Friday, July 8, 2005
Lucinda has Stage Three cancer, and Sierra and Lily wanted to discuss her treatment options, particularly a mastectomy, which Lucinda was resisting in favor of a lumpectomy. As a distraction, she took the opportunity to criticize Lily's love life, and admonished her hovering daughters for thinking they know what's best for her. "I have been your age, Lily. But you've never been mine," she hissed.

Over a game of pool at Yo's, Dusty made it clear that he has a good time with Meg, but urged her to take the job in Alaska anyway, arguing that won't find what she's looking for in Oakdale. She was interrupted by a call from Lucinda, who invited herself over. While Dusty went outside to take a call, Meg soothed Lucinda with her amazing understanding. She then suggested that La Walsh hire her as a live-in nurse. "Are you doing this for me, my daughters or the guy on the phone outside?" grinned Lucinda, picking up her pool cue.

At Cal's house, Luke was fondling a bottle of vodka when Keith came home. Luke slipped the bottle into his bag and covered that he had to pick up some stuff. Keith tried to be friendly and invited him to a Cubs game, but Luke was having none of it and left to meet up with some bored buddies, one of whom asked, "Could this town be any lamer?" "Doubtful," said Luke, before producing his pilfered booze. Keith did a better job with Lily later, comforting her about her mother, though she admitted that she's going to wait to finalize her divorce. He was incredibly patient and understanding.

Speaking of patient and understanding, Gwen and Will had a heart-to-heart on the roof about her decision to give the baby up for adoption. He not surprisingly guessed that it might have something to do with his family and joked about being crazy, but she called his family "special" and insisted he wasn't. "Don't be so sure," he grimaced. "You're the sanest guy..." she said. "... in my family..." he interrupted with an eye roll. "That I know," she finished. "Well you don't get out much," he said. "That's not true. I'm a party slut, didn't you know?" she said. Especially cool was how she described Rosanna and Craig to him, without using their names, and told him about how she lied that she didn't know the father's name. "It's not right that people think that about you," he said sweetly before again promising to be there for her, as we sighed and sighed. The talk made her more determined than ever, if also more sad, about the adoption. But when they stood up, she got a cramp. Something's very wrong.

Jen clutched her stomach and cried as she blamed herself for her mistakes before begging him to come home with her. Mike admitted that he never stopped loving Katie but that he shouldn't have let anything happen with her until he straightened things out with his wife. His incredibly painful honesty understandably made Jen a little shaky, and she refused Mike's offer to take her to the doctor and took her leave. On the way out, Katie (somewhat unwisely) stopped her. "This truly was not planned," she insisted. "Do you honestly think that makes it any less despicable?" asked Jen, before sobbing and clutching her way down the hallway. On her way home in the car, she called Dusty to say she couldn't make a meeting tomorrow; her distress was clear. When it became too hard to talk through the tears, he urged her to pull over. She agreed to stop at her mother's cabin, but the phone was cut off before he found out where it is. Back in Chicago, Katie and Mike felt really bad about sending a pregnant, shaking, emotionally devastated woman off into the night, even if they are — as the inevitable "Matie" — destined for each other. "All I know right now is that we belong together," is how he put it. Katie told him he can still change his mind; he's not obligated to stay with her. "I do not want to lose you again," Mike assured her. Meanwhile, Jen made it to the cabin, but decided to change a light bulb. You know what happens next, but in case you didn't see it coming, her fall from the stool was done in slow-motion. She writhed on the ground and clutched her stomach some more. Uh-oh.

