What a tangled web we string when we try to do the right thing. But doing right is never without its consequences, as Steffy, Katie, and Brooke learned of their entanglements with Bill.
Katie believed that taking sole custody of Will was best for him -- until Brooke told her that it had happened in the wrongest way possible. Even though Brooke busted Ridge for doing the wrong thing, she set out to make it right by burdening Katie with privately reversing the judge's custody decision and keeping Ridge out of legal jeopardy for tampering with a judge.
Ridge has no idea how far his wife will go to protect him, but thanks Steffy, a daughter running on half a tank of explosive information, he thinks he knows why Brooke has gone so far to side with Bill. Most of her life, Steffy sought to break up Brooke and Ridge, and this week, her misguided attempt to protect her father might have achieved that goal, even if she wasn't trying.
Speaking of unintentionally trying to break up a couple, it looks as if Sally might have to compete with Quinn for Wyatt's free time at work now that he's back at Forrester. We're overdue for Quinn to chase off another woman in Wyatt's life, but let's pray that Quinn and Wyatt don't accidentally wind up in the steam room together when he means to meet Sally there.
Wyatt and Sally have brought the fire in their new romance, but Sally might get singed by an expected blaze between Steffy and Wyatt. I hope I wasn't the only one to notice the sparks coming off the ex-spouses when he thanked her for helping Sally.
Like Superman slathered in kryptonite, Bill struggles to come to grips with losing like regular mortals. Katie empathizes with Bill about the position he's in -- just not enough to stop lording custody over him. Bill is determined to prove what a great father he can be. Thankfully, Justin convinced Bill that he doesn't have to build private roller coasters to win Will's love. If only Justin could get Bill off his roller-coaster obsession with married women!
Bill is over his tainted love affair with Steffy, but like a wild stallion, his untamed fantasies about Brooke are on the loose again. As usual, someone, this time Steffy, caught Brooke in a compromising position with Bill and drew conclusions without hanging around for the letdown.
Can Bill do as Brooke asked and respect her marriage to Ridge? Will Ridge believe Bill's kiss went unrequited by Brooke? Let's get two scoops deep into whether a tiny show of affection can turn the custody battle into an all-out war for Brooke's heart and whether Katie will change course in the custody issue to make things right for Bill.
Wyatt thanked Steffy for hiring his hot lingerie-designing girlfriend. The whole time, he spoke in low, sexy tones, and Steffy gave him the "screw-me" doe eyes before rehiring him as Forrester's social media manager. Sally dreamed of all the dressing rooms she and Wyatt could defile at work, and Quinn fantasized about seeing Wyatt on morning break, lunch break, afternoon break, and goofing-off break. Yeah, that's not too clingy or anything.
Brooke busted Judge McMullen and Ridge's scam to railroad Bill out of custody of Will. McMullen denied it, but Ridge admitted it to Brooke and reveled in the fact that he'd been able to do the right thing for Will and watch Bill suffer at the same time. Brooke told Ridge that he could go to jail, but he said it wasn't happening because she wasn't going to tell anyone about it.
While Bill walked around perplexed about the judge's decision all week, Brooke hinted that she knew exactly how it had happened and assured Bill that he couldn't have done anything to change the judge's mind. Brooke kept her word to Ridge that she wouldn't tell Bill, but she dropped it into Katie's lap for Katie to fix.
"Hmm, you sure are passionately defending Bill," Katie noted. It can't escape any viewer that Katie is seeing déjà-Brill. Steffy saw it, too, when she almost walked in on Bill kissing Brooke. But, like any half-cocked spy, Steffy trailed off with only part of the information and never saw Brooke tell Bill -- again -- the she was devoted to Ridge.
Steffy felt obligated to tell her father what she'd seen, and she said she'd even given Brooke the chance to come clean. Really, Steffy, asking Brooke if there's anything you should know was just as half-assed an effort as leaving early at the scene of the kiss. Brooke doesn't even think Ridge needs to know, so why in the world would she tell Stephanie Jr?
Ridge wasted very little time in letting Brooke know that he finally knew what was going on between her and Bill. Brooke squinted at him and acted like she didn't know what the heck he was talking about -- because she doesn't. It's a good thing that the Intimates line is heating up because it's about to get frosty cold in Brooke's bedroom.
One would think Katie has an easy decision to make, since watching Bill teach Will how to take over the world made her throw caution and errands to the wind for an entire day. Thinking things had gone well -- especially since Katie had been too enthralled by him and his son to leave -- Bill made a pitch to toss the new custody agreement off the highest building; however, Katie was like, "Nah, I like my power over you too much."
Katie planned to keep things as they were, but now that Brooke has told Katie that Ridge had compromised Judge McMullen, Katie has to decide if she has the stomach to make Bill abide by a bribed ruling or if she'll reset the calendar to give Bill a fresh chance to screw up.
When Katie's enjoying herself, the errands can wait. Who needs to grocery shop or hang out at the DMV when you can watch your ex-hubby teach your boy pie charts and world domination?
Though it was a turn-on for her to watch Bill be a father and the boss, it sparked nothing for Bill, who realized that Brooke, not Katie, had always been "the one." Unfortunately for Bill, Katie was the one, not Brooke, who'd ultimately decide if Bill could spend time with Will.
