The Bold and the Beautiful recap (Dec. 19): Bill is emotionally charged

Bill pleaded with Katie to come back to him on Dec. 19’s episode of The Bold and the Beautiful. I think he’s dangerously close to hitting rock bottom, Bold fans.

We haven’t seen the Spencer patriarch this contrite and emotional in quite sometime and Don Diamont is giving a performance. So is Heather Tom. While I don’t want to see Bill and Katie reunite considering all he’s put her through, their scenes have been heartbreaking.

Back at Forrester Creations, Carter and Eric had an awkward talk that only smoothed out once they started discussing the tangled web that is Katie and Bill’s relationship. Across the hall, Steffy and Finn were learning from Detective Baker that Sheila isn’t in the wind after all and that the police are right on her tail.

Here’s the full recap of events.

The Bold and the Beautiful recap (Dec. 19)

Bill pulled out all of the stops in his plea for Katie to give him another chance. And, I don’t mean he tried to shower her in gifts or offer her anything that money can buy. He didn’t make a shallow attempt at getting her to open up to him again, it was heartfelt and exactly the kind of speech that would have worked on Katie back in the day.

There were promises to be a better man than he has been to her as well as a proposal to go off sailing on his yacht, the Stella Maris, as a family with Will to reconnect and rebuild their broken bond. Keeping with the maritime theme, Bill told Katie that she’s his anchor,and that he needs her to stay steady and firmly planted.

The issue, of course, is that the whole conversation centered on what Bill needs. He didn’t once ask what she needs from him to make the life he’s promising possible. Even after Katie expressed this sentiment, Bill still didn’t pivot to inquiring about her needs. It was an expected but still disappointing moment for her as it showed nothing had really changed in their dynamic.

Katie has always given all of herself to Bill and, more times that not, he has not done the same. She needs to move on, but she’s also sympathetic to how he’s feeling. Her suggestion that he take his yacht and go away for awhile to sort himself out was a sincere one. So was her gentle but firms assertion that Bill’s desperation to be back with her stems from loneliness.

She wasn’t trying to be callous, but she also wasn’t going to pretend that she doesn’t see how Bill’s feelings regarding his perceived inadequacy and the rejection that has rocked him are pushing him to fight for her. He treated her like a consolation prize after being turned down by Brooke, and she hasn’t forget that.

I will say, however, Katie texting Carter to come pick her up was unexpected and that move read as petty even if it wasn’t portrayed that way. Bill had just poured his heart out to her. He took his sword necklace off, declaring that he wouldn’t wear it if she didn’t want him to, and he gave it to her in what felt like a metaphor for his love. Then in walks Carter so that Bill can literally watch Katie walk away from him with another man.

It was hurtful. And I get that Katie was low-key panicked because she’s still in love with Bill and all of the emotion he was displaying had her slipping to the point that she reached out for a lifeline, but Carter’s entry into the scene was way too much. He let himself into Bill’s home to come get Katie, and if Bill were in a more stable emotional state he would have had something to say about that but he didn’t.

He kept pleading for Katie not to leave, but she left anyway, giving him his necklace back and settling into the safety of Carter’s presence. Watching Bill put the sword back on after being left was a lot. Don Diamont needs to be in the running for a Daytime Emmy next year because his performance on Dec. 19 was award worthy.

Circling back to Carter for a moment, his conversation with Eric prior to going to pick Katie up from Bill’s was a bit forced. The two men haven’t really spoke to one another much since Quinn left and, while Eric says he’s happy with Donna now, you can tell there’s still a well of hurt between them over the affair Quinn had with Carter. (Sidenote: It’s curious that the soap still hasn’t mentioned Eric’s divorced, just saying).

Still, we needed to have a scene with Carter and Eric so the Forrester patriarch could express he wants the CFO to be happy and invite him to Christmas at the mansion. He also warned him not to hurt Katie to which Carter made assurances that he wouldn’t. Considering the romantic entanglements that the lawyer has had over this year alone, his comments about Katie come off more like platitudes but the writers are selling the two so I’m starting to roll my eyes less now.

Anyway, Carter expressed his worry over Katie’s connection to Bill. While he’s not so bold to say he’s the best thing for Katie, he can say with certainty that Bill is not. Carter’s not wrong, but it’s going to take more than coming to get Katie when she needs him to help her push past her love for Bill. It’s a good start though.

While all of this was going down, Steffy and Finn briefly discussed Taylor choosing herself over another tug-of-war for Ridge before the conversation shifted to Sheila. I have to say this change up where Steffy just wanted her mom to be happy and was only invested in her parents getting back together because she thought it’s what Taylor wanted doesn’t ring true. The writers can keep having her say it, but we have years of her working hard to see a Tridge reunion so I’m not buying it.

I was, however, enjoying the sheer soapy goodness of Detective Baker rolling up with black and white photos of a disguised Sheila that he got from security footage of the area surrounding Il Giardino. I cackled at the implication that he’d only done his due diligence because he doesn’t trust Deacon and therefore didn’t rely simply on the restaurant’s footage. As if an officer should have been going off the word of a civilian instead of checking the tapes themselves anyway.

By the end of the trio’s scenes I was rolling with laughter. Baker had been smuggling showing Sinn photos of Sheila, her vehicle, and the facial recognition program that verified it’s her and then he received a call from an officer tailing her. Baker put that man on speaker so Sinn could hear him give chase and those two started yelling for him not to let her get away.

It was funny, over-the-top, and a perfect balancing plot for an episode that was heavier in tone. 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+.