People in Los Angeles have forgotten how to handle secrets, unwanted people from the past, and typos on paperwork. What happened to the good old days of locking your wife in the attic when you want her to keep quiet about your secrets? Got a document-signing problem? Trick the person into thinking they are signing something different. Want to get rid of someone from your past? Abduct them and store them in the Psycho house at a theme park.
Nowadays, people want to be all levelheaded and reasonable about it. They want to be honest and talk out their contract issues, convince people of the wisdom of secrets, and give murderers from their pasts a second chance. And we wonder why L.A.'s going to hell in a handbasket.
Ridge and Quinn managed to keep their secret safe by letting the cuckoo-for-a-career Katie have a new job at Forrester. Little do they know, the dope on patrol Charlie is seething about the lipstick napkin, and Sheila wants to hear all about it. Ridge should have hired an Uber car to drive Sheila from the mansion and into the nearest boiling cauldron when he had the chance. Now his only hope of ridding himself of his ex Step-Mommy Dearest might be if Pam shoves a lemon bar in Charlie's mouth and duct tapes it shut before he tells Sheila all about Eric's not-so-faithful wife and son.
In other news, Carter needs a date because he has too much time on his hands. Weddings and Forrester work is slow, so he created a third job for himself -- copy-editing the "covfefe" out of old contracts that should have been filed and forgotten already.
What is covfefe? It's a typo made in a historical record that goes uncorrected for a long time. It can also be an expletive and a synonym for anything you don't like, understand, or feel like dealing with. Because Lizzy's adoption papers were loaded with covfefe, Carter drafted new paperwork and gave it to Rick and Maya to have Nicole sign.
In my opinion, covfefes are like dogs. Sometimes, it's best to let the sleeping covfefe lie -- and in this case, by lie, I mean at the bottom of a shredder bin. Call me a bad sister, but why didn't the diabolic duo of the past, Rick and Maya, slip those papers into the nearest, quietest shredder and swear Carter to client-attorney confidentiality before he ran his mouth to Julius?
The least Rick and Maya could have done was to hold off on talking to Nicole until she could better ingest the news. It wasn't like Lizzy was in mortal danger if Nicole didn't sign that instant. Well, they didn't shred the papers or wait, and now we are two scoops deep in the war between the Forresters and Avants this week on The Bold and the Beautiful.
FYI, Carter, your paperwork still ain't right
Okay, Carter, how are going to go all grammatical and all punctuational on Lizzy's adoption paperwork, but you still got one of the main facts on the contract wrong? Why is Eric Forrester Jr. listed as the adoptive father of his own biological child? By Nicole's name, it says birth mother, and there is no other slot for a signature for a birth father.
What kind of covfefe is that? And right after Father's Day? Rick is Lizzy's pappy. He isn't Lizzy's adoptive pappy. He's her birth pappy, and that's all there is to it. Rick needed to put these ratchet documents in the shredder like I said. No one would even be the wiser -- or questioning his and Maya's parenthood.
While I'm at it, what does the child's birth certificate say? According to Google University, which you guys know I always consult before rendering my unprofessional, unlicensed legal and medical opinions, Rick and Maya should already be on the birth certificate as the parents. It's a Google fact consistent with the scene of Rick and Maya handling the birth certificate at Eric's house.
After Lizzy was born, it seemed to take forever for Maya and Rick to name the baby. When they announced the name at the mansion, Rick handed the birth certificate to Nicole and asked if she liked the name written there. I'm assuming that Rick had the certificate in his possession because he and Maya were filling it out as the parents.
Even if Maya isn't on the birth certificate as the legal mother, Rick must be listed as the father. So I don't know why this is even a thing. Rick is the biological father, and he has custody of Lizzy. Maya might need adoption papers to be legally the mother, but Rick doesn't need anything more than the birth certificate to make decisions for Lizzy. It would seem to me that if Nicole wanted to change that, she is the one who needs to go to court to get custody rights.
