The "acid-nine" death of Thomas Forrester

Thomas is floating in a vat of hydrofluoric acid without a life preserver. Could Taylor and Ridge be about to lose yet another child -- or, like his parents, will Thomas rise from certain death to annoy Hope another day? Can this show really afford to keep killing off legacy characters?

What floats like a butterfly but stings like a bee? The hydrofluoric-acid-dipped Thomas Forrester! Oh, too soon? Sorry. I'll try it again tomorrow.

For a few weeks now, the show has been teasing that another character will die on The Bold and the Beautiful. After the untimely deaths of Caroline and Emma this year, there probably wasn't a single viewer happy to hear that another cast member would leave us. To make it worse, the show has dwindled in characters, meaning that one of the legacy characters was about to receive their newly engraved tombstone.

It looks like that character is Thomas Forrester -- unless he borrows one of the seven lives his mother has left or manages to cheat death from the acid vat the way that Ridge cheated his flaming death in South America. Falling -- again -- was an asinine way to go, and just when we expected to see a half-skinned skeleton surface from the acid, we instead saw a sopping wet Thomas. Was this a production slip-up or a clue?

Meanwhile, Ridge drew closer to Shauna as he worried about what Hope and Brooke could be scheming about Douglas' custody. Shauna fawned over Ridge, outright flattered to "almost" be the other woman. He continually tells her that he wants to be with his wife and admits that he doesn't stop her flirting because it gives him a boost. Shauna has set herself up nicely to be the body in bed Ridge lands upon. If Brooke isn't sympathetic about Thomas' alleged death, Shauna just might be Ridge's person to the right at Thanksgiving.

That brings us back to the big mystery of the week. Is Thomas dead? Or, like Batman's Harvey Dent, will Thomas be the most "Two-Faced" villain in town? Let's get two scoops deep into the cliffhanger week of danger on The Bold and the Beautiful.

Steffy pondered how history was repeating itself. Ridge had fallen for a Logan, and so had Thomas. The history runs deeper than that because Eric did it, too, and Douglas is also hopelessly devoted to one. History also repeats itself with the women on the sidelines who have no chance with the Forrester men who are enamored with the Logans.

Zoe whipped her best kiss up on Thomas, and all he could think of was calling Hope. So much for the next interracial power couple since Raya running the company. I can't help wondering what the point is of having Zoe back on the show and living at Vinny's place, especially if Thomas is dead. Maybe it's the way Thomas floated, unblemished, to the surface of the vat, but something tells me that he might not be dead. When Two-Faced Thomas shows back up at Vinny's with a new chemical peel, Zoe's gonna have plenty of "I told you so's" for our dear, obsessed villain.

Shauna might be as obsessed with Ridge as Thomas is with Hope. As you know, Shauna is staying at the Forrester mansion for a very contrived reason -- Flo, recovering from a kidney removal, didn't want her mother hovering over her. It seems as if Shauna has checked on Ridge more than she has her own daughter. Maybe my ears got numb by her incessant flirting fails, but I don't recall hearing her mention to Ridge how Flo's recovery is coming along.

Katrina Bowen, who plays Flo, is on location, filming a shark movie. Unfortunately for the Flo haters who'd been hoping Flo would die instead of Thomas, Flo will return. In the interim, Shauna struggles to stay relevant by wandering into the mansion for an education in brandy and cognac while loudly pining for Ridge.

Shauna's flirtations aren't lost on Ridge. He loves them. They chase his blues away. But, make no mistake, he's still going back to his wife the moment their kid crisis is over. We'll have to see how he feels about going home to Brooke after he learns what happened to Thomas during his dinner with Hope and Douglas.

Is Ridge wrong for not keeping his distance with Shauna? And what is Zoe's purpose on the show? Here's what some of you on the Soap Central message boards have to say about it:

"I think Zoe will expose Hope and be Thomas' hero. Anyone else? They are the couple that is going to get a buildup." -- BingoGal1969

"I would like it if Zoe is really attracted to Thomas and trying to show him that he can have someone who wants him instead of having to manipulate someone else who clearly does not love him and does not want to be with him...But at the same time I wonder why Zoe would really fall for a guy who had seemed to have weirded her a bit out with the 'on-off' List." -- viennagirl

"Apparently there is no limit of debasement that Shauna will heap on herself to get Ridge's attention. I have no doubt they will end up in bed for real but she won't get what she's looking for. Shauna has made it known to Ridge she 'has a past' to put it mildly and he will just be one more over reach." -- Sweetday

"She's like a cat in heat always coming on to him. So sick of the Vegas Ho, and Ridge will boink anyone who flatters him." -- soaps4me

I have to agree that it is weird that, after all the crazy ways Thomas has behaved, Zoe would genuinely be enamored with him. Sasha and Sally tried to show Thomas love, but Thomas seems to be obsessed with unavailable women.

