Congratulations to the Bold and the Beautiful for taking home Emmys for their enthralling work in 2019. B&B won an award for its writing, and Heather Tom racked up another leading actress victory. These trophies remind us that writing and acting fit together like puzzle pieces in unfurling, dramatic storytelling. Each piece hinges upon characterization, and Heather Tom has been blessed to play the dynamic, multilayered Katie Logan.
During Soap Central's interview of Heather Tom following her win, the topic of characterization came up. Tom stated that, to make Katie work as a character, Tom keeps herself in the moment. She draws upon Katie's history and circumstances to deliver reliable and powerful glimpses into Katie's psyche. According to Tom, "'It's easier sometimes, I think, to put yourself in that character's shoes, because the character kind of has a life of her own.'"
Boy, oh, boy, does Katie have a life of her own. It's a life steeped in triumph, rife with mistakes, flooded with love, and forever wilting in the shadow of her glamorous sisters. Heather Tom builds upon all the calamity that is Katie to render us the real, heart-pounding, poignant, joyous, and earth-shattering life of the underdog Logan.
It's one thing to recognize actors for being the best in a leading or supporting role. It's another to award a character for the traits that help that actor embody the character. As we celebrate the writers who created Katie Logan and the actress who brings her to life, let's get two scoops deep into rewarding Katie for the attributes that make her an astounding fictional woman to play.
Katie Logan Spencer: Most outstanding alcoholic in a drama series
From Macy, to Brooke, to Bill, to Deacon, to Taylor, the Bold and Beautiful has had its share of alcoholics. Unlike characters whose addictions were plot-based, Katie's alcoholism stemmed from the confluence of her desperate past and present need for validation. Ever since she was an acne-prone teen, she has felt as if she was the ugly duckling of her family. Her marriage to Bill validated her and gave her first place after a lifetime of coming in third to Brooke and Donna. Bill eventually shattered that safety net with his involvement with Brooke.
In conjuring Katie's inner drunk, Heather Tom probably honed in on Katie's insecurities and her humiliation that, even after she took Bill back, he still had eyes for Brooke. In my view, Katie manifested her paranoia about Bill and Brooke into reality because, even though he was still attracted to Brooke, he chose to fight for his marriage to Katie. Katie, however, insisted that something was happening between Brooke and Bill when it wasn't --until it finally was.
Katie's drinking and erratic behavior drove Bill to Brooke during Katie's alcoholism storyline just as much as Katie's fear of dying had driven him and Brooke together during Katie's postpartum storyline. In this manner, Katie is often her own foil, and in the drinking plot, Tom took full advantage of it to make Katie into a simultaneously pathetic and sympathetic drunk. In fact, many viewers sided with Katie, accusing Brooke and Bill of gaslighting her. One sign of a great soap character is the ability to draw out varying opinions and emotions. It's second nature for Katie.
The writers upped the ante for Katie, who had no business drinking with a borrowed heart and son to think of. Katie was so far gone that she hid liquor in granola bar boxes and crawled on the floor to drink from broken glass. Katie fell apart as she tried to maintain her craziness. In the end, Katie found her sanity when the thing she'd been unwittingly willing into existence finally happened, and she declared that she wasn't crazy because the affair had been going on the entire time.
Head spinning yet? Mine was at the time the plot aired, and it spins every time I think of this plot. That's what happens when an award-winning actress takes on the ironclad writing for a complex character who turns into a paranoid drunk, right?
Katie Logan Spencer: Best disgruntled ex-wife in a drama series
Katie Logan is a character of incredible contradictions. Her insecurities in life make her an overachiever. Oftentimes, she comes out on top in battle -- even if only by heart attack default. Just ask Steffy Forrester, the young vixen who couldn't steal Bill away from his sickly older wife or ask Brooke, who lost Ridge to Katie's fake heart trouble antics. Katie knows how to play dirty, but when pitted against her male equivalent, Bill Spencer, it was a War of the Roses that eventually ended with Bill and Katie each on the losing end of the war.
During Bill and Katie's first divorce, we got to see just how much of a deliciously "nasty woman" Katie can be. I can imagine that Heather Tom loved every moment of channeling Katie's inner bitch to give Bill exactly what he deserved for impregnating her sister. For a good girl, Katie can be very manipulative. Take, for example, her divorce request for only one percent of Bill's 50 percent stake in Spencer. To Bill, it probably seemed like a divorce bargain -- until Katie ousted him from the company by combining her one percent with the 50 percent stake belonging to Bill's estranged sister, Karen.
Katie tried to control Bill through his business and custody of Will. She even used spy cameras to monitor Bill and Brooke's activities together after they swore they weren't in a relationship. Just like when Katie became an alcoholic, she didn't believe them. A fed-up Bill found the cameras. He gave up fighting for his family and openly pursued Brooke, which is exactly the same thing that happened to Katie again later when she became an alcoholic.
What makes Katie the best disgruntled ex-wife is that she stood on the thin line between love and hate when the man she loved more than anything betrayed her for one of her sisters, who had both stood in the spotlight for all of Katie's life while Katie had waited in the darkness for someone to notice her. It was as if the same disappointment in high school that happened with Rocco over Donna had manifested itself again in Brooke and Bill.
What do you think? Is Katie defined by her insecurities? Has coming in second to Donna and Brooke in the past caused Katie to make mistakes in her relationship with Bill?
