It’s an old soap trope to see the underdog ‘bad’ guy finally get the girl, and that’s what’s happened on The Bold and the Beautiful as Thomas Forrester has finally landed the woman of his dreams.
Pairing Thomas Forrester With Hope Is A Risk
On paper, Thomas (Matthew Atkinson) and Hope (Annika Noelle), known as ‘Thope’ in the social media fandom, should not work. After all, he did terrible things back in 2019 that nobody can deny. He fell for Hope after Caroline (Linsey Godfrey) died, and she seemed like the perfect choice to help him create a family with Douglas (Henry Joseph Samiri). But the timing was off, and his feelings turned into obsession. He used and hurt his son to manipulate Hope, and she was still grieving for her baby Beth who she didn’t know was still alive.
When Thomas learned Beth was alive, his first instinct was to tell her, but he quickly made the massive mistake of keeping it a secret due to the very realistic fear that Hope would go right back to Liam (Scott Clifton) if she knew the truth. There was no excuse for any of his behavior, and he rightfully paid for it by losing his son.
Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) also tossed him off a cliff, and Hope tossed him into what she thought was a vat of acid, so Thomas has certainly experienced his comeuppance from both Hope and her overbearing mother. When a soap character does what Thomas did, there needs to be consequences, and there were. There also needs to be remorse, and there is.
Yes, many things have happened since then, but they all seem to lead to where we are now. With Hope completely done with Liam and Thomas standing there dumbfounded that Hope actually came to him.
The Feelings Were Always There For Thope
For a while, Hope, Thomas, Liam, and Douglas seemed to all live a peaceful co-parenting co-existence, and Liam even wanted Thomas to be the one to watch over his little family when he thought he would go to jail for mowing down Thomas’s best friend Vinny (Joe LoCicero). When Thomas learned that Vinny threw himself on the road that night in a misguided bid for Liam to go to jail so Thomas could finally have Hope, it was Thomas who moved heaven and Earth to get the truth out and risked his own life to do it.
A few months later came the mannequin incident in which Thomas truly did believe he was dating a mannequin version of Hope, and when he broke down after Hope found him with Hope Mannequin, it was heartbreaking. He loved her, and her heart broke for him. Thomas soon passed out, and we learned his behavior was a result of a brain injury sustained when he went off the cliff after that fight with Brooke.
By then, Hope had already long forgiven Thomas for his heinous behavior in 2019, and they’d eased into a comfortable relationship that was rocked in 2022. Thomas, Hope, and Douglas started to spend more time together as a family unit, and Brooke couldn’t stand it. She goaded Thomas over and over until he made another impulsive mistake and set her up for a fake Child Protective Services call. That was a mistake on B&B’s part. It took a character whose growth had been documented by the show and appreciated by many fans and tossed it aside while throwing Thomas under the bus as a plot point for Ridge (Thorsten Kaye) to do what Ridge does — run to Taylor (Krista Allen) when he is angry at Brooke.
We weren’t sure if we’d see a course correction or if it would even work, but it did for various reasons, not the least of which is the obvious chemistry between Atkinson and Noelle.
Thomas Forrester Causes An Awakening For Hope
Although Thomas went about things very wrong multiple times, one thing remained clear. He loved Hope and would always put her first, a foreign concept to Hope since her first boyfriend ‘accidentally’ had sex with her mother, and her second boyfriend was Liam. And when you spend more than a decade of your life pining after a man who has done nothing but waffle back and forth between you and your stepsister, you might not have much self-worth. Couple that with the fact that your mother spent all of those years telling you that you had to forgive Liam every time he cheated on you, you might think that was all there was in life.
That first ‘awake’ moment for Hope came just a few short months ago after Liam ordered her not to rehire Thomas as her lead designer, and she agreed. But when it came time to announce that decision, Hope made a split-second change and decided to follow her own mind and desires. She wanted Thomas back on her team, Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) told her it was her decision alone, and she made it just that. She re-hired Thomas, saw a softer change in him she hadn’t seen before (all hail therapy!), and didn’t do what Liam told her to do. That moment seemed to free her to be herself, think for herself, and feel for herself. And what she felt were feelings for Thomas that she knew on the surface were wrong, but in her heart seemed right.
By the time Hope and Thomas made it to Rome and they were standing in front of the Colosseum, Hope was ready for more than Liam. She was ready for a man who made her feel like she could be herself and Thomas right there looking at her the way she had never been looked at before — like she was the only woman in the world.
Still, she was Good Girl Hope Logan and had to do the right thing once home. But Liam couldn’t forgive, Liam threw Steffy in her face, and Liam didn’t seem to comprehend that he had done the same thing to Hope over and over again, including in 2020 when he thought the mannequin Thomas was kissing really was Hope. He cheated on her. With Steffy. A lot.
Thomas Forrester Gets The Girl
Nobody was more shocked than Thomas when Hope pulled him in for that kiss in Rome, and nobody was more shocked than Thomas when Hope came to him after Liam asked for a divorce and took him to bed. Then, nobody was more shocked than Hope that sex could actually be enjoyable. There was clearly something about being with Thomas that couldn’t hold a candle to Liam, and maybe that was a man looking at you like he loved you and only you.
While Thope seems like the unlikeliest of successful soap pairs considering their auspicious beginnings, everything that happened over the last four years seemed to prime them for this moment. They have an uphill battle to climb with everyone against them, while Hope still has to face everything that happened with Liam. But in a time in the soap world where writers are on strike, fans have become frustrated, and love in the afternoon seemed to be a thing of the past, Thomas and Hope have emerged as an underdog pairing to root for, and we can’t wait to see what happens next.
The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS. For an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.
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