, cast as the pastor, officiated over the vows exchanged between a couple whose love filled every empty seat in the room -- except Ivy's seat, because her butt filled it -- not that it counted. Anyone feeling kind of sorry for the Aussie who Americanized herself, but no one, not even her family, recognizes that she's in town?
Quinn made an adoringly beautiful bride, and one might almost forget that she married Deacon a few years ago in another protested ceremony. This time, no one rushed to the mansion with a device to video-bust the latest wedding. Eric and Quinn married in tranquility and love. If you ask me, they were better off without anyone snickering and scowling at them the whole time.
Stephanie's portrait even had respect enough to remain on the wall at the altar, almost as if Stephanie were presiding over the changing of the matriarchal guards. An endorsement like that has to mean something.
After the ceremony, Quinn was all about that wedding night boom-boom-pow, but Eric had a few surprises still. He unveiled a new portrait in the living room of Quinn in white, and the next morning, he gave her a crystal necklace. Though Quinn had made Eric the happiest man in the world, his heart still ached with disappointment over his family's abandonment.
The family was worried about what they'd done and felt extremely guilty about abandoning Eric on his wedding day. Their quibbling was getting on Ridge's nerves. Ridge said they'd banded together to prove a point, and they'd had to try to get through to Eric.
When Eric arrived at the office and refused Pam's corner-piece lemon bar, she broke down like a baby and apologized profusely for following Steffy and Ridge's directive. One by one, the family members caved, telling Eric how sorry they were and how wrong it had been to boycott his wedding. Zende claimed that they never intended for Eric to get married alone. Instead, they'd thought he wouldn't get married at all. "You thought I wouldn't marry the woman I love because you staged a group tantrum?" Eric asked.
Steffy remained defiant and Ridge unrepentant. Ridge even suggested -- again -- that Eric was losing it. The father and daughter duo definitely get their stubborn streaks from Stephanie, who could do the most cruel things in order to make someone see what she thought was best for him. Take, for instance, when Stephanie faked a heart attack to get Ridge to marry Taylor over Brooke or when Stephanie convinced Thomas to lie about sleeping with Brooke on Berry Island to finally get Brooke out of Ridge's life.
Oh, dear God in Heaven, Ridge is turning into his mother!
Stephanie always swore she was looking out for the family, and it almost always wound up hurting the people she wanted to protect. Eric tried to tell this to the "ringleaders." When Steffy had no response, he guessed all the love, admiration, and respect they'd had between each other was just gone out the window. Ridge was completely unapologetic for looking out for Eric.
Eric talked to each family member about how he'd been there for them even when there had been nothing but drama, but they hadn't stood by him on the special day in his life. For the most part, Eric is right. Maya and Rick had no excuse to forgo Eric's wedding after Eric had stood by the couple through Rick's tyrannical reign at Forrester and Maya's secret reveal. He'd welcomed the Avants into the fold without question, and Julius isn't really the easiest man to accept.
When Eric was with Donna, Pam had played horrible pranks from dying Donna's hair green, to spray-tanning her orange, to pouring honey all over her for a bear to attack her, to trying to poison Eric with a lemon bar after he'd married Donna. It's no wonder he didn't take Pam's lemon bar the morning after marrying Quinn.
Was it too much to ask that everyone shut their mouths and support Eric for one or two hours at the wedding? Did they think Eric was so basic that he couldn't figure out that their attendance would have been out of respect for him and not approval of the marriage?
Even Julius had enough sense to try to attend Maya's wedding despite still struggling with Maya's transition. Of course, Maya wanted to burn at the stake anyone who didn't agree with her at her wedding, no matter the effort the person tried to make to support the family by attending. Unlike Maya, Quinn and Eric weren't looking for complete acceptance. Before the wedding, Quinn had made sure Steffy understood that, and Eric had thanked Pam for being there despite not approving.
The fact that the ringleaders, Steffy and Ridge, refused to see it caused Eric to literally pop a blood vessel in his anger over what he considered to be their betrayal of him. Eric is right to think it.
Eric wanted respect. He wanted to know that his family would support him and love him even if they disagreed with this choice. Once at the hospital, Rick and Thorne ultimately decided that no difference of opinion was worth losing Eric. Ridge and Steffy, on the other hand, continued to bully Quinn even as Eric lay unconscious in the next room.
Quinn dealt with a betrayal of her own. Wyatt hadn't shown up at the wedding, either, because he'd been standing by his wife. You know -- the wife who doesn't stand by him at all, the one who won't live with him but is still Mrs. Spencer, and the one letting his brother kiss her.
Quinn gets it about Wyatt, but she needs for Wyatt to get that her marriage shouldn't interfere with his marriage. She also needs him to know she wouldn't have carried things so far with Eric for any other reasons than love and devotion. Wyatt claims to know his mother so well. If it's true, then he should know the difference in her now as compared to the past.
