What the Flashing Lights Near Tom’s Bag Means on The Bold and the Beautiful

As Hollis was looking for something in the Il Giardino storeroom, the lights would flicker whenever he glanced at the late Tom’s bag on The Bold and the Beautiful. Here, we shall explore what the flickering lights could mean for Hollis and everyone who knew Tom.

Did Hollis Encounter Tom From Beyond?

Toward the end of the July 10 B&B episode, Hollis (Hollis W. Chambers) went to the back room of Il Giardino for something and noticed Tom’s (Clint Howard) bag there, which was a sad reminder of the man’s death. On July 11, as Hollis worked further in the restaurant’s storeroom, every time we saw Tom’s duffel bag, the lights would flicker, and eventually, even Hollis noticed the strange effect. But what does it mean?

Chances are that because it’s a dramatic television series, it’s probably not faulty wiring because that’s fundamentally uninteresting (unless it led to a fire, but that’s a whole other rabbit hole to go down and most likely not the case here). Usually, the term Chekhov’s Gun would apply because it basically means that if something is to be used in a story that’s crucial to the plot’s resolution, it needs to be introduced early in the story as something seemingly innocuous and inconsequential. The phrase was coined by famed author Anton Chekhov (Uncle Vanya) and here it can be interpreted that the flickering lights mean Tom’s spirit is trying to tell Hollis something.

While there is no incontrovertible proof about the real-world existence of ghosts or spirits just yet, paranormal investigators have encountered strange electrical disturbances over the decades when probing such matters, including fully charged batteries suddenly dying or lights flickering. Considering the Law of Conservation of Mass created by famed scientist Antoine Lavoisier in 1789, “mass [or matter] is neither created nor destroyed in chemical reactions” (per Nature), it can be safely assumed that when a human perishes, they turn into energy aka a spirit.

What Is Tom’s Ghost Trying to Say?

For our purposes here, we shall assume that ghosts or spirits exist in the reality of B&B. Therefore, Tom is trying to alert Hollis to something about his bag. Since he doesn’t have a corporeal form anymore, he must use other means — the electricity in the room — to communicate. A faulty bulb or faulty wiring would flicker more repeatedly, but here, they flickered only when Hollis looked over at Tom’s duffel bag.

If this is true, what’s in the bag? Hollis pulled out several letters, but we didn’t see what was written on the outside of the envelopes. Considering it’s been established that Tom and Poppy (Romy Park) have communicated over the years because he believes Luna (Lisa Yamada) is his biological daughter, not Bill (Don Diamont), these are probably letters he’s written to her that she sent back.

Many of them looked like cards, so they were possibly birthday and holiday cards Tom had sent to Luna, but Poppy intercepted them and returned them. After perusing them, Hollis had a quizzical look on his face as if to say, “Oh crap!” If even one piece of paper has Tom claiming to be Luna’s bio daddy, that’s going to throw everyone into a tizzy, and this story is going to take an unexpected turn.