A changed man

It may have taken a really long time, but Liam finally grew a backbone -- it's a shame it'll probably be gone by Sweeps. And with two leading younger men set to be gone by week's end, will there be any water left in the gene pool? Check out this week's secretly recorded Two Scoops commentary written by a special guest and do it quick before Maya has you shipped off!

I believe it was Confucius who once said, "I think a change will do you good." Or it might have been Sheryl Crow. I don't suppose it really matters who said it because it's great advice. Sometimes we seek out change, and other times -- like with me writing this week's column -- the change is forced upon you.

Don't worry about the fate of your regular Two Scoops columnists. Neither Adam-Michael James nor Chanel is going anywhere. Mike needed someone to cover for him this week, and I was more than happy to pitch in to help.

Speaking of coverage, The Bold and the Beautiful was just one of two soaps to air a new episode on Labor Day. I've often tried to figure out why soaps would not want to air a new episode on a day when people are home from work. I suppose you could argue that if people have the day off, the last place they'd want to be is plopped on the sofa, watching television.

Anyone who did not tune in to the Labor Day episode of B&B missed an amazing episode that sort of kicked off a week full of strong performances. Who didn't love seeing Liam lay down the law with Bill? For the first time in the seven years that he's been on the canvas, Liam showed he had a backbone. Whether you like Liam or not, you have to admit that 90% of his storylines to date have involved him sniffling and whining about not knowing which of two women he wanted to spend his life with. I enjoy a good love triangle as much as the next guy, but Liam was serving more waffle than the local IHOP.

For whatever reason, Don Diamont seems to have been mostly overlooked by the Daytime Emmys. Despite being a fixture on soap operas since 1985, Diamont has never been nominated for an Emmy. Now, it's possible that he just didn't submit himself for consideration. Maybe, unlike the rest of society, he doesn't really care about awards, plaques, and ribbons. Dollar Bill can tend to be a little one note. Two if you count those weird horse sounds that he makes in an effort to get Brooke's juices flowing. But most of the time, Bill is just being Bill -- a Type A, All-American man's man. And all the women in Los Angeles seem to love it.

While Bill was still being very much a jerk, Don Diamont shined in all of his scenes opposite Scott Clifton. The anger. The outrage. The "I'll get you, my pretty -- and your little dog, too" cries of vengeance when he was carted off by the cops. Then, of course, reality hit. Bill's dirty deeds were not revealed to the masses, and Bill wasn't hauled off to jail. The Bold and the Beautiful writers have become experts of the fake out.

But I need the writers to not play fast and loose with these fantasy/daydream sequences. While they definitely accomplish their goal of getting the soapiverse buzzing, if they use them too often, after awhile, they will lose their impact because everyone will assume that every "surprise" is just a big ole gotcha. The show pulled something similar when Quinn bashed Katie over the head in the Forrester foyer. There was also another recent "Surprise!" that I can't seem to conjure up in my head. I want to say that it had something to do with the shootings. Hopefully, someone reading this column will remember what the other fake out was and will share it in the Comments section at the end of the column or on Twitter.

I have to say that I really, really like the idea of having a Who Killed Bill? murder mystery. I brought it up with Chanel a couple of weeks ago, and she did a great job of putting together a list of suspects in her column last week. Yeah, yeah... I know that Bill is a vital character -- especially since a few others will be leaving -- and that killing him off would hurt the show. What if Bill faked his own death and tried to frame someone for killing him? He is certainly devious enough to pull that off. This is, after all, the same guy who nudged Justin into torching Spectra. Since the writers love a good fake out, why not have Bill's murder be the ultimate fake out. They could keep the truth from viewers if they wanted to. Or they could let the viewers know that Bill staged his death and allow us the fun of watching various characters squirm as they are called in for questioning.

By the time Bill turned up alive, everyone would have long forgotten that Bill had Spectra destroyed so that he could build a phallic monument to himself. I know sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but Bill is a little too obsessed with the size of his tower.

As soon as Liam is done strutting around and feeling good about his hostile takeover of Spencer Publications, I suspect that he will fall right back into his woe-is-me-I-love-two-women-at-once drudgery. Why? Well, in case you missed it, Pierson Fod has announced that he has decided to exit The Bold and the Beautiful. In fact, his last appearance will be this week.

While his exit may be shocking, if you take a step back and look at the trajectory of Thomas' storyline of late, it sort of makes sense. Thomas broke things off with Sally and, for whatever reason, decided that the only place he could sketch was in Los Angeles. So... New York City has an anti-sketching law that wouldn't allow him to continue working while he tended to "dying" Caroline? Yeah, I don't get that.

