Has your week been bold and beautiful? Did you do your grandmother proud? Did you answer your own question in terms of your relationship? Did news of your private situation spread so fast you felt you were on one of those old-time party lines? These and more situations faced the Forrester-Logan-Walton-Buckingham-Finnegan clan this week!
It's not only the door that's open, Scoopers! Eric opening up his marriage so Quinn can get her sexual needs met continues to generate controversy, but for my money, it's one of the boldest stories this bold and beautiful soap has done in years. As for my jam Sheila, either she really has changed, or she's lost her Sheila mojo right out of the gate. Lots to get to here, so if you're ready, let's Scoop about it!
For a girl who just spent a while getting all flushed thinking about playing doctor with Dr. Finn, Paris suddenly seemed totally into Zende when she visited his fineness at the office. But we soon found out why. When Zende was curious about how long his boo was planning to crash at the Finnegans' pad in Mali-boo, Paris revealed that she was packing it in. She was even closing in on getting her own place!
I was sure that "own place" would end up being Zende's, but it seems Paris was genuinely talking about separate accommodations. Zende asked, "Why now?" Paris would only say that it was time. Of course, Zende already knew Paris was crushing hard on Finn, so I'm sure it wasn't hard for Master Forrester-Dominguez to read between the lines.
But I have to say, it's refreshing to see someone on this show not act on their hormonal leanings. So refreshing! It would have been easy for Paris to stick around Sinn's house and eventually act on her attraction to Finn, and/or for Finn to turn to Paris romantically out of frustration over Steffy's anti-Sheila stance. That the show didn't go there is pretty amazing, actually. It also makes one wonder why Paris was planted at the cliff house in the first place, but what can you do?
To say Steffy was not having Sheila being in her house is the understatement of this and any other century. Sheila bleated on about how she just wanted to see her son and hold her grandson. Sheila should have known that wouldn't fly, because she'd promised she'd split after seeing her son and holding her grandson the first time. But Sheila kept trying to reach Steffy, "woman to woman" and "mother to mother."
At least we finally found out Steffy had a guard at the gate for Sheila to get past...although I don't recall ever seeing a gate in the cliff house's establishing shots. Oh, well. Sheila tried it, but Steffy, in her Ariana Grande ponytail, held her ground to the point I thought Steffy was going to whip Sheila with said ponytail. Steffy warned Sheila she had five seconds to get the hell out of her house!
"One thousand one..." Sheila counted. "One thousand two...one thousand three...or what?" she asked with that trademark flash of anger. I gotta admit, there was a lot of snappy dialogue like that this week, at least early in the week. What I don't understand is why Steffy didn't just pick up the phone and call the cops! Sheila would either have tried to wrest the phone away from Steffy or just run away.
Instead, Steffy continued to engage Sheila, but with a toughness I don't know that I ever even saw from her namesake. Soap gods know how Sheila might have fared with latter-day Gangsta Granny Stephanie, but in the show's heyday, Sheila always came out on top with La Forrester, no matter how much Stephanie held her ground. That Steffy came off so fierce with Sheila was an interesting surprise.
First, there was the war of words. Steffy reminded Sheila that Sheila had made the choice to put Finn up for adoption then Steffy observed that Sheila was still living the same pattern over and over again. Sheila kept trying to say she had changed, but Steffy sniffed, "Nice try" and proclaimed Sheila "so fake!" Steffy turned up the heat, though, when she shoved Sheila and told her if she took another step, she'd be sorry!
It's too bad Steffy didn't joke/warn about shooting Sheila again! (You may recall Steffy put a bullet in Sheila's arm during Sheila's 2017 return.) Steffy did not come here to play! And I don't recall Stephanie ever going this far with Sheila. Steffy has definitely upped the game! As for Sheila, she was nice, then she was menacing, then she went back to nice in the same conversation. Pick one, Sheila. Pick one.
This tug of war continued until Finn, who never works anymore, traipsed in from surfing. Sheila again tried to worm her way into Finn's affections, right in front of Steffy, by asking how Finn felt about her, "your mother." After a slight wobble, Finn finally told Sheila she couldn't be there and showed her the door. Dude, it was right out of Sleeping Beauty!
I mean, can't you just see Sheila as the aggrieved sorceress who puts a curse on Hayes because she wasn't included in the family? When Hayes is SORASed to 16 next year, will he prick his finger on a sewing needle at Forrester and fall into a coma? I certainly got that vibe as Sheila slinked back to her hotel and blamed Steffy for keeping her from her newfound relatives, though I still need to see a DNA test.
Next, we saw the hotel manager or whoever he's supposed to be, Keith. (Helloooo, Keith!) When Sheila went into her dance about not being allowed near Finn and Hayes, Keith suggested that Sheila text Finn, which Sheila did. Finn got the message while hanging out with Hope, of all people. Finn read his phone and admitted to Hope that he had questions that would only be answered by getting to know Sheila!
But let's backtrack. A text, Sheila? Really? You already did that. I hate to say this, because Sheila was always my favorite character, but she has really lost her edge. She clearly hasn't changed; that was established from the beginning of this arc. And the old Sheila would have already targeted Steffy by poisoning her eyeliner or something. Another text? Dang, Sheila, is that the best you can do?
Katie's sudden chumminess with Eric does rather raise alarm bells. I hope we're not going to find that Eric's ED can be cured with a little love from our acne-free youngest Logan sister. (Yeah, zits were Katie's biggest problem in 1987. B&B is posting its first season on YouTube, and I'm all about that; check out our recaps here.) Eric doesn't really need to win the award for banging all three Logan girls at this stage of his life.
