Will your week be bold and beautiful? Will you go for a swim in the middle of an argument? Will you head to Big Bear, loaded for bear? Will you attend a goodbye party where you say the goodbye? These and more situations will once again face the Forrester-Logan-Spencer-Spectra clan this week!
It is on, Scoopers! We are heading into another week of encore presentations, and this time, it's personal. We're going to revisit five classic clashes that have taken place in B&B's L.A. over the years -- some pastry, some deadly. We'll hit some more recent hits and reach way back into some vintage vitriol. But is the week going to miss some all-time awesome altercations? Let's Scoop about it!
Sally Spectra. You're welcome. And I don't just mean our fan fave namesake who was last seen dragging out an unconscious rival. I mean the most glorious, the most outrageous, the grandest diva of them all, the original Sally Spectra. How come we've gone all these weeks of rebroadcasts and this is only the first time we're seeing the O.G. Sally? Believe me, Bucky, she's been sorely missed!
Hey, now, there's an idea! How about a whole week of Sally shenanigans? There are so many to choose from! There are Sally's myriad disguises, her pink cotton candy wedding to Clarke, and her short-lived engagement to Eric, and, like many of you, I'd love to revisit the drunken moment where Sally and Stephanie traded in barbs for barbering and began their sweet friendship with Stephanie's "hip-hop" makeover.
But the only reason their eventual coming together was so sweet was because they'd spent years tearing each other down. Isn't it funny how several of their quarrels involved water? This week, we're going to see the very first one, and, oh, yeah, it's as entertaining now as it was in 1992. I didn't end up watching this chlorinated contretemps first run, but I have given it a workout on YouTube.
I'll set the scene: Sally began as a fashion upstart who admired Stephanie but wasn't afraid to rip off Stephanie's company to enrich her own. Eventually, Sally's daughter, Macy, married Stephanie's son Thorne, but at this stage of the game, Morne (Thacy?) had hit the skids. Stephanie wasn't that upset about it, but Sally was. And their ensuing disagreement made them, shall we say, "pool" their resources.
This is one I can't wait to see in all its broadcast glory. There's simply no beating the Stephanie/Sally skirmishes from the show's heyday, and the conclusion here comes with the unexpected. Okay, Stephanie trips Sally. But Stephanie didn't expect a watery finale, and the added bonus here is that the creator of Resting Bitch Face laughs up a storm! If it can make Stephanie crack up, you're in for a treat.
You know what? I'm gonna level with you. I rarely watched daytime soaps for the romances. I watched for the psychos! I remember getting pulled into Y&R full-time because of Michael Baldwin (during the whole sexual harassment/stalking thing with Christine), and B&B grabbed me with the now legendary crossover of Sheila Carter, whose fights with Y&R's Lauren Fenmore moved from the Midwest to the West Coast.
It had to have been the biggest daytime coup ever. Written into a corner on Y&R, Sheila lasted an amazing three years on B&B before her nefarious Genoa City deeds became known to the Forresters. Just so happened that Sheila was married to Eric Forrester then -- oops. But her eventual unmasking never felt dragged out. Sheila struggled to be good but couldn't help being bad, and the writing was amazing.
What we're going to see on Tuesday is the culmination of that three-year arc, and it's nothing less than gripping. Lauren had spilled the beans about Sheila stealing her baby to Sheila's therapist, James Warwick. Sheila managed to imprison James for months to keep him from tattling, but James escaped, and Lauren outed Sheila to Eric and Stephanie separately. At which point, Sheila went on the lam!
Soon, Sheila invited Eric, Stephanie, Brooke, Ridge, James, and Lauren to the Forrester mansion for a "goodbye party." And Sheila didn't forget the party favors -- a bullet for each guest! If it's been too long, or you never saw it, I won't spoil the outcome; suffice it to say, there are twists galore, and it was surprising Brooke and Stephanie didn't become friends after what happened. The best of the best of the best!
I don't know if B&B will actually go back into production this month, but before we get new episodes, can we please do a Sheila week? I'd love to see the episodes of her in prison, the time she poisoned Stephanie with mercury, and Sheila getting gaslighted by Lauren, Stephanie, and James's wife Maggie in a brilliant flip on the formula. Anything after 1998, we can skip. Sheila was mostly written as a cartoon from that point on!
Meh! I don't really consider a clash from two summers ago "classic," but the scene itself was fun, and these perpetrators did get a rather unique comeuppance, so I'll go with it. Brooke Logan has had several rivalries over 33 years, but none so intense as the rivalries with Stephanie Forrester and Taylor Hayes. Once it was clear that both Brooke and Taylor were in love with the same man, Ridge, all bets were off.
Brooke vs. Taylor carried on through the '90s and '00s, even getting past two pesky presumed deaths on Taylor's part. Braylor's hostilities ebbed during the '10s, but when you have three decades of bitterness bubbling under the surface, anything can happen. Amazingly, given their feud, Brooke and Taylor never had a knock-down, drag-out, official catfight. Those wispy mud and water "fights" didn't really count.
