Kish: Now That's Great Soap!

Have I mentioned lately how incredible the writing on One Life to Live is? Okay, I know that I have, but it's worth repeating. All you'd have to do is watch this week's episodes to see how a well written soap opera should work: several different stories coming together perfectly all at once for an action packed series of February sweeps episodes.

Seriously, this is what good soaps are all about, stories that are well written and character driven. Other shows do Sweeps stunts that are all about a lot of otherwise pointless action, where plot comes before anything else. OLTL builds up to Sweeps with months of great storytelling culminating in exciting conclusions. Can we clone Ron Carlivati and send one of him to each of the other remaining soaps as Head Writer?

With that said, let's get started. Fish was on yesterday's episode of the show, but he didn't have a great deal to do, so I didn't blog about it. Basically, he got word that Mitch's henchwoman, Nurse Charles, had managed to kidnap Stacy, and he showed up at the hospital for a brief confab with Rex and Kim before going in search of Stacy up Llantano Mountain in the middle of a blizzard, with Rex at his side.

That brings us to today. Now, several other characters have headed up the Mountain as well: Natalie, Brody, and John were looking for Mitch's hideout; Charlie and Dorian were following Stacy and Nurse Charles so that Charlie could kill Mitch and save Jessica; and Schuyler was on his way up to meet Gigi at Viki's cabin and finally tell her the truth (or what he believes is the truth) about the paternity of Stacy's baby. Mitch, of course, was already up there in an abandoned Geological Observatory, holding Jessica captive and treating her to a little electro shock therapy to keep her docile and make her forget all he'd taken her away from.

The cars driven by Nurse Charles and Charlie had a little three way car accident with Natalie, Brody and John on the icy mountain roads. Nurse Charles' car made it through just fine, but Natalie & co went through the guardrail and over the side of the mountain and Dorian and Charlie had to abandon their car and proceed on foot.

Before you knew it, Schuyler came along and crashed into Dorian's abandoned car and then, after some time spent unconscious, stumbled out on foot, bleeding from the head and from the leg.

Got all that? As much as I love stories that blend together so perfectly, it does make it hard when you're trying to write about just one of the stories!

Back at the hospital, Kyle ran into Kim and she told him about Stacy's abduction and about how Fish and Rex were in cold pursuit. Kyle called Fish to make sure he was okay and advised him that he had to tell Rex the truth about the baby. Oliver was worried about Kyle's medical career, but Kyle told him to just do the right thing, like he always does. Fish didn't think the time was right, though.

Before they could say much more to each other, Oliver lost cell phone service, like everyone else on the mountain has. He and Rex soon came upon Dorian and Schuyler's crashed cars and checked them out, never noticing the hole in guard rail leading down to where Rex's sister Natalie may or may not have blown up a few minutes before. (Seriously, the explosion was what woke Schuyler up, but Rex and Fish see no sign of it just a brief time later? Okay, I'm nitpicking. When the show is this well written, you can suspend disbelief on the little things)

Rex and Fish realized that they couldn't go any farther in the car, what with the road blocked by the wrecks. Fish was adorably bundled up for winter (Scott Evans looks good in anything!), but Rex wasn't, so he started looking through Schuyler's car for gloves and found Stacy's will, in which Schuyler had forced her, in exchange for the promise to give her the Oxcytocin to induce labor, to name him as legal guardian of 'their' baby if anything happened to her and Rex.

As Rex wondered aloud why the hell Stacy would name Schuyler Joplin as the guardian of 'their' baby, Oliver looked guilty (and adorable) in the background. If I didn't love Kyle so much, I'd be hoping for Rex and Fish to get lost together and be forced to find a way to stay warm! Maybe they could run into a freezing Brody, who is out there somewhere in need of warmth, too!

Meanwhile, back in Llanview, Roxy showed up at the hospital with balloons and big cigar, looking for her new grandchild, since Stacy had faked going in to labor just before Nurse Charles nabbed her.

Kyle broke the news about Mitch having Stacy and Roxy immediately blamed herself and told Kyle that if anything happened to that baby, to Rex, or to Fish, it was going to be Roxy's fault. She reminded Kyle that he'd asked her how she'd ever ended up having a child with someone like Mitch and now, because all her lies had lead to this, she had to tell him the truth.

Finally! I've been waiting ages to find out the rest of this particular story. I'll have to wait even longer, though, because Kyle picked that moment to delay the telling of Roxy's secret by spilling his own: Rex wasn't the father of Stacy's baby. Thanks a lot, Kyle! Seriously, when someone says they're about to tell you the truth about what happened between them and a psychotic cult leader, just zip it and listen!

Still, it says a lot about how much Kyle really cares for Roxy that he put his career on the line to tell her the truth.

Roxy was devastated and told Kyle that she loved that baby, that it was supposed to be her grandchild, and that she was going to do all the things with it that she missed out on doing with Rex's son Shane. Her emotions quickly swung around to anger at Stacy, though, and she declared "That bitch is dead!"

Speaking of which, Mitch finally had Stacy and 'The Chosen One' right where he wanted them, but Nurse Charles did a little exam and told The Messenger that it looked like Stacy still had three or four weeks before she delivered.

Stacy tearfully repeated what she'd been trying to tell them since they attempted to kidnap her the first time: the baby wasn't Mitch's grandchild. This time, Mitch listened to her whole story (as did a zombie like, post electro-shock Jessica, whom I suspect is only faking her docility) and believed it.

The truth sent him over the edge and he declared Stacy 'The Whore of Babylon' and quoted some scary sounding scripture about bathing his feet in the blood of the wicked. He started to choke her to death, but Zombie Jessica (her latest personality?) stopped him, calmly pointing out that an innocent child shouldn't be forced to pay for its mother's sins.

Mitch decided to turn Stacy out in the storm and leave it up to his vengeful God as to whether or not Stacy and the baby lived or died. The Messenger asked his God (who'd taken the form of a flickering florescent light, it seemed) about the true identity of The Chosen One, and apparently God told him that he had to make the baby then and there, with his own daughter. Gross! Just when I thought Mitch couldn't get any more creepy.

After stumbling around in the snow for awhile, calling Rex's name, Stacy went into labor. Not to fear, I'm sure she'll run into one of the nine other people who are lost in the blizzard. It looks like Fish will probably be a daddy by this time next week!