Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Oh, what a relief the truth is! It's satisfying, like popping an eight-month-old pimple. Viewers have been lost in the desert of the baby secret plot for months without so much as a mirage of another plot in sight. It's unbelievable that it's finally winding down. But it's here, folks. Finally, the beginning of the end.
As viewers lost along the way meander back to the show to witness the aftermath, we wonder what it will be like now that Beth has finally been revealed. We want to know if we can ship Flo back to Vegas, if other characters can return to the forefront, and who else will provide the shirtless entertainment if Thomas goes away. I vote for Carter, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We still have to deal with the immediate fallout from the secret.
Hope knows that her baby is alive and in Steffy's care. Beth being with her mother is the right thing. It must happen, but there will be losers as the climax unfurls. Take, for example, Douglas, who many are hailing as the hero in this tale. As Thomas moves closer to his retribution day, concern spreads for what will happen to Douglas when he's back with his psychologically abusive father whom he defied to defend the truth.
There's also Flo. While Hope buys baby booties, Flo will get the boot from Wyatt's beach house, and she probably won't be Hope's assistant at work anymore. It couldn't happen to a bigger scammer, but do people like Steffy deserve the fallout headed her way?
Let's get two scoops deep into the losers and the winners in a storyline in which unveiling the truth doesn't mean justice for all. Let's delve into why the bravest boy on the planet might need witness protection from his father and question how a pervert can look so sexy. It must be Matthew Atkinson and his betrayal of a super-fine but super-disgusting villain on B&B.
It's satisfying to stand up for right and to stick it to the bully, even if the bully happens to be your father. Thomas proved that what mattered to him the most was his Hope fantasy, and subsequently, what mattered the least was Douglas. In contrast, Douglas proved that what mattered to him the most were the principles his mommy taught him, and what mattered the least was anything Thomas had to say about it. With heroism comes sacrifice, and I cringe when I think of what will happen to Douglas when Thomas gets home.
The plot has focused on how depraved Thomas has been to Hope. Flo tries to turn herself into a victim, as does Zoe. Yes, Liam and Hope were robbed -- literally this time. Beth was hosed down and sold off like a pillow-top mattress our girl Shauna spent her Vegas nights on. But what about the most subtle victim, Douglas? He was used, psychologically abused, and bullied so that his father could get his ultimate prize: sex with Hope.
Thomas strong-armed Douglas into keeping silent about Beth and sent the child, laden with a burdensome secret, to spend the night under the same roof as that secret. He didn't bother to check on the child or even tell Steffy where he'd be in case the boy needed him. It's the ultimate mental abuse of a child who struggles with his own morals versus being an obedient child. His distress was compounded by Thomas' threats to not feed him or house him and to abandon him in Los Angeles if he did tell the truth.
Luckily for Douglas, he's a Spencer with the fortitude of his Great Uncle Bill, the investigative skills of a Spencer reporter, and the morals instilled in him by his mother. Douglas investigated the secret before opening his mouth, and when the time was right, he proved that while Thomas "loves" Hope enough to make her his, Douglas loved her enough to set her free.
The irony isn't lost on this scooper that Thomas felt betrayed by Caroline and Ridge keeping his child from him, but that very child prevented Thomas from continuing to do the same thing to Hope and Liam. Thomas was betrayed by the very tool he tried to use to ensnare Hope and the very person he claimed he was doing it all for. Thomas could intimidate adults, but the bravery of his own son drowned out Thomas' darkness, proving that good can come from evil.
Let's not forget, Douglas is part Dollar Bill, too, making Douglas a handsome and cunning foe. Just like his Uncle Bill, who loves to twist the knife in his adversaries, Douglas couldn't resist calling Thomas to reveal exactly what his meanness had gotten him! While Douglas was at it, he should have told his father that he wasn't putting up with any more bowl haircuts, playing chick bait, or pretending to be happy with Thomas' crappy version of Caroline's mac and cheese!
And if Douglas is going to be grateful to anyone for the roof over his head, food on his plate, and toys in his room, he'll be thanking Grandma Brooke and Grandpa Ridge -- not his freeloading father.
Douglas is a Spencer to the mother born, and he easily became Liam's "freaking hero" by standing behind what he knew to be true, even when others told him that it was impossible. I was worried about Douglas getting confused that Beth being alive meant Caroline could be, too, but he perfectly understands that, unlike Beth, Caroline is really dead.
Ridge offered to talk to Douglas about his allegedly baseless statements about Beth. Steffy wanted to defer to Thomas, but Ridge proclaimed that it takes a village to raise a kid. I hope he remembers that when the question of what is to become of Douglas is raised. Even if Thomas isn't sent to jail for Emma's death, he has no business raising Douglas. Many viewers would love to see Douglas raised in L.A., not shipped off to New York or the backburner when it's all over.
While I deem Douglas the biggest winner for his courage to tell the truth, unwavering against the naysaying adults, he might be the biggest loser if the writers send him back to live as normal with Thomas or send him off-screen without addressing the way Thomas bullied him. The best scenario for Douglas' future now that the secret is out -- besides Caroline returning from the dead-- would be learning that Ridge, not Thomas, is Douglas' father. His grandma Taylor returned from the dead twice. Why can't his mother, too?