Katie had a lot of errands to run one day and no nanny to keep Will. The fact that Katie even asked a nanny when Bill would jump through fire to spend time with Will tells you all you need to know about Katie. Will opted to see his dad instead of hanging out with mom at the dry cleaner, and Bill beamed about Will's decision all week long.
After Katie took Will to Bill's office, Katie called upon more than a nanny to help her during her erranding/non-erranding day. She asked Jeremy's dad to pick Will up to save her a trip back to Spencer later in the day. Too bad for Jeremy's father, who braved downtown Los Angeles traffic to pick Will up, Katie was still there when Will's visit with Bill ended.
Mother and friend of the year, Katie ain't. It makes it easy for her to relegate Jeremy's dad to traffic hell even when she hasn't even left the location and to shrug off her errands to spy on Will and Bill's visitation. Father and ex-husband of the year, Bill ain't, or else he'd know Katie well enough to figure out that one day of father-son bonding wouldn't be enough to convince Katie to trust him after a year of disappointments.
Is it the best thing for Will to get a second chance with his father, or is it best that Katie continue to relegate him to nannies and his friends' parents when she has other things to do? Who is really too busy for Will? Is Katie justified in her skepticism about Bill, or does she just not want to be "the one" to help Bill when she wasn't "the one" he'd chosen to remain faithful to?
One thing Bill got out of the custody hearing, besides his need to prove everyone wrong about his devotion to Will, is that Katie might have been "the one" to give him his precious son, but she wasn't "the one" he'd ultimately want to spend his life with. This week, that woman happens to be Brooke -- again.
Brooke, however, does want Katie to be "the one," the one to rescue Bill from no-custody purgatory. Katie has to be wondering why she has to be the one to make all the tough decisions while caught between Brooke and Bill all over again.
I know that just about every Two Scoops, you guys have to put up with me speculating that Katie really wants to be with Bill, but I mean, come on. Why were her errands so damn important earlier in the day, but once she arrived in Bill's office and saw him with Will, she just plopped down like no one needs cereal and milk in the morning?
It's bad enough that Katie wasn't at work -- again -- like the rest of the Forrester employees, and for all we know, she's now driving on an expired license because she skipped the DMV to watch Bill and Will talk about mystery books. Priorities, priorities...
By week's end, Katie was right back over there in Bill's office, letting Bill have even more face time with Will. It's starting to seem like the sole custody thing will take up even more of Katie's time than shared custody if she has to be the one carting Will to visitations and sitting through them just to make sure Bill won't take a call, text, or deal during his time with Will.
After Jeremy's dad picked up Will, Katie remained in Bill's office and ribbed Bill for wanting to pick Will up from school when Bill used to send a driver to do it. I have to ask -- how is that any better than getting Jeremy's dad, Kyle's mom, or the nanny to do it rather than Bill's driver? It's mighty strange that Katie can hire or talk these people into helping her, but when Bill does it, he's not a hands-on father.
Bill wants to be a hands-on father now. He promised to personally sit in the car lane at Will's fancy private school. You know, the one Eric got him into. I'll bet if Bill did that, he'd be the only father sitting there in a sea of hired drivers. As a viewer who's been in Bill's corner and against Katie's custody filing, I have to say that Bill losing custody might have been a good thing because it shook him up and rejuvenated his sense of fatherhood.
The hearing also showed Bill the limits to the powers of fortune, and it will hopefully teach him that, like Justin said, he doesn't have to build a roller coaster to impress the son who already loves him. Besides, why build a roller coaster, when he can buy an entire amusement park? Now that's the way to parlay one's love for a son into a money-making empire he'd want to run in the future. That way, the only stocks Will has to worry about in the future are the stocks of cotton candy and funnel cakes.
While Katie might be "the one" who flaunts her hypocrisy about just about everything from her self-righteousness about her nanny while being down on Bill about his driver to losing Will in the SORAS machine during her fling with his brother but disparaging Bill for losing his way while pursuing his daughter-in-law, Katie's not the one to unfairly deny Will access to his father if she suspects that Ridge had engineered the new wedge between them.
I predict that Katie will do the right thing by letting Bill have another shot at co-parenting but be perturbed to watch Bill balance chasing Brooke with spending time with Will.
Bill let go of Steffy, but thanks to an unlocked door and bad timing, Steffy is still affecting his life in ways he'd never considered. The custody hearing snapped Bill out of his dead-end obsession with her, but for a hopeless fantasizer like him, it's out of Ridge's frying pan and directly into Ridge's fire when Steffy spied Bill laying another misguided missile of a kiss on Brooke.
Ever since the day Brooke and Ridge met, the couple captured my heart. Any true Bridge fan mourned the passing of the couple when Ronn Moss departed the show in 2012. Very few, if any, of us were happy when Brill took center stage, destroying Batie. We tried to give Bridge a chance when Thorsten Kaye arrived, but it appeared that the writers had wanted to take Brooke and Ridge in different directions back then.
