All at sea

Nick apparently believes that lies are bad, unless he is the one telling them and there is a good reason behind it.

Well, this week continued my "one week on, one week of crap" theory. I thought this week was SO much better than last week, even if there were things that still annoyed me. Well, let's get to it, shall we?

This week started off with Shawn climbing his bloody behind onto Philip's boat. To make an exceedingly long, drawn out story short, after a very brief, very one sided scuffle, the kiddies (meaning Claire's parents, Philip included) realized that Phil's lack of sailing skills had killed the engine and they were up the creek (or the ocean) without the proverbial paddle. So basically everyone removed their heads from their butts and kissed and made up. Or to elaborate on my last thought, they put their differences aside and decided to act like grown ups and work out a compromise for the good of Claire, if they made it out of that God-forsaken typhoon that is. I'm probably going to hell for this one, but I couldn't help laughing when they all gathered together and started singing "Amazing Grace" to Claire. They needed to be singing "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore."

But the boat did not make it to shore, it splinted into a thousand pieces in the middle of the ocean. Belle, Shawn and Philip were rescued by helicopter, but there was no sign of Claire, which is really bad in a typhoon in the middle of the south Pacific. Martha Madison (Belle) knocked it out of the park, portraying Belle's shock at not being able to find her baby girl. I usually don't have a whole lot of use for Belle, as I find her character whiny and spoiled most of the time, but I really felt for her after she and the guys were rescued without Claire. And I am never adverse to a scene between Bo and Belle for some reason. They come few and far between, but there is a sense of caring between their characters, like Belle is the daughter he didn't have until recently, that I find very touching.

Just to backtrack a little bit, all of these events played out during or after what I like to refer to as "Crazy Steve's Last Stand." Steve had Bo in the seaplane that they dropped Shawn into the middle of a typhoon with (yeah, I know) and threatened to kill himself and Bo by deliberately crashing into the water if Bo didn't hand over the statement that he had Shawn sign, indicating that EJ and Patrick Lockhart were partners in crime. Bo had left it on the island in the safe at the hotel, so he was able to get Steve to stop being crazy long enough to land the plane safely. Once on land, Steve threatened Bo with a knife if he didn't cough up the papers, which of course Bo still refused. Kayla saved the day by appearing from seemingly out of nowhere and talking to Steve until he backed off. Kayla is now staying on Tinda Lao to de-program Steve for real this time, which I assume means they will be off our screens for a little while, as Gabby is no longer on the canvas and I can't imagine they would be able to do a lot of things on Tinda Lao with no supporting characters. Hopefully, this will only last a short time, then Kayla and the real Steve can help figure out why the DiMeras have made it their life's mission to torture the Bradys.

Nick and Chelsea are starting to irritate me. Nick apparently believes that lies are bad, unless he is the one telling them and there is a "good" reason behind it. Now Chelsea is hip to the scam that Willow is running on Nick, trying to blackmail him into leasing and paying for an apartment for her. And Chelsea, like I would be, is completely willing to have Nick call her bluff. I understand what Nick's concern is, because he actually did steal the brush, but in the end since Willow has no proof, and hey is actually the one who set the fire, Nick could just call her out and it would be his good upstanding citizen word against the word of a known arsonist and liar. If I were him, I would just call her bluff and take my chances. Oh, that and I would tell Willow to eat her little sob stories about sleeping on a park bench and whatnot. There are a million programs out there to assist pregnant, homeless mothers and if she is too proud to accept assistance for the sake of her baby, sorry that's too bad. She just prefers to blackmail and manipulate because she likes it. Two more weeks. Two more weeks and no more Willow. I am so sick of her.

I like the fact that Belle dreamt about John and that he told her that Claire is still among the living. Do they have to make the dreams so creepy though? Of course, Belle did tell Shawn that if he didn't believe with her that Claire was alive, he was "on his own." Yep, here we go again.

YAY, TONY DiMERA IS BACK!!! I forgot how deliciously evil this character could be until he basically told EJ how things were going to be. As a side note, I liked how they had James Scott (EJ) sit in a chair for most of their initial exchange, because it is kind of hard to be threatening and intimidating when someone is nearly a foot taller than you and 25 years younger. Tony quickly put EJ in his place, which was firmly behind Tony, and ordered him to bring one Samantha Roberts (I just love typing that) to him immediately. EJ did as he was told, reluctantly chloroforming Sami and delivering her to the DiMera lair, which appears to be something of an abandoned warehouse. But it appears that EJ is growing a conscience, because once he learned of Tony's oh-so-evil plan to take Sami's growing baby along with the stem cells, EJ said he would have to kill him first. This should be interesting.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

I got a great big kick out of Celeste's little voodoo ritual with EJ. I couldn't tell if she was just yanking his chain or if she was completely serious, but whatever, we got a gratuitous shirtless scene with James Scott! Awesome!

Willow confronting Shawn at the hospital about "his" baby. You know, I hate to say it, but I am just sick of looking at her face, so I couldn't really process anything she was saying. I think she gloated about her cash cow Nick or something. Please, hurry up and get off my screen. I don't care if they talk about her in the future, I just need to stop seeing her as soon as possible.

The slap heard 'round the world. So Kate has her undies all in a twist because Lucas actually followed through with one of his threats and reported EJ to the SEC. And she is mad because ....? He told her he was going to do it. What really irked me about the whole exchange is how she (of course) blamed Sami for it, who actually had nothing to do with it, and then tried to drag Will into it, saying that his mother had forced Lucas to do something unforgivable. No, what was unforgivable is Kate's latest attempt to turn her grandson against his mother. But, onto the slap: I know I couldn't have been the only one wishing that Lucas would have slapped her back (I know, no boys hitting girls, and definitely no sons hitting moms, but I can dream), but maybe now he will finally get the point of how selfish and deluded she really is and follow through on his 9,000 threats to cut her out of his life. But first, he needs to get some really sharp scissors and finally cut that umbilical cord once and for all.

I saw Victor Kiriakis this week! I just had to say that.

So what will happen next week? Who will win the battle of wills between EJ and Tony regarding Sami's baby? Will Willow do me a favor and fall the next time she climbs up to Nick's window? Will the truce between Phil, Belle and Shawn actually last? Will John get out of that bed anytime soon? Only time will tell!

Until Next Time!

Melissa

What are your thoughts on ? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.