The Bold and the Beautiful Twist: If Vinny and Liam’s ‘Run-In’ Is Only Part of the Story, We *Could* Still Be Heading for a Murder Mystery
Tuesday, April 6th, 2021
What if there’s more than meets the guy… who was left lying in the road?
Collectively, we groaned when The Bold and the Beautiful had Liam accidentally hit Vinny while driving tipsy dad Bill home. This was not the murder mystery that we had been led to believe was coming by quotes that headwriter Bradley Bell gave Soap Opera Digest.
This was not a murder at all!
More: Bold & Beautiful star’s Easter heartache
But what if what we are watching unfold actually is a murder mystery, we just don’t realize it yet?
Hear us out. Suppose Vinny had already been attacked when he collided with Bill’s speedster (or the other way around). Suppose the paternity-test tamperer was already knocking on death’s door before Liam’s distracted driving rang the bell for him?
More: Hold up… What if Vinny’s not actually dead?
Then we’d be dealing with a bona-fide whodunit, no? And we’d be full of questions. Did Thomas sneak away from son Douglas long enough to off his estranged friend? Did the dark side that we’ve all speculated that Finn has actually emerge, leading him to end the drug dealer who almost cost him a chance to be his baby’s father? Heck, could Steffy have snapped and done it herself?
What do you think? There’s got to be more going on here than merely Liam hitting Vinny only moments after admitting that he hated the guy, right? On your way to the comments, stop off at the below photo gallery in which we, ahem, run down all of the show’s comings and goings.
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Image: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
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<p>The real-life wife of <em>Days of Our Lives</em> star Carson Boatman (Johnny) was set to make her <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-bold-and-the-beautiful/comings-and-goings/671737/who-plays-model-julana-dizon-carson-boatman-wife/" target="_blank">soap debut during May sweeps</a>. And who was the model playing? A model, of course!</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Were we to receive an email from Sheila asking us to pay her a visit behind bars, our response would be along the lines of “No. Hell, no. [Bleep], no.” Ex-lover Jack, on the other hand, answered yes, all but volunteering to get tangled up again in her web.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Technically, the actor had been around for a while as Il Giardino’s easy-on-the-eyes bartender. But we really took notice of Hollis — also the character’s name — when he started flirting with Brooke.</p>
Image: CBS screenshot
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<p>Order in the court? Fat chance, when the <em>One Life to Live</em> vet was called upon early in 2023 to reprise his role of Judge Craig McMullen… just to set batty Sheila free in a miscarriage of justice that will forever boggle the mind.</p>
Image: CBS
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<p>When the <em>Dallas</em> legend reprised his role of Logan patriarch Stephen in the fall of 2022, he brought along his real-life sweetheart as his on-screen honey, Lucy.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
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<p><em>Young & Restless</em>’ Lauren, who was involved with Eric decades ago, was set to cross over again — double-cross? — for the Sheila-centric episode that <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> scared up for Halloween.</p>
Image: CBS screenshot
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<p>Just in time for Halloween! Poor Hope’s jaw must have hurt from hitting the floor so hard after she came face to her own face with the mannequin with whom Thomas used to go steady.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Fans could only hope that this perplexed expression wouldn’t be the one that Shauna wore when asked during her October return why gal pal Quinn had suddenly left both Carter and L.A.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Where Justin goes, trouble tends to follow. So the only question, as Bill’s former right-hand man resurfaced in the fall of 2022, was what <em>kind</em> of trouble would it be this time.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
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<p>We thought that he’d been permanently recast as Douglas. And then we learned that “permanently” was just an alternative spelling of “temporarily.” #themoreyouknow</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>With Samiri back in as Douglas, his replacement was, obviously, out. Ah, the cycle of soap life.</p>
Image: CBS
