Now that Thomas has gone, and Hope doesn't have to Uber Douglas to all his events, she can finally start doing what she should have done instead of humping Thomas' brains out -- processing the end of her marriage. She dabbled in it a little with Liam last week, and at the risk of putting her mom's reputation back at the center of her actions, Hope admitted that she had been looking to walk on the wild side when her feelings for Thomas took a turn for the real.
Hope guessed Liam didn't want to hear it, but I'm sure he didn't. Instead of hearing how she felt about Thomas and his one-womanness, Liam probably would have preferred to hear about Hope and her failure to be a one-man woman during their marriage. Yes, one could counter that Liam wasn't one-woman himself; however, Liam controlled his feelings. Isn't that the same thing Hope told her mother she could do about hers for Thomas?
While married to Liam, Hope thought it was good enough for him if she suppressed her feelings for Thomas, so why wasn't it good enough for Hope when Liam successfully suppressed his for Steffy? Meh, Hope will probably figure it out after more "processing..." Cue the AOL white noise.
For now, Hope has reordered her priorities and put her kids before herself, her career, and sex drive. That's growth. Liam has done some soul-searching, too, and he discovered that he had to stop thinking he didn't have an identity unless he was in a relationship. Good for him for having self-awareness; however, if he wants to find out who he is outside of relationships, it doesn't make sense that he would shroud himself in his "Dad" identity, does it? Because being a dad is identifying himself through a relationship with his kids, right? Cue the AOL white noise.
The seeds of growth for Hope and Liam as individuals have been planted. I cautiously deem this the end of Liam's bid for Steffy (as it should be since she can't even return his texts), and Hope has let go of Thomas. Their paths seem reset for the future. As much as I hated it, I enjoyed seeing Lope interacting, joking, acting in tandem, and mentally in sync. Do I want them back together? Hell, no. What about you?
Deacon's been drinking. And drinking. And drinking some more. He has had so much to drink lately that I started to question if the liquor had made him see ten toes. But then he delved into Sheila's text messages, revealing that he wasn't plastered or crazy, and someone named Sugar might be involved in the toe mystery.
Deacon confided in Finn "Run-and-Tell-Steffy" Finnegan, but Finn believed it was a grief-induced hallucination. Deacon asked if part of Finn wanted Sheila to be alive, and Finn made the most important and most overlooked statement of the week: "It doesn't matter how I feel." Finn conveyed Deacon's question and Finn's response to both Steffy and Hope, neither of whom asked, "Okay, but what do you feel? You wish she was alive or not?" Well, Finn? Do you?
Steffy was more concerned about her duty to "confront" Deacon than how her husband felt about Deacon's suspicions. I don't know where Steffy gets off thinking she has to be the Confronter of the World. She clearly has not learned her lesson about hauling butt to Il Giardino to confront people. The first time she did it, she and Finn got shot. The second time she did it, she and Sheila wiped the floor and table with each other, and someone died. But there she goes, off to confront in the restaurant of mayhem once again because she doesn't want to hear about it.
If people in that town don't want to hear about Sheila, my advice is to stop talking to Deacon, stop ordering his meatballs, and stop going down to his restaurant to tell him what to think, feel, or do. What business is it of theirs if Deacon goes insane with grief? What? Do his tears make the pizza less greasy or something?
While I'm at it, why is it so hard to believe that old nine-toes might have escaped death once again? This woman was supposed to have burned in a fire -- still alive. She jumped off a building in a wedding down -- still alive. She was presumed dead in a bear's intestines -- still alive. She flatlined on Finn's emergency room table -- still alive. And that's just in L.A.! So why do Ridge, Steffy, Finn, and Lauren act like Deacon is out of his mind with his theory and forgot how to count?
I'm gobsmacked that so many people shut Deacon down so hard about this. They keep telling him that Sheila was identified at the morgue. Well, maybe the morgue can't count because they should have documented an anomaly like nine toes on a corpse. They insist that the police have investigated. These are the same police who deemed her dead after walking around with her toe in their pocket for days! What toe-toting idiots are they?
It's a good thing Deacon didn't let Ridge, Steffy, or Lauren intimidate him into silence. His steadfastness led him to question Lauren about Sugar, and finally, he got the answer the world needed. Sheila has a self-made doppelganger with a grudge and ten toes. Or shall I say had this doppleganger? Because, unless Sugar has been playing the role of Sheila since before the toe chopping, it was Sugar in that cremator, not Sheila.
Thank you, Lauren, for helping Deacon solve the mystery. I have to admit, though, at first, I wished you'd hop back on your broomstick and stop harassing Deacon, but you came through in the end and made your presence worth the suffer-through.
Luna confessed to R.J. what had gone on the night she wound up in the role of a drugged Goldilocks who'd happened into someone else's cottage to drink someone else's water after she'd eaten someone else's mints, and laid down in someone else's bed, snuggled up to a body that felt just right -- someone else's body, not her boyfriend's.
