It’s nothing business, it’s just personal: The Bold and the Beautiful Two Scoops for the week of October 21, 2024

On The Bold and the Beautiful this week, Forrester Creations was on fire, with sparks flying in meetings, down hallways, and in Carter’s head as the wheels were turning with hopes for his future.

G’day, (room)mate

Ivy and Electra visited Eric at home. Electra’s eyes widened as she checked out the place and noted it was much different than she was used to. When Eric insisted they move in with him, her eyes brimmed with tears.

Ivy took an interesting approach to getting what she wanted. She had mentioned that she had been in the U.S. for a few months. We saw her back in April when she told Liam she was in L.A. on a layover, but if she’s been coming to or being in town, what else has she been doing? Why did she wait so long to tell her family?

She told Eric about her jewelry line pitch at Forrester and casually mentioned that Steffy shot it down. Eric didn’t react so she brought it up again. This time, he reacted. He’s going to talk to Steffy and see what he can do, he says. Ivy says not to make it look like she went over Steffy’s head. Good plan, Ivy, Steffy will never figure that one out.

Nothing personal to see here

Speaking of Steffy, it’s good that she’s got some tough skin, or she might get a little paranoid at work. Hope and Carter keep telling people that Steffy makes decisions based on personal feelings while telling each other how professional they are.

Although Hope's line has had failing numbers since losing Thomas as a designer, it hasn’t actually been cut. Despite very personally chasing after and kissing Steffy’s husband, Hope's line wasn’t cut. And even with Carter constantly reporting the numbers and Ridge saying he would be fine with ditching the whole line, Hope’s line was not cut.

It wasn’t cut because Steffy didn’t pull the plug. Minor detail, I know, but like her or not, Steffy is the reason Hope still has a line.

What’s going on with Carter?

We were wondering why Katie and Carter’s romance fizzled out, and now we know the answer. It turns out Carter was going home every night and putting together a master plan on how to make Forrester non-stagnant by way of — say it with me — mergers and acquisitions.

Apparently, Carter has been formulating this idea for years and has never said a word to anyone. Hope even asked him if he was just going home every night and working on it this whole time, and he gave a sheepish grin and said yes.

I guess Carter meant that he found time while having an affair with Eric’s wife, Quinn. Or maybe it was during the months he was sleeping with Hope’s aunt. Carter intimated to Brooke that he had plenty of others on the side who weren’t good enough to be treated to some items from her lingerie collection. Seriously, he has some weird convos at work.

But I digress. The point is that Carter now insists that Forrester rapidly expands into a global conglomerate while they can’t even keep HFTF from floundering.

A true Yes-Man

Carter is the Forrester COO, so numbers are his specialty. But he’s so focused on being told yes that there’s no discussion about anything.

Two weeks ago, Carter had numbers and facts and would listen and have a conversation. Even Hope told him she admired how anyone in the company could come to him, and he would listen without judgment.

New Carter is the opposite. He’s fired up and livid when told no, and his judgy pants are part of his uniform.

Zende who?

Zende was a key part of the Brooke’s Bedroom launch, and his work helped make it a huge success. Carter’s pitch at the HFTF meeting last week was all about how they should repeat the things they did for Brooke's Bedroom for Hope's line, too.

However, when Zende, the line’s lead designer, tried to put his two cents in, Carter silenced him. Nothing about Carter’s championing of the line has included conversations (that we’ve seen) with Zende or even any consideration for him as a team member.

Carter seems to have taken over HFTF. When Carter and Hope interrupted a meeting between the co-CEOs and the lead designer, Carter didn’t care. He just corrected Steffy on her thinking she was in charge. Then, he gave Hope the hand when she tried to speak. “Hope, if you don’t mind,” he said. And then he took it from there. It was Zende’s meeting with Ridge and Steffy, yet Carter acted like he wasn’t even in the room or relevant.

Luckily, Zende didn’t notice and was Carter’s most vocal cheerleader after he heard what Carter had to say.

Deacon of light

Brooke had nothing worth mentioning going on in her own life, so she visited Deacon and talked about how nothing was going on in Hope’s personal life. Somehow, she made this seem like news.

Brooke and Deacon commiserated about “poor Hope” and how hard it is for her since Steffy knew HFTF was suffering. Deacon was so upset for his daughter that he wanted to march over to Forrester and give Steffy a piece of his mind.

Yes, Deacon, how dare Steffy pay attention to a flailing line whose numbers have sucked all year? She needs to be told off. But just her, because as co-CEO, she holds 100% of the responsibility for making 50% of the decisions.

With all the issues Steffy has had with Deacon’s wife, maybe not going to Deacon and fueling his fire would be worth considering. Instead, Brooke had him so worked up that he wanted to tell a woman off at her place of work. That's kind of strange, Brooke, being someone who claims that Steffy is divisive.

Brooke told Deacon all about Carter coming to Hope’s rescue. For the umpteenth time, we were treated to the list of daily compliments that Carter loves to shower Hope with, including how she was a “beacon of light.”

The Silent Partner

I have a question: Why does no one hear Ridge?

Ridge is the co-CEO, yet everyone constantly blames Steffy for all decisions. Well, no, not all. They blame her for not liking Hope but don’t acknowledge that she hasn’t canceled Hope’s line and keeps giving it more time to turn itself around.

Instead of seeing that as Steffy making business decisions and not personal ones, they just hate her even more.

Ridge has been on board to cancel HFTF, and he’s never been a Hope fan himself, yet no one sees him as anything equal to Steffy, at least not when they want to be mad.