Rick is mad as hell about Nicole refusing to sign papers that I don't think he even needs. It looked like his head might pop off his neck when he heard of Nicole's refusal. He marched right in the office and told that sister-in-law surrogate exactly what she was going to do. Rick was going ham, and I don't even blame him. Don't birth mothers get only six months to renege on adoptions? Nicole's trying to do it at almost fourteen months over some uncrossed T's!
If I was Rick, I would have been like, "Look -- I gave your blackmailing ass a job. I gave your sister's toilet-diving ass a job when you asked me to. I let you live in my house and took you with me to live in my mama's house, too. I even took your ungrateful, sideways-wig-wearing butt to Hawaii. And you know what else? I paid for your wedding. I sure did, and your honeymoon, too. Do you really think Zende has two nickels to rub together, Nicole? Do you? And where do you think you're gonna live with Lizzy, huh? In my father's house? Are you crazy or what? Man, I'm done talking. Where's my gun? I will shoot up this place if you gonna act all entitled like Caroline! Now, tell me, Nicole, you gonna sign the papers, or is Rick Forrester gonna have to cap a bitch?"
But I'm not Rick, and Rick was nowhere near as real and as raw with Nicole as he needed to be. He did ask her the question I've wanted to know from Lizzy's birth all the way up until about three weeks ago. "Do you ever even think about her?" Rick asked.
All offended, Nicole yelled back that she did, and she got on her "blah-blah-blah" horse about carrying Lizzy inside her and how Rick didn't know how it felt. All I could think of was how, after Lizzy was born, Nicole acted like she'd handed in her project to her professor, and she was onto the next assignment -- keeping Sasha away from Zende. Nicole was not studying Lizzy one bit.
I remember discussing in the Two Scoops column how strangely divorced Nicole seemed from Lizzy. I gave up on seeing the storylines I'd imagined would spin off from the birth. The one where I thought Rick and Nicole might bond over the baby, freezing Maya out. Or the one where Nicole wouldn't stop trying to also mother Lizzy, and Maya and Nicole would have to work it out. Instead, we got another surrogacy storyline in which Nicole was about to do it all over again.
Nicole would have popped out enough babies to make Maya a football team, and Nicole wouldn't give one single child a thought because she believed she could have her own. At the mere possibility that she "might not" be able to carry another, Nicole wants to tear Lizzy's family apart and rescind the great gift she'd been praised for selflessly giving. And with that, Nicole just became a candidate for Worst Mother of the Year.
Nicole wants to believe that Lizzy called her mama. The first time one of my nieces said the word while I was babysitting, I very quickly said, "I'm not your mama. I'm Aunt Nel." I bet two dollars, cold, hard cash, that if Nicole didn't know she couldn't have children, she'd do the same thing. Not only that, Nicole would tell Maya how Lizzy was asking for Maya while Maya was out. But, no. Nicole can't have kids, so of course when Lizzy says "mama," something Maya's probably been teaching her for weeks, it has to be because Nicole's there.
Rick tried to talk some sense into Nicole, and everything he said was right. Nicole might be able to have a child, even if she can't carry it. Nicole could get a surrogate today if she wanted to. But instead, she chooses to sulk and cry and go back on her word to Maya and Rick.
I want to know what happened to the woman who told Dr. Caspary that she didn't accept the prognosis, and she was giving her husband a child of his own. Well, Nicole, I gotta tell you. Lizzy ain't his child. Lizzy is his uncle's child, and if you recall, Zende didn't really appreciate you being pregnant with his uncle's baby. Remember that, Nicole? Now, you want him to raise that baby? Did Nicole even ask him first? No, as usual.
Rick told Nicole that she'd never take Lizzy away from him. I don't see how any judge who reviews the totality of this case would let Nicole have Lizzy. Carter's original paperwork, even with its errors, spells out Nicole's intent, which was to let Maya adopt Lizzy and to relinquish full custody to Rick and Maya. There are numerous witnesses to Nicole's intent not only to give Lizzy to Rick and Maya but to give them another baby, too, before her boyfriend changed her mind. Nicole has had no motherly interest in the child for a year, and the new interest only developed when Nicole learned she might not be able to carry a child.
