The Bold and the Beautiful hasn’t just moved on, it’s apparently moved all the way on. 

When Thomas and Paris returned to France, we assumed that they’d be back sooner than later, at least to tie the knot in the de riguer living-room wedding that they had started planning. But even after Taylor came home to L.A. to be near her family before (cough) “dying,” Matthew Atkinson’s character wasn’t dropped back onto the canvas.

In fact, at this point, Hope is two infatuations past Thomas, having gone from daydreaming about Finn to declaring her love for Carter!

Atkinson is still in the show’s opening credits, so he obviously remains a member of the cast. But his continued absence suggests that Thomas has gone the way of Rick. When Brooke and Eric’s son left L.A. in 2018, we expected him to boomerang back as he always had before. Instead, he’s stayed away; we never even found out why his marriage to Maya broke up!

Bold & Beautiful has done this sort of thing before, too. Not that anyone was sorry to see Felony Flo go, but when that character faded from the canvas, it was done without any big “And now so-and-so exits!” fanfare. One day, she was there, and the next she wasn’t. And the day after that and the day after that…

It’s an odd choice to bench Thomas, whose relationship with Hope viewers generally liked. And he was always said to be the only person whose designs could make Hope For the Future a success. His engagement to Paris had also invigorated that character, giving her some spunk, some fight. So it would have been interesting to play a Paris/Thomas/Hope/Carter triangle, especially with the added baggage that Forrester’s COO nearly married Paris (and her sister, Zoe).