Soap Hub Performer Of The Week For B&B: Matthew Atkinson

Thomas Forrester has conquered the mental illness he suffered from a while back on The Bold and the Beautiful but his portrayer, Matthew Atkinson, hasn’t lost his character’s intense edge. For his performance as a father insisting on having custody of his son, Douglas Forrester, Soap Hub bestows upon the actor Performer of the Week honors.

Matthew Atkinson – Performer of the Week

Matthew Atkinson has fully embraced the direction the B&B writers have given his character and neither he nor his character Thomas, are holding anything back. The actor continues to bring both deft charm and a dangerous edge to his role. Thomas has successfully orchestrated his son Douglas (Django Ferri) living with him at the stately Forrester mansion, creating a family environment for his boy. Thomas doesn’t have Douglas living in the run-down apartment he once shared with poor dead Vinny Walker (Joe LoCicero). Nope, the youngster is living in style in B&B’s most prestigious set.

Thomas isn’t surprised when Douglas’s adopted mother Hope Logan Spencer (Annika Noelle) comes over to see their son; in fact, Thomas will invite her over, hoping to charm her into seeing that Douglas is happy and perhaps lure her back into his life, too. But nothing irks Thomas more than when Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) — the woman who accidentally knocked him off the side of Steffy Forrester Finnegan’s (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) cliff house property and down to the beach — shows up and wants to stick her two cents into the situation.

“What am I doing besides stepping up and providing a good solid home for my son?” Thomas rhetorically asked Brooke. An incredulous Thomas couldn’t believe Brooke was accusing him of trying to make trouble in her marriage to Thomas’s father Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye). Brooke played the “issues” card, referencing Thomas’s mental illness. Thomas, in turn, brought up his late grandmother Stephanie Forrester’s (Susan Flannery) dislike of Brooke, calling her an ‘oversexed gold digger’ and pointing out that she was always lurking around Ridge and Taylor’s (Krista Allen) marriage, hoping to land Ridge for herself.

Thomas went for a grand slam when he pointed out that Brooke went after not only Ridge while he was married to his mother but also had had relationships with his grandfather Eric Forrester (John McCook) and his uncle Thorne Forrester (Winsor Harmon). Lang’s Brooke fired back with her own historical facts, noting that she had stepped in for Taylor while she was gone (Taylor was presumed dead for some of Thomas’s formative years) and acted as Thomas’s stepmother.

At times, Matthew Atkinson played Thomas as having more of an intense dislike of Brooke than any other emotion. He threw in Brooke’s face that three of her children — RJ, Rick, and Bridget (Ashley Jones) — had all left town because they probably wanted to get away from her. Brooke asked Thomas how he would explain Hope not only sticking around but also her turning out to be a good person, someone with whom he’d trust his son. “Dumb luck. Recessive genes kicking in. Who knows?” Thomas dismissively shrugged.

B&B literally armed Thomas with a knife, the one he used to cut apples in this scene, and while Matthew Atkinson, as Thomas, used the blade to slice some fruit, the actor held it in a potentially menacing way — as if he was threatening Brooke. It’d be tough for Brooke to convince others of that but that’s just what Thomas is counting on. He’s going to put Brooke in her place as he does everything possible to hang onto his son. Bravo to Matthew Atkinson for making Thomas both a devoted dad and a dangerous dude.

The Bold and the Beautiful (BB) airs weekdays on CBS. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Los Angeles, check out all the latest that’s been posted on B&B spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.

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