A fashion showdown is coming to The Bold and the Beautiful, but will Ridge be playing fair?
We’re back at Forrester Creations and Thomas (Matthew Atkinson) is thrilled at the numbers for Hope for the Future, which continues to perform well. Hope (Annika Noelle) is happy that their plan to recycle clothing is working. She asks him what he thinks about the “fashion showdown” between his father and grandfather. Thomas doesn’t understand why they’d focus on their own lines when Hope for the Future is doing so well.
Ridge (Thorsten Kaye) and Carter (Lawrence Saint-Victor) talk about the plan to let the buyers decide who wins. Carter worries that a runway battle will be confusing and possibly damaging.
Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) praises RJ’s (Joshua Hoffman) work. She looks around Eric’s living room and asks him if he’s worried about the fashion battle. She’s concerned that the preview will pit father against son and that could put RJ in a weird spot. He agrees that it’s strange not working with his father, but at least he’s designing. Brooke is happy to see her son so happy and she tells him how proud Ridge is of his work. Donna (Jennifer Gareis) and Katie (Heather Tom) arrive and Katie is frustrated that she doesn’t know anything about the fashion showdown and as the head of PR she needs to get in front of it. She asks RJ if it’s real, and he’s speechless.
Katie can’t believe Eric thinks Ridge is trying to push him out of the company. Brooke insists that Ridge wants to keep Eric away from stress. Donna says Eric loves working with his grandson, and RJ supports this idea when he says he’d do anything to keep working with him.
Carter wonders if Ridge can handle that RJ chose working with Eric over working with him. Ridge admits he’s frustrated that RJ is working with his dad rather than starting in the company the way Ridge envisioned. Ridge had to work his way through the company. Carter tells him to not discount his father.
Thomas and Hope work on the line when Douglas (Henry Joseph Samiri) walks in and catches them together. He wants to talk to Hope alone, and he tells her that he feels bad that she’s upset about Liam. He wonders if they can be a family again with Thomas, the way they were before. He promises that this is his idea and not something Thomas told him to say, and Hope assures him that she knows this. Douglas wishes that she would give Thomas another chance so that they can all be together again.
After RJ leaves, Brooke, Donna and Katie sit down to talk. Brooke hopes that the fashion showdown never happens, but Donna says that Ridge didn’t want to work with Eric and was trying to push him out, so that prompted him to work on his line by himself. Katie wonders why Ridge can’t just allow Eric to have his own line and Brooke reminds them that Ridge is CEO and makes all the decisions.
Thomas asks his father about the showdown. He still doesn’t understand it. When RJ walks in, Thomas congratulates him but then asks whether RJ thinks the showdown is a good idea when Ridge is doing so well on couture and he’s doing well working on Hope for the Future with Hope. Thomas points out that what they’re doing is working, and he and Ridge worry that Eric’s designs don’t go in the direction their work is going. RJ reminds him that their work is being done on the back of Eric’s legacy, and he stands firm defending his grandfather.
Hope tells Douglas how happy he makes her, but she doesn’t want him to worry. Douglas thinks Thomas could make Hope happy and he loves seeing his parents together and thinks they would make a great family so that her sadness would go away. Thomas arrives in time to hear that, and as Hope hugs Douglas they share a smile.
Donna reminds Brooke that Eric made a huge impact on fashion, but Brooke agrees with Ridge that he doesn't need the burden of creating a new line. Why risk the legacy for something that is a huge risk. Donna thinks Brooke isn’t confident that Ridge can win.
When they’re alone, Ridge expresses that he’s happy RJ is helping Eric. He reminds RJ that he’s the CEO and he oversees all of the lines, but RJ says Eric wants to create. RJ points out that if there’s a showdown it means they’ll be competing. Ridge thinks he’s missing something, which is true — he doesn’t know about Eric’s arthritis. RJ doesn’t tell him about it, but he knows he’s going to have to say something soon.
Well, here we are again and everyone is talking about this fashion showdown between Forrester Creations’ founder and the current CEO. Father and son. Eric and Ridge.
We wondered yesterday whether Ridge might sabotage the competition, and that seems more likely than ever. It looks like he’s laying the foundation with RJ to get RJ to pull out so that he’s not caught up in the battle, but a battle is brewing regardless of whether RJ is in the middle or not.
We’re also starting to see the splintering between members of Forrester Creations. Brooke, Thomas and Katie seem to be squarely Team Ridge while Donna and RJ are firmly Team Eric. Carter might be Team Eric, but it looks like he’s trying to stay as neutral as possible as the fashion showdown looms.
The big question is whether Ridge is capable of beating Eric. Is he trying to undermine the walk off because he doesn’t have confidence in his ability to win? That’s where this gets very interesting — if Ridge loses, he’s not only losing to his father but he’s also losing to his son, a fledgling designer. That would ruin his career and the reputation he’s worked so hard to build.
Can Ridge win? While that remains to be seen, we have to admit we’re on Team Eric at the moment.
The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS and the following day on Paramount Plus. Check your local listings to see when it comes on where you are.
