WARNING!These are not spoilers, they are Matt's opinions. Furthermore, he is entitled to have an opinion and if you disagree with him that is fine, just don't send hate mail about it. If you feel like you're someone who is easily angered by others opinions, simply do not read this page! For the most part, this is all in fun!

May 9, 2008
Pretty is proving herself to be as crazy as her aunt. This week she decided both Luis and Fancy would have to die and tried to send them to their graves by drugging the pilot of their private flight. Luis and Fancy were too busy making out to notice. I'll admit they're cute and at least they aren't Noah and Paloma, who continued to be targeted by the forces of darkness as they battled over Noah's jealousy of Roberto and Paloma's visions of doom. Kay and Miguel just stood around watching until her dress "mysteriously" caught fire and when furniture started flying, Miguel had to be the level-headed one as everyone freaked out .

The centerpiece of this week's show was Vincent finally going into labor with his own father's baby. Basically, everyone finds this story ridiculous, with some finding it loathsome and others just finding it hilarious. What struck me the most, however, was how far it managed to veer from the clichés of soap opera pregnancy stories which generally serve up the most blatant form of emotional manipulation. What "Passions" actually managed was the least sentimental and least asinine pregnancy plot around and, while ludicrous, it didn't sink to the cheap theatrics that plague the plottings of more traditional soaps like "The Young and the Restless". While retaining all of its silliness, it did so completely within the bounds of the characters involved and delivered a perfectly crystallized melodramatic denouement. Anyway, now I only wonder what the baby will be called.

Everything came out in the Eve-Julian-Vincent/Valerie thing. It was surprisingly quick, but it did have some nice touches, such as Vincent documenting the whole thing for his blog and Julian asking all the questions viewers of the show so often ask about this "impossible" storyline. The "Passions" answer of course is: Look, it just happened. There it is. Unfortunately, nothing like that happened in the Ethan-Gwen-Theresa story. But I guess that's not so unfortunate, because the assurance that nothing like that can happen is all there really is to the Ethan-Gwen-Theresa story. Once again, all of their scenes were about delay. Theresa set up a romantic dinner for Ethan then waited for him in the bathroom, delaying going out to see him. He and Gwen stood at the bathroom door shouting (apparently she couldn't hear them), delaying doing anything until Gwen smashed the door open with an axe, an action she really seemed to enjoy. Then Theresa got dressed up as Gertrude again and made a series of excuses. It was lucky for Theresa, of course, because she discovered that Juanita has escaped custody. Not only that, but Juanita has finally discovered where Pilar and her family are and is ready to kill them all. Next week, basically everything that happened this week will get fleshed out some more. Julian will deal with being a father/grandfather, Paloma will worry about her ominous visions of Theresa's death and, more excitingly, Vincent will push on with a plot to kill Sheridan and a major death coming up. But all of this is just the preparation for the disaster which is coming this summer.

Question & Quotes of the week:
Why does Pilar go to bed fully clothed in day clothes that she doesn't wear during the day? This isn't the first time this has happened. And how did Theresa's false teeth fall into the cherries? What was she doing? I know Theresa rarely keeps her mouth shut, but how could she not notice that?

Noah: (to Roberto) "I know as much about passion as you do, so let's settle this the mature way and go outside!"

Kay: (as the forces of Hell attack the house) "Oh no, my party favors!"

Julian: "Oh God! I'm talking out loud to my penis again! I'm worse than Esme!"

Vincent: "If a dead man walks into the emergency room about to have a baby, don't you think that someone will realize that I'm alive?"

Stanley the pilot: (as he falls unconscious and loses control of the jet) "This isn't safe at all."

May 2, 2008
Not a great deal actually happened this week. I know that's normal for "Passions", but really, not much new happened. We got a heavy dose of Julian and Esme's hospital shenanigans early on, though that petered out as time went by (no pun intended!). We also got a surprise visit from Norma and Edna, eager for a chance to "make the mattress beg for mercy". Apparently they were on a break from their hectic schedule of performing pop songs on lesbian cruise lines. Tabitha did her best to try to convince them that Hell wasn't coming back to Harmony, but she couldn't stop from admitting the Kay-Miguel/Paloma-Noah double wedding is doomed in a big way. Will this be the spectacularly fiery ending we've been promised?

Pilar finally figured out that Gertrude is actually Theresa. That makes two people who know the secret, though even Gwen has her suspicions and so did Paloma. Ethan continues to become further divorced from reality thanks to Theresa's bizarre mind games. Gwen continues to denigrate herself by repeatedly making love to Ethan while he fondles an image of Theresa in his mind and his bedside table. When you're making love to your husband knowing that he's fantasizing about making love to his dead girlfriend, you know something is wrong.

