When you think of The Bold and the Beautiful, one of the first faces that come to mind is iconic hot mess Brooke Logan. Fans have either loved her, loved to hate her or just hated her for 37 years. Yet, in recent years, Brooke hasn’t quite been herself. This month, I’m going to discuss ways B&B could restore Brooke to greatness.
Actually Write For Her
Katherine Kelly Lang has never won a Daytime Emmy. She has been nominated four times in her 37 year tenure and has never won. She recently got nominated for her work in 2023, but I don’t expect her to win. Almost all of her other nominees had stronger material to work with than her. The quality of the material matters when it comes to the Daytime Emmys. There’s only so much shit into sugar even amazing actresses can do.
If B&B wants Katherine to be a Daytime Emmy winner, they need to actively write a story that is designed to get her one. Josh Griffith, for all his faults, actively tries to get Y&R leading ladies Emmys. Eileen Davidson is an early frontrunner for next year’s ceremony with this D.I.D. story and Melody Thomas Scott has done some of the best work of her career with Nikki getting pushed off the wagon. Brad Bell does not have that level of commitment to getting Katherine a Daytime Emmy.
Brooke is just there reacting to other people’s stories. If a story is about her, she’s a passive player in it, like when various characters have schemed to break up her relationship with Ridge. She doesn’t feel important. That’s tragic for someone who is so important to the history of the show. B&B would not have made it for 37 years without Brooke’s scandalous love life driving story.
Brooke didn’t even feel important when Eric almost died from that unspecified illness last year. She has two children with Eric, and they played it like she was just Ridge’s concerned girlfriend. If Brooke were written in character, she would not have been happy to just go along with whatever Ridge wanted for his father’s care. She’s a shadow of her former self.
Give Brooke Her Bite Back
Brooke once famously sent a bottle of champagne to alcoholic Macy. In 2024, they would never let her do something so deliciously horrid. She can’t even put Steffy in her place when she’s yapping about the Logan women being evil sluts. It is a baffling choice to have Brooke appear so weak in front of a woman who frankly has a sexual history that mirrors Brooke in some ways.
Brooke wasn’t even allowed to scheme to break up Thomas and Hope. All she did was try to push her back to being Liam’s doormat. They had the perfect setup for Brooke having a Stephanie Forrester moment and didn’t follow through. That is some real Soap 101 shit and they couldn’t even manage that.
Brad Bell just seems to view Brooke as a pitiful woman who cries and lets people read her. Not the woman who once had 51% of Forrester Creations because of the BeLieF formula. Not a woman who would take your man and not be sorry because it was destiny and she wanted him. He has been head writer since 1993 so he wrote like 90% of Brooke’s history so he’s actively chosen to ignore all of that to write this weak version we don’t recognize.
Let Brooke and Ridge Fight More
Brooke and Ridge are Brad’s favorite couple. Asking to break them up is not realistic. It doesn’t matter that this iteration has the chemistry of a couple who don’t sleep in the same bed. The couple you wonder why they haven’t divorced because the husband keeps on flirting with the waitress and making “jokes” about how much he hates being married. Brad still sees them as the ultimate love story that he’ll never let go of.
If we must have Brooke and Ridge together because Brad doesn’t care about chemistry, they should have more conflict. The only time Katherine and Thorsten have any sort of spark is when Brooke and Ridge are at each other’s throats. There’s lots of ways to get them arguing more. Ridge has a daughter that treats Brooke like she’s Hitler in lingerie. They could bring Brooke’s son Rick back and have him try to gain control of Forrester Creations which would lead to conflict with the couple. Anything to minimize lovey dovey scenes between the two of them because happy diabetes medication commercials are more enjoyable to watch. At least I buy that the woman is happy her A1C is lower. I don’t buy that Brooke and Ridge love each other.
Use Accurate History
This show actually had in dialogue that Brooke cheated on Ridge with Eric and Thorne. That never happened. Brooke is not a good person, but you don’t need to lie and make her history worse than it is. She had a baby with her son-in-law! That’s more than enough to make a point about her being horrible. You don’t need to gaslight us with fake history.