Most of the message board comments about Ridge and Shauna pertained to Shauna's behavior, not Ridge's. I do think that Ridge should be held responsible for leading Shauna on. Telling her that he is leading her on and that he intends to return to his wife is a clever way to escape blame, but ultimately, he needs to put distance between him and Shauna, who doesn't deserve to be a rebound girl, no matter how badly she's asking for it.

B&B has a flare for the dramatic, but the build-up to Thomas' acid bath was a bit inane for my taste. Charlie and Jake hauled in a vat of acid to clean the washer drums at Forrester. Who knew Forrester was also a laundromat? One would think fabrics like theirs required dry cleaning, but don't let me try to pretend to be a clothing expert.

As Hope, Douglas, and Thomas had their dinner together, Charlie was finishing up with the last of the drums. We didn't see much more of that, but we do know that Ridge told Charlie to make sure he got that acid out of there as soon as possible. Could Charlie's crew have emptied the vat of the acid and filled the tank with water before leaving for the night? Is it possible that, as a part of the cleaning process, the washers were dunked in water last?

If so, Thomas might live to obsess on Hope another day. Let's hope so. As much as I dislike Thomas, I don't like the idea of another Tay-tot dying. I don't like it when legacy characters are killed off, either. We've lost too many Forresters too soon, and it is incredibly cruel of the writers to have Douglas lose his father and mother in the same year.

Once we knew that acid vats were in place, it was obvious that someone -- Hope, Douglas, or Thomas -- would feel the burn. When Thomas left Douglas unattended somewhere in the building, my heart sank, wondering if the storyline would be that the fight for Douglas would cost the child his life.

The plot became a little hard to swallow as Hope seemed to get hysterical about where Douglas could be in the building, and we were disgusted to learn that Thomas had left Douglas in a storage room somewhere. There was no reason in the world to sit that boy in a storage room when the design office is right across the hall. Why did Douglas have to leave the room, anyway? Was Thomas really thinking Hope might boink him on the spot?

At least Hope got her coveted custody papers, right? But are they even legal? If Thomas is dead, will Douglas' family let the person who last saw Thomas alive just walk away with the child?

Here are some more comments from the Soap Central message boards:

"That can't be legal. There was no witness to Thomas' signature. For once Brooke said something sensible when she suggested to Donna that their meeting should have been in an attorney's office." -- afinebalance

"The workers were wearing masks. That, and the comment made about draining them and filling them with water makes me think Thomas only fell into water." -- Camille78

"I'm furious that Thomas is so pathetic over Hope and I cannot believe he signed those papers. What a dummy. Meanwhile it's also unrealistic that Hope wouldn't know Thomas fell or that he did so without any sound at all. Equally as dumb for Douglas to be locked away somewhere instead of sending him home." -- Ilovethedusk

"The whole thing was lit so poorly, I couldn't even see what was going on. When they were showing close ups of Hope's and Thomas's eyes, I couldn't tell if Hope was falling under Thomas's spell or if she was trying to figure a way out of the room. Also, did they actually show her push Thomas over the rail or did he just lose his balance?" -- Dannicat

Yes, these are exactly the reasons I called it the "acid-nine" death of Thomas Forrester. Some of the plot issues brought up from above make the scene a bit asinine. But this final comment probably sums up what most viewers might be feeling:

"I would love to see him getting out of that tank on his own with that evil look of his on his face!" -- lucario2000

In next week's preview video, Hope goes to look for Thomas and gasps as she shines her phone light on the vat. Panicked, Hope tells her mother that it's going to look like she killed Thomas. Ridge tells Hope that he knows what she did.

Thanks for scooping with us this week. Have a wonderful weekend, and until we scoop again, stay bold and beautiful, baby!

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