Dr. James Warwick Returns to Bold & the Beautiful – A Sheila/James History Recap
Hot on the return of Sheila Carter on The Bold and the Beautiful, Ian Buchanan will return in August as Dr. James Warwick.
Following the shock return of Sheila Carter last month on CBS’ The Bold and the Beautiful, next month we’ll see the return of Sheila’s friend/lover/nemesis/husband/therapist James Warwick.
Last seen in 2011 James had a colorful past in the show counting Sheila Carter and Maggie Forrester as his ex spouses and Brooke Logan Forrester, Taylor Hayes Forrester, Stephanie Forrester & Lauren Fenmore as some of his past romantic interests. But it was his relationship with Sheila which many fans remember the most due to his romantic, complex and doctor/patient relationship with her.
His return comes as a shock as it’s discovered that Eric has hired him to come to town and evaluate Sheila! He’s filming now and will be due on screens on August 16. Again, this isn’t a contract role, but an open ended role, so who knows how long he’ll stick around?
Ian told TV Insider “It’s such a nice, out-of-the-blue surprise. I’d heard Kimberlin was back, but it never entered my head that I’d also be getting a call. Every time I go to the Beverly Center or to the Grove, I look very fondly toward the CBS building. I loved my time at B&B. I actually spent more years there than I ever did at GH.”
We’re not sure if Sheila and James’ daughter Mary will be mentioned at all (she wasn’t during James’ last visit), but if you get confused as I do with the complex history, we’ve provided a little Sheila/James’ history lesson below.
The pair were introduced while James was engaged to Brooke and Sheila was seeing James psychiatrist friend Jay. James knows Sheila is hiding something and during a confrontation Sheila pushes Jay to his death. Wanting to keep her secrets, Sheila kidnaps James and holds him hostage in her mansion. When James later escapes, Sheila ends up holding Eric, Stephanie, Ridge, Brooke, Lauren and James hostage in the Forrester mansion. Realizing how close her hostages are and that they’d lay down their lives for Stephanie who Sheila plans to kill, Sheila instead swallows poison in a suicide attempt (but survives of course).
After being released from a mental institution, Sheila and James begin to date, where she remembers her childhood abuse at the hands of her father who she confesses she killed. Sheila later tries to kill Stephanie in a warped attempt to stick up for her friend Brooke due to Stephanie trying to take Brookes children fro her. When Sheila later befriends Maggie Forrester, while trying to prove to James that she’s a better person, she doesn’t realize that James is falling in love with Maggie. Maggie, determined not to lose James to Sheila, taunts Sheila and tries to force her into getting a new therapist, leading to Sheila trying to choke Maggie. During this love triangle, James and Sheila share a night together where James gets Sheila pregnant. When she finds out, Sheila invades Maggie and James’ wedding telling everyone the news, leading James and Maggie reluctantly agreeing to let Sheila stay with them until the baby is born and then James and Maggie would raise the child. After giving birth to Mary, Sheila hands the baby over and moves away.
While living away, Sheila meets Amber and manipulates Amber into becoming Mary’s babysitter so she can secretly see her child. When Amber sees Sheila for who she really is, she tells James and Maggie the truth, leading to Sheila taking Mary away. Seeing his only to get Mary back is to marry Sheila, James’ decides to marry her, but the wedding is a sham just so he can get his daughter back and when Sheila discovers this she attempts suicide again, and survives again not realizing James had actually falling in love with her again who vows he’ll stay with Sheila this time. Distraught by this, Maggie tries to kill Sheila, but is stopped and arrested. This doesn’t stop Maggie however who kidnaps Sheila. Sheila subsequently escapes and when James finds out he asks Maggie to leave.
Maggie doesn’t leave though, and teams up with Lauren to drive Sheila insane (well, more insane). Their plan fails and Maggie finally leaves town realizing she’s lost James forever. James and Sheila’s happy life however is short-lived. Paranoid about James’ friendship with Stephanie, Sheila tries to kill Stephanie who survives, so Sheila later threatens to kill Thomas (Stephanie’s grandson) if Stephanie tells James what Sheila has done. Stephanie has Sheila arrested for threatening Thomas. Sheila later breaks out of prison, shoots Stephanie, kidnaps her daughters and runs away.
Sheila returns in 2002 and 2004, but James wasn’t in town for these returns. James however made numerous brief returns to town in 2004, 2008, 2009 & 2011 to counsel various residents but hasn’t been seen since.
Sheila’s return involved her bringing her daughter Mary (raised as Erica) to town to seduce Rick (who was married to Amber), which failed, so Sheila later tried to get Mary pregnant by Rick, but Ridge found out who Mary was he put a stop to it. Sheila got away and tried to get Eric to see how much she loved him, but he laughed at her. Later while seeing Taylor, Sheila was startled by Brooke and accidentally shot Taylor, then while struggling with Eric over the gun, she also shot Brooke. Sheila went away to prison again going completely insane when Mary cut all contact with her mother. Sheila escaped jail, kidnapped Ridge, and escaped again. Sheila later turned up in The Young and the Restless, but as I didn’t watch that show, I won’t attempt a recap of her many shenanigans there. Although the internet will let you know 🙂 One thing to note though, is during her time in Genoa City, she had plastic surgery to look like Phyllis so was played by Michelle Stafford for a period.
Then in June this year, we were all taken by surprise when Quinn was shot by an unknown assailant. Thinking Brooke’s sister, Katie shot her, Quinn went to look in Katie’s house and was shocked (as we all were) when she found Sheila Carter, was now was again played by Kimberlin Brown and sporting her original face!
Also, check out a great youtube playlist of some of Sheila’s best B&B moments.
