Has your week been bold and beautiful? Did you just miss having a shotgun wedding? Did you preen about your prowess to your paramour's progenitor? Did more people want you dead than alive? These and more situations faced the Forrester-Logan-Spencer-Spectra-Avant clan this week!
Woo-hoo, Scoopers! Got some real February sweeps action a month late, but dude, was it worth the wait! If you've been anywhere online these past few weeks, you probably already knew Bill was going to get his. Despite that foreknowledge, the sequences leading up to it were amazing. And how nice was it to see pretty much the entire cast in a single episode? Let's Scoop about it!
I'm still a little squeamish about making gun jokes in light of Parkland and subsequent shootings; it's kind of a shame Bill's comeuppance timed out with current events, but what can you do? I have to say, Bill never has paid for anything in nine years of bulldozing badness (much of which was illegal), so I'm not particularly sorry karma finally came up to bite him in his skinny-jeaned butt.
And, unless memory fails, we haven't had a good whodunit (or any dunit) since 2007, when Stephanie was likewise shot from behind with a gun that just happened to be laying around. I'm not a fan of the overdone convenient weapon device on this show, and I wish Bill could have met his fate with a different instrument. But it's high time B&B had a mystery like this, and there's absolutely no shortage of suspects.
First, let's talk about what happened before the shooting. On a cold, windy night in Los Angeles (kind of unusual, but I guess not unheard-of), Bill dropped to one knee and asked Steffy to be his wife! At least he's consistent -- he sure married Brooke without dating her first, and I don't recall there being much of a courtship with Katie, either. Doesn't anybody on this soap believe in romance anymore?
Seriously! Bill and Steffy flirted in 2009. Bill seemed to get more horned up for Steffy when she seduced control of Forrester Creations out of him in 2010. Then, there's the infamous c**kblock Taylor pulled just as they were about to get down in 2011. So after Still finally slept together once, Bill thinks that's enough for a marriage? Even Bill Sr. didn't roll like that; no wonder Steffy said no.
I do have a hard time believing Steffy doesn't have any feelings for Bill at all, but maybe she would have caved even a little if Bill had overpowered the scent of Steffy's vegetarian pho with several dozen giant Ecuadorian roses. No, Steffy wanted Liam and sent Bill on his way. How many of you think Bill messed with Steffy's DNA test in the hospital? 'Cuz I sure do.
Bill had a different proposal for Katie, in the form of taking Will away from her. We never see the kid, anyway, so I don't know if he could tell the difference. It's just that I'm still scratching my head over Bill's severe reaction to Watie and their engagement. Bill never cared about Katie, they're divorced, and getting involved with a child of your ex is par for the course with this crew. Yet Bill felt betrayed and promised consequences!
To think it took the Dollah to finally mention that Wyatt would not only be Will's half-brother but also his stepfather. About time! Rather than have someone create a new line of Hallmark cards appropriate to this new branch of the family tree, Bill had Justin draw up papers that would cut Wyatt and Liam out of Spencer Publications -- no jobs, no money, and I'm guessing Bill would take back the houses his kids live in. Very Monopoly.
Ridge opted to not pass go and skipped the $200, instead going directly to Bill's upon finding out the helicopter dumper wanted to fly Steffy away on a marital magic carpet. "Everything you care about gets used up and broken and hurt," Ridge growled. The dressmaker ain't wrong there, is he? Ridge got knocked on his ass not only by Bill's fist, but also by the news that Steffy wanted it and Bill was more than happy to give it to her!
After Ridge left, Bill thought back to all the clashes he'd had with nuisances and loved ones alike -- now that's how you use flashbacks. Set to an almost classical underscore, Bill wandered his empty house with lights flickering from the howling wind and Justin's contract in his hand, while a shadowy figure treaded onto his property via the security gate that had to be left open because of the outages.