While a judge might deem Nicole the "legal" mother, Maya will still be the aunt and stepmother. The only thing Nicole can gain from this is some type of custody arrangement with Rick. Is she really willing to put Lizzy in the position of being carted across the hall, from room to room, all the time? "According to the custody agreement, Lizzy sleeps down the hall with us tonight." Or have these couples been living in separate mansions after Nicole and Zende's wedding?
Maybe Nicole isn't thinking clearly and will ultimately sign the papers, but if that's the case, she needs to get her mind right quick. As I already stated, the goal was supposed to be to give Zende his own child, not his uncle's child. Nicole seems to be forgetting Zende in all this and only thinking of her own loss. If Nicole insists on making this into every parent for himself, then maybe Zende needs to see if Sasha might want to again consider having his kid.
I was glad to see Rick assert his fatherhood. I was equally glad to see Zende assert himself as a husband when he set Rick straight about how Rick was talking to Zende's wife. I wanted to see Rick do the same thing when Julius was up in Maya's face, but in Rick's absence, Zende had enough protection to go around. He stood up for Maya, too.
The storyline is complicated. There is no wrong person in it at this point. However, I find it hard to agree with Nicole. She went headstrong into the decision to have Lizzy for Maya, no matter what the outcome would be. No matter who warned her, no matter if Zende left her, Nicole would have that baby for Maya. Not for herself -- for Maya. Though I think Maya guilted Nicole into it and Nicole was too young to make the choice, Nicole had enough people advising her not to do it. She did it, anyway, so she has to live with that, regardless of typos on a contract. Just like Zende said, Nicole needs to be a woman of her word.
Zende is being a valiant supporter of his wife, even though he doesn't agree with what she wants to do. Zende is usually in just such a position with Nicole. In the end, he has to suck it up and accept what she chooses -- after he gets a little attention from his sidepiece. So Nicole had better be on the lookout for the cheating. He's right to urge his wife to remember that the doctor did not say it was impossible, and he's probably right that stress could prevent conception.
There are only two things I disagree with Zende on. One, while he's being optimistic, he might want to tone it down a little. All the talk of miracles made me start to see it as insurmountable for even a soap character. He should be hopeful but also stay grounded. Two, I disagree that Julius needs to stay out of it.
A lot of people might be hissing right now, but hear me out. Whatever you think Julius is, he is their father. I have an older sister, and when Zende tried to tell Julius to butt out, I thought of how I would react if her husband (or mine if I ever get one) told my father to butt out of whatever was going on with me and my sister. No, no, no, no. Uh-uh. That would not fly.
In that moment, I saw how complicated this plot is. You have two sisters who are fighting over the baby. You have a parent who wants to do the right thing for his children. You have two husbands who want the right thing for their wives, and one of those husbands has to do the right thing for his own daughter.
Many people think Julius favors Nicole, and that might be so. However, it goes back to understanding the pain Julius is in for losing his son. If we must feel sorry for Nicole that she can't have her own child, and if we empathize with Nicole for feeling that she lost Lizzy, then how can we not empathize with Julius for losing his son, Myron?
I don't want to steep that tea for too long. We've been over the issues Julius has with Maya being transgender already. My point right now is that it might seem that he favors Nicole because of those issues, but it also might be that he felt it was wrong from the beginning to ask a virgin to give up her firstborn to her sister. If Nicole proves that she isn't capable of the sacrifice, is rectifying matters as simple as Maya giving Lizzy to Nicole?
When Julius asked Maya if she could give Nicole what Nicole had given Maya, the story came full circle. It's a simple question, and Maya answered, sobbing that Lizzy was her baby. You know what it reminded me of? The biblical story of the two mothers who fought over the child, and the king decided to cut the baby in half to satisfy both mothers.
Here's the critical question: which one is the mother who lets the baby be cut in half and which is the mother who gives up the baby to the other woman to spare the baby's life?
About that duct tape and Uber escort....