Liam, Hope, and Douglas are the true victims in the storyline, but as the consequences for the baby-napping go around, faux victims will crop up -- namely Flo and Zoe. Unfortunately for Zoe, Flo has jumped into the driver's seat of the victims' bus, and she's already throwing her cohorts under that bus instead of letting them in it with her.
It takes a village to raise a kid, but learning that Ridge's kid must have been raised by cultist wolves spurred Flo to finally tell the truth. The Logans gave Flo the lowdown on everything Thomas did dirty in the past -- except his lie about Brooke and the Berry Island sex -- and Flo suddenly became so scared of what Thomas might do in an unknown hotel with Hope that Flo rushed right home to sit on her hands and wait for Wyatt.
You heard me. Flo did not call Hope. She didn't tell anyone else the truth. She didn't try to locate Hope. Instead, she enjoyed a fresh change of clothes and another lovely round of "forget everything you know" with her mother, who actually questioned whether Thomas had threatened Flo. Dumb dumb Shauna probably thinks she has to leave her brain in Vegas just to make sure what happens there stays there.
Flo didn't get to tell Wyatt the truth. As she tried to wrap the truth up in lies and put excuse bows on it, Liam barged in, demanding that she just say it already. The coward that Flo is, she sat there sulking while Wyatt defended her and ordered Liam to stop harassing her.
Really, Wyatt? First of all, why hasn't Wyatt ripped Flo a new one for keeping a secret with Thomas? Why did he crucify Sally about a Thomas secret until the poor girl moved out in tears, but he can't find any courage to flare up his nose at Flo?
When Flo tried to tell Wyatt the secret, he was all, "I don't care what the secret is. I'm sticking with you." Well, I guess he is sticking with her. What choice does he have after he tossed Sally to the curb so hard she bounced? To tell Sally that Flo is no better and try to slink back into Sally's panties? The next time Sally sees him, she should ask him how it feels under that Flo bus.
Wyatt is in good company under there. When Liam asked who else knew what Flo and Reese had done, Flo readily named her colluders, putting the most innocent, living one first. "Xander, Zoe, my mom, Bu the Cat, Emma, the Forrester plants, and Thomas," she revealed.
Flo made a point of noting that Thomas had threatened that she'd end up like Emma if she squealed. I hope the little hint that Emma's death might have been foul play resonates with Liam or Wyatt. Emma deserves better than to be a headstone footnote in this storyline.
In Flo's version of events, Flo was an innocent friend who thought she was helping a celebrity or public figure facilitate an adoption without causing a scandal about it. It wasn't until she was already an unwitting accomplice that she knew the truth. She wanted to tell the truth so many times, but everyone else pressured her to keep silent, and well, golly gee, she also had a new life to protect. What's a girl to do?
Now let's hear Zoe, Thomas, and Reese's versions of what happened. Will Reese reveal that Flo knew everything, including that Reese had stolen the baby from a woman named Hope, before Flo even signed the fake birth certificate? Will Reese reveal that victim Flo had suggested getting the birth certificate and received 50K and the use of his flat for her services? Maybe he will -- if we see Reese at all. He might just be the biggest winner in this storyline if he can stay in London, free of the debts and the consequences of his actions.
Flo could have stopped that bogus adoption at any time, but she didn't. For that, she deserves to lose Wyatt, her job, and the new family of hers that she stole the baby from. Prison is too good for Flo, who is the lowest of the low for selling her own flesh and blood. The real victims, Steffy and Hope, should tag-team on Flo's lying butt in a stomping match for the decades.
Besides Liam and Hope, Steffy is a victim of the horrific lie Reese and Flo perpetuated and that Thomas took full advantage of to meet his own ends. The worst thing Steffy did in this storyline is being too impatient to wait for Hope to come around about Taylor and forging ahead with an adoption. But due to powers beyond her control, she faces colossal loss.
Steffy has minded her business while folding her laundry, taking her conference calls, caring for her girls, and letting people use her living room as a psychiatrist's office. Never in her darkest nightmares would she think that she was raising her step-niece, stolen from her own family and sold back to it.
I can't imagine the pain Steffy will face when she realizes that she will have to give this child back to Hope. Not to mention how Steffy will react to knowing that Thomas had been willing to let her live a lie and willing to pimp her out to her baby daddy for his own gain.
How do you think Steffy will handle the loss of Phoebe? Will Steffy give her up without a fight? I empathize with Steffy, who will lose a daughter, Liam, and possibly her brother due to this secret. Maybe in the way that Douglas and Hope helped each other, Steffy and Douglas can bond, and she can care for him while Thomas rots in hell.
According to Thomas, no story ever ends badly that starts with, "He whisked me away on a helicopter." Talk to your dad much, Thomas? Whisking Brooke away on a helicopter didn't work for Ridge, thanks to a determined Spencer man, and if another Spencer has his way, it won't work with Hope for Thomas, either.
