About as subtle as an ACME anvil

One kiss. One hug. One roll in the sack. One playdate at the beach. Soap fans are often able to figure out what looms ahead based on dialogue. But just in case they don't, The Bold and the Beautiful makes sure they do with repeated, clunky mentions. So, does that mean Sheila Carter is about to die?

I learned to suspend disbelief when watching soap operas long ago. Now, nearly 30 years into owning and operating Soap Central, that makes accepting the evils twins, the wedding day back-from-the-dead appearances, and the fact that no one locks their doors a lot easier to accept.

I am not sure that I am willing to look the other way on Sheila's trial. I mean, it wasn't even a trial. It was more of a job interview. If they'd had snacks, it could have even been a cocktail party. I would accept this not-really-a-trial trial if, say, Sheila had done something to Charlie. But Sheila's actions had all been perpetrated against some very prominent Los Angeleno families.

The fact that Sheila shot her own son and a celebrity businesswoman (that's Steffy, in case you're wondering) would make Sheila's trial a media circus -- even in Los Angeles. I cannot imagine that Sheila being set loose into the world would ever be something that could or would be done in a judge's chambers. It makes the entire thing look very suspect.

It might just be that the folks at The Bold and the Beautiful don't have an actual courtroom set, or they didn't want to create one. Couldn't they have skipped across the hall and used something from sister soap, The Young and the Restless? B&B is big on remotes. Maybe a trip down the road to a real-world courthouse would have been fun.

As for the judge's ruling about Sheila's confession being ill-gotten, I don't know if I fully buy that, either. I only pretend to be a doctor in real life, but I've just recently rewatched every episode of The Practice and Boston Legal and now think of myself as an armchair attorney. A nun killer was released on The Practice because a police officer conducted an illegal search. It seemed outrageous, but I understood the reasoning. Why, though, does it seem like only the bad guys and gals benefit from these little legal bombshells?

Side note: I need people to stop saying, "We never need to worry about Sheila Carter again." Doesn't anyone believe in jinxes? At the very least, they should knock on wood when they say something like that.

Those sorts of things also come across as very clunky. "Sheila will never get of jail!" or "Hope would never kiss Thomas!" These heavy-handed bits of dialogue are about as subtle as all those ACME anvils that fall on Wile E. Coyote's head.

Second side note: why do B&B characters take so long to spit things out? We had four or five scenes of Sheila not telling Mike that she'd been freed. All the while, he kept asking questions about why Sheila was smiling. "Did they give you 20 years instead of life?" and "Did the trial get delayed?" and "Was there a breakfast buffet before the trial?" and "Are you the one that bought the winning $1 billion Powerball ticket?"

Unlike a lot of people, I am not entirely outraged or baffled by Finn hugging Sheila. Finn clearly has a lot of unresolved issues regarding his biological mother. Finn isn't the first person to have a blind spot when it comes to someone. Maybe it's some sort of form of Stockholm syndrome. In my head, I can see Finn forgiving Sheila for shooting him. Shooting Steffy? No nopety no. I'm of the mindset that I can get past someone treating me poorly. Yes, being shot is a bit more than just being treated poorly. But if you treat one of my loved ones badly? I'll probably never forgive you.

I am trying to decide what Liam's real motivation was for taking his little undercover video of Finn and Sheila's hug. Did he record it because it was a real-world equivalent of a Bigfoot sighting? No one would believe that they hugged. Now there's proof. But I suspect Liam was immediately thinking that his Loch Mess Monster footage was the perfect way to help him get back together with Steffy. That also feels a bit clunky.

Liam leaves his wife over a kiss and Steffy dumps her husband over a hug? As I sit and type this column, I just recalled that a woman filed for divorce from her husband of a decade or so because he had binge-watched Greys Anatomy without her. So, I guess anything is possible in 2023.

Anything but giving R.J. any kind of storyline, apparently.

Why is he home? What is his purpose in story right now? Being a sudden confidant to his sister and mother is sweet, but... it's not how I see a probably-not-old-enough-to-drink-yet young man acting.

If R.J. is an influencer, I would have liked to have seen him do some sort of social media stunt that ran afoul of the law or upset the Forrester Creations gang. I am fearful that whoever is currently writing the show might be a bit out of touch with the TikTok crowd and their "challenges," and we'll end up seeing R.J. toilet paper the Forrester Creations sign or something.