Katie Logan: Best imminently dying character in a drama series
What makes Katie Logan such a vivid, lively character is that death always seems to be right around the corner in her life. If nothing else I said about Katie rings true for her fans, we can all agree that she is defined by the scar on her chest and what it represents. The thing, a mangled line above her breast bone, serves to remind her and viewers that Storm shot her and gave her his own heart to make up for it.
Katie will forever carry the guilt of her brother killing himself to save her, and a part of her must feel as if it all happened because she impulsively ran into Ashley's house and struggled with him for a gun that he hadn't even known was loaded at the time. As it always seems in Katie's life, her impetuous decisions cause deep pain for herself and her family. Had Storm really carried a gun to Ashley's home to harm her? Would the gun have even gone off, injuring Katie, if she had given Storm a chance to explain why he'd been there with it?
Since then, Katie has had countless brushes with death as her body continues to acclimate, even to this day, to her brother's heart. She hasn't been ashamed to use it in matters of the "heart," either. Pardon the pun. As I stated before, a heart attack saved her marriage to Bill from Steffy. Faking a heart attack won Katie a chance to steal Ridge from Brooke. Additionally, a struggle with her body rejecting the heart gave Katie the perfect opportunity to appropriate Bridget's man, Nick, as Bridget worked to save Katie's life.
If Katie was a cat, she'd have at least six lives left, and that excludes the one Katie's niece, Flo, saved by donating a kidney to Katie in 2019. It was that storyline during which Heather Tom drew upon Katie's medical history to deliver tear-inducing depictions of Katie, who believed that her time and luck had run out in the donation department and who was terrified of being a Frankenstein who's down with OPP -- other people's parts.
Making another impulsive decision -- this time out of care for her fellow dying woman -- Katie jumped to the side of Sally Spectra's deathbed and unwittingly helped Sally dupe Wyatt and the Forresters into believing that Sally was dying. Katie flies to the rescue without thinking, and that sometimes has disastrous results. I wonder how Katie will feel if anything bad happens to Flo, the only living legacy of Storm's, if Flo is injured or killed or dies due to Sally and Penny's antics.
Once again, congratulations, Heather Tom, on your Emmy win. Thank you for bringing to life the complex, fierce, and feisty Katie Logan who is written by the Emmy-winning writing team of the Bold and the Beautiful. Viewers, please let us know your take on Katie Logan in the Comments section below, and let us know what you'd like to see next for Katie when broadcasting resumes.
In a look ahead: Showdown week
There's good news about the production of our favorite soap. B&B is back on set and filming new scenes for us! In the meantime, the producers will continue to entertain us with theme weeks of classic episodes. Hold onto your fannies as we blast into "showdown" week. Click here to get the scoop on which showdowns the producers chose for the week. Be warned: We only got three showdowns because two of them are so big that they occur over two episodes each.
If B&B is willing to entertain broadcasting several consecutive episodes per theme week, I know of one epic showdown that would take a week to highlight, and I'd be there with wrinkle-free clothes on to see it again. I'm talking about the retelling of the battle for the BeLieF formula, an explosive war that changed the landscape of Forrester for years in the aftermath.
Below are five plot/scene summations that should undoubtedly be included in a week highlighting the BeLieF showdown. In fact, the BeLieF storyline was so explosive, showdowns happened almost daily. Unfortunately, I do not know the original airdates of the scenes below, but the plot occurred in the summer of 1993 between episodes 1573 and 1602.
In the first episode of the proposed BeLieF re-airing, Brooke confronts Stephanie, Ridge, and Eric about their deception regarding Brooke's rights to BeLieF. Ripping up the contract Ridge tricked her into partially signing, Brooke warns that there will be changes, and the Forresters better be ready for them.
In the second episode to re-air, Sheila becomes aware of how broke her hubby Eric will be once Brooke is done with him. During a confrontation with Stephanie over the patent feud, Sheila declares that she is the one who must save the entire family from Brooke.
In the third episode to re-air, we learn that Brooke acquired her own patent for BeLieF. Jaws drop as she reveals her offer to sell it to Forrester. Enraged by Brooke's demand for 51 percent of Forrester Creations, Eric throws Brooke out of his office.
In the fourth episode, Brooke offers to give up BeLieF in exchange for an apology from Stephanie. Stephanie obliges, but before Brooke signs away the formula, Brooke's "masseur" arrives. Conner figures out that the so-called masseur is really Eric's lawyer, and the meeting devolves into a slap feast between Stephanie and Brooke.
In the final episode, although Stephanie offers her shares of Forrester to Brooke in exchange for BeLieF, Brooke determines that there is only one way to get everything she truly wants. Brooke takes controlling interest in Forrester and declares that the family will work for her from now on.
In addition to the BeLieF showdown, there are a couple more must-see-again showdowns on my list. There was the incident when Kimberly Fairchild shoved Brooke through a glass window. At the end of the "Adam and Eve" storyline, there was the scene where Liam confronted Quinn about his kidnapping, and we didn't know if he'd kiss her or strangle her. Lastly, I'd love to see Hope smash that golf club through Bill Spencer's window again, wouldn't you?
Let us know what you think in the Comments section below, and until we scoop again, stay bold and beautiful and safe, baby!
Chanel
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