In case you missed it, Thomas couldn't manage to keep his shirt on -- or get Hope's off. As his stay-cation with Hope quickly devolved into a Lifetime movie about marital rape, this Scooper wondered how Matthew Atkinson could be so sexy while playing the ultimate sleazeball. Thomas is wrong about what he was doing to Hope, but Atkinson's body still looked oh-so-right in his scenes. To detractors, I say, look beyond the character and fully appreciate the actor.
Thomas pressuring Hope for sex in a hotel room that eerily resembled the room of Douglas' drunken conception removed any doubt in my mind about why Caroline had awakened feeling raped the next morning. I have a feeling that, had Thomas gotten his way with Hope, her morning after would have arrived with similar repulsion.
We questioned whether Thomas would go full-on rapist by drugging Hope the way he had Liam. We were gratefully spared that crime when Douglas dropped the dime on himself, telling Thomas that the secret was out. To Thomas' credit, he didn't bring the pills with him. Vinny dropped them off at the hotel as an impromptu wedding gift.
When the jig was up, Thomas absconded with Hope to Forrester to catch a helicopter. By that time, Hope had had it with Thomas slobbering all over her and gawking at her in lingerie. She called him out on his impatience, and as he insisted upon whisking her off to an undisclosed location, she primed herself to call off the entire fondle-moon.
No story ends well with a Forrester trying to force a Logan onto a helicopter, and someone always gets hurt when the Forrester and Spencer men fight over a woman around unconventional vehicles. Ridge wound up lost at sea when he and Bill tangled over Brooke, and Steffy landed in the hospital when Liam chased Thomas and Hope down on an ATV.
I predict a fistfight in Thomas and Liam's future. Thomas is at the office door, banging on it and yelling that Hope is his wife and that their honeymoon awaits. There ain't no way Liam and Hope are getting past Thomas without a fight. Does that office still have an alternate exit behind the CEO's desk?
This week brought out the best in the actors involved in the storyline. Scott Clifton reminded us of what makes Liam such a magnetic romantic lead, and Atkinson sold us on his masterful rendition of a broken, obsessed Thomas who will stop at nothing to get the poom-poom.
Annika Noelle caused us to vicariously feel the trepidation of the newly wedded Hope, who finally burst out of her zombie-like existence upon realizing that she didn't have to do what Thomas was pressuring her to do in order to heal. Young Henry Joseph Samir deserves an Emmy award for keeping pace with the seasoned, heavy-hitting adult actors as Douglas took center stage in the dramatic climax of the year-long storyline.
Some viewers shed tears when Liam rushed into the nursery and realized, beyond logic, that Phoebe was Beth. We gushed as Liam proclaimed, "Phoebe's mother is you," behind the locked door of the CEO's office. Others thought the climax fell flat, and it wasn't what they'd expected after the interminable wait. Some thought it was lame that it happened at the office, of all places. By the way, who noticed that the Sky Lounge is no longer on the roof?
Let us know what you think. Was the reveal all you hoped for, or, after such a long wait, did you not even care about it? Were you sickened by Thomas' incessant advances on a vulnerable Hope or annoyed by what some perceived as Hope's mixed signals to Thomas?
I am gobsmacked that out of the mouth of a babe had to come the truth when about seven adults should have done the right thing months back. I'm delighted that Thomas' weapon against Hope and Liam became Phoebe's savior. I'm disappointed that the ones who started it all, Reese and Taylor, are nowhere near the ground-zero explosion of the secret.
Something is definitely off about Taylor's children suffering due to her decision, but she is nowhere around. It's not right, either, that others have to explain the absent Reese's part in the whole thing, and Hope and Liam can't confront their assailant. Who knows? Maybe Reese and Taylor are together somewhere, volunteering in Africa.
Going forward, I am excited to see three things: Hope and Beth's reunion, Wyatt begging for Sally's forgiveness, and Flo, Reese, Thomas, and Zoe paying for every single thing they did wrong. Oh, and one more thing: I live for the day that Liam takes off that lumberjack shirt he's been wearing for six episodes and counting.
In next week's preview video entitled "A Miracle and a Heartbreak" (which you can watch here), Liam and Hope rejoice on the rooftop about the unbelievable fact that Beth is alive. Liam exclaims that they can have their family back. Steffy's world collapses as she implores Hope not to take her baby.
Ridge lashes out at Zoe, Flo, and Shauna for letting Steffy raise Hope and Liam's baby. He vows to make them pay. It's got to at least be 250K, Ridge. They gotta pay at least 250K.
In other spoiler news, Wyatt ends things with Flo and apologizes to Sally. Do not fall for it, Sally. He will dump you for Flo again, just like Thomas dumped you twice for Caroline. Learn your lesson, Sally, because Wyatt will go with the Flo. You've been warned.
Thank you for getting two scoops deep with me on the PhoeBeth reveal. As always please comment below with your rants, raves, and accolades about the show. Until we scoop again, stay 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.