I will admit that I thought R.J.'s sudden return home was going to involve one of two things: he was in legal trouble for a social media stunt, or he wanted to come out to his parents. That latter one (and possibly the former) could still happen. Maybe he's just decided to wait until things calm down before revealing why he really returned to Los Angeles. If there is a love interest, I assume the love interest will come from off-canvas because, short of Paris (the Forrester employee, not the City of Lights), there isn't really anyone that could be a love interest for R.J. currently on the canvas. Hell, he's related to pretty much everyone on the canvas.

I've come up with my own little game to play as I watch B&B. Take a drink of your favorite beverage or a bite of your favorite snack every time Brooke tells someone that they don't know what they want or mean. Hope said Liam wanted a divorce. Brooke said that Liam didn't mean it. Hope then said that she also wanted the split. Brooke said that Hope didn't mean that, either. Hope declares that she wants to see where things might go with Thomas? Take a guess what Brooke's response was? Go ahead! If you guessed Brooke felt that Hope didn't really want to move on with Thomas, you might be feeling a little tipsy by now. Or, in my case, very giddy from a Cherry Coke sugar rush.

There's another game that I play -- and I suspect that a lot of TV viewers play it, too. It's the "If I were writing this show..." game. In a couple of weeks, we'll actually be featuring some special Two Scoops columns for all four soaps where the columnists will take that game to a whole new level. But for the purpose of this column, I want to share just one of the story ideas that I have. It's buried waaaaay down in this week's column because I suspect it will not be a popular idea: killing off Sheila Carter.

Sheila has gotten away with murder, attempted murder, and abuse of a toe, and I suspect that she probably didn't rewind her videotapes before taking them back to Blockbuster. Now she's gotten the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. Everyone hates her, except for maybe Deacon. Maybe it's time to finally have Sheila meet her maker. The Sheila of old would get herself out of predicaments. The Sheila of 2023? She allows legal technicalities to get her out of tough spots. Like Seinfeld and Succession, Sheila needs to go out on top.

There are oodles of suspects. Here's how it would play out. We'd see Sheila befalling her fate at the very end of a Friday episode. Then in each episode over the next three weeks, we'd see how one of the show's characters could be the killer. Yep -- a full episode devoted to how each character could or would have dunnit. It's sort of like how the movie Clue had three endings. On the Friday of that third week, we'd see whoreallydunnit. That's practically an entire Sweeps month of programming right there.

It's not that I necessarily want Sheila Carter to be killed off, but I think it's the story tweak the show needs right now. Sometimes, you need to make the tough decisions for the greater good. That's sort of how I am left feeling after this week's cliffhanger. B&B wouldn't really kill Kelly, would they? It would be an incredibly bold move -- one that would obviously have massive implications on the canvas. But killing a child is also borderline cruel and unusual punishment. Doing so during a strike by the Writers Guild of America might also not be the best look for the show. Then again, would there be unexpected fan reaction to the effect of, "Wow! Temporary writers are making big moves that the regular writers would never take!"? Who knows.

Fan reaction can be so hard to predict sometimes. I know that there are often big moments that shows plan... only to have them fizzle. Take that whole "murder mystery" of a few years ago. The one where Liam hit Vinny with his car? That was touted as a major, blockbuster storyline. Fans grumbled that not only was the storyline not exciting, but there also wasn't any mystery to the so-hyped murder mystery.

It seems fairly certain at this point that Finn and Steffy's relationship is on its way to crash and burn. That's another outcome that I don't think the majority of fans want to see. As is the case with R.J., there really are very few romantic options for Steffy, Hope, Thomas, Liam, and Finn because everyone is related.

If Finn and Steffy do split, it would be interesting to see squeaky-clean Finn go to the dark side. I think Tanner Novlan could have a lot of fun with some darker material. If Sheila were to somehow find herself in a chalk outline, Dark Finn could very well be the killer.

Well, that's all the opinions that I am entitled to in one Two Scoops column. Any more, and I think Chanel and AMJ are allowed to drop an anvil on my head. And from past experience, I've learned that those little parasols do absolutely nothing to protect me. So, in the words of Sheila Carter or Carter Walton -- or maybe it's the Roadrunner -- meep meep! Actually, let's just go with Porky Pig and say that, for now, "That's all folks!"

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