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<p>After nine years of stirring the pot as Quinn, the Emmy winner announced in August of 2022 that she was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/ChUuHkQrMlQ/" target="_blank">exiting stage left</a>. “I know it’s heartbreaking for some, and it is for me as well,” she Instagrammed, “but it’s time for me to move on.”</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Though newcomer Django Ferri was only supposed to be a temporary fill-in for Douglas’ usual portrayer, a scheduling conflict made the switcheroo permanent, <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> reported in August 2022.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>The doctor is in… vited back. In July 2022, soap vet Vincent Irizarry, who’s appeared on everything from <em>Guiding Light</em> to <em>All My Children</em>, reprised his role of Dr. Jordan Armstrong.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Apparently, <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> has become a soap on which no one dies, because only a month after Sheila made a car wreck of Li, the “late” Finn’s adoptive mother was found by Bill in an alley behind the rare restaurant that isn’t Il Giardino’s.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Poor Li learned the hard way that it’s a very bad, no good, terrible idea to ever turn her back on Finn’s “momster.” After Sheila caught the doctor calling for help, the car chase that ensued resulted in Li’s life going up in flames — literally. </p>
Image: CBS screenshot
17/40
<p>Just when Sheila needed a Get Out of Jail Free card, she got one in the form of long-ago henchman Mike, who not only helped spring her from the pokey but lent a hand as she cared for son Finn. Whom, it bears mentioning, she’d shot. While, it also bears mentioning, trying to murder his wife.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p><a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-bold-and-the-beautiful/news/632019/bold-beautiful-tanner-novlan-finn-alive-steffy-reunion/" target="_blank">“Don’t be mad at me,”</a> the actor begged fans shortly after it was revealed in May 2022 that Finn was no more dead than you or us. It turned out that the show had pulled a fast one on its audience, and we really needn’t have included the next slide in this gallery at all!</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>If only it <em>had</em> been an April Fool’s Day prank! But it wasn’t — on April 1, 2022, Sheila really took aim at Steffy and instead accidentally fatally shot her own son Finn, thus bringing to an end his portrayer’s run on the show.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>“What’s up, Doc?” As fans braced for a game-changing twist in April of 2022, they got an altogether different sort of surprise when the fan fave brought home Bridget, who announced out of nowhere that she’d be working for a while at University Hospital. Coincidence?</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
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<p>She didn’t seem to have packed the <em>Great Gatsby</em> headpiece. But the veteran of <em>As the World Turns</em> — this is her costume-partying as Denise back in the day — still managed to dazzle upon making her debut as Paris’ mom Grace in early 2022.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Technically, she’d been gone since her last stint as Taylor ended in 2019. But the on-again/off-again cast member seemed to be <em>really</em> gone in October 2021 when <em>Entertainment Weekly</em> reported that the show had tried and failed to get her to return once more as Taylor, the indestructible character she’d first played more than three decades earlier.</p>
Image: 20th Century Fox Licensing/Merchandising/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
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<p>Since Tylo wasn’t going to be reprising her role, the <em>Days of Our Lives</em> vet who’d once replaced Lisa Rinna as Billie was tapped to step in as Taylor. And Brooke thought that <em>Quinn</em> was a thorn in her side — ha!</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>In the fall of 2021, one of most endearingly odd couples in <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> history reappeared on screen when Charlie and Pam staged a comeback. Lemon bars not included. (Dang it!)</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
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<p>You know that saying about how you can’t keep a good man down? Apparently, it applies to bad men, too, because in the fall of 2021, Hope’s deadbeat dad Deacon came back to L.A. in the form of the soap-hopping leading man who’d first played him back in 2000.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
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<p>Days ahead of her on-screen return as Sheila — at son (!) Finn’s August 2021 wedding to Steffy — the actress’ comeback was <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-bold-and-the-beautiful/news/606034/bold-beautiful-kimberlin-brown-returning-sheila-carter-finn-mother/" target="_blank">leaked by <em>Entertainment Tonight</em></a>. She wasn’t just back, either, she was back for the long haul, she hinted. “I’ll play,” said the actress, who originated her role on <em>The Young and the Restless</em>, “as long as they’ll have me, quite honestly.”</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>In June of 2021, <a href="https://ew.com/tv/bold-and-the-beautiful-finn-parents/" target="_blank"><em>Entertainment Weekly</em></a> broke the news that Finn’s parents were winging their way to L.A. And in the role of mom Li was going to be the actress who’d previously played Paul’s mother — and John’s old flame — Tori on <em>Days of Our Lives</em>.</p>