When hypocrisy is your strong point

Hope constantly tells Steffy that she wants to drop the rivalry, yet she tells everyone else that Steffy has a rivalry with her. Then she tells Will that the problem is that Steffy claims to want to end the rivalry but doesn’t when it suits her. Huh?

Carter told Ivy, Electra, Hope, and Brooke that Steffy makes business decisions based on her personal feelings. Was that his professional opinion of Steffy? Or his personal feelings? He was awfully emotional when ranting about it and expressing his personal feelings to everyone. One would think that a COO would discuss his personal grievances with the CEO behind closed doors and not with employees or even non-employees, for that matter. But not Carter. He just makes accusations and personal attacks in front of anyone and everyone.

Meanwhile, Will’s just trying to be an intern and pick up chicks, and Hope’s filling his head with things about this huge war at Forrester and how he needed to back her up. To who?? No one declared war, but from the way Hope talked, Will should walk on eggshells because his mother was a Logan. It could’ve been time better spent for Hope to actually work on saving her line, but Hope wanted to watch and giggle while Will talked to a model. Honestly, I want to just cut her line already.

Will even said that Steffy could have preconceived notions of him, but he was just going to do his thing. Steffy doesn’t have preconceived notions about Will, but Brooke and Hope certainly have given Will some about Steffy.

'

My favorite moment of hypocrisy was when Carter was having a meltdown at the office. He said that the love triangle with Ivy, Liam, and Steffy was ancient history and acknowledged that Steffy was married with kids. But he still wanted to believe that Steffy said no to his idea for no other reason than a rivalry she had with Ivy many years ago. Liam left Ivy for Steffy in that rivalry, so I'm not sure why they think she'd be holding a grudge about it. Regardless, Hope had a solution to the problem.

Hope told Carter to bypass Steffy because she can't separate personal from business. Hope said that Ridge was Carter's best friend, so he should go to him and get him on his side. Isn't that using a personal relationship to make business decisions?

Listening to Hope, Brooke, and Carter complain about Steffy while doing the exact thing they're accusing her of is beginning to sound like an alt-script of “I know you are, but what am I?” lines.

The other beacon of light

Ah, Will. He just wants to be around beautiful women and he’s boldly told his father that it’s his mission at the moment.

Little did he know that the girl of his dreams was within walking distance. He was rushing down the Forrester hallway and bumped into Electra.

That moment when he was on his knees, holding up the ring she dropped was a foreshadowing of one of them in a 30th-anniversary flashback and we’ll all be saying “omg look how young they were” like it was yesterday.

Except it was yesterday, so let’s talk about that. Will was instantly smitten. Later in the salon, he recalled the entire scene in his head and was grinning from ear to ear. I've said it before and I'll say it again — that huge smile of his gets me every time. I’m sure there is going to be plenty that Will does that we’ll disagree with, but for now, I’m just enjoying mini-Morrow lighting up the room (and the TV) with that huge grin.

Leaves of three, let them be

Liam wears a lot of hats. Dad, manager of something, vegan, son, brother, flip-flopper extraordinaire, revisionist historian...the list goes on. And so does he. He can’t stop talking about how much he thinks about Hope.

Last week, Liam thought that it would be fun to get back together with Hope because it had been long enough that all he remembered were the good times. And he’s lonely.

Will encouraged Liam to spend some time with Hope and make her feel special, and so he did. From pizza night to a video collage, Liam went all out. Short of roses from a corner store and a mixed tape that he made himself, Liam tried everything to get Hope to consider reuniting.

Hope wasn’t interested, but Liam hadn’t given up. Although she rejected him twice, Liam was still going to try. His reasoning? She didn’t laugh in his face, and he realized that he’d always wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

Liam claims he wants to prove to Hope that he’s finally ready to show her that she’s worth every effort possible to be loyal, committed, and only have eyes for her. It’s only a matter of days before Liam and Ivy cross paths. Will he be as committed to getting Hope back? Or will he forget about her and move on to Ivy?

Do as I say, not as I do

You may recall last week when Hope’s boss, Carter, invited her to his loft so they could have a private celebration, sans interruptions. The fire was lit, the candles were flickering, and the mood was set.

Carter wanted to celebrate the HFTF meeting when he saved the line from being cut. "I wasn't just thinking about what's best for the company. I can't stop thinking about you," Carter admitted.

Wait…did he just say…he made…business decisions…based…on….personal….feelings??? Oh, Martyr. Why do you say these things to someone who only retains compliments? Why couldn’t you say that within earshot of literally anyone else at Forrester?

Just when my jaw dropped at the audacity of calling out Steffy in front of everyone from Zende to Eric and accusing her of doing business based on personal rivalries, Carter let down his guard. Or rather, his zipper.

Hope told him he could share anything he wanted to with her, and he was up for the challenge. She took his shirt off, and he flipped her down the desk so fast I didn’t even see him pop the buttons on her sweater. But there they were, trying to make that position look comfortable when Brooke walked in on them.

This was where it got concerning because Brooke seems to have a short-term memory, or maybe she’s just never seen a half-naked man on the desk from that viewpoint, but she shouted, “Carter, what are you doing?!” with such emotion that I genuinely believed she did not know what she was witnessing for a moment.

Brooke’s personal business decision

So now that Brooke knows that Carter and her daughter are messing around and making business decisions based on personal feelings, what will she do?

If Brooke tells Ridge, Carter’s championing of HFTF won’t be taken seriously. And if she doesn’t say anything, Carter could be leading Forrester to take huge financial risks because they trusted his biased opinion.

It seems like Brooke is about to experience what it’s like to make a business decision while ignoring personal feelings and relationships. Or is she?

Mergers and acquisitions, oh my!