We knew these stories were coming; sooner or later Margo and Tom were going to find out about baby boy Casey and skankyho Emily. Sooner or later newlyweds Meg and Paul (she’s now Meg Ryan!) were going to figure out that someone unknown had killed Sofie, and sooner or later nuLily and Jack would learn of the affair between Holden and Carly. 

Now if you are a regular reader here (and if you are, thank you very much!) you know that I have never been a fan of Emily’s. She has gotten away with way too many crimes and misdemeanors to be strutting around Oakdale without ever being punished, except emotionally, and she’s done that to herself time and time again. Plus I’m just not a fan of Kelly Menighan-Hensley’s. I don’t know why, but for some reason I just don’t care for her acting. So the minute Tom and Margo announced they were going on a short trip for their anniversary, I just knew that Em would be knocking at the Hughes front door, and Casey would be in a boinking mood. Even though Emily proclaimed, “This is stupid, this is really stupid,” and she lamented about how her actions could cost her the custody of her son Daniel, she almost immediately joined Casey in boinkstecy!

So when Margo and Tom returned prematurely, and Margo caught Emily in her skanties in the Hughes kitchen, it was Margo whipped out her police revolver at the intruder. Was I the only one yelling, “Shoot her, Margo, shoot her!”? Come on now, I bet some of you were shouting the same thing. I knew she wouldn’t pull the trigger, but I was still rooting for it. And although the gun didn’t make a noise, everything blew up like a bomb. While Emily begged for mercy, Margo answered, “There will be questions. I may be suspended. But in the end, no one will care that you're gone.” Well, I for one would not care a bit!

Tom showed up to calm things down, but Margo kept a promise that she had made long ago to Emily. She told Emily’s dirty little secret to Tom; Emily had been a prostitute a few years ago, sleeping with men for money. Casey tried to accuse his own mother of lying, but Tom icily told Emily, “Get out of my house. Stay away from my sons. (your being Daniel’s mother) was an accident of biology. I'm gonna make sure that he doesn't get hurt any more by that accident than he already has been. You will never see Daniel ever again, so you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Get a lawyer. Get a good one. 'Cause that's the only way we're going to be communicating from now on.”  When Emily left, and Casey declared he was leaving with her, Tom tried to physically stop him, and the two ended up at each other’s throats. 

All in all, this was great drama, and great soap. We got veteran actors, some sex, some violence, and best yet, some good writing, an item that is usually missing on ATWT in the past years. There was tension, anger, and pain; history was referenced, and it was the scene we had been waiting for, ever since Emily and Casey first hooked up. There is also a promise for the future; Tom and Emily will be fighting over Daniel, Margo will continue to long for her son, Casey will try to convince his father to drop the custody suit, and Emily will continue to whine and moan over how unfair things are to her. I can’t wait.

I had also been waiting for the Sofie murder story to start on the path to being solved. Accusing Paul, Meg, and Barbara was just a smokescreen to prolong the story that no viewer was really buying into. I guess the writers thought we would really believe that one of those three had wielded the needle that injected Sofie with death drugs. Yeah, right. We all know it has to be Cole; from the first time we met this pathetic couple we knew he was a bad guy and abuser, so Cole as the murderer is just the next logical step. Now that Paul and Meg know that the baby wasn’t Paul’s, they can start to connect the huge obvious dots to the puzzle that all of us completed weeks ago. I will be glad to see Cole go; as a villain he is wretched and useless. 

So why was this a great week for this story? Because of the return of crazy Rick Decker. John James is a delight as the completely whacko convict who is now using his ‘powers’ for good, doing forensic investigations in murders.  Seeing the reactions of Barbara, Margo, Paul, Meg, Susan, and Allison when they found that Decker was the expert hired by Barbara’s attorney was priceless. And Decker had some great lines, too; “I may have been a flawed human being, but I was a very effective doctor.”  “I've -- managed to let my anger go, Barbara….And I'd like you to be the first to know that I forgive you for betraying me.”  “And I can assure you that as long as your check clears, I'm your loyal servant, Paul.”  “Susan's a little bitter over the way our marriage ended.” He was slickly contrite, and outwardly presented a figure dedicated to solving crime. How much do I wish that John James could stay in Oakdale!  But that’s the way our show seems to operate anymore; they hired talented veterans but keep them for a very short time, and then they turn around and hire non-talented ex-models who could not act their way out of a paper bag, and keep them forever. Okay, forever’s an exaggeration, but in addition to Cole and Sofie, remember Jade, Ameera, and Celia, among others? They were all shoved front and center into forgettable stories, then when their entrance storyline petered out, they had no further use in Oakdale and eventually were written out and forgotten.  Oh well, in any case, I’ll just consider John a gift to viewers and enjoy him for however long a time he’s in town.

We knew it was coming. We knew it would hit the fan. In a town like Oakdale, cheating spouses having affairs cannot keep things a secret. Holden told Lily last winter that he couldn’t trust her, she kept secrets from him, and she lied to him. It threw a giant monkey wrench into their marriage. So when oldLily went away to visit her birthmother, and before nuLily could return, Holden was thrown together with Carly time and time again, until they started having feelings for each other that turned into an affair. Now it was Holden’s turn to be untrustworthy, to keep secrets, and to lie to his recently returned wife.  Meanwhile, Carly, as Lily’s best friend, kept urging Lily to fight for her marriage to Holden. Now I read about 8-10 different ATWT message boards out on the internet, and most of the posts put the blame for this affair directly on Holden. It is all his fault, they claim, he’s a louse and a weasel, and he seduced poor innocent Carly. However, I believe we have to hold Carly accountable for this mess too; she could have told Holden NO in plain English, and meant it. Instead, even with all her protestations, after their second liaison, this time in NYC, Holden was so guilt-stricken that he returned home and confessed everything to Lily. Talk about waving a red flag in front of a bull’s nose—Lily had smoke pouring out her nose and ears! When she ended up in the hospital after trying to run over Carly, Lily told Jack to ‘ask Carly and Holden’ why the accident happened, and Jack went into super-righteous-anger when he heard what his cousin and his ex-wife had done. 

No matter whom you are rooting for in this Snyder mess, it was great acting, great writing, and great soap. It seems a bit bizarre that a long time couple like Lily and Holden would collapse, but since it is not Martha Byrne playing the part of Lily it is not quite as jarring. Seeing Jack explode, seeing Holden turned away by Luke, seeing Lily develop a little steely resolve, and seeing Carly realize the enormity of her actions made for a great show.

So after suffering all spring and early summer through Luke’s and Noah’s denied love, Noah’s sham marriage, Liberty’s annoying knowitall persona, and Janet’s grating character, it was great to get some real soap served up by the talented veterans of our show!