Bold & Beautiful Just Gave Us The Rivalry We Didn’t Even Know We Needed
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One of my favorite things is when characters who don’t usually interact spend time together… and if they happen to be exchanging barbs, all the better. That’s exactly what we got this week when Katie and Sheila had a verbal smackdown. Elsewhere, the only other real development this week was the burning question of whether or not Deacon would perfect his new restaurant’s pizza recipe…
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After overhearing Katie and Bill’s conversation last week, I knew that Sheila would want to have a “chat” with his favorite ex. Or maybe second favorite. Third? In any case, Sheila would want to talk to Katie. And their Thursday scenes were the highlight of the week.
Sheila pushed every single one of Katie’s buttons as deftly as if she’d installed them herself. But the real reason the scene worked is that Katie refused to be backed into a corner, putting up a pretty darn good fight.
“The only thing keeping you out of prison now is Bill,” sniped Katie. “and I have can have him back in seconds!” That single line instantly transported me back in time to another California-based sudser, Knots Landing, and a scene that took place between good girl Val and vixen Abby, which you can see below.
Of course, Sheila wasn’t about to wave a white flag. “We both know the Logan sister that [Bill] would really prefer,” she responded, “and that would be Brooke.”
And then there was the line which played on Katie’s entire history, going all the way back to the earliest episodes. “Poor Katie,” cooed Sheila, “always second best. Always living in your sister’s shadow. I don’t understand it thought, because I think you’re really smart and you’re courageous. I don’t know why men don’t like you… at least for long.”
Ouch!
Hope Springs Eternal
Of course, there are an awful lot of people in the audience who want to see Sheila pay for her crimes. This is a conundrum soaps have faced time and again with classic villains like Sheila or Days of Our Lives‘ Stefano. How much is too much? When does “love to hate” morph into just plain over it?
Some of daytime’s best villains have been short-term characters who were either jailed or murdered after causing several months worth of havoc. (No soap was better at this than my all-time favorite, The Edge of Night.) But what do you do when the villain is the most interesting thing on the canvas, which at the moment is certainly true of Sheila.
Every now and then, the writers throw in a line which seems specifically designed to tell viewers, “Yes, we know that the clock is ticking.” This week, it was Katie warning Sheila that “good wins every single time over evil. And you are pure evil!”
Confession Is Good For the Soul
Sheila also managed to push Taylor’s buttons by suggesting they are cut from the same gun-firing cloth. Krista Allen did a fantastic job playing tortured Taylor, allowing viewers to see that the shrink didn’t take lightly the fact that her past actions were having very real consequences on those she loved.
We also got more of the Brooke/Taylor friendship which, despite having sprouted up overnight and grown far too quickly, has really worked for me. It’s made me realize that this show’s characters don’t really have friendships. They turn to family members when they want to talk/vent/cry/celebrate, but there’s a distinct lack of friendships between people who aren’t related.
For years, I said that Brooke and Taylor each needed friends… who knew that what they really needed was one another? Plus, their scenes led to my favorite line of the week. “We will get through this,” Brooke told her former enemy. “You know how I know that? Because I survived you, and you survived me.”
Random Thoughts
• My household has pizza night every Friday. Homemade, crust and all, and let me tell you… after watching people chowing down on pie’s at Il Giardino all week, the cravings are real!
• Why is Taylor’s office so dark? Is it in a basement? Surely she can afford something better! And why did the shrink say that she couldn’t tell her therapist everything, clearly meaning the fact that she shot Bill. Did nobody ever tell our favorite World Renowned Psychiatrist about doctor/patient confidentiality?
• Finn bragged to Steffy that he “locked the door, so we won’t have any unexpected visitors for once,” and she replied that her husband thinks of everything. Seriously? Locking the door when there’s a madwoman on the loose is “everything?” It kinda seems like the bare minimum to me!
Want to know what February sweeps has in store for not only Bold & Beautiful but the other soaps as well? Check out our preview and predictions in the gallery below!
