Howard Wise/jpistudios.com
Invisible String: Hope (Annika Noelle) feel a lusty pull to Finn (Tanner Novlan).
Brooke can barely contain her alarm after Hope admits to her mother that she has developed a crush on Finn, her new stepbrother, who just so happens to also be married to her frequent romantic rival/once-and-likely-future stepsister, Steffy.
“Brooke is worried about Hope’s feelings for Finn and Hope, I think, is in a bit of denial,” begins Hope’s portrayer, Annika Noelle. “She doesn’t want to admit that she is having these daydreams about him, that she is thinking about him in ways that might be more than a harmless crush. She’s in complete denial to herself and to her mother, but I think Brooke Logan sees through her facade and is rightfully calling her out these inappropriate feelings.”
Brooke visits Hope and once again broaches the subject of Finn, determined to make sure that her daughter doesn’t set her sights on a man who is already spoken for — especially by Steffy. But to hear Noelle tell it, Brooke’s stance “almost exacerbates” the sticky situation. Explains the actress, “So much of this is Brooke saying, ‘I know you’re worried about becoming like me and never wanting to be the other woman, and I worry about you following your heart and your passions.’ And I think Hope has a little bit of rebellion in her right now. She’s totally lost after Thomas and Douglas left for Europe and I think she’s a little bit directionless right now and just kind of being impulsive and being reckless. So I think her mother trying to dissuade her is almost, in a way, having the opposite effect. It’s kind of like telling a kid not to touch a hot stove when it’s hot. Subconsciously, I think Hope is in kind of a reckless, ‘Don’t tell me what to do’ kind of mode. And also still deep in denial.”
Noelle attributes that to Hope’s unhealed wounds over the abrupt departures of Thomas and Douglas. “I still don’t think she’s necessarily processed her grief over the loss of Thomas and Douglas,” she offers. “This is definitely her acting out, I think, in some ways, and it’s definitely influenced by that.”
So, when Brooke voices her concerns about what might happen if Hope doesn’t put some distance between herself and Finn, Hope’s response, Noelle says, “is just deny, deny, deny. ‘I know that he’s Steffy’s husband, Mom. You don’t have to tell me. I would never! It’s not inappropriate, we’re just friends.’ You know, the whole thing of, ‘A girl can look at the menu, she just can’t order.’ I mean, Taylor Swift’s ‘Guilty As Sin,’ that might be her theme song right now [laughs]! She is just kind of brushing it off and not taking her mother’s concerns seriously.”
Later, Hope discovers that her own daughter is under the weather. “Beth has a fever, and Hope isn’t able to get her in to see the pediatrician,” Noelle previews. “Her fever starts to spike and Hope gets worried, so she texts Finn, just for advice, like, ‘Should I bring her to urgent care? What do you think?’ And Finn, being the good doctor he is, says, ‘You know what, don’t even worry about it, I’ll swing by on my way home from work.’ So he swings by and she sees him interact with her daughter. He is, of course, great with kids and has really cool Band-Aids and stuff for Beth to choose from.”
Which doesn’t exactly make him less attractive in Hope’s eyes. “Watching him interact with her daughter, it doesn’t help her not think about him in a certain way,” Noelle notes, “because he’s charming and professional and eases her daughter’s mind about getting a shot in all this kind of stuff. So, yeah, it doesn’t help Hope put those feelings aside. It just kind of encourages her inappropriate lust for the doctor….”
