Let’s hope poor Douglas never learns his origin story, ’cause pretty, it ain’t. He was conceived when Caroline Spencer, on the outs with loverboy Ridge Forrester, overmedicated herself to the point at which the dressmaker’s stepson Thomas (then Pierson Fodé) was able to take advantage of her. Not a good look, bro. Not. A. Good. Look.
After Caroline reunited with Ridge, she discovered that she was pregnant — and that her boyfriend had had a vasectomy. (Not that that ever stopped The Young and Restless’ Victor Newman from adding branches to his family tree.) Furious with Thomas, Ridge married Caroline and planned to raise his grandson as his son.
All it took to change Ridge’s mind about keeping Thomas in the dark about Douglas’ paternity was seeing his son a few times with his son. Soon after we adjusted our Who’s Who in the Forrester Family photo gallery, the newlyweds split up, and Thomas relocated to New York City with his babymama and their little boy.
They said it wouldn’t last — and whad’ya know? They were right! But, although Thomas and Caroline’s family unit imploded, she wasn’t willing to let Douglas’ dad fall into Sally Spectra’s clutches. So Bill’s niece pulled a total Sally and fibbed that she was terminally ill. Then — and Sally would never have done this — Caroline actually croaked!
Upon moving back to Los Angeles, Thomas (now Matthew Atkinson) was comforted by parents Taylor Hayes (then Hunter Tylo) and Ridge as well as the fact that they all looked amazing in black. It wasn’t easy, though. Douglas’ dad soon discovered that the moppet wasn’t going to be one of those soap-opera kids who gets sent to their room, never to be seen again.
It turned to be a good thing that Douglas wasn’t enrolled in boarding school or afflicted with SORAS — good for Thomas, that is. He soon remembered that he’d once been hot for sometime stepsister Hope Logan and used his son as bait to reel her in. Since she was mourning the (cough) “death” of newborn Beth, this was child’s play for the conniver. In no time, she’d annulled her marriage to Liam Spencer and agreed to be Douglas’ new mommy.
Not content to have an engagement ring on Hope’s finger, Thomas sped up their marriage by — aw, man, that’s low! — setting up a video projector to make Douglas think that he was being haunted. Gross, right? But it worked. Hope, eager to chase away the “ghost” that was giving the youngster chronic goosebumps, moved up the wedding.
Hope had about as much interest in being married to Thomas as we do in going on the wagon. But she was eager enough to ensure that the cutest best man in the history of nuptials no longer felt like a motherless child to go through with the ceremony.
After overhearing Thomas discussing the fact that rumors of baby Beth’s death had been greatly exaggerated, Douglas gave the good news to Hope and Liam, who — with the tyke’s help — eventually figured out that their daughter had been stolen at birth and sold to Steffy Forrester as a little sister for newborn Kelly.
Not only did Douglas bring to light Daddy Dearest’s sin of omission, but as you can see, he also set about stealing his thunder as a designer. OK, not really. But you know it’s just a matter of time before the kidlet gets his own Can You Doug It! line at Forrester Creations. Also, this picture was too precious to leave out.
Though things got not just tense but intense between Douglas and his dad, what with Thomas being a no-good lying liar and all, they still managed to win the Halloween costume contest with their father/son fireman/Dalmatian get-ups.
Once Beth was returned to the arms of her actual parents — sorry, Steffy — Douglas moved in with a reunited Liam and Hope, who had gotten Thomas to agree to shared custody. Of course, considering the way that he had threatened and played mind games with his son, he was lucky that he was left with any custody at all!
Everyone thought it was adorable when Douglas started going around saying that he’d spied granny Brooke smooching Santa Claus on New Year’s Eve. But when he remembered that Kris Kringle was actually Hope’s father Deacon Sharpe, not Brooke’s husband Ridge… eh, let’s just say that cute factor lessened significantly.
Hoping to reunite his own folks, Thomas used Douglas’ voice-changing app to fake a call to Child Protective Services from stepmother Brooke. Again, gross, right? But again, it worked. Ridge, the prince of a guy that he is, proposed to Taylor without ever telling Brooke what he believed that she had done.
Only on Ridge and Taylor’s wedding day did Steffy pry out of Douglas what Thomas had done and stop “Tridge” from remarrying over a frame job. Undeterred, Kelly busily scoped out granddad Eric’s living room and imagined her future wedding… perhaps to Douglas. (Hey, getting hitched to semi-relatives is the Forrester way!)
Determined to get Douglas back under his roof, Thomas took Hope to court. Big mistake. The judge asked the child being used as the rope in their tug-of-war with whom he wanted to reside, and he shocked both Thomas and Hope by stating that he wanted to move in with Aunt Steffy and her shirt-averse husband, Finn Finnegan.
With Hope For the Future at risk of being nixed by Steffy, Hope was forced to rehire Thomas as her designer. Douglas, taking this as a sign that Mommy and Daddy were going to be friends again, announced that now he wanted to move back in with Hope and Liam. Clearly, he has no idea how much work it is to pack up a kid and all his belongings!
All Douglas really wanted was a pop who didn’t go around wrecking people’s lives. Well, that and to be tall enough to dunk. But if history was any indication, he was only likely to ever get one of those things, and Father of the Year wasn’t it!
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