Katherine Kelly Lang
(BROOKE, B&B)
■ When Brooke fell off the wagon, she didn’t just fall from grace, she plummeted, and Lang brought her character’s agonized entry into 2022 to heartbreaking life.
On New Year’s Eve, lonely with Ridge away and unaware her drink was spiked, Brooke smooched Deacon, and woke up the next morning in bed beside him. Nothing happened — but Brooke didn’t know that. Lang’s look of horror was palpable, setting off an emotional torrent that pinballed between frantic, perplexed, exasperated and ashamed, all as Brooke held her head in hangover hell.
Frenzied and distraught, she gave Deacon the boot, and when Ridge returned home, Lang played Brooke as making her best effort to feign normalcy. Though guilt-ridden, she tried to be present and chipper, but her inner struggle was evident as she avoided eye contact and professed her love just a little too effusively. She then placed a panicked call to Deacon, her voice and body language tortured as she beseeched him to stay mum (“This is going to haunt me forever!”).
After, a stricken Brooke surveyed the living room, haunted by the memory of the illicit kiss. Desperate to blot out the image, she fixated on the half-full bottle of vodka still on the table, and with shaking hands, lifted it slowly toward her mouth. Then she paused, an anguished whimper escaping her quivering lips. Brooke tore her gaze away from the bottle and though her eyes were wet with self-recriminatory tears, a glint of determination began to shine in them. Physically summoning her remaining resolve, she made her way unsteadily to a nearby planter and dumped out the vodka. Though she’d resisted temptation, it didn’t feel like a triumph to Brooke, who looked utterly lost and unmoored as she wept and watched the bottle drain.
This was a tour de force from Lang. Even without dialogue, her vivid channeling of Brooke’s vulnerability and strength gave viewers an all-access pass to the character’s inner battle.