Thursday, July 7, 2005
Celia announced to Margo and Tom that "your son has just given me the greatest gift ever." They were understandably taken aback, but it's all good — the Luckiest Little Montegan meant a commitment ring (the gift that keeps on giving). The Hugheses were delighted. "You guys are gonna get a lot of flak from the other kids," pointed out Margo when praising her son's courage. Neither Tom nor Margo couldn't help bringing up Will's big mistake (like big old gossips) and how lucky Casey is that he's not in the same boat — though they did worry that he was headed for marriage. Casey insisted that he wasn't headed for the altar, dude. He ran into Gwen outside, who called him out about his hypocrisy. Celia walked up during the scolding, and apologized if her commitment ceremony made Gwen feel like a slut (we're paraphrasing). The girls then talked about how great a guy Will is. Speaking of, "There's no way you're the father. You know it and I know it," said Alison, who would not accept any of Will's lame reasons for having knocked up Gwen. Powerless under her intense scrutiny, Will finally confessed everything. Clever Ali even guessed that Casey is the dad and that he's doing all of this for the love of Celia. She tried to talk him out of it, but he swore her to secrecy. After Ali left, Gwen arrived. Just after he admitted he was starting to feel connected to the baby, she announced that she plans to give him up for adoption.

Barbara met Jennifer to discuss the latest family "emergency" — Paul and Emily — which an exasperated Jen noted wasn't exactly cause to dial 911, especially because Hal and Em haven't seemed happy in a long time, but she was really distracted by her own crumbling marriage. Babs lucked out that Jen was so miserable that she actually confided in her. After expressing pride in her daughter's scheme to frame Craig, Barbara urged Jennifer to chase after Mike or else she'll lose him forever. Jen finally got sick of the nagging, and ran into Henry on her way out. He told her that Katie was also in Chicago, and gave her the name of the hotel. Babs, having covered Paul and Jennifer for the day, had a few minutes left over to meddle in Will's life, so she headed over to Java and pulled a little psychological manipulation on Celia, in hopes of getting the girl to put a good word in with Will for her.

Katie and Mike had an extended love scene to Embrace's song "Gravity" (on which Coldplay's Chris Martin is a guest singer, because the show is apparently obsessed with him. Anyway, find it on Embrace's Out Of Nothing CD). Afterward, they agreed that it wasn't a mistake. What's more, he's starting to change his mind about fate. "I never stopped loving you," he said, topping it off by asking her to come back to Oakdale with him. That sound you hear are "Matie" fans frantically updating their Web sites. They had just gotten done talking about how they didn't want to hurt Jennifer more than necessary when she showed up at the door. Mike just let her into the room, where Katie was waiting. Way to go with that whole "letting her down gently" plan.

Carly grilled Jack about where he was going, but suddenly realized it was their anniversary tomorrow and he must therefore be sneaking off to get her gift. It's unclear whether he remembered, but he was actually going to meet with Jessica, who reported that "there was an incident" that "involved an infant boy" and "it was horrible," but instead of coming out with it, she had him read the file and whatever he read made him decide that Carly can never know, no matter what it takes. Arrgh! This gets more frustrating everyday. Back at home, Carly remembered her son is psychic, so she had Parker hold the photo and wait for some "vibes." Instead, he suggested she try PhotoShop. After he made her a clearer version of the picture (in which she realized that she knows the woman from somewhere), she did so much gushing about the program after he explained its wonders that we checked to see if it's a P&G product. (It doesn't seem to be.)

Wednesday, July 6, 2005
After a bunch of near misses at the Lakeshore Hotel involving the smell of shampoo and the best deep dish pizza (during which we also kind of fell in love with the extra-helpful, seen-it-all busboy), Katie and Mike finally ran into each other. She quickly leapt into self-defense mode, insisting that she didn't follow him. He stopped her and told her he wasn't with Jen, and then they headed back to their rooms awkwardly ... until we kicked into slow-motion, as they rushed back into the hallway and melted into a kiss before he carried her passionately into "their" room. And the Matie ship sails again....

Rosanna and Craig met with Gwen, who needed very little persuasion about their parenting skills, but Craig had to go and make things awkward as usual by questioning the father's role in Gwen's decision. He found it "unacceptable" that she's not asking her baby's dad. Projecting much? By the time he got around to casting aspersions on her social life, Rosanna smoothed things over and found out a little bit more about Gwen — namely, that she never knew her own father. She also needed to make sure that Gwen would be willing to give up her baby when the time came. Gwen assured her that she would and that the father wouldn't be a problem.

