The Bold and the Beautiful recap (Sept. 30): Ridge learns “the truth”

For a Friday, today’s episode of The Bold and the Beautiful felt more like a recap of events. We’ll tell you upfront that there wasn’t a cliffhanger so we won’t be going into next week on tenterhooks. However, enough happened for us to be excited for what’s to come.

While this week focused on the custody struggle between Hope and Thomas with Brooke potentially meddling in ways that’ll impact the Logans and Forresters, we should be shifting focus somewhat now that the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle is about to heat up.

Why is that? Well, the call to CPS has a lot to do with it considering it could be the catalyst for Ridge packing up shop in his marriage with Brooke and pitching his tent with Taylor instead. He’s going to have to hop a plane though if he wants to do that considering his ex-wife is about to leave for Aspen with Steffy.

Here’s how today’s series of events lead to what could be an epic Aspen adventure next week.

The Bold and the Beautiful recap (Sept. 30)

Playing Brooke’s complaint to CPS once wasn’t enough for Ridge. He needed to hear it again to make absolutely sure that was his wife telling the authorities that his son is unstable and Douglas needs to be checked up on. Obviously, the intent behind the call was to get the boy removed from Thomas’ care but that’s not what happened.

On second listen, it still sounded exactly like Brooke. Robotic and flat, yes, but it was her voice nonetheless. Admittedly though, we’re still on the fence on whether or not Brooke actually placed that call. Katherine Kelly Lang has been doing a wonderful job of keeping us guessing with her facial expressions during Brooke’s conversations with Liam.

While her son-in-law is asking valid questions about who could’ve been concerned enough to lodge a complaint with CPS, she’s just over there giving contemplative looks, shrugging unconvincingly, and even delivering lines like the one about how the person who did it must of been doing so out of an act of love and concern.

Matthew Atkinson has also been hitting it out of the park as Thomas. His character’s reactions, for the most part, have been measured which is strange. However, it does work for this whodunit storyline where the writers want us to question whether it was Brooke or Thomas who placed the call. These two are volatile when it comes to unexpected events and yet they’re both oddly calm about the situation especially Brooke who should be wanting to get to the bottom of what happened.

But no matter which one of them placed the call, Ridge is going to be hurt. In fact, he already is. The man doesn’t want to believe that his wife would lie to him. But, as Thomas pointed out, Brooke routinely hides the truth of her actions from Ridge when it benefits her. It’s not out of the realm of possibility for her to be lying.

It’s also not out of the realm of possibility for Thomas to be manipulating his father into walking away from his wife. He already told Brooke that he wasn’t going to let her get between him and his son. Thomas also blames her for his mental health issue and believes that his father would be happier in a loving relationship with his mother.

Over here on Team Thomas, we’re hoping he didn’t set this all in motion. The truth always comes out and he’ll have let his family down if he schemed to get Brooke out of their lives by taking a risk of this nature. And he certainly wouldn’t be able to have residential custody of Douglas because he’d have proven Brooke and Liam right even though those two don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to doing something objectively terrible for personal gain.

Still unaware of the CPS situation, Steffy and Taylor continued talking about going to Aspen and giving up the fight for Ridge’s heart. As her mother has tried to explain to her, Taylor has no interest in continuing to put herself in a position to be hurt.

Ridge is married to Brooke. His romantic feelings for Taylor do not matter in that context because he has a life and family with someone else and she wants to respect that reality even if that’s never the move Brooke makes. Of course, Steffy wasn’t willing to back down and urged her mom to trust that Ridge would return to her side.

But, the thing is, Taylor wants to be fought for. She doesn’t want to be the one doing the fighting anymore. She’s done it for so long, and she’s tired. It’s enough to send her running to Aspen with Steffy thanks to her daughter’s invitation to get away.

Unlike her father and brother, Steffy was communicative about the problem she’s been dealing with. While her mom took a call, she hopped on the phone to let them know they’d be leaving soon and that Ridge needed to wake up and smell the coffee about Brooke, she’s no good for him.

Thomas doubled down on that statement after Steffy hung up. The siblings have been tag teaming their parents in an effort to mend their broken romantic relationship and get them back together. It’s been working but not well enough for Ridge to leave his marriage.

Capitalizing on what constitutes Brooke’s biggest mistake recently, Thomas weaponized the call to CPS to further make his point about how Ridge is often hurt by his wife. He reiterated that it was her voice on the call and that she even said her name. There’s really no denying what he heard. Assuming Brooke is the one who placed the call, it just proves again how toxic she can be toward his children.

But, we’re hoping that whatever happens, Thomas didn’t set his father up for heartache because that’s going to be hard to come back from. Though, if Brooke could push him off a cliff with no repercussions, we guess Thomas could walk away from a lie like this unscathed if the writers so choose. Until next time, Bold fans. Stay beautiful.

Stay tuned to Hidden Remote for more The Bold and the Beautiful news and coverage! New episodes air Monday-Friday on CBS. Evening viewing is available on Paramount+.