It doesn't look like Thomas will be recast... so that leaves Sally without a man. Who better to pair her with than the man who helped extinguish a fire and the man who, for whatever reason, is going to bat for her with Bill? I know I just griped about wimpy Liam a few paragraphs back, but I think the idea of a Steffy/Liam/Sally triangle is a far better story than Caroline/Thomas/Sally. Steffy and Sally have already been work rivals. Why not up the ante and have them spar over a man?

And since Steffy and Sally sort of made nice last week when Sally offered Steffy some of her surviving sketches, why not hold off on a love triangle for just a bit. Perhaps Steffy extends an olive branch to Sally, and the two find a way to have Spectra merge into Forrester. Then, just as the two women are bordering on being BFFs... the love triangle begins.

Whereas a show like General Hospital has a massive cast and struggles to tell stories that involve all of its characters -- you can go weeks at a time without seeing a particular character -- The Bold and the Beautiful has the opposite problem. Their cast is so small that they kinda have to have everyone sleeping with everybody else. Ridge was with Brooke, Brooke was with Bill, Bill was with Katie, Katie is with Wyatt, Wyatt was with Steffy, Steffy is with Liam, Liam was with Ridge... Okay, maybe not. Just making sure you're paying attention.

There is a new character being added to the canvas next month: Francisco San Martin will play Mateo, the Forrester estate overseer. Sheila is going to try to talk the guy into sleeping with Quinn, which of course would break up Quinn and Eric. If after all of that is done, Mateo is still on the canvas, he would be a suitable untapped male love interest for some of the ladies on the show. If the character vanishes, then we're left with the same small gene pool of potential mates.

This will make me unpopular, but I'm over the Summer of Sheila. It was a blast -- it had some incredibly great moments. Now, I feel like she's overstayed her welcome just a bit. It's hard to rationalize the actions of an irrational person, but how many pillow fights can we watch? How many lamps or vases have to be destroyed before Sheila slinks off to find another victim. Perhaps in Genoa City, Wisconsin?

So much of what B&B has been about for 30 years is its love triangles. Sure, there have been more meaningful and meaty stories... but B&B is sex, love, and romance -- perhaps more than any of the other soaps. Every now and again, a new family or set of characters is waltzed in, but they always seem to fade away, and we end up back with the Forresters, Spencers, and Logans.

Sure, we also have the Avants -- at least for now. I'm not sure that the writers know what to do with Maya (and, by association, Rick). I am kind of turned off by the way Maya is arranging to have Nicole and Zende shipped off to Paris. Because Maya doesn't like how close Nicole and Lizzy are? At what point will that ever stop being a problem? Yes, the sting of Nicole wanting to take Lizzy back is still fresh. Is Maya going to ban Nicole from Lizzy's high school graduation?

For me, Maya either needs to get over it or end her relationship with her sister. You can't have it both ways. Nicole learned she (probably) couldn't have another child and reacted poorly. If Maya is worried it will happen again, then she needs to cut off all contact with Nicole. It's simple.

Zende is going to return from Paris a totally different man. No, really. The write-off is presumably a way to get Zende off the canvas until the show finds a new actor to play the role of Zende. Rome Flynn announced last month that he, too, had decided not to renew his contract with The Bold and the Beautiful. I had actually suggested in my live-tweeting (which I do on the @soapcentral account every day during the East Coast airing of B&B at 1:30pm) that they should have had Zende leaving for Rome because, well, the actor's name is Rome. Or that could just be another of the bad ideas that flow freely from my brain.

I did, however, like that it was mentioned that Sasha was in Paris, giving Zende the chance to say that he won't make that mistake. Poor Sasha isn't even on-screen, and she's been downgraded from "recurring" to "mistake."

I'm trying to decide if Zende is even needed. Other than being Nicole's husband, what else does he do? Rick sort of falls into that same category right now, as well. Maybe they will use the recast as an opportunity to revisit that near-miss Maya and Zende kiss. Unless something changes, right now, Maya and Rick, and Nicole and Zende are happily married -- boring, in soap lingo -- couples.

Well, there you have it. For the first time in 22-plus years of owning Soap Central, I got to write a Two Scoops column for The Bold and the Beautiful. Chanel is on deck for next week's column, and Mike will be back the week after. If you enjoyed my musings, you can get them in more bite-sized morsels every weekday on Twitter. Just follow the @soapcentral account -- and you can also follow me for soapy and non-soapy musings @danjkroll. Thanks for reading and letting me be one of the "beautiful" people for at least a week.dan

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