Fans who tuned in to The Bold and the Beautiful on Thursday, June 9, were surprised by the completely unexpected appearance of Mike Guthrie, a blast-from-the-blast character who hasn't been on the canvas in over a decade. Actor Ken Hanes reprised the role in a fun twist that nobody saw coming: Mike is a guard at the prison where Sheila (Kimberlin Brown) is serving time for shooting her son Finn (Tanner Novlan)!
Longtime viewers of the show immediately began asking questions about how Mike will play into storyline, knowing without a doubt that no matter what, it's likely to be damn entertaining. After all, Mike is Sheila's long-lost other half in the troublemaking business.
Mike was first introduced back in 1993 as a security guard who caught Sheila manipulating a paternity test to make it look like Ridge Forrester was the father of Brooke Logan's daughter Bridget. When Mike threatened to blackmail her, Sheila had a vicious Doberman attack him!
Over time, however, the two characters realized that they worked better together (or, rather, wreaked havoc better together), and they teamed up for all kinds of troubling deeds, including abducting and imprisoning James Warwick as well as Maggie Forrester in separate incidents.
The last time Mike and Sheila saw each other was in 1998, when Sheila snatched baby Mary, shot Stephanie Forrester, and went on the run. Mike resurfaced in 2010, but his storyline intersected with Stephen Logan rather than Sheila; Stephen bought a gun from Mike to use on Stephanie, who he blamed for the death of his wife, Beth Logan.
With Hanes now back in the role of Sheila's partner in crime Mike, will Sheila have a "get out of jail free" card? The show's head writer and executive producer, Brad Bell, offers up a tease.
"Sheila is like a cat with nine lives and she's used up 16 of them, but she somehow has another handful in her hip pocket. So, Sheila will be stirring the plot and blowing people's minds," Bell reveals in an interview with Soap Opera Digest. "She realizes that she's not a murderer and wants to get her son healthy and stay out of prison. She's going to pull out every trick in the book to stay free and be near her family."
To find out what our Two Scoops columnist thinks about Mike's return, check out this week's commentary, Steppin' up to the Mike.
How do you feel about Ken Hanes reprising his role as Mike Guthrie on B&B? What do you hope the writers have planned for Mike's return and reunion with Sheila? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