But Katie's visit with Eric did dig deep into an unexpected subject. The neighbors began discussing Katie's fraught relationship with Bill. Would Katie take the Dollah back? Eric wondered. Even though Katie claimed, "I'm conflicted," her true feelings were as clear as a spotlight through the clouds at a Hollywood film premiere. Katie cited Bill's less attractive qualities before recalling how Brooke had come between them.
Katie knew Bill had deemed Brooke the love of his life. Then Katie asked, "Don't I deserve to be the love of someone's life?" Well, there's your answer, Katie. She realized she had tried and failed to change Bill and that a person had to want to change on their own. "Sometimes, I feel like I'm caught in this endless loop," Katie admitted. Word 'em up, y'all! Time to get Katie a new man. Or an old one. Is Rocco still around?
Ridge is way too up in Eric's business, even if he did trade his usual dark duds for an Obama-style tan suit. Ridge told Katie about how he had sicced Justin on Quinn since Justin had owed Ridge a favor. Turning your nemesis into a bloodhound in exchange for kidnapping your son cleans the slate? Well, whatever. Justin indeed caught Quarter making change, which would have been fine...
...except we had to sit through two days of Quinn and Carter essentially begging Justin not to squeal to Ridge. Oddly, the first thing Quarter did was demand why Justin was there and ask who sent him, instead of passing go and going directly to the fact that Eric had suggested and stamped Quinn getting her needs met by Carter. Although Justin got to utter some great zingers, it felt really dragged out to me.
"Eric doesn't roll like that," Justin snarked when Quinn told him about her newly opened marriage. Surprise! He does now! I know a lot of you are still really skeeved out by this twist in Eric's storyline. But ya gotta admit -- B&B's never done anything like it. I think it's fresh and interesting, and the fact that it's a senior, Eric, instigating it is all the more fascinating. Plus, John McCook is turning in one bravura performance after another!
"I'm not asking you to agree with it or condone it," Quinn said to Justin, nay, the whole audience, "but nobody is getting hurt." And that's the thing. As I explained in my last column, I stupidly agreed to an open relationship I didn't want and paid the price. But, had I been down with it, that would have been our business, as long as we weren't hurting each other. That's what y'all need to remember here.
This is truly between Quinn and Eric, and, by extension, Carter. Plus, Quinn's real concern was that Eric would be humiliated if the truth about his erectile dysfunction came out. Having been begged to keep quiet, Justin went back to Forrester to report to Ridge...and finked, anyway! I admit, I wasn't expecting that. Nor was I expecting Ridge and the arriving Brooke to rush out before Justin could relay the entire story.
Bridge ran over to Carter's, where the would-be cheaters explained everything about how Eric had decided to handle his situation. "He's sensitive about it!" Quinn yelled to Ridge. "Wouldn't you be?" (You'd think Ridge would be, having had a vasectomy some years ago because his sperm count plummeted, but you know, what's good for the geese isn't necessarily what's good for the gander and all that.)
Strangely, neither Brooke nor Ridge would take Quarter at their word! Ridge continued to insist he was being lied to, and Brooke actually popped off with, "Eric would never do anything so twisted and sick!" Hey, y'all know I love me some Brooke, to the point I've been accused of being a Logan lover, but Brooke can really say that after having grief sex with Ridge's brother moments after thinking Ridge had gotten fried to death? I mean.
And why is Ridge so indignant? Could it be because he spent a few months kissing Quinn behind Eric's back, and he still feels guilty about it? Of course, B&B rarely mines its history for those kinds of motivations. And before Brooke and Ridge split up to cover more territory, they came around to believing Eric had ED, but not that Eric himself had made other arrangements for his wife.
Brooke flew into the co-CEO's office, slamming down her purse. Katie listened as Brooke railed about Quinn's lie that Eric had given her permission to have sex with Carter. Hold the phone, Katie gently advised her sis. It was true. Brooke couldn't believe Katie was taking Quinn's side! But Katie had just heard Eric's difficult confession and knew Eric had chosen to sacrifice himself to meet Quinn's needs.
Ridge, on the other hand, stormed into the Forrester mansion and kicked Quinn out! Thorsten Kaye being all alpha male gave me ideas, but Ridge is so out of his jurisdiction here. He wants answers about Eric's unhappiness but wouldn't accept the answers he was getting. Ridge wanted to know "what possible reason" there could be for Eric being okay with Quarter's sexing...when Quarter had already told him!
Ridge basically knew it would be emasculating for Eric's ED to be exposed, but Ridge forced a confession out of his not-dad anyway. And then, when Eric laid himself bare to the point Ridge was actually in tears, Ridge turned around and continued his accusation that Quinn was conning Eric! Huh? The tears should have been the end of it. Why are they making Ridge such a d**k about this?
But Eric went one layer deeper into why he had made the choice he had. Ridge had left, "and Thorne, and Kristen, and Felicia, and Rick, and Bridget. Brooke left, Donna left...Stephanie's gone...I don't want to be alone in this house!" Forgetting for a moment that Zende does live there, Eric desperately insisted that he needed Quinn's companionship and that she drove away the dreaded emptiness. That was some powerful ish, y'all!
So, what do you think, Scoopers? Does Eric's true rationale for allowing an open marriage change your mind about his having done it? Did Katie answer her own question when addressing whether or not to take Bill back? And does Sheila need to watch old episodes of herself to relearn how Sheila Carter really handles problems like Steffy? Turn the key in the Comments section below or the Soap Central message boards, or simply click here to submit feedback. Your comments could be in a future column!
If John McCook doesn't win an Emmy for these scenes next year, there's no justice in the universe. The fallout from his ED-influenced decision continues to fall out, so, keep watching, be alert, and most of all, be bold. And for soap's sake, get vaccinated! Because protecting yourselves and others from a virus and its variants is always beautiful.
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