A Critic’s Review Of The Bold and the Beautiful: Taboo Tales and Love Triangles

When it comes to The Bold and the Beautiful, every fan has their own opinion – and Soap Hub is no different. For a week we sat and watched the good, the bad, and everything in between, and now we offer you a handy review, and a cheeky critique, of BB’s week that was.

The Bold and the Beautiful: A Critic’s Week In Review

BB’s bread and butter has always been star-crossed lovers, love triangles, and even the elusive love quadrangle. The soap has also been popular for giving more than lip service to love stories featuring characters of a certain age. Eric (John McCook) and Stephanie (Susan Flannery) danced around each other for years, and once upon a time Jake Hamilton (Chris Robinson) was considered the cat’s meow.

And now, thanks to those chemistry-laden scenes between Quinn (Rena Sofer) and Carter (Lawrence Saint-Victor) it seems that the beloved series is gearing up for an epic – and slightly taboo – tale.

Quarter, the nickname bestowed by the fans of the not-quite couple, has the potential to be BB’s most juicy story in years, and it mixes several buzzworthy TV tropes – May/December romance (Carter is 14 years Quinn’s junior), extramarital relations (let’s not forget that Quinn is a very married woman), and interracial love affairs.

The later concept is of particular note, as it would mark only the second such tale in the whole of BB’s history – following in the footsteps of the highly popular Rick Forrester/Maya Avant coupling.

The half-hour daytime serial doesn’t exactly have a fine history of dealing with touchy social issues. Stories of that nature tend to be short-lived, and quickly forgotten.

In fact, of the many introduced over the last three decades – rape, consent, the plight of the homeless, distracted driving, substance abuse, etc. – the only one with any type of resonance was Maya’s (Karla Mosley) status as a transwoman. But even that storyline was problematic.

Her “coming out” was met with near-unanimous acceptance from every character on the canvas, and even the ones that initially balked came around.

But now BB has the opportunity to really say something. To really tell a divisive story. Imagine the interest that could be generated from the story of a married woman pursuing a younger man, in her husband’s employ, who just so happens to be of a different race.

The gossip mill would have an absolute field day. Factions would no doubt form. Add to the fact that spoilers have Eric turning to his sympathetic and much younger ex-wife for comfort, and you’ve got the makings of a one-of-a-kind triangle.

Further BB Musings

* Vinnygate continues to baffle. Sure, the performances that have resulted from the murder mystery, that isn’t, have been stellar all around – especially the ones given by Bill (Don Diamont) and Liam (Scott Clifton) – but we’re still having the same conversations, between the same people ad nauseam. And Thomas’s (Matthew Atkinson) hypocritical stance on fleeing the scene of an accident is just becoming a bit too much.

It’s time to move this story along. For starters, let’s find out exactly who it was that posted Vinny’s (Joe LoCicero) bail. It clearly wasn’t any of Sanchez’s (Jeremy Ray Valdez) and Baker’s (Dan Martin) prime suspects, so maybe instead of continuing to bully and question Thomas, Liam, and Finn, they’d be better served looking elsewhere.

* Did Zoe (Kiara Barnes) seriously just walk into her boss’s house, and beg him and his son to intervene in her dating life? That’s about as ridiculous as her sudden about-face where her sister and Zende’s (Delon de Metz) romance is concerned.

* Equally baffling is Eric’s continued punishing of Quinn for her trespass when Ridge (Thorsten Kaye), who was the actual injured party, simply shrugged his shoulders and extolled advice that amounted to, “Get over it Dad.” The Bold and the Beautiful (BB) airs weekdays on CBS. Check your local listings for airtimes.