If Rick's wearing Ridge's clothes...

then Rick is halfway there, in terms of assuming his much-desired place in his mother's... heart.

But the Rick-Brooke storyline is of little consequence, especially since Brooke is determined to bury her head in the sand.

And Thomas was on again. I feel like a total perv, mainly because he looks so young. But I seem to remember a few years ago when I thought he was all eyes. His eyes seemed disproportionately larger in my memory. But now, with the haircut and the scruff, I find him unbelievably yummy, and I plan to enjoy it for as long as it will last. I think it will last, but the actor does have a Leo Dicaprio/James McAvoy boy-man face going on and for me, Dicaprio and McAvoy's attractiveness is or has already gone downhill. Fingers crossed that Thomas is merely a baby face.

Now for the good stuff...

Eric and Stephanie finally had a face to face since Jackie M.'s fashion show triumph; unfortunately, it was due to the death of a mutual friend. Since I am relatively new to B&B, I have no idea who Bill Spencer was to the Forresters; however, his passing was a pretty good catalyst for the tense exchange between Eric and Stephanie.

Eric came to Stephanie's office, offering to escort Stephanie to Bill's funeral, an offer that seemed kinda disingenuous. IMO, this gesture was a feeler -- Eric was testing for something and I have no clue what it was. When Stephanie refused Eric's offer, Eric had to get all subliminal and reminded Stephanie that her attitude was the reason why he fired her. And Stephanie reaffirmed that she accepted her firing and that she doesn't want Eric. She stated that she she's no longer his wife, lover, business partner or friend. While Stephanie had expressed variations of that same theme in the past, for some reason, she sounded like she actually meant it. Actually, she did mean it; unfortunately, I don't think that Eric believed it or fully fathomed what Stephanie's choice will mean to him.

For weeks, I've dogged Eric for his @$$hat decisions: keeping Rick as president of Forrester; firing Stephanie; encouraging the Rick/Steffy relationship; not correcting Donna's "Out with the old/in with the young" declaration to the media; and numerous other questionable or flat-out bad choices. I was right to do so; however, a wave of sadness came over me watching Eric and Stephanie together. Eric is having his Freaky Friday -- putting on a facade of male bravado in front of ex-wife Stephanie, who knows where the bodies are buried but opted to vault it, while confiding his dick problems with new, younger wife, Donna, who proceeded to broadcast this change to her sisters. Time could improve Donna, with respect to being Eric's wife and a viable contributor to Forrester Creations, but if she doesn't know that what she knows is very little, then the current deevolution will continue. And sadly, Eric doesn't seem to know that he doesn't know very much either.

At any rate, while Stephanie articulated her position, I felt really sad for her, and at the same time, I wished that Taylor was there to bare witness to a master course of cutting an albatross loose.

I hope Stephanie sticks to her guns.