Give Brooke A Rival
B&B doesn’t seem to want Brooke to have a rival in her age range. They ran Rena Sofer off after offering her to be recurring. It should be noted that Rena is currently recurring on General Hospital. They fired Krista Allen who was very popular as Taylor and who did have chemistry with Thorsten. She also refused recurring appearances. There does seem to be a pattern here.
If B&B is insecure about Brooke having a rival in her age range, then they could take it in a different direction. Bring back Jack Marone, the son that Brooke didn’t raise. It is such a rich setup of a storyline. Jack could come to LA having inherited Massimo’s fortune and set up a fast fashion business. It solves two problems that B&B has. It gives Brooke a juicy storyline and gives Forrester Creations competition. It is also timely since fast fashion companies are so big.
If Brad wants to continue pretending Jack Marone doesn’t exist, they could involve Brooke in the Sheila story. Sheila almost killed Brooke over 20 years ago! It is ridiculous that she hasn’t been more involved with Sheila, who has been back in town since 2021. Instead, it has focused on Steffy. Brad needs to learn that he has a small cast. He can involve other characters in stories that it makes sense for them to be in.
Get Brooke Back In The Lab
People seem to forget that Brooke is a chemist and successful businesswoman. She contributed greatly to Forrester Creations’ success with the BeLieF formula and also the Brooke’s Bedroom lingerie line. She isn’t Nikki Newman who is wealthy only because she married well. They could get Brooke to develop a new beauty serum and leverage that to get a percentage of the company. Steffy and Eric are the biggest shareholders of Forrester Creations. We are due for a status quo shakeup.
Brooke shouldn’t just be thinking about herself. Whenever Eric dies, his shares will likely be divided between Ridge, Felicia, Thorne, Kristen, Bridget and Rick and all of the grandchildren. If she were to get shares before that happens, she gets to leave bigger shares to the four children she acknowledges. Or she could give them all to Hope, her favorite child. Hope doesn’t have a rich father. Her wealth comes from Brooke. It would make a lot of sense for Brooke to ensure that Hope will always have a place at the company.
Kill Stephen Logan Off
Brooke has daddy issues because of Stephen abandoning the family. This has led to her going from man to man thinking it is destiny. It would be devastating for Brooke if he died because they’ve been in a better place for years. There’s also her mother Beth and brother Storm who died in the 2000s, so it would be another loss. It would also give Katherine material to sink her teeth into.
We just had Eric almost dying from Old Manitis last year so I wouldn’t want it to be cancer. Brad likes characters dying in car accidents so that would probably be the safest bet. They could get Patrick Duffy back for a few weeks and then kill Stephen off. They would need a character to be responsible for the accident. The most explosive option would be if Brooke fell off the wagon and caused the accident herself. The second most explosive option would be if Ridge caused the accident. I would be willing to settle for Sheila deliberately running him over and framing Steffy for it.
Sometimes you need to sacrifice a character for drama, and Stephen is an easy choice. He’s always been a character that pops in and out and Patrick Duffy is 75 years old. You could get a year of story out of Stephen dying if it is played the right way.
In Conclusion
Soaps do need to pass the torch to younger characters, but that doesn’t mean older characters should be squandered. Just because Brooke is too old to be sleeping with her daughter’s man does not mean that she needs to be a watered down version of herself. GH still treats Anna Devane like an important character and she doesn’t even have any family members in town. B&B can still write Brooke as herself at 60 years old. It isn’t that hard.
Dispatches From Soap Land
*Sasha on GH becoming a cook for the Quartermaines is bizarre. That’s the kind of thing that happens to a character when they don’t have any clue what to do with you. There isn’t really a lot of story potential in making oatmeal for Tracy. If this were a way to put her back in Michael’s orbit and ignite an affair, it would have potential, but I don’t see that happening.
*I hope Chanel on Days does give birth and doesn’t miscarry. Black women on soaps rarely have kids.
*Hopefully the Jordan story on Y&R ends soon. She’s gotten caught and escaped multiple times now. Enough is enough. Either kill her off or have her presumed dead and pop up again six months from now. Pick one.
This was so spot on! From your column to Brad Bell’s fingers hopefully 😊