Image: George De Sota/JPI
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<p>Completing Finn’s mom-and-pop operation as dad Jack would be the soap-hopper who’d previously played not one but two characters on <em>General Hospital</em> (the Alcazar brothers, Lorenzo and Luis) and Tomas on <em>One Life to Live</em>.</p>
Image: CBS
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<p>While Zoe was moving heaven and earth to win back ex-fiancé Carter in the spring of 2021, her portrayer was making plans to go forth. As first reported by our sister site <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/wp-admin/_wp_link_placeholder" target="_blank">Deadline</a>, the actress had landed one of the leads in Fox’s contemporary reimagining of the classic 1977-84 series <em>Fantasy Island.</em></p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Only moments after Liam admitted to Hope that, ya know what, he thought he actually hated paternity-test tamperer Vinny, the drug-dealing lab tech got run down by none other than… What are the <em>odds</em>? Liam. But it may not have been a mere accident that turned Vinny into roadkill. “There will be twists,” headwriter Bradley Bell promised <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a>, “and there will be surprises.”</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
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<p>In October of 2020, Maya’s portrayer acknowledged what was going unsaid: that the show had dispensed with her groundbreaking character, and she was done at <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em>. “While I was disappointed that [Maya] wasn’t honored with a goodbye that matched the importance of her presence on the show,” she Instagrammed, “I also know that that’s how it goes.” </p>
Image: CBS
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<p>“We’ll always have Paris,” we thought to ourselves when, in the fall of 2020, <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em> tapped this gem to take on the role of Zoe’s heretofore-unknown sister. And no polishing was required; the actress sparkled, especially opposite… Well, don’t just sit there; click!</p>
Image: CBS
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<p>Three years after Rome Flynn left the show to try his luck in primetime — and scored with roles <em>How to Get Away With Murder</em> and <em>The Haves and the Have Nots</em> (for starters) — it was announced that his role of Zende was being taken over by this <em>Zoo</em> vet and human charisma factory.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>No sooner had the actress revealed in August 2020 that she’d reached the end of her “monumental journey” as Sally than she was invited to take a detour, bypassing the exit altogether and instead just crossing the hallway to bring her character to sister soap <em>The Young and the Restless.</em></p>
Image: Bell-Phillip Television Productions, Inc.
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<p>As of July 2020, Carter wouldn’t just be putting in appearances when a <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> couple needed an unusually ripped wedding officiant: His portrayer was put back on contract, meaning that the actor could appear anytime an unusually ripped anything was needed!</p>
Image: CBS
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<p>Fans who’d long been dying for Steffy to get over her Liam fixation rejoiced in July when the “bad actor” from the Liberty Mutual commercials — and real-life husband of Kayla Ewell (ex-Caitlin) — was cast as the heroine’s new love interest, Finn. Of course, that didn’t do a whole lot to diminish her interest in Liam…</p>
Image: CBS
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<p>The actor went from contract to recurring as Bill’s right-hand man Justin in January 2020, saying, “Until I own my own show, I really can’t be mad or upset with what someone chooses to do with theirs. Unfortunate, but it is what it is.” If only <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> had taken our suggestions for <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-bold-and-the-beautiful/news/577714/bold-beautiful-justin-barber-love-interest-iconic-soap-actresses/" target="_blank">a love interest for Justin</a>…</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
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<p>There weren’t enough lemon bars in the world to dull the sting when we learned in November 2019 that the <em>Wonder Years</em> mom had been taken off contract as the loony but lovable Pam, who’d more often than not served as the soap’s comic relief since her debut 13 years earlier.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
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<p>Over the summer in 2019, Xander’s portrayal Instagrammed that “I ain’t got no job; what the hell should I do today?” He later amended his statement to say that his character was going to return, but… um… we have not seen him since 2019, have you?</p>
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