The Story Bold & Beautiful Should Be Telling for Sheila — and *Could* Still Tell for [Spoiler]
It might have been inspiring to see the supervillain learn from her mistakes. (Better late than never, right?) But her loss of a redemption arc could be another character’s gain.
When The Bold and the Beautiful returned Sheila to the canvas, it gave her a new kid but not a new attitude. She immediately got up to the same old tricks and evidenced no signs of growth whatsoever. Which is a shame, because in real life, people do change — sometimes even for the better. (Hey, Quinn probably wouldn’t kidnap and schtup an amnesiac Liam today… um, right?)
But just because the show decided against allowing Sheila to evolve, that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t still tell a great story about redemption. It would just have to tell that story with someone else. Our pick? Deacon. Picture this…
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A New Beginning
Hope’s ne’er-do-well father, having served his time, gets out of jail and takes over as manager of the Insomnia Cafe. He invites his daughter to start over with him but assures her that he would understand if she didn’t want to. “I know it’s ‘Once bitten, twice shy,’” he might tell her. “And I can’t even count how many times trusting me has gotten you bitten.”
When Brooke approaches Deacon, sure that’s he’s working an angle, as usual, he assures her that he isn’t. And she wants to doubt it, but he doesn’t even flirt with her — that, to her, signifies a major change.
Above: “What do you mean, you don’t want to make out? Will the real Deacon Sharpe please stand up?”
Credit: Sean Smith/JPI
History Repeating
As Deacon goes about his business, focusing on his sobriety, he takes an interest in an Insomnia Cafe barista who calls himself D-Tox. Just 18, the kid is already headed down the wrong path, hanging with a hard-partying crowd and hooking up with every pretty face that turns his head. When Deacon tries to take D-Tox under his wing, the youngster just laughs at him. “I heard you were The Man back in the day,” he tells Deacon. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Where’d you hear that?” Deacon asks.
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“I’m not as clueless as you look, old man,” D-Tox replies. And there it is. A lightbulb goes off in Deacon’s head. Of course he saw himself in D-Tox — D-Tox is his long-lost son, Little D. Amber had kept him from his no-good biodad for years — so many that Deacon didn’t even recognize him. So while Deacon was sizing up Mr. Big Attitude, Mr. Big Attitude was actually also figuring out his father without revealing their connection.
Above: Yes, by all means, point Bold & Beautiful to a young actor as good as William Lipton (Cameron, General Hospital) to play Deacon’s son with Amber’s late cousin.
Credit: ABC
Past and Future Collide
From there, the question becomes, can Deacon get through to D-Tox before he’s too far down the dead-end trail his father blazed? Will Deacon’s attempts bring him closer to not only Little D but Hope and Brooke… and possibly even attract the attention of someone new, say, Donna or Shauna. The latter in particular would see less the conniver that Deacon was — not that she wouldn’t be able to relate! — and more the decent man that he is striving to become.
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What do you think, Bold & Beautiful fans? Would you like to see a story in which a baddie actually learns from their mistakes and turns their life around? And how much fun would it be to see Deacon faced with the prospect of breaking through to a kid who is as impulsive and manipulative as he ever was? On your way to the comments, stop off at the below photo gallery that counts down the greatest characters in Bold & Beautiful history.
