I’ve been watching The Bold and Beautiful for over a year now, and I’m absolutely blown away by Lisa Yamada’s performance as Luna Nozawa.
Luna’s good-girl-gone-bad story has been slowly unfurling over the past few weeks. After Poppy’s (Romy Park) arrest, Luna was a victim, left behind as her mother was led away in handcuffs. Then she kissed Bill (Don Diamont) — twice — and things got weird. Now she has Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) locked up in a cage and has confessed to being the actual killer, all so that she can end up with Bill in the end.
This is the last thing I ever expected from Luna, who arrived on the show as an intern with stars in her eyes at a point when the Forresters needed her positive energy the most. I cheered for Luna’s relationship with RJ (Joshua Hoffman); they were not only a cute couple but their genuine love was a breath of fresh air in the middle of Eric Forrester’s (John McCook) health battle.
It was hard watching Luna struggle after mistakenly overdosing on her mother’s "special mints" and sleeping with Zende (Delon De Metz) by mistake. She’d only ever slept with one person — RJ — once before. Then she ends up sleeping with another man. Her pain seemed real.
Now I don’t know what was real since she put this plan of hers into motion. Did we ever see the real Luna? Is there a chance that none of this would have happened, or was her whole reason for coming to LA to take down her mother? I have no idea…and it’s all due in large part to Lisa Yamada’s performance.
I’ll be honest — I’m disappointed that Luna is going to be a villain from this point forward. Her character was refreshing and she fit in with everyone so well. It’s going to be hard to see her as the bad guy (assuming she gets caught, of course) and it will be sad not to see her on a regular basis should her character get shipped off to prison.
When it comes to Daytime Emmy nominations, the eligibility period runs January 1 to December 31, which means that Yamada will be eligible for consideration for a 2025 Daytime Emmy Awards nomination. We hope that she not only gets nominated but we hope she takes home a big win for this incredible run as B&B’s newest villain.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue to enjoy watching Yamada’s brilliant performance as a good girl gone very, very bad.
The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS and the following day on Paramount Plus. Check your local listings to see when it comes on where you are.
