The Bold and the Beautiful recap (Nov. 11): Brooke suspects Thomas

You know what they say, Bold fans, where there’s smoke there’s fire. Brooke is starting to catch onto the fact that the blaze that burned through her marriage to Ridge was lit by his son. She told Hope today on The Bold and the Beautiful that she’ll never be able to embrace Thomas the way her ex-husband wants. He’s a manipulator and a schemer, and she knows that somehow he had a hand in all of this even if she can’t prove it…yet.

Brooke is right, unfortunately, which means this precarious house of cards Thomas has built is set to come crashing down soon. All she needed to hear yesterday is that Ridge is ending their marriage because of his son, and she knew something wasn’t quite right. It’s not just what he’s been telling her either, it’s how Ridge has been looking at her. He’s sick over leaving Brooke and admitted that this wasn’t something he wanted.

Holding tight to the notion that it’s still outside forces working against the both of them, Brooke swore to Hope that she’s going to figure out how the end of her marriage can be traced back to Thomas. Considering his exchange with Donna and Douglas over at Forrester Mansion, it looks as if this investigation won’t be taking until the end of the year to complete.

Here’s what happened today on our soap.

The Bold and the Beautiful recap (Nov. 11): Brooke is onto Thomas

Finn and Taylor had a nice coffee chat at the office. The pair of doctors don’t typically have one-on-one scenes but with Steffy off elsewhere and Finn’s surprise visit turning out to be a bust, they used their unexpected time together to talk openly.

Besides Thomas, Steffy has been her parents’ most vocal champion. She’s over the moon about Brooke and Ridge’s annulment, but Finn wanted to know how Taylor feels about all of this. Tentative happiness was written all over her face, but she did acknowledge that she knows this is hard for Ridge. She doesn’t want to diminish the impact the end of his relationship with Brooke has on him but at the same time, Taylor can’t help but be excited about what this means for her future with him.

When Finn asked her if she could have imagined this turn events when she came back to town, Taylor admitted she couldn’t have. She thinks Ridge chose her because he wants a life with her not because Brooke disappointed him once again. Her statement was later contradicted by Taylor noting that something did happen between Ridge and Brooke which is why he’s leaving his wife, but she doesn’t know what that could have been.

We do though, Bold fans, and this storyline is only going to get messier as time goes on. Today Brooke filled Hope in on her theory that Thomas is behind the end of her marriage. Hope warned her mom to tread carefully when it comes to accusing her child’s father of manipulating Ridge but Brooke was too busy explaining her position to care about Hope’s defensiveness over Thomas.

Hope tried again to get her mom to stop believing the worst of Ridge’s son even going so far as suggesting see try to at least see him from her ex-husband’s perspective, but Brooke couldn’t do it. She refused. Even though she understood where Hope was coming from, reminding her that she not only has opposing views to Ridge when it comes to Thomas, but she’s also very vocal about her distrust of him and his intentions.

That’s not helping Brooke’s case with Ridge at all, but she isn’t going to turn on a dime and start singing Thomas’ praises. In fact, she’s about to put her investigator’s hat on because something is fishy about all of this and she plans to find out what. Judging by Hope’s face, she’s not onboard with her mom’s quest and looked worried. What she doesn’t know is that her mom’s right and it may just be Donna who helps Brooke put the pieces to this puzzle together.

When the episode opened, Thomas was gently reprimanding Douglas for using the voice manipulator app on his phone. Ridge had gotten a kick out of it and went to inquire about how to use it, but Thomas cut in before Douglas could explain. He told his son that they’ve spoken about this, he doesn’t want him using the app and that he needs to stop otherwise he’ll have to take the phone.

Douglas pouted but listened to Thomas when he told him to go upstairs and finish his homework before he and his grandfather take to the tennis courts. Once his grandson was gone, Ridge lamented the fact that there isn’t an app to make Brooke tell him the truth about the CPS call.

Thomas carefully questioned his dad on whether he’d told anyone about what happened, but he said that he hadn’t told anyone not even Taylor and Steffy. Soothed, Thomas redirected Ridge’s thoughts from the end of his marriage to the beginnings of his future with Taylor.

In yet another bad sign for Tridge, Thomas had to tell his father to go see her. He was surprised that Ridge hadn’t told her about the annulment yet and hand waved Ridge when he tried to say that he had his commitment with Douglas to keep. Thomas urged him to go and so he did.

Later, Thomas caught Douglas using the voice manipulator app again but this time he did it around Donna. He walked in just as Donna was about to show Douglas how he could get the voice files he’d lost back in the app. Upset but still gentle in his reprimanding of his son, Thomas told Douglas that if he didn’t delete the app, he’ll take his phone.

Donna, overstepping her bounds in a situation that didn’t warrant it, tried to tell Thomas that Douglas’ use of the app was harmless. In response, he said that this was between him and his son. Offended, she left the room but not before giving one more concerned look over the situation. She’s definitely going to go talking about this to one of her sisters or Hope at some point.

But, in all fairness, Thomas has told Douglas to stop using that app. And I believe he even did so before he used it himself to frame Brooke. So, this isn’t simply Thomas trying to cover his tracks, he doesn’t think it’s a good thing for his son to have such a deceptive app at his disposal.  It’s ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ parenting but Douglas doesn’t know that and he has been disobeying his father so he did deserve the loving, but stern talking to that he got. Donna was overreacting.

It does seem, however, that Douglas has a reason for not wanting to delete the app. My hope is that he’s managed to record Caroline’s voice so privately he plays messages he’d like to hear his mom say to him, but I admit that may be farfetched.

Speaking of farfetched, the writing for today’s episode looked to insinuate that Thomas wants the app deleted because the files on Douglas’ phone could point back to him. But that doesn’t make sense because that would mean Thomas used his son’s phone to place the call to CPS which would be strange since he made the call at work not the mansion so why would he have Douglas’ phone?

We’ll have to see how this all unfolds, but I’m starting to worry that this story is about to go off the rails when it comes to the order of events as we know them. And, with the lackluster hug Ridge and Taylor shared once he did go to see her and tell her about the annulment, it’s possible the spark and potential in this storyline may get snuffed out before it gets good.

Until next time, Bold fans. Stay beautiful!

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