It's too late for Maya and Rick to take a shredder to the adoption paperwork, but Ridge can still arrange that Uber cab for Sheila once he finds out that she's still lurking around town. Pam might still need to lemon bar duct-tape Charlie's mouth shut unless his uncanny detective skills alert him to the danger of revealing secrets to Sheila Carter.
Il Giardino must be the place to meet new people and get the dirt on Ridge. Katie met Dr. Wolin there and learned Ridge's paternity secret. Rick said some of his friends had seen Ridge with Dr. Wolin at the restaurant before Wolin's demise. Sheila met Charlie there after overhearing a mysterious conversation between Pam and Charlie about lipstick, napkins, Quinn, and Ridge. "More harm than good, Charlie..." Pam warned him. "More harm than good."
I'm going to act like Charlie isn't still hanging onto that napkin conspiracy but has no suspicion about why Brooke and Ridge never got married or why Katie was suddenly working in the jewelry department with absolutely no experience in jewelry. Speaking of which, I'm going to act like Eric didn't say there was no job to give Katie outside of jewelry, but Wyatt's job has been vacant since his divorce.
I'm rooting for Charlie because it's about time Quinn and Ridge got caught. They've become about as hot as ice cubes in the deep freezer, and their chemistry fizzled when Brooke called off the wedding, stranding the plot. Katie's bout of craziness made everything bizarre. The secret has been going on for so long that I really don't even give a damn anymore if Eric finds out or not, especially if Eric is so stupid to play with cobras like Sheila.
It took Ridge and Quinn about seven months just to roll around on a bed together. I repeat: seven months just to roll around on it. This is worse than waiting for Hope to give Liam her virginity, and we all know how anticlimactic that was, no matter how many fireworks popped off over the beach.
The storyline seems to be morphing into Quinn losing Eric to Sheila to free Quinn to be with Ridge. Deacon already got shoved under a bus for Sheila. Do we really want to see Eric under one, too? Because that's the only way Eric is going to actually forget about all the things Sheila did and fall for her again.
Sheila shot up Eric's living room on two occasions, wounding Stephanie, Taylor, and Brooke. She rigged a paternity test, robbing Eric of time with Bridget. She had terrorists abduct Brooke and Ridge, and these are just the crimes Eric knows she committed. These are not crimes one can just apologize for and then reclaim the family matriarch position, either.
There aren't enough redemption or rewrites in the universe to make Sheila go from villain to heroine. I heard a rumor that there might be a crossover between B&B and Y&R. I'm guessing it has to do with cleaning up that face-off storyline involving Sheila and Phyllis. Try as you may, Bell, but there are some things that veteran soap viewers cannot unsee. As for the rest, it is forever chronicled here on soapcentral.com for any curious new fan to read.
I can think of other things that need clearing up in Los Angeles before they bother people from Genoa City. Things such as why Brooke acted like Sheila was apologizing for stepping on Brooke's toe. Sheila was standing there, groveling and bowing, and I was waiting on Brooke to get that incredulous look on her face and say, "Apologize? Bitch, you shot me! This isn't a tattoo. It's a bullet hole. And what about Taylor? You killed her for like ten years of her kids' lives!"
Don't courts hand out life sentences for attempted murder? I'm not buying it if Sheila says she got "time off for good behavior," either. Sheila should have been on good behavior before she shot Taylor and Brooke. Where was all that good behavior when she set those bees loose on Lance?
I don't think Sheila has paid, and I don't think Sheila is stable, either. In fact, I'm still waiting on someone to be smart enough to check her prison record and find out if she's even supposed to be out of jail. I don't trust Lieutenant Baker, who didn't even have sense enough to sweep Eric's entire neighborhood for the suspected shooter. I mean, what was Deacon doing? Smoking, drinking, and peeing behind a tree in Katie's yard the whole time police searched the area?
Eric doesn't believe that Sheila has anything to do with the Deacon insanity, but why do I have the nagging feeling that the next stop on Sheila's L.A. tour is to Deacon's bail bondsman? How is it that Deacon and Sheila never crossed paths when each one was sneaking around in Katie's yard, hiding from cops? I recall that Katie's property isn't supposed to be as big as Eric's, but Deacon acted like it was huge, despite the small, condoish feel it has to it. Who knows, maybe drunk Deacon didn't even know whose yard he was creeping in. Did they even find his rifle?