Was it someone with long hair? Someone in a hoodie? The chill had prompted several people to don gloves, a pair of which creaked open Bill's incredulously unlocked door. Somehow, he didn't hear it, and I wondered if Thriller was about to start. But Bill couldn't change that number on his dial, because also, somehow, the golden gun Bill brought home for some unknown reason was laying out and presumably loaded.
Contrivances aside, it was compelling as hell as Bill stood staring out his open patio door, tear in his eye, maybe actually feeling some regret at being such a word-I-can't-say-in-this-column...but his possible contrition was too little, too late, as the mystery intruder aimed and took big bad Dollar Bill down with a single shot. The sequence was excellent -- the best I've seen on B&B in a long time. Kudos all around!
The following episode picked up with just the sound of the wind (nice touch, having no music), and Katie walked in wanting to reason with Bill over Will's custody. Wondering why the patio door was open, Katie ran over and accidentally kicked Bill's motionless body! (Admit it...that was funny. And Katie had one free kick coming!) Naturally, she called 9-1-1, and soon her bloody ex was rushed to the hospital.
Katie was so upset (amazingly so, considering how much Bill's done her over) that she'd have to be doing the best acting job of her life if she was the shooter. I assume Katie's in the clear. The same seems to hold true for Brooke and Eric, who were wondering where their respective spouses were. Steffy was at home, waiting for Liam, and Charlie was too worried about Pam. Wouldn't it be hilarious if Nicole pulled the trigger?
I want to pull out a Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass and do some "elementary, Watson" to the many people Bill managed to piss off. What first occurs to me is, whoever plugged him would have to have known Bill's golden gun was sitting there -- unless they brought their own gun but picked up Bill's instead, which is ridiculous. There were also gloves involved. How 'bout we run down the list? In alphabetical order?
JARRETT
The long-suffering journalist had just gotten canned by Bill for...whatever reason. I just saw Jarrett in a 2008 episode on YouTube, so this guy was here before Bill was. The usually mellow friend of Caroline's mothers was unusually animated and knocked back some of Bill's expensive whiskey as he bitched to Justin that Bill was going to regret firing him. And Jarrett hasn't made an appearance since.
Pulling Jarrett under the umbrella of this whodunit is brilliant, and the fact that he faded into the background increases the likelihood -- to me, anyway -- that he's the culprit, especially since Jarrett has a long history of being Bill's whipping boy. Yet, given how, historically, gay men end up being the killers (see any number of '60s/'70s/'80s movies), I can't help hoping Jarrett is innocent. I'll admit he's an easy character to send to jail, since he's recurring and all.
JUSTIN
Oh, Mr. Barber. You're just a little too happy to be sitting in Bill's chair, appointing yourself CEO of Spencer. Justin definitely knew about the gun, since he saw Sally bust a cap in Sky's ass. And he was awfully anxious to have Bill sign what turned out to be that Corporate Restructuring Agreement -- the title of which I didn't notice until new Lt. Sanchez showed it to Justin at the crime scene.
And Lt. Baker is now the Deputy Chief of Police! High time he got a promotion! He was already on hand during Sheila's parting rampage in 1998. But I digress. We didn't see Bill sign the disinheriting document, but he could have -- and it's also possible Justin slipped something in there Bill didn't see that gave him more power than Bill intended in the event of incapacitation -- or death.
Would Justin really have popped his supposed best friend just to run Spencer? His cockiness increases the odds, but the fact that portrayer Aaron D. Spears is now on contract dramatically decreases those odds. Why give him a story just to stick him in jail? No, the cousin of Y&R's Olivia may be slimier than ever, but he might be just a little too obvious to be the culprit.
LIAM
Unless the bullet was made of tofu, Liam is probably the last person to pop his pop. Interestingly, Liam was the first person to see Bill once he was allowed visitors. Liam urged his estranged dad to live and vowed to find out who tried to kill him...but was it an act? Liam has one of the biggest reasons to want the ultimate revenge, and Liam was awfully out of it once he finally arrived to have dinner with Steffy. Highly unlikely, but still.