Braylor found a new reason to cross swords when they got involved in their daughters' love lives -- most specifically, which daughter was better for Liam. That never particularly piqued my interest, but then something else happened: Taylor went nuts. We still really don't know why, outside of her conviction that Bill "violated" Steffy; the old Taylor would have believed Steffy's insistence the sex was consensual.
So, with all that brewing, Hope married Liam, and Taylor -- fresh off of blasting a bullet in Bill -- was not happy about it. I still can't buy Taylor's turn to the dark side that led to this, but if I ignore it long enough, Taylor's decision to use cake as a weapon is still fun. "You ruined my blow-dry!" she screams as Brooke strikes back. And Hope and Steffy making their mothers do a "walk of shame" is a perfect punishment.
Hey, B&B, can you do us a favor? When we pick up with new episodes, can we find out that Taylor has finally gotten proper help and is back to being the selfless, rational shrink we once knew? Or at least determine that she's forever wonky now because she suffered brain damage after being (accidentally) shot by Sheila? Either of those will work. In the meantime...all this talk is making me want cake!
Thursday's encore presentation ushered in a new era in the battle between Stephanie Forrester and Brooke Logan -- it was the first time Gangsta Granny emerged. Until then, Stephanie was happy to go after Brooke with insults and the occasional dirty trick, like faking memory loss to win Eric from Brooke, or having Brooke arrested for violating a custody agreement. Stephanie had never been violent before.
Yeah, Brooke saw the back of Stephanie's hand any number of times. But Stephanie had never gotten murderous. Not until she found out Brooke had set her sights on Thorne. I guess having someone sleep with your in-the-process-of-being-divorced husband and both your sons would drive you mad, too. That's how Stephanie seemed when she tracked Brooke to Big Bear on a rainy night and proceeded to torment her.
The scene is truly chilling -- and probably the clashiest of clashes B&B has had before or since. The 1999 episode deserves its place in this latest theme week. It's hard to argue Brooke didn't have it coming. Yet, it's always left me uneasy. Stephanie actually tries to kill Brooke here, and it turns out it wouldn't be the last time. It strikes me as just slightly out of character. I dunno, Scoopers -- what do you think?
Looking back, can you see the classy grand dame of yesteryear going on to gift Brooke with a gun to shoot herself, choke Brooke with a phone cord (oh, those landlines), or hold a rifle on her? Honestly, I can't. But after Stephanie had her rampage at Big Bear, it was like she got a free pass to terrorize her opponent with acts most would consider illegal. Even Brooke Logan didn't earn that...did she? Did she? Or did she?
Double meh! We'll finish up the week with the rooftop brawl between Liam and Thomas, which bookended the Phoebe-is-really-Beth reveal. It hasn't even been a year since that episode. That doesn't count as "classic" to me. And I still haven't recovered from my Thomas fatigue as a result of seeing him plot and deceive every day for months. Maybe it will be worth it to see Liam punch him out again!
Thomas, like his mother, is another character I continue to need an explanation for. Sure, Thomas was already a little loopy when he blew up Rick's car in 2009, and we saw him lie about having sex with his stepmom in exchange for stock, plus have sex with Caroline when he wasn't granted clear consent. But Thomas' slide into madness in the form of Matthew Atkinson came with no warning-- and no real justification.
I've said it before: Caroline could have felt so guilty about letting Thomas believe she was dying just to get him back that she could have killed herself. Remember, during Caroline's last appearance, she did try to strangle Bill, so that stage is set. If Caroline killed herself in front of Thomas, that would be trauma to radically alter someone's behavior. Because Thomas just coming home and obsessing on Hope didn't cut it.
And mind you, we just saw Thomas stalk off three months ago, when he finally got snagged for his second round of Hope-ful machinations. I'm not ready to see him get snagged for the first one again, especially knowing it didn't do any good and that Thomas would just come back and pull the wool over everyone's eyes again. Atkinson's Thomas could be saved if, when we come back, he's gotten serious therapy!
I can't wait to see these '90s scuffles, and of course, you can only squeeze so many episodes into a theme week. But I can't think clashes without wanting to see Lauren and Sheila's wedding dress catfight of 1993, or their hot tub free-for-all of 1995. Man, they don't make catfights like they used to. They often drew blood! The PC movement, which is generally a good thing, seems to have made the soap fight obsolete.
We've never seen Steffy and Hope pull hair, have we? Even Brooke and Taylor never had a full-on slap-fest like Macy and Amber did during Amber's wedding to Deacon in 2003. Amber bit Macy's ear! And remember when Brooke finally hit Stephanie back, taking over as Forrester's CEO in 1993? I would love to see that again. And let's not leave out the guys, like Eric shooting psycho Rush with a crossbow in 1997. Badass!
What clashes not covered here would you like to see? Roll with the punches in the Comments section below or the Soap Central message boards, or simply click here to submit feedback. Your comments could wind up in a future column!
The silver lining in the cloud of not being able to see fresh episodes is that we do get to reach back and walk down Memory Lane with the B&B characters we love and the ones we love to hate. And we'll keep Scoopin' about it right along, so keep watching, be alert, and most of all, be bold. And we're not quite through yet with this coronavirus storyline of ours, so remember: protecting your health (and the health of loved ones and strangers) by wearing a mask and physical distancing is always beautiful!
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