Bold and the Beautiful: Thomas Exits Again – Heartbreaking Departure or Permanent Goodbye This Time?

Bold and the Beautiful has Thomas Forrester (Matthew Atkinson) back this week and all fueled up and ready to get back to work at Forrester Creations. More specifically, it looks like he’s being pushed back towards Hope for the Future. But is that just a false start?

We’re going to talk about why Matt Atkinson might be in and back out as Thomas rather than back to the CBS soap for good.

Let’s dive into why he may not stay and why I really worry that Matt Atkinson’s return may actually set up his permanent exit from Bold and the Beautiful.

Is Matt Atkinson’s Bold and the Beautiful Return as Thomas Only Temporary?

All right, so we recently mentioned that he was back taping again for new Thomas scenes and would likely be back around the time for Christmas episodes. When Casey Kasprzyk posted about Matt Atkinson’s return, he said he was back filming for a week, singular. Unless he was fibbing, that’s a week.

That’s enough time to film a few episodes, but that’s not a whole return. That’s the first red flag that Thomas may not be staying. In the most recent preview for Bold and the Beautiful, we saw Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye), Steffy Forrester (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood), and Zende Forrester Dominguez (Delon de Metz) with Thomas in the Forrester Creations showroom.

And he’s pointing at the runway, saying he needs to be there. Not as a model, obviously. Although, Matt Atkinson is certainly hot enough, but how the designer poses at the end of the show next to the showstopper. We’ve seen Ridge up there with Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang). We’ve also seen Thomas up there with Hope Logan (Annika Noelle) at the end of a Hope for the Future runway show.

Hope’s Reluctance on B&B: Why She Doesn’t Want Thomas Back on Her Line

Of course, Steffy and Ridge are thrilled about this. They both want Thomas back at FC. But Hope doesn’t want Thomas back on her line for a couple of big reasons. One, Hope doesn’t want to work with her ex-boyfriend that closely, especially not when she cheated on Liam Spencer (Scott Clifton) with Thomas and ruined her marriage. Hope just remarried Liam, so she doesn’t want problems with her happily ever after.

The second thing is that Hope wants to keep working with her brother Deke Sharpe (Harrison Cone) on Hope for the Future, and she feels like they’ve got a good thing going. But this week, Steffy lets Hope know that her personal feelings about Thomas will not factor into Steffy’s business decisions. With Ridge and Steffy both wanting him back at Forrester Creations, that seemed like a hint that, “Oh, okay. Thomas is coming back long-term. Cool.”

Hope & Steffy at Odds again on Bold and the Beautiful

This week, we’re going to hear about Steffy wanting Thomas back on Hope’s line and that she is ready to fire Deke to make room for Thomas. It’s easy to see why Hope (Annika Noelle) would be uncomfortable working with Thomas. I’m sure Brooke would understand it. However, lately, Hope’s mom has been standing by and watching things happen that she really shouldn’t, like Ridge sidelining her sister Katie Logan (Heather Tom).

I can see Brooke rationalizing whatever decision Ridge makes about Thomas and where he’s assigned, especially since Brooke and Thomas buried the hatchet over the summer. Brooke doesn’t want to rock the boat because she’s so happy to have Ridge back, and I think she is going to let everybody else fall by the wayside to keep her relationship going.

Poor Deke. He’s fresh out of design school and he got hired at Forrester Creations. He got his dream job, and now because Thomas waltzed back in, Steffy just wants to kick Deke aside so Thomas can have his old position back. So, Hope’s going to try to argue to save Deke’s role, but it doesn’t look like she’s going to sway Steffy. It sounds like her mind’s made up.

A Strategic Move on Bold? How Thomas’s Return Could Launch a Rival Fashion House

What I’m wondering is if Thomas’s return is just to set up a big change that will feed into the Katie Logan fashion house storyline. I think Brad Bell might have Thomas back just for the short term to force a pivot, and Hope makes a huge decision that sets the stage for Thomas’s permanent exit.

Another red flag on this is that Brad Bell has shown his unwillingness to have Thomas back. If Brad Bell really wanted Matt Atkinson back on Bold and the Beautiful on contract full-time, he would have already written Thomas back into the storyline. He doesn’t have other projects that we’ve seen.

So, there’s been ample room to bring him back, even if Thomas wasn’t involved with Hope, but Brad Bell hasn’t done it. So, here’s why I suspect that Matt Atkinson might be in and out. It could be that Thomas is back just to reopen the rift between Hope and Steffy and cause problems.

Faced with working with Thomas, seeing her brother Deacon fired, and being under Steffy’s thumb, Hope may walk out. Katie is going to need staff for her new fashion house, so I suspect Hope and Deke leave Forrester Creations and go over with Katie.

I think Matt Atkinson came back just for Thomas to be the instigator to make that happen, the thing that forces her hand to changing her future. Otherwise, I don’t think Hope would leave FC.

The Ultimate Power Play: Will Steffy’s Decision Push Hope to Leave FC?

If Hope walks away with Hope for the Future, or if she abandons it and starts a new dedicated line over at Katie’s fashion house, well, that would leave Thomas without a line again because they can’t have Hope for the Future without Hope. It sounds like the plan for Steffy and Ridge was, “Yeah, we’ll put Thomas back on Hope’s line. She’ll be lucky to have him. It’ll be a win-win. It’ll blow up big like it did before.”

I could absolutely see a world where Steffy pushes Hope to the point where she says, “You know what? I can’t do it and won’t do it. I’m not going to put my marriage at risk.” And she walks out. Then Thomas may have to go back to Paris because he’s got no line to work on, and Matt Atkinson is out again. That would also explain why Casey Kasprzyk said Matt Atkinson was only filming for a week.

A lot of fans really want Thomas back, and not just short-term, but back to stay. I’m a fan of the character. Not the creepy stuff he did, but the more reformed version of him. But if he’s just coming back to cause problems and drive Hope away, that stinks. It doubly stinks because it looks like they’re going to have Steffy and Hope back to their old rivalry, not over Liam this time, but over Hope for the Future and Thomas. And those two definitely know how to fight each other.

Building a New Empire: Katie’s Fashion House and the Future of Forrester Creations

This week, Katie makes her decision to leave Forrester Creations because she’s been disregarded. According to B&B spoilers, she told Carter Walton (Lawrence Saint-Victor), Ridge, and Brooke that she is absolutely stunned they made all these plans with the outside public relations firm without even having a conversation with Katie, who is the head of PR at FC.

So, when she goes back to Bill Spencer (Don Diamont) and tells him what’s going on, of course, he’s going to say, “This is the sign. Quit and do your own thing. Start your fashion house, Katie.” Thomas’ return, of course, sets the stage for Hope to join Katie along with Deke. And I’m certain Eric Forrester (John McCook) is going to wind up at Katie’s rival house as her lead designer.

And yeah, Thomas could stick around and work on couture, but I feel like with all these red flags that he’s likely leaving again. I would hate to see Matt Atkinson in and then out again as Thomas, but there are all these signs that this is just a drive-by that Brad Bell has done with Matt Atkinson. We’ll know more by the end of this week.

Brad Bell used him back this summer to address the whole Brooke and Ridge thing and them getting married right after he dumped Taylor Hayes (Rebecca Budig). And since Jacqui Wood was out on maternity leave, they brought Matt Atkinson back just to bury the hatchet and say, “Oh, it’s cool,” even though that didn’t make any sense and wasn’t very soapy. I think they might be using him again.