PAM
This is where it gets interesting. It just so happens that this week, I've been watching Pam's 2008 descent into madness on YouTube, which included her dousing Donna with honey and siccing a bear on her to free Eric up for a reunion with sister Stephanie. Therefore, it fit that there was a snafu regarding Pam's bipolar meds, which had Pam so edgy that Charlie was extremely worried about her.
After watching them bake for years, I can't tell you how awesome it was to see Charlie and Pam immersed in a serious arc that's rooted in Pam's history. Pam must have been off her meds before for Charlie to ask, "How many times have we talked about not letting this happen?" I wonder if Charlie knows what Pam did to Donna? It's good to know Pam isn't just "okay" like most on the show who have had mental or physical ailments.
Pam overheard Ridge say that Bill had taken advantage of Steffy and went into (ahem) mama bear mode. Remember, Pam tried to kill Donna for Stephanie, so it makes sense that in her non-medicated state, Pam would get wound up over Stephanie's namesake. After Bill's shooting, Pam came to work in the same clothes she'd worn the day before, and Charlie had been beside himself with worry over Pam not answering his calls.
Huh? Charlie knew Pam was having one of her "episodes" and left her alone? That doesn't seem right. It also doesn't seem right that Pam blanked out and couldn't remember what she'd done because she was off her bipolar meds. True, even her mother, Ann, remarked that Pam got weird without her pills back in the day, but it was discovered that Pam's homicidal behavior came from a brain mass, not a lack of meds.
Could the scar tissue on Pam's brain be back? It wouldn't be rational for Pam to get this upset over Steffy's apparent violation, but if Pam were once again impaired, anything is possible. Still, despite the clever inclusion of Pam's ongoing condition, I can't see her shooting Bill. Gotta say, it's great to see Alley Mills get some real material to work with, and give me more dramatic Pam and Charlie, please. They rocked it!
QUINN
You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, and you don't mess with Wyatt without getting a world of Quinn in your face. The bridge-pushing, sword-impaling mother from hell may have needed meds of her own as she raged over Bill disowning Wyatt for getting engaged to Katie. Granted, Quinn wasn't thrilled to find out the girl who aimed a gun at her was going to be her daughter-in-law, but Quinn went with it.
You may recall, this isn't the first time Quinn has gone into her own special defensiveness mode, trying to make sure Bill gave Wyatt his fair share of Spencer trappings. However, Quinn got so riled up over Bill denying Wyatt that Eric worried his wife was regressing in record time. Quinn took a breath and admitted she didn't want to be who she was again, yet she ran out the door -- with her gloves -- to get some air.
I have always thought Quinn's I'm-normal-now-that-I've-found-love schtick was too easy; you don't come back from Quinn's extremes without a boatload of therapy. So, I rather enjoyed seeing the anger flashing in her eyes because I knew it was still there. And, outside of those quick S&M romps she had with Bill in 2014 (and whatever session created Wyatt), Quinn has generally never felt anything but contempt for the Dollah.
I wouldn't put it past Quinn to take care of Bill in order to take care of Wyatt, but I dunno. It would mean Quinn going to jail (which she's still deserving of). Could Quinn have known about Bill's golden gun? Maybe it was still on his desk when she read her ex the riot act; I didn't notice. Rage or not, I somehow don't think Quinn pulled the trigger. That would be too easy.
RICK
His inclusion in this saga makes the least amount of sense to me of all. Hearing from Pam that Bill slept with Steffy, Rick became unusually hostile toward his one-time stepfather and inexplicably made Steam's crumbling marriage about Maya. I don't blame Rick for still resenting Bill's outing of Maya as transgender in his magazines, but it was really out of the blue.