If the above situation hadn't become so par for the course, it might have made the perverse moment of the week. Instead, that honor is split between a few contestants. Pretty talking about discovering Rebecca's private zoo and wondering what she was training the animals to do was rather grotesque. Particularly since she and Sheridan had abducted several of her bats in a bid to spook Fancy. The devious duo spying on Luis and Fancy while they prepared to pop into bed was also a little nasty. Even they wondered if that was a bit on the creepy side. Pretty insisted that it was okay to watch her sister get it on as long as she didn't become too aroused while doing so. Julian also had some of his old school fantasy sequences, this time involving three of the women in his life getting up to some naughtiness in nautically-themed attire... and wrestling. Sadly Rebecca and Esme didn't get to wrestle much. Rebecca's fight scenes have always been my favorite and among the most memorable.

Luis and Fancy managed to share one of the best comedic scenes that either character has had in a long time. Surprisingly, it actually came during his big marriage proposal to her. I'll give them special kudos for not whipping out the traditional over-the-top romance fantasy and, instead, turning the whole thing into a neurotic joke. It provided a few genuine laughs and the actors seemed to enjoy being goofy, perhaps because both of them have been stuck in earnest overdrive lately.

Other highlights of the week included a "Dark Shadows" reference, which we haven't gotten in a long time. Apparently Tabitha is still baffled by Barnabas Collins, TV's most beloved vulnerable vampire. Esme reading the phone book was also fun, as was Norma and Edna's stripping routine which ended with Edna throwing her diaper at Julian. Anyway, in the coming weeks, we can look forward to long-lasting incestuous inter-sex births, Theresa getting back to her old tricks (drugging and taking advantage of a certain someone), the return of a very angry Juanita, Sheridan getting nuttier and her brother Julian's life getting even more bizarre.

In an added note, "Passions" was once again almost completely ignored by the Daytime Emmys, something which I'm sure they're used to by now, but it is unfortunate. I was quite surprised that last year's musical send-up of "Wicked" didn't receive some of the recognition it deserved. All of the nods the show received this year were technical, which certainly isn't to dismiss the importance of that aspect of the show, but it would have been nice for them to get some recognition in other areas. Campy acting just never gets the respect it deserves.

Lines of the Week:
Esme (while popping pills and drinking whiskey): God Bless the FDA and Mr. Daniels!

Tabitha (on newspaper articles about dead people returning): Missing people turn up all the time. Especially on soaps.

Edna: "Book of Disasters"? Is that a list of NBC's programming decisions?

Norma (on the design of her dream house): Construction? Definitely tongue in groove.

Luis(to Fancy when she's sceptical about his proposal): Are you insane? I would never ask you to marry me to make you feel good! Er... I mean... I want to enter into a holy union with you because I love you... Of course I'm serious, you idiot!

April 25, 2008
Little Ethan became further entrenched in his mother's plot to bring down Gwen this week. He even turned the devious Ms. Hotchkiss blue -- literally! -- when she threatened to send him to boarding school. I guess it's a good thing he's not friends with Endora or he could have been really dangerous. Many smurf jokes followed, but none of them were as fun as watching Luis try to be earnest to Pretty. After she threatened to terminate her pregnancy, we got to watch Luis fly off the handle at her before she tugged his heart strings the other way and made him dance to her tune. Sheridan and Fancy were there for the performance of course. Sheridan actually understood it; Fancy, however, remained as impressionable as a very daft five year old. Fancy pouted, Pretty grinned, Sheridan arched her eyebrow. Sheridan summed it all up succinctly: "Pretty has been bumped to the head of the line." Luis repeated the same thing he says to every woman who enters his life, namely that they are the most important thing in his life. He does this with subtle variations in the tone of his voice, which Fancy apparently found utterly impossible to recognize so we got to watch Galen Gering repeat the same dialog several times on Wednesday in what seemed to be a strange acting experiment.

An obsession with repetitive lines with little added variations was also on display in the other major story of the week: Julian's erection. The reborn, backwards and upside-down organ was forbidden complete resurrection this week. Eve warned that an erection would kill the monster. Vincent spent the week coming up with variations on the word "penis" and, with every new addition to the list, more of Eve's office possessions vanished until, at the end of the week, she had only an empty desk and a chair. She then yelled "penis" more times on TV than I've ever heard outside of a sex ed program. Even Sam yelled about it. Of course, it all seems juvenile, but is it really? Isn't the whole "penis and a dangerous erection" plot a pointed metaphor for the show itself; a show which is entirely about avoiding any kind of climax for as long as humanly possible? As Vincent pointed out, Julian's life was all about his erection, now his erection can kill him, just as "Passions" has spent nine years doing its best to avoid a conclusion which will kill it when it comes. Anyway, viewers can expect a bit of change in the next couple of weeks as Tabby gets a little more air time and Juanita comes back for revenge.

Lines of the week:
Julian (to Esme): "Sometimes I don't know where your mouth is, but your heart is in the right place."

Viki (on the prospect of being caught): "Then I'd have to watch the TV movie about me. What if they cast Lindsay Lohan as me? I'd be mortified."

Sam: "For God's sake! Would you stop referring to his penis as Little Julian? It's infantile! You're a doctor Eve!"