There was plenty of blame to go around for what happened between Zende and Luna. Poppy insisted that it was all her fault, and R.J. asked how she could "drug" her own daughter. Zende instructed R.J. to blame it all on him, because Zende felt that R.J. couldn't blame the innocent Luna. I beg to differ because, while Luna casts blame on her mother and states that her mother betrayed R.J. (how, I do not know), Luna fails to own simple mistakes she made that night that helped the tragedy unfold.
Poppy's mint case was round, but Luna's was square. Instead of admitting that, Luna told R.J. that the cases were so much alike that she couldn't tell. If Luna was thirsty that night, she should have walked back to the main house and not assumed it was okay to enter someone else's home and drink whatever she wanted. She remembers this action. Was she hallucinating then? We will never know.
I'm not blaming Luna for being in a drugged state, but it's not fair to accuse Poppy of drugging Luna just because she left her mints on a table but not have Luna reflect that maybe she shouldn't have gone into the guesthouse for water. Poppy should have been more careful, but saying that Poppy drugged Luna implies that Poppy knew what was happening or did it intentionally.
R.J. called Luna out on some of this with tough questions before his anger turned him green enough to hulk out on Zende. It was satisfying to me when Luna said she wasn't making excuses for herself, but R.J. replied that it sounded like she was. "So, either you knew what was happening, or you didn't. Which is it, Luna?" R.J. asked, and I'd like to know the answer to that question, too, because if she knew what she was doing, she could have gone back to the main house. But instead, "You went to the guesthouse? Why?" R.J. continued.
I have one more question I wish R.J. would ask Luna. Why did she keep that wretched secret and crawl into his bed the very next night with Zende's stank on her? Did Poppy's mints make her do it? Is that her mom's fault? Zende's?
Thank you, Joshua Hoffman, for giving me life with your facial expressions as R.J. struggled to comprehend how this tragedy could have unfolded. I think Hoffman really got the element of confusion, pain, betrayal, and love right. When he turned those feelings on Zende, Hoffman's acting actually got me to change my mind -- just a little -- about Zende's betrayal.
Family betraying family on this show is as old a tradition as Eric's martinis in the afternoon, and I was indignant when the writers expected me to take exception to betrayal between adopted cousins who didn't even grow up together. For me, it was as straightforward as any other plot in which brothers or sisters vied for the same heart. In this case, however, naïve R.J. trusted Zende, and for that, I think Zende should never have slept with Luna, even if she wanted it.
R.J. can't get the images he's conjured up of Zende and Luna out of his head, and that will open the door for a budding relationship between Luna and Zende. I'm intrigued to see how Brooke weighs in on this situation. She is the "oopsie" champion who was forgiven for Oliver Sexgate and Deacon Kissgate. And remember when Ridge had drugged sex with Taylor, and Brooke dumped him like a hot potato and then regretted it? I'm sure she'll advise a Runa reconciliation.
Here are a few other things that happened this week I couldn't take seriously:
I can't take Zende seriously in that outfit. What is he doing in a black, butterfly cowboy outfit? Why do I feel like he has "Buttercup" parked outback? And by Buttercup, I mean a toy stick pony. This guy dresses like this and is the lead designer of HFTF? Oh, wait. That explains it. He's channeling Hope's inner Annie Oakley everyone thought Thomas had exorcised.
I can't take Carter seriously with the reprimands. Carter called Zende to task, asking if he'd taken responsibility for his actions, and he said Luna being R.J.'s girl should have been enough. Wait. Wait, though. Didn't Carter hook up with Zende's girl, Paris? I know she wasn't as into Zende, but Zende was into her, so pot/kettle? And what about Eric, Carter?
I can't take Hope seriously about Kelly's goggles. Hope was at work all day. She spent half the day imitating hippos with Liam, but she couldn't give him Kelly's goggles? She said it's still contentious with Steffy, so she brought the goggles to the cliff house. What was wrong with putting them on the receptionist's desk at work with a note for Steffy? And if things are still contentious with Steffy, why show up at her house to talk to her shirtless husband? Just asking.
Coming up, Steffy dubs Deacon an idiot for thinking Sheila was still alive, but little does she know, Deacon enlists a companion mini-idiot in her husband Finn, and these two set out to find Sheila, even if they have to look under every bridge and dumpster in L.A. Deacon shows Sheila's picture to a homeless man in hopes of locating his beloved.
Brooke weighs in on the Luna crisis and blames it on Poppy's drugs. I just hope Brooke refrains from blaming Poppy herself. Brooke knows how it feels to be blamed for her daughters' behaviors, and hopefully, she can sympathize with Poppy, too, because Poppy is not a villain like Sheila who purposely spiked Brooke's champagne.
That's it! That's all the scoops, and I'm all scooped out. You, on the other hand, might have plenty to say about the Luna/Sugar reveal week, and we'd love to read your thoughts in the comments section below! Until we scoop again, stay bold and beautiful, baby!
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 -- and there are many ways you can share your thoughts.