Will was remembering some of Celia's searing words of wisdom when Casey showed up to figure out what's "off" between them lately and offer his assistance if needed. In other words, he has Will's back, dude. Meanwhile, after researching commitment rings on the Internet, a chirpy Celia detailed her plans for a virgins-till-marriage ceremony to an appropriately horrified Alison, who advised her to think carefully about this decision, because she may feel differently a month from now, and there are other ways of dealing with the pressures to have sex. "Just be careful, okay," the sex vet sagely urged Celia. "There are a lot of things going on between so-called virgins these days that kids think are innocent and safe, but they're not." Celia then broke the news about Gwen getting knocked up by Will. Ali, who has some experience in this field, suspected that Will was "taking the fall" for someone else and confronted him about it. Back at Java, Casey told Celia he was willing to go through with the commitment ceremony plunge, dude. "I'm so happy," gushed the luckiest little Montegan, as Gwen walked in.

Paul and Emily showed up at Hal's to pack up some more of her stuff, but Hal had already "stored" it in the trash. Emily urged Hal to talk to Will, because he wasn't taking the news of her shacking up with Paul very well. Hal took the opportunity to rub Paul's face in the fact that Jen had a possibly serious accident and he's so self-centered that he didn't even notice (we were wondering about that!) "Don't you dare say that I don't care about my family," warned Paul, before Em sent him to wait outside while she talked to Hal, who warned her that she was going to get hurt, then took back her house keys. "You're turning yourself inside out for a guy who doesn't even love you," he said. Later, at Metro, she asked Paul if he meant it when he said he loved her. "I wanted to, very much," he confessed. "I left my husband, your wife is married to another man and we both admitted we don't love each other," she concluded. "Why can't we just go on being really good together?" he asked. That's when Ro arrived with Craig, who was already passing out baby cigars. Disgusted, Em and Paul took off.

As Carly caught Susan in her lie about the photo of Ray, Jack and Jessica discussed the clinic. He went home and comforted Carly, who is spiraling into an obsession with conspiracy theories, before Jess called. She had some bad news to report: what happened was "something pretty horrible" and worse yet, "Carly was part of it." Oooh... Actually, that tells us nothing. Would someone just come out with it already?

Tuesday, July 5, 2005
When Carly had a nightmare about some woman screaming "what have you done to my beautiful boy?" Jack did his best to comfort her, but later met with Susan, who told him that the photo was taken when she was volunteering at a clinic; the "incident" caused the place to be shut down. She checked the records, but they've since been sealed. She did suggest that Jack speak with Jessica, who was intern in the D.A.'s office at the time (and the use of less-than-solid history continues....) Susan later told Carly that it was "irresponsible" for her to say something, but slipped by saying, "I don't remember your father, Ray," which of course Carly hadn't told her. Carly called her on her lies. Jack left a message for Jess.

Meg ruined a perfectly cozy post-coital vibe with Dusty (who, in his exhaustion from their night of passion, slept through two alarms) by accusing him of being in like with Jennifer, who had left a zillion messages for him. He had a few minutes to deny this, what with him being so late rushing to Jennifer's rescue, but he urged Meg to call before she left for Alaska. "I'll try to remember," she responded in a trying-too-hard-to-be-nonchalant kind of way. Later, she got a call that a Juneau job would be open in two days.

At the cottage, Jen was delighted when Mike returned, but he was just packing a bag. It's over because of the lack of trust between them and because she perjured herself in front of God and country (something like that) — or so he reasoned from inside his Bubble Of Denial For One. He then ignored her pleas and tears and walked out. Hearing her gasping sobs through the door, Mike was about to crumble and go back in when Dusty showed up, inadvertently validating his decision. Inside, Jen typically blamed Dusty for her current problems, then cried on his shoulder as he noted that Mike is "being a little dramatic" and that they did the right thing in by screwing over Craig.