Wyatt also said that he'd never seen Eric happier than with his mother. Granted, Wyatt doesn't know Eric very well; however, if Wyatt can recognize true happiness in Eric, maybe Wyatt ought to compare it to the cold hell on his own marriage plate. Wyatt has to know he can be alone by himself rather being alone in a marriage. Doesn't seeing Quinn and Eric happy, or even Maya and Rick happy, make Wyatt feel compelled to get his wife's head out of his mother's butt and back into their marriage?
Going with Rick and Maya as an example, we all know that Rick can obsess. At the same time, Rick can multitask. He can trick his father, run a company, keep two households with two women, and still manage to stick it to Ridge. So what's wrong with Steffy that she can't be in her home with her husband while all of this with Quinn is going on? Liam needs to think about that, too, if he's still interested in her. Funny, he's been missing for weeks now, and Steffy isn't the slightest bit worried about where he is or if Quinn abducted him again.
Maybe it's time for Steffy to see a psychiatrist about her Quinn obsession. It's made Steffy delusional. Even though Eric stood there -- before he fell, that is -- and told Steffy and Ridge that they were the ringleaders in a stunt that completely broke his heart, Steffy is still blaming Quinn. At the hospital, Steffy yelled that she'd told Wyatt and Quinn that it would happen, and it was the very thing she'd been trying to prevent. She claimed that everything Quinn touched turned to disaster, and Quinn had torn Steffy's family apart.
Steffy even enlisted a nurse to have tests of all medications in the world done on Eric because Steffy believed that Quinn had poisoned Eric. I wonder if Steffy realizes how much like Aly she is acting right now. When Aly ranted and raved about people before her death, Steffy threatened to ship Aly off to Paris and called her disturbed. Remember how sorry the family was back then for not seeing that they all should have treated Aly differently and should have seen that Aly was mental? Well, this is their chance to get it right by Steffy, who's flown over the cuckoo's nest and into outer space.
Steffy is also mental to scream in the middle of the hospital how she doesn't trust Quinn. It's the same place where Ivy screamed that same thing about Steffy! Ironic, huh? It's also ironic that Steffy doesn't trust her mother-in-law/stepgrandma but has no problem with her father-in-law, Bill Spencer. Bill lives to antagonize Steffy's father, dumped her father from a helicopter, goes fisticuffs with her father, and has been out to destroy Forrester before; however, Steffy is fine with him in her life and owning a chunk of the company.
Bill is just as duplicitous and murderous as Quinn -- and Quinn did her dirt for Steffy's benefit, just like Bill. So why is it that Steffy wasn't worried that Bill, the father-in-law who paid a doctor to fake a blood clot in her brain to save her marriage, won't strike again, but she's worried that Quinn would poison Eric at a time that the entire family suspects that she is out to hurt him?
Even if the doctors ran tests on Eric for poison or overdoses, Steffy wouldn't even know what medications he takes and doesn't take. None of the family knew it when he'd been lying on the floor and the paramedics asked. Quinn had to tell them. Some people don't think the family should necessarily know that unless they live with Eric, but come on. Eric is seventy, according to the dialogue, and he's been alone for years. None of those so-called family members checked on him or his health or asked how his checkups went? That's a real shame.
At least the family is paying attention now. Felicia went back home before the collapse, but Thorne's been in Los Angeles all week. It's nice to see all of Eric's sons with him. Marcus is missing, though. Thorne is Eric's first natural-born son, and he should use this tragedy to decide that he, not Ridge, needs to lead the family right now in light of the bad decisions that Ridge made regarding the wedding. Thorne also needs to give Steffy a piece of his mind about her out-of-control temper and impetuousness that ultimately contributed to his daughter's death.
Steffy had the nerve to tell Quinn that disaster followed Quinn, but thinking back on it, disaster follows Steffy. I wrote before about how accident-prone she is from flipping off ATVs, to falling off cliffs, to motorcycle accidents. Steffy's desire to hook up with Bill caused Katie's heart attack. Steffy's constant haranguing of Ivy and ignoring restraining orders led to Ivy falling down the stairs. I'll always wonder what might have happened had Steffy gotten in her car that night on PHP rather than yanking Aly out of Aly's car. But it's that nasty attitude of Steffy's that escalates things to a dangerous place -- if you ask me.
The way Quinn handles Steffy shows growth and change for Quinn, a woman who, if she hadn't changed, would already be muttering bad names for Steffy under her breath and attempting to scare some sense into Steffy with a nice, evening stalk. So far, Quinn hasn't been on the offensive, and she hasn't been defending herself until the end of the week when she said she was starting to care less and less about what Steffy thought.