Bill said Deacon had called him, looking for bail. Bill guessed Deacon thought history would repeat itself. Wyatt didn't get what Bill meant, and Bill did not elaborate. Surprising, though, isn't it, that Hope or Liam never told Wyatt about Bill and Deacon's Italy arrangement? They could have had some group therapy and family bonding at the same time if they'd traded "what Bill did to me" stories.
Bill tried to bond with Wyatt by listing things Bill thought would actually kill Quinn: silver bullet or a stake -- if she actually has a heart. Wyatt didn't appreciate the jokes. Quinn does have a heart, and it has room for three: Eric, Wyatt, and Ridge. Quinn claims to love Ridge. Is it true, or is she just a puppy following home another guy who decided not to kick her?
Sally and Thomas are all wet
Why was it that the only thing interesting to me about Thomas and Sally this week was Thomas' chest? I guess the writers knew it would be for many, and it was why he was working shirtless all week in the heat at Spectra, whose air conditioner was broken. A hundred thousand dollars only goes so far, Bucko. Thomas is getting a taste of how it is to live without privilege and to date women who wear fugly grandma bras.
Thomas admitted that he hadn't known how hard it would be to get attention for Spectra. What's wrong, Thomas? Your baby mama won't help you get stores on the phone or convince her mothers to give your new girlfriend's business some reviews and articles in a Spencer magazine? Thomas should have thought of that when he left Caroline in New York and then snatched Bill's building out from under him.
Thomas claims he loves slumming. He was so bored working on couture, but working with Sally teaches him what it's like to be a regular person whose phone calls no one wants to return. Thomas didn't know how to thank her for saving him from the superior Forrester life. You say that now, Thomas, but just wait until you walk back into a building with central air and see a woman in real lingerie from Brooke's Bedroom. You acted this same way about Douglas, and look where that went. Absolutely nowhere.
What's said in the design office gets blabbed outside the design office
Coco isn't in the spying business anymore, but she sure is in the run-her-mouth business. Did I hear wrong, or did Nicole tell Coco that no one knew the things Nicole was confiding in Coco? Didn't Coco reply that what was said in that room stayed in that room? Okay...then why did Coco run her mouth to Zende and R.J. about what Nicole was going through? "Oh, Zende, she told me not to tell you, but..." Coco, telling a wife's secrets to her husband is not what friends are for.
Coco is becoming invested in Nicole's sorrows, and I hope it doesn't make Coco decide that she can solve them by being Nicole's surrogate. That's just history repeating itself, except with Nicole's egg. Nicole would be no kind of friend if she let Coco risk giving away what might turn out to be the only child she can give birth to, just as Nicole might have done by giving away Lizzy.
In a look ahead
The fourth of July might spark off another cast photo shoot as Steffy contemplates a new swimwear line. It might be Katie's first stab at a marketing campaign. Katie will lean on Wyatt for advice. I guess she learned her lesson about thinking she knows everything already from the waist chain fiasco. Rumor has it that Wyatt will lean on Katie, too, because he's still limping over his heartbreak with Steffy.
Three words, Wyatt -- get over it. Can Katie help him do it, and how will Quinn feel when Katie goes from spending time with Quinn's husband to hanging out with Quinn's son? Some think it might be the rise of Kyatt or Wyatie. Whether it is or not, it's sure to raise Quinn's blood pressure. How's Bill gonna like Wyatt screwing around with Bill's ex-wife at Bill's beach house? No women have ever been off-limits with the Spencer men before, so I doubt Katie will be now.
Let us know what you think. Should Rick be worried about adoption papers when he is Lizzy's biological father? Is Maya capable of giving Nicole the same gift that Nicole gave Maya by returning to Nicole the only Avant child that Maya might ever have? Will we ever tire of seeing Thomas topless?
Until we scoop again, if you gotta be at work with your bra exposed, that bra had better be bold and beautiful, baby!
Chanel
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