Everything Right (And Wrong) With The Bold and the Beautiful In 2023

Of the four soaps left on the air, there wasn’t one that gave us a consistently good year in 2023. The Bold and the Beautiful definitely had its moments that kept us tuning in but there were also clunker storylines, missed opportunities, and quite a few things that made us go ‘hmmmm…’

Here we highlight what B&B did right and what it did wrong while giving honorable mentions to the good and the bad that was the year that just passed.

What Went Right On The Bold and the Beautiful

B&B did an amazing thing in 2023. It bit the bullet with a longtime teased pairing and gave us the breakout soap couple of the year. The chemistry between Matthew Atkinson and Annika Noelle has been apparent since Atkinson was cast as Thomas Forrester in 2019. We thought the show would finally go there last fall and give us a Hope and Thomas pairing, but then Thomas was once again thrown under the bus when it was revealed he was the one who called child services on himself but made it look as if Brooke was the culprit.

Hope thought she could never forgive Thomas for that move and so did we, but boy were she and we wrong. By spring, Thomas was once again Hope’s lead designer, leading Hope to have steamy fantasies about Thomas she didn’t quite understand. Finally, Hope threw caution to the wind right in front of the Colosseum in Rome when she grabbed Thomas and kissed him — not once, but twice. When the pair then silently walked off hand in hand for a date through the streets of Rome, Hope had no idea her husband Liam (Scott Clifton) had seen the whole thing.

Back home, Hope begged for forgiveness, Thomas wouldn’t give it, and Hope decided to finally care about Hope. What happened next was a week (in real-time, one evening in soap time) in bed with Thomas and a beautiful love story culminating in Hope realizing Liam treated her like less than dirt for years, and despite a checkered past in which he hurt her in a profound way, Thomas was a new man. And, he was the man for her.

That led to another highlight of 2023 — Liam descent into villainy. B&B tried to portray this slimy, waffling man as a hero for the longest time, but the last time we saw him in late November, the show seemed to embrace who he really was. Liam saw Hope and Thomas together after she told him her home was no longer his and his eyes rolled into his head. We saw a darkness in Liam that has always been there and we can’t wait to see Scott Clifton go to town with it in 2024.

When Villain Liam inevitably does return to the forefront, we expect him to be a thorn in the side of another 2023 highlight — the healthy relationship between Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) and Finn (Tanner Novlan). Like Hope, Steffy had also been treated like less than dirt with Liam and finally has a man who loves and respects her. They proved in both 2022 and this past year that they could weather any storm, the storm being Finn’s crazy bio mom, Sheila Carter (Kimberlin Brown). All in all, it was a joy to see BOTH Hope and Steffy with men who adore them instead of with Liam.

Honorable Mentions: The Things We Loved

With all that happened on B&B in 2023, it’s hard to believe we had two brief stories that seem to have taken place years ago. Sure, it was weird when Bill (Don Diamont) was suddenly in love with Sheila, but it was also fun guessing what he was really up to.

And let’s not forget Douglas’s Beach Vacation. Before Hope fell for Thomas, they fought over their son, Douglas (Henry Joseph Samiri). Out of nowhere, Thomas decided he wanted full custody of Douglas, but eventually, they allowed the kid to decide who he wanted to live with.

He chose Aunt Steffy because he was sick of his parents constantly bickering. That choice gave Douglas a little R&R at Steffy’s beach house where he got to play with other kids and Finn taught him to surf. When he got bored, he figured he’d return to Hope’s little She-Shed behind Brooke’s (Katherine Kelly Lang) big house and all was right in his world again.

What Went Wrong On The Bold and the Beautiful

Sheila’s nine (or 100, 1,000?) lives are getting old and her relationship with Deacon (Sean Kanan) is just plain weird. Sheila managed to survive jumping off Bill’s balcony AND a heart attack — all in one day. Before we could blink, she was healthy and back in jail only to be released on a technicality thanks to Deacon bribing a judge.

Then, we were subjected to Deacon and Sheila’s bizarre sex life with Sheila calling Deacon ‘Daddy’ — something that didn’t have the appeal B&B thought it did. On top of that, when Sheila was released from prison, we thought we’d see her actually do something to wedge her way back into Finn’s life, but it seems every story was dropped by late November to make room for Eric’s (John McCook) deathknell.

When a veteran soap actor, original character, and core family patriarch is diagnosed with a fatal disease, it would be nice to know what that fatal disease is. It would also be nice to see ALL of his children rally around him instead of a select few. We didn’t even see Thorne (Winsor Harmon) and Bridget (Ashley Jones) until Eric was nearly gone. The absence of Eric’s other kids, plus a name for his disease, pretty much told us he wasn’t going to die. Therefore, it was hard to get invested in this story.

In fact, all Eric’s (non) death story did was make us roll our eyes. From Eric’s grand finale to his grand soiree and his complete selfishness in hiding the truth from his family, this plot fell short from start to finish — with the finish being Brooke reading the bible (yes, we said Brooke) to help bring him back to life. Say what?

Honorable Mentions: The Things We Hated

Before RJ (Joshua Hoffman) became Eric’s helper and Luna’s (Lisa Yamada) boyfriend, he essentially had no other purpose than to worry about who his sisters were sleeping with. For some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about Hope’s and Steffy’s love lives, especially Hope’s. And that was just weird.

Finally, we have the Keyhole of Destiny and the end of ‘Braylor’. While it was genius to make Brooke and Taylor (Krista Allen) BFFs at the end of last year, B&B decided that would only be temporary. Both women had finally washed themselves of Ridge’s (Thorsten Kaye) waffling, then both women wanted him back just like that. In the end, the broken Bridge was mended when Ridge peeped through a keyhole in Rome, saw Brooke, and declared she was his destiny after all.

As for Taylor, she is now nowhere to be found with the news breaking in December that Krista Allen has been let go from the role. Sigh.

The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS. Check your local listings for times. Remember, you can always find the latest B&B spoilers, recaps, and news on Facebook on The Bold and the Beautiful Daily. Also, meet fellow fans and talk all things B&B with our Facebook community group.