Thanks to Douglas, Brooke and Deacon’s Secret Is Finally Out! Plus, One Fan’s Tweet Sums up a Week’s Worth of Episodes

Credit: Howard Wise/JPI (4); John Paschal/JPI

There are times when despite being the shortest of the currently airing soaps, Bold & Beautiful episodes can feel endless. That was definitely the case during the first half of the week as characters obsessed over either Brooke’s situation or how awesome Paris is. But by week’s end, we finally had some forward momentum thanks to, of all people, Douglas. Ready to discuss what (finally) happened and why I’m stoked for what comes next? Read on, my friends!

Say It Again

For the second week in a row, Brooke spent day after day wandering around trying to figure out why she’d fallen off the wagon on New Year’s Eve. One of the show’s biggest and most well-known fans, Matt Hanvey, perfectly captured the action in a tweet.

TODAY ON #BoldandBeautiful:
Hope overhears shocking information! pic.twitter.com/pMGad7gs4c

— Matt Hanvey (@MattHanvey) January 20, 2022

In fact, so on-the-nose was his commentary that Brooke’s portrayer, Katherine Kelly Lang, had to respond. “This is all Brooke has been saying in every show since she fell off the wagon,” she admitted. “I can’t stop laughing!”

I was laughing so loud when I heard this!!! This is all Brooke has been saying in every show since she fell of the wagon..I cant stop laughing🤣🤣🤣🤣😝😝 https://t.co/98xSYKBfeQ

— Katherine Kelly Lang (@KatherineKellyL) January 21, 2022

But thanks to another character’s oft-repeated dialogue, it looks as if we might finally be moving this story forward…

Out of the Mouth of Babes

People need to start paying a lot more attention to what Douglas says. Not since Bridgerton‘s Lady Whistledown has one character been tasked with spilling so many secrets. For weeks, the kid’s been wandering around telling anyone who would listen that he saw grandma kissing Santa. “No, sweetie,” said the adults, condescendingly reminding him that the song is about mommy sharing a secret smooch with the legendary gift-giver, not grandma.

Above: “You know, you guys could save everyone a lot of time if you’d just listen to me more often.”

Credit: Howard Wise/JPI

More: Brooke can’t blame Taylor this time!

In Thursday’s episode, Liam and Hope finally paid attention to what Douglas was saying, then proceeded to make him repeat the details over and over. Just when it started to feel like one of those Law & Order episodes where the cops are determined to catch the perp in a lie, Hope realized that the best way to get answers was to ask the kissee herself. And danged if Brooke didn’t finally confess.

Now, of course, we all know that Brooke will swear swear Hope to secrecy, which I can only assume means we’ll alternate between scenes of Brooke flashing back to having kissed Deacon even as her daughter flashes back to Mom begging her to keep quiet.

On the plus side, next week’s spoilers reveal that Douglas is going to tell a few more people what he saw that night, so at least we’ll get new people having the same conversations.

Young Love

I really want to like the Carter/Paris/Zende story. I swear, I do. After all, it’s nice to have someone on the show say, “You know what? We don’t have to dash down the aisle ten seconds after meeting.” Plus, this is a new love triangle on a show that tends to trot out the same threesomes every year or two.

Above: “He said he wants to like us. Why do I feel like this is about to take an ugly turn?”

Credit: Howard Wise/JPI

Unfortunately, what we here are three lovely-but-boring characters wandering around having drama-free conversations. How seriously are we to take Carter’s interest in Paris when over the past couple months he’s gone from in love with Quinn to mildly interested in Katie and now, because she wandered into his line of vision, making out with Paris?

There’s simply nothing compelling about either of Paris’ potential matches. The best triangles involve situations where the person in the middle is drawn to two people who represent different sides of their personality. I suppose we’ve been told that Zende is a player and Carter is the rock-solid guy, but in reality, Carter’s had an affair with a married woman while Zende’s not done much more than have eye sex with Paris’ sister.

Speaking of Zoe, were she to return right about now, that would certainly heat things up. Were a suddenly-free-to-mingle Zende going out for drinks with Paris’ sister as opposed to some random model named after both a tree and an SVU, I’d be a whole lot more interested.

Random Thoughts

• I wish we’d gotten to see more of Paris’ mom, Grace, this week. I had an opportunity to chat with her charming portrayer, Cassandra Creech, and her take on the character is fascinating. (Keep your eyes peeled next week for that interview.) I’d love for the writers to have Grace and Taylor become friends. Each could use someone other than their respective daughters to hang out with.

Above: Sheila’s hoping that soon, she and Taylor will be drinking buddies. She’s so tired of drinking alone in her hotel room. So very tired.

Credit: Howard Wise/JPI

More: Catching up with Sheila’s biggest nemesis

• The writers have done a nice job with the Sheila/Taylor scenes, as have respective portrayers Kimberlin Brown and Krista Allen. Having Taylor chat with the woman who shot her shouldn’t work, but it does thanks to the fact that Allen subtly lets the audience in on the fact that Taylor knows exactly what she’s doing. Likewise, Brown does such a beautiful job of playing Sheila’s desperation to have friends and acceptance that I almost — almost — feel sympathy for the she-devil.

Now that I’ve given my highs and lows of the week, let’s hear what you have to say. And since we spent a lot of time this week thinking about Brooke’s love life, why not make it official by flipping through the photo gallery below in which we reflect on both her “destiny” (Ridge) and the many, many times following her heart (and other body parts) has led her astray!