Quinn accused Steffy of being so obsessed with a past Quinn hardly remembers that Steffy can't even have a good relationship with Eric. If Quinn can't remember it, well, we viewers can. It wasn't that long ago, Quinn. It was earlier this year, in fact. But the truth of the matter is, it was between Quinn and Liam, not Quinn and Steffy. Even so, Quinn has a point. Steffy is like the bitchy Energizer Bunny. She just keeps going and going and going.
Liam said earlier this year that he didn't know if he could deal with Steffy when she's the way she is when on her high horse of hysterics. Back then, Steffy's negative obsession had focused on Ivy. Could that possibly be the reason we haven't seen Liam around? Has Steffy's obsession with Quinn become too much for even him?
Before Quinn and Eric got married, they signed a series of papers in the living room. Quinn looked for all the places to initial and sign without reading the document. Eric appeared to be signing things, too, as the two talked. After the wedding, Eric had two envelopes. One he left on the table at home, and one he took with him to the office. Before passing out, he held up the envelope and said that once he signed "this," he and Quinn would be married.
At the mansion, Carter "found" the other envelope while taking it upon himself to look through papers sitting around the mansion. The package had Ridge's name on it, signifying that it probably is the power of attorney agreement. When Carter read the document, he seemed shocked, leading me to believe that Eric has given his power of attorney to Quinn.
There should be a third envelope around there somewhere, and it should have the prenuptial agreement in it -- unless it was also in the envelope that Eric had taken to the office before he collapsed. The mere fact that Quinn didn't destroy any of the papers or make sure that the marriage certificate was filed first thing ought to prove she isn't out for money and the company.
According to spoilers, Carter will have second thoughts about going along with Ridge. What do you think it means, and what is going on with Eric's envelopes? Will it be revealed that Eric and Quinn are not legally married, but Quinn has Eric's power of attorney? Is it possible that the power of attorney paperwork is still blank, and Ridge convinces Carter to let Ridge place his name on the blank line?
Ridge will be up to something. It's for sure now that R.J. has Brooke off making sandwiches somewhere instead of getting married and getting stock. B&B is casting a new doctor, for Eric, no doubt. Will Ridge use the doctor to have Eric declared mentally incapacitated? The family feels horrible about the way they've treated Eric, so if Ridge makes another move against Eric, will the Forresters go along with it again or side with Eric the next time?
If Ridge succeeds in pulling off the great paper caper with Eric's envelopes, he probably no longer needs Brooke to get married -- unless he just wants Bill's stock for good measure. Maybe if Ridge has Eric's controlling interest in Forrester, Ridge will be more vocal against Brooke's wedding -- for R.J.'s sake of course.
Caroline is set to return in October, and if it's true, will she arrive just in time to fill in as the fourth wheel of the Brill versus Bridge competition? If not, the new Tasha romance is looking for its third wheel, so Caroline could fit in there.
In other tidbits, Ivy will be taking another shot at Liam soon. What she ought to do is take shots at her family for not informing her that Uncle Eric is in the emergency room. Maybe Ivy really is only a plant in the room to her family. Except for her saying "Uncle Eric," we barely even see evidence that she is a Forrester. It would serve Steffy right if Ivy actually piques Liam's interest because of Steffy's inability to multitask and juggle her hatred, marriage, and affair at once.
Also missing from the drama surrounding the patriarch are Eric's new in-laws. Isn't it kind of strange that Eric didn't invite the Avants to the wedding? Julius would have shown up in his best golf shoes. It was also strange that Katie didn't attend. Isn't she at the house for the holidays? Why not the wedding? Zende was dressed for the wedding, but missing from his ensemble was his scarf of a his girlfriend, who's normally draped around his neck.
It's odd not to see Nicole there to support her man and her sister through the Eric crisis. I'll assume that Vivienne is watching Lizzie -- even though God knows we haven't seen that child since the christening. All night, Maya has been waiting around at the office for word about Eric, but we didn't see her so much as text or make one phone call about her new baby.
It was a great week. Viewers got treated to emotional and guttural acting from the entire cast. It was the first time in a long time that we saw different characters interacting with each other. We enjoyed a full week with Winsor Harmon. Lawrence Saint-Victor's Carter Walton showed up at the end of the week to bring us the cliffhanger about Eric's legal paperwork. B&B got it right this week. More angst, more drama, more emotion, and no triangles! Perfect! More please!
Let us know what you think about the week and what your take is on the Forrester civil war brewing in L.A. Should Eric be hurt that his entire family boycotted the wedding, or should he have expected the no-shows? Do you agree that Quinn has brought a lot of hurt to the Forrester family, or really, was it mostly centered on Liam? And lastly, do you think Quinn has changed, or are Steffy and Ridge right about trying to defuse Quinn, who's just a ticking time bomb?
Until we meet to dish again, may all your paperwork be signed, sealed, and delivered before you confront your family, and like Eric, may all your fainting spells be bold and beautiful, baby!
What are your thoughts on The Bold and the Beautiful? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