April 18, 2008
I was shocked this week to actually hear Ethan say he'd almost forgotten about Theresa. In "Passions" time, she basically died last week. It certainly didn't take long for him to take Gwen out and start happily swapping saliva -- and other fluids -- with her. Even the spying Theresa didn't seem surprised by this turn of events. Of course, he wasn't as clean shaven as usual this week which, in "Passions" symbolism, indicates that he's undergoing some sort of psychological chaos or having dark thoughts. Oh Ethan-- you're so complicated! I know he's always trying to do the right thing, but when Gwen and Rebecca brought in their "expert" on child rearing (really a mailman Beccs bribed with sex) to convince him to send Little Ethan off to boarding school, he rolled over pretty quick. There was a time when he would spend months making a decision, when, or if, he made one at all. Is this scatterbrained, yet quick to react, version of Ethan a product of grief, or is he just upping the ante on being the biggest male bimbo is soap opera history?

I enjoyed watching Little Ethan continue to act as his mother's reality check. At least he knows a little more about the real world, or the world of Harmony at least, thanks no doubt to being raised by a troop of nannies rather than the people he's related to. As this plot develops, he will continue to play the straight man to his loony mother and her baffled family and friends. I expect the Gwen-Ethan-Theresa triangle to push even further into the territory of a retro-sitcom than ever before.

Another mother and son duo, Eve and Vincent, continued their banter this week. It may seem to be getting repetitive, but the disturbed relationship that they've built is going to be going somewhere in the coming weeks. The greater highlight of this plot was Esme worrying about arousing Julian by accident and undoing the surgery. This is only going to get more gruesome and, depending on how you feel about it, either more humorous or intolerable. The other highlight was Julian waking up and making a series of bizarre Frankenstein's monster sounds for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, Sheridan continues to be working in her unhinged mode, unsure if she should be comforting or threatening Pretty, her niece and rival. Pretty is proving to be the only Crane woman left whose brain seems fully functional at the moment. Watching Fancy pout and worry at Luis is getting to be too much. Not that she doesn't have plenty to worry about. Luis was "thinking" a lot this week, which seems to involve staring into space as blankly as possible and looking dead (if not wearing a shirt), or simply mumbling and repeating things (if fully clothed). When Luis starts thinking, as all Crane women discover, their lives are sure to go into ruin.

April 11, 2008
It was all about Julian's penis this past week. In fact, we heard so much about it that it almost seems like it should have its own spin off show...well, what's left of it anyway. They are really pushing the envelope on this one. I can't remember the last time an operation was so lengthy or graphic. It's not over, of course. We will be hearing plenty more about "Little Julian" and his misadventures and it should be exciting to see where this is going in the time that's left. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that an upside-down penis story is a first, and it's likely the only time this will ever happen on daytime TV. My only real qualm about this storyline is that Julian wasn't the best character for it to happen to. I understand that it's supposed to be ironic, given his lecherous ways and his son, Vincent's, deformity, but, precisely for those reasons, and for the fact of most of Julian's outrageous plot lines in the past, it isn't as crazy as it should be. Now, if they'd had Ethan's penis removed and put on upside down, then it would have really been something. Viki did target him as well, and Vincent was in love with him, and rejected by him, so it could have worked. Gwen and Theresa literally battling for what's left of Ethan's penis could have been the perfect way for that story to go.

The Gwen-Theresa-Ethan triangle continued...which goes without saying I suppose. Theresa's "Ugly Betty"-like disguise is still in effect and will be for a while. Yes, it's a dumb story, but it is kind of cute. It's actually nice to see Theresa doing something other than crying constantly, punctuated only by the occasional deranged laugh or threat to Gwen. Now that she's enlisting her son in her scheme, Rebecca and Gwen will have to try and get the rid of the boy. Given the history of their schemes, I'm not sure the odds are in their favor. As usual, Rebecca managed to be the most fun of all of them. Hopefully she will be getting more of a story for herself soon. It's almost enough to make me miss JT Cornell.

Pretty has pushed her plan to steal Luis further ahead, bribing a nurse to help her get the results that she needs to convince the dim-witted detective that he knocked her up. I have to admit that Pretty keeps growing on me, maybe because she's not Fancy. Most of time I just wonder why Alistair isn't involved more and am baffled as to why Sheridan's evil turn seems to have relaxed so much. They can make her go back to being good or make her super bad, but please, stop letting Sher-sher be so dull.

Noah and Paloma's relationship continues to verge on being interesting. I sense that TPTB realized how boring they were and, thus, brought Roberto in. So far, we've been shown how unstable their relationship is after all. All Roberto has to do is smile and the doubts seem to swirl through the couple's minds. It's surprising, but hopefully this will bring back more of the scheming troublemaker qualities both characters arrived on the show with, even if those qualities quickly faded.

Days fans can get a bit of he said/she said action by reading Matt's Musings on Days and Lori's Last Thought on Days.

April 4, 2008
I'll chime in next week. In the meantime, check out Lori's Last Word on Passions and my Musings on Days.

All photographs are courtesy of Soapoperafan.com.

Lines of the week: