Recap of The Bold and the Beautiful for Friday, October 9, 2026.
It finally happened. After a week of whispers, Zende Forrester Dominguez looked his grandfather and his uncle in the eye and said the words nobody at Forrester Creations wanted to hear. Here is exactly how it went down — and what he said before he said it.
How Ridge and Eric found out
Electra overheard Dylan talking with Zende about the job Katie offered him at Logan, and she went straight to Ridge and Eric. Eric could not believe it. Electra’s verdict on her former best friend was instant: Dylan “needs to be fired today.”
Across the hall, Zende was already halfway out the door in his own head. “I always assumed that I would spend my entire career here at Forrester,” he told Dylan — but the idea of one day “having to answer to R.J.” was weighing on him. Then Ridge summoned him.
Zende’s three reasons
1. The favorites. When Eric told him “this is where you belong,” Zende pushed back. “Even as a kid, I realized there were favorites,” he said, reminding them that Ridge had the office on the executive floor while Thorne “was relegated to the basement.” Then he got specific: “R.J. comes back from his shallow influencer life, and you gift him a line in record time.” Ridge fired back that R.J. “worked hard” and had an idea that made sense.
2. What happened to Hope for the Future. Zende said he found himself as a designer on Hope’s line — and he blamed Ridge for how it ended. “You put the line on pause for years and years,” he said. If Ridge had respected Hope and her line, she never would have left. “She suffered the consequences. And so did I.”
3. He is tired of waiting. Ridge asked, “Do you understand how lucky you are?” That one landed hard. Zende answered that he thinks about it every day — the orphanage, the birth parents and little brother he lost, and Kristen, who adopted him. “She saved me,” he said. “Don’t you ever insinuate that I don’t know how lucky I am.” But gratitude was not the point. “I should be higher up on the ladder,” he said. Told he had plenty of time, he snapped: “It didn’t take R.J. years.” And then: “Do you know how disrespected and forgotten I felt?”
The moment he quit
Zende made it clear he was not trying to hurt anyone. He called being adopted into the family “the luckiest day of my life” and said he did not want this to look like “some kind of betrayal or a defection.” But he admitted, “I still feel like an outsider.”
Then: “I’m giving my notice. I’m going to work with Hope at Logan. They need me and they want me.”
Eric’s plea, word for word
Eric took him by the shoulders. “You’re not going anywhere, son. You’re a Forrester. You belong here. You’re Kristen’s son. You’re my grandson. We need you here.”
He warned that this is “how family businesses begin to crumble,” and he ended with a line that was hard to watch: “Please, please don’t leave us.”
The episode ended there — with no answer from Zende.
Meanwhile: Dylan’s job is on the line
Electra made sure Dylan knew exactly who told on her. “You’re a traitor and you should have been fired ages ago,” she said, adding that now that Ridge and Eric know, “you finally will be.” Dylan insisted, “All I did was tell Zende to talk to Hope. That’s it.”
Over at Logan, Hope, Katie and Will waited by their phones. Katie already knows how this will go over: if Zende comes to Logan, “everyone at Forrester is going to lose their minds, especially Brooke and Ridge.”
What’s next
According to Soaps.com’s preview for the next episode, Dylan tries to defend herself. Whether Eric’s plea changes Zende’s mind is the question hanging over Monday.
Your turn: Is Zende right that he was passed over for R.J. — or is walking out on Eric a step too far?
Sources: The Bold and the Beautiful, CBS, episode of October 9, 2026; Soaps.com recap; Soap Central recap.