Margo broke the news to Henry that Katie is moving out of Oakdale. Arguing that Snickers is a "free-range rabbit," Henry offered to take him in instead of letting Margo bring him to the kennel. She told him he had a big heart, and Katie was lucky to have had him. Meanwhile, Katie wound up at the Lakeshore Hotel, where she spilled her guts to the busboy about all the memories the hotel room holds. After the busboy promised to help her switch rooms, she wandered about the room getting flashbacks of her night with Mike from various inanimate objects. Henry picked up when she called to leave more rabbit instructions to Margo. They had a loving but awkward "I guess this is it" conversation, in which a lot was left unsaid. Still, it seemed final when he said, "You be happy, Bubbles." It was all too much for her, so Katie left to go shopping — just missing Mike, who checked into the room across the hall.

Craig sadly recalled the judge handing down his restraining order when Rosanna came in with a proposal: they should adopt a baby. "With my record as a mommy-pusher, I'm back on the police blotter again," argued Craig, saying they'd never get a child. He tried to get a visiting Margo to convince Tom to help him get custody of his unborn son since he was framed by Jennifer ("The town needs a scapegoat, so Oakdale's got me.") but he ended up finding her advice unhelpful and kicked her out. He then reluctantly agreed to adopt. Good thing, too: Ro had already set up an appointment with a private adoption lawyer, who brought along the prospective mother ... Gwen.

Monday, July 4, 2005
"Just to make sure that I have it right — your brother is living with your dad's wife?" asked Gwen when Will caught up to apologize for the insanity at Paul's. After she expressed more doubts about what they're doing, he sweetly insisted on standing by her, no matter how crazy his family is or how difficult it's going to be for them. "You know, Celia's got real bad taste," she finally said by way of thanking him.

Meg brought Dusty a Mabel's picnic in his hotel room, and they flirted with subtext-laden banter and memories, but she went a bit far when she suggested he join her when she moves on to Alaska. Realizing her mistake, she quickly covered that she meant "for vacation," but then botched things again when she brought up Jennifer, leading to much awkwardness until she finally left in a bit of a huff. Luckily, Dusty is good at smoothing these moments over with sex — he caught her outside his door and they hit the sheets.

While waiting for Susan at Metro, Carly pressed Jack about what Hannah had told him. He finally confessed, adding that he didn't say anything before because "the whole thing was so cryptic and overdramatic." (No kidding.) Susan provided more cryptic drama when she recognized herself in the photo Carly got from Nancy (although we still don't), but could only remember that there was a "terrible thing" involving the man in it and a child, but her memory was frustratingly spotty. "How can you be sure about it and still not remember? How exactly does that happen?" demanded an impatient Carly. "A bottle and a half of vodka a day," responded Susan. Aww, snap! (Too bad Doc Stewart had stopped her boozing and was only hooked on painkillers around that time). At home, Jack tried to calm down Carly, who later had a nightmare in which a woman screamed "What have you done to my boy?"

Mike called Jennifer on her lies about teaming with Dusty to set up Craig, and they had a monster fight, which boiled down to her never using the right pronoun ("We" instead of "I"). Finally, he declared the marriage over and left her in tears. Meanwhile, despite Margo's pleas for her to stay, Katie decided it was time to leave Oakdale again (she's even renting out the house). She promised to call when she got wherever she was going, and left Snickers in Margo's care. Mike arrived just after she left. "She's gone, and I don't know if she's ever coming back," she told him, rather dramatically. At the same time, Jennifer arrived at Dusty's looking for a shoulder to cry on. She was so completely stunned when Meg opened the door wearing only his shirt that she got all flustered and told her to not even mention that she stopped by.

Celia and Casey were returning from her first Fourth of July fireworks show ever ("We're not totally backwards," pointed out the Luckiest Little Montegan when he implied that she had never seen fireworks, period.) After some heavy petting, she proposed that they make a commitment to each other not to have sex until they're married. He had no choice but to reluctantly agree. Major bummer, dude.