Finally, Thorsten Kaye has made his mark as Ridge, and he and Katherine Kelly Lang have remade Bridge into something longtime fans can grab onto. I have fallen in love with the whimsical, playful side of the couple and with Ridge's lovestruck gazes at his wife.
It's fun when Ridge enters a room, grabs Brooke, and says, "There's my sexy wife." Or when he says things to her like being with her was the greatest thing he's ever done. Yes, Ridge. It really is, and it gives hope to a middle-aged woman like me when I see such unity and passion within a couple. Yeah, yeah. It's fiction. I know, but I'm still a sucker for Bridge, even when one of them is being a jerk to the other.
What I admire most about Bridge is their ability to become the heads of their families and to openly discuss problems with each other. They disagree vehemently about things concerning their daughters and Liam or Bill's treatment of any other person with a heartbeat, but they never go to bed angry. Well, at least up to now.
There could be a few sleepless nights ahead for them now that Brooke feels betrayed by Ridge's manipulations, and Ridge feels torn apart by what he thinks is Brooke's infidelity with his worst enemy. Usually in arguments between Ridge and Bill, I root for Bill, but when it comes down to who Brooke spends her life with, it's all about keeping that Bridge in one piece.
Even with the stress upon Ridge and Brooke's marriage this week, I can see their unwavering commitment to each other. Ridge has done such a deplorable thing in Brooke's eyes, yet she is quick to say she loves her husband. Though she'd like to strangle him for what he's done, she chooses to protect him and fix the problem so that she can live with it. It's a lot better than walking out on in him in her robe, like she did with Bill.
As for Ridge, he doesn't understand Brooke's kinship with Bill, but he didn't stop her from doing what she felt was right during the custody hearing. That couldn't have been easy for a husband salivating to stick it to the man who he believed had wronged his daughter. Even when Brooke rebuked him for his manipulation of the judge, he stood by his convictions and trusted his wife to keep her mouth closed about it.
Well, so much for that, because Brooke told Katie about it; however, it's just like Brooke said: she isn't perfect, and neither is her husband. Her faithfulness to Ridge might seem questionable because she hasn't been honest about Bill kissing her, either, but when I thought about it, I figured that not telling him was probably for the best.
For now, Brooke doesn't share Bill's feelings, so why would she get Ridge even more riled up at Bill than Ridge already is over nothing? It's a huge deal for Ridge to know that he couldn't keep Bill from "defiling" Steffy, and learning that Bill had turned his unholy intentions upon Ridge's wife would lead to nothing but another pummeling for one of the men.
Being dishonest with Ridge while taking pity on an ex has gotten Brooke into trouble with Ridge before. I don't have to revisit the Deacon text thing again to illustrate it. I just hope Ridge has shed such childishness and will realize that breaking up with Brooke over hiding an insignificant kiss will put Brooke right where Bill wants her -- in the same vulnerable place Steffy was when Bill and Steffy had sex in the guesthouse.
As for Bill, I hope he stops fantasizing about unavailable women and finds someone single and ready to conquer the world with him. A fine, eligible man like Bill shouldn't want for undivided attention from any female. If he dates again, maybe the third Logan sister could be a charm for him.
Oh, wait. That could cause some issues with Justin, who, for the first time in a long time, mentioned the son he shares with Donna Logan. Wouldn't a good fight between best friends over a sexy and savvy Donna Logan be worth tuning in for?
In next week's promo, Bold Moves (which you can watch in The Scoop section with the rest of our spoilers and previews), Brooke is out to protect her marriage, and Ridge is ready to rumble if Bill can't stay away from Ridge's wife. Using simple, unconfusing words, Brooke tells Bill to stay away from her, but Bill warns her not to make promises she can't keep.
Brooke swears to Steffy that Brooke doesn't have feelings for Bill, but Steffy quips that it isn't how it looked to her. Well, Steffy, what did it look like when you were riding the stallion in the guesthouse? Just asking for millions of inquiring scoopers.
Like an infection, Steffy spread what she thinks she knows about Brill to Ridge and Wyatt. Hope will be the next one Steffy exposes to the contaminant. It causes tension between Hope and Brooke at a time when Hope and Liam learn the sex of their baby.
Katie moves forward with Brooke's plan to rectify things for Bill, and Thorne becomes puzzled by her change of heart.
Surprise, surprise, guys! Jennifer Gareis is finally back on B&B! So, I guess the soap gods can hear my prayers, after all. This ain't for no wedding, y'all. She's on contract, starting back in mid-October. It's time for Justin to put some of the romance he filled Bill's office with for the fake Steffy affair to good use.
In other spoilers, Charlie finally pops the question to Pam, and no -- it's not about the secret to her fluffy lemon bars! I almost want to tell Pam to decline because marriage always ruins a good thing on B&B. You know it does. Don't even trip.
I'm all scooped out for now, but we always want to know what you think. Are you as excited as I am to have Donna back on the scene? Are you betting on Ridge or Bill in this newest battle for Brooke? Is Katie doing the right thing by opening up new opportunities for Bill with Will? Should Steffy really be running around telling everyone about Brooke's indiscretion after her catastrophic one-night stand with him?
What are your thoughts on The Bold and the Beautiful? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