Not that I trust Rick around guns. Three years ago, he shot at Ridge and Caroline just to frighten them (with Stephanie's convenient gun). Then there's the fact that, as a teenager, Rick went into a fugue state and put a bullet in then stepfather Grant Chambers (with another of Stephanie's convenient guns), which Rick still doesn't remember.
So, Rick has the temperament, and I also recall his bitterness goes back to Bill trying to blackmail Maya into staying away from Rick by photographing her with Jesse, the ex Maya wasn't supposed to come within 500 feet of; Rick repaid Bill by locking him in a staged jail cell. But Rick shooting Bill here would just be so random, even with Maya worrying that he didn't come home 'til late that night. Hmm. Maybe Maya did it?
RIDGE
There's no way Ridge shot Bill. That's too simple. Rageful Ridge was the last person to see Bill before he got popped; Ridge also saw the gun, which Bill dared him to use. True, Ridge kept going on about how Bill deserved to die to the point Brooke was getting freaked out (isn't violence why she left Bill?). But Ridge said he didn't do it -- and the cops are already sniffing around him. You know the wrong person will be arrested!
SALLY
No one could say the flaming redhead didn't have a right to burn after all the shadiness Bill pulled on her. She's right: Bill took everything from her, all for his stupid skyscraper, and she sure as shootin' knew about the gun because she used it to put a hole in Sky. After a bitch session with Shirley and Saul, Sally skipped dessert because she felt it was time to do something about Bill, even kissing Saul goodbye.
I predict Sally will be arrested because her fingerprints are already on the gun from before (which Bill even taunted her over), but I also say she didn't do it. Again, too easy. And she didn't even find out Bill lied about Caroline dying until after the shooting, which would have increased her motivation. Though she knows how to make a paper target beg for mercy, her experience with guns is a coincidence.
SAUL/SHIRLEY
Let's not discount this duo too quickly. Saul has a major thing for Sally and clearly was touched by her kiss on his cheek. Admittedly, he'd be more likely to strangle Bill with his tape measure, but how far afield would it be for Saul to avenge Sally by putting a bullet in the man who tormented her? Saul probably already heard about the gun from Sally, though he wouldn't necessarily know it was in Bill's house.
Shirley makes me go "hmm" quite a bit more, though. We don't know much about her; we did recently find out she taught Sally and Coco how to shoot and packed heat in her Floridian bakery. And Shirley was sure vocal about her desire to make Bill pay. Maybe too vocal, but let's not forget, Shirley and Saul have only ever been peripheral players. Which makes them hundreds of times more likely to get carted off to jail. Anyone seen Coco?
SHEILA
Oh, come on. How obvious would she be? When Ridge told her to "do what you do best" and shoot Bill, I thought that was unfair until I remembered that Ridge lost Taylor for a time because of Sheila (the gun went off as Sheila and Taylor struggled over it; let's get it right). But there's no way in hell Sheila would risk going back to jail to help Ridge. I don't even think she'd do that for Eric, despite her behavior last year.
Still, Sheila was apparently "super late" for her shift at Il Giardino, and when Ridge came in for a drink, nursing a shiner, Sheila told him that she'd taken his murderous request to heart. I don't know what that means; I just know there would be no mystery at all if Sheila shot Bill. She never even shared a scene with him until last week, and they had no dialogue outside of her trying to prevent him and Ridge from scrapping.
THOMAS
The impossibly tall, impossibly gorgeous designer's reappearance seemed to come out of nowhere -- that is, until you consider Bill sidestepped a phone call from him the previous week. Went by quick, but I caught it. Thomas already knew the news he came to L.A. specifically to deliver to Sally: Caroline's "fatal illness" was all a lie. Bill concocted it to get Thomas away from Sally so Spectra would tank without his designs!
It watered things down, learning that the revelation came about off-screen; how juicy would it have been to see Thomas' reaction upon finally hearing Caroline's confession? What made her spill about it now, after all these months? Thomas was grateful to have spent so much time with his son, but he couldn't believe Bill's plot cost him Sally's love. "We were manipulated," Thomas groused. At least he didn't say "we were robbed!"
Thomas could have come back sometime between his phone call and showing up on Sally's doorstep. And he's been driven to violent extremes before -- remember when he blew up Rick's car to scare him off romancing Steffy? The fact that Thomas' return is temporary definitely jacks up the likelihood he shot Bill, and he has as much reason to despise Bill as Sally does.
WYATT
He was pretty torqued over the idea of Bill taking his half-brother/future stepson away from Katie. But torqued enough for patricide? After all, Wyatt is the guy who still has the taste of Bill's boots on his tongue from years of licking them. Yet I had to wonder when the camera panned to Wyatt's picture, and he must have already been three sheets to the wind if he passed out from guzzling that little bottle he brought to Katie's.
Nice touch, by the way, having him come in with a paper bag that clunked down like it could have had a gun inside! Wyatt assured Katie he didn't shoot his own father, but he was pretty out of it even at the hospital; he couldn't have come home crocked the night before if he was taking a solar shower. Wyatt thinks Justin did it. Which pretty much brings us back to where we started!
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE...
Before I forget, I loved the Thursday episode opening with what was presumably a news chopper flying over L.A.'s freeways and the audio montage of anchors reporting on Bill's shooting! Gave things kind of a primetime feel. Now, don't think the preceding list of potential suspects is all there is. It's possible Bill's shooter could be someone we haven't even thought of!
That's right! Emmy came back; though she shifted her worship from Bill to Justin faster than you can say The Talk, it could be she shot Bill in a fit of unrequited love. Maybe Darlita, who's been conspicuously absent, heard about the gun and tried to do Bill in for doing her out of a job. Hell -- Deacon could have been released from jail, or broken out, and decided to finally get his own revenge on Bill!
You never know -- maybe Hope, who once busted into Bill's place with a golf club to rip him a new one and was also nowhere to be seen the night of the shooting, shot Bill to make him pay for what he did to Liam. Thorne's also MIA; he has no beef with Bill that I know of, but he did once shoot Ridge while hopped up on booze and pills, and he has nothing better to do lately. (The more things change...)
Could it be Ivy? Ashleigh Brewer left/is leaving the show and has had no exit story to speak of. Perhaps Caroline is on the warpath, having just lost Thomas to his learning she was never actually dying; Caroline has a good reason to make her uncle say "uncle." Finally, one long-missing woman, one who stopped Bill and Steffy from making love the first time, could want vengeance for Bill ruining Steffy's marriage. Maybe Taylor shot Bill!
Seems pretty much all twelve million people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area had a reason for pumping lead in Dollar Bill Spencer. Who do you think's guilty? Make your case in the the Comments section below or on the Soap Central message boards, or simply click here to submit feedback. Your comments could wind up in a future column! Like these!
"I can...understand Steffy's motivation to try and save her marriage so as not to re-live the cycle of her parents marriage(s). She's always been a fighter and she's fighting hard but she doesn't beg, her begging Liam frustrates me to no end. It doesn't feel true to her character. Neither Steffy nor Bill's characters feel true at the moment. But that could be because I'm hanging out for #Still and slowly losing hope of it happening." -- Siege
"It was good leading up to the shooting. Now I could care less. And please tell me Wyatt will ask to see the so-called paperwork Bill signed. And now months later Thomas finds out the truth. A little late to care about that one." -- Sam
"Seems Justin was the one to shoot Bill since there was build up to it, but I hope #BoldandBeautiful doesn't ruin Bill/Justin's friendship...Shelia could have done it to frame Quinn. Thomas could have shot Bill when he returned! Or probably none of the above. LOL" -- Tia
Well, after nearly ten years, we have a full-fledged murder mystery on our hands, so keep watching, be alert, and most of all, be bold. And remember, now more than ever, no matter color, creed, religion, gender identity, orientation, or nationality, we're all beautiful!
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.
