Daily Updates

From: lisa@clark.net (Lisa Spodak)
Subject: PC:  Update Tuesday 12/2/97
Date: 3 Dec 1997 09:11:26 GMT

Port Charles Update
Tuesday December 2, 1997

First shot of the show is a picture of Danielle... I'll let each of you
decide for yourself if that's a good omen or a bad one. ;)  Anyway, Jake
is sitting in the funeral home by himself.  Karen, Chris and Joe come in
and try to comfort him a bit.  He says he'd like some time alone so Karen
and Chris leave, but Joe waits outside to give Jake a ride home.

Scott stops Karen as she's leaving and apologizes for the scene between
him and Lucy and says the stress of the trial is making him crazy.  Karen
understands and says that if it ever came to Rex getting custody, she
would sue for custody herself as Serena's sister.

Of course, as Rex points out to his lawyer in the next scene, no judge is
going to give custody to an ex-stripper with a history of drug abuse.  Rex
also dismisses other challenges to his claim--he doesn't think Lucy's got
a real claim, since she's not a blood relative (even though she was the
surrogate), and he says he's got ammunition against Gail and Lee, too.
Then he takes leave of his lawyer, saying he wants to mend fences with
Jake.

Back at the hospital, Matt and Julie tell Grace (who had to work) about
the funeral.  Burgess comes up, mustering up a bit of sympathy, but not
too much, urges them all to get on with their work and walks away.  Eve
makes a crack about Burgess coming down hard on all of them because she's
jealous about Matt and Grace.  Matt makes faces and Grace says she doesn't
know what Eve is talking about.  Burgess comes back and tells them *again*
to get back to work:  "I don't talk just to hear my own voice."  (We all
check our watches to see how long the SoftEllen possessed the
BitchyBurgess [don't get me wrong; I like her, I just think they paint her
too extremely.])

Rex approaches Jake back at the funeral home and tells him he forgives him
for lashing out at him.  He wants to make things right between them.  Jake
says the only way to make things right is for him to destroy Rex like Rex
destroyed Danielle.  Rex, who doesn't usually take well to being
threatened, says if Jake plans to testify against him in Scott's custody
trial, he'll produce evidence proving Jake kidnapped Serena.  Jake calls
his bluff, saying if he gets blamed for the kidnapping, Scott will be
cleared and Rex will get nothing.  Then Jake threatens to kill Rex and Rex
threatens Jake to not threaten him ever again.  When Rex leaves, Jake
swears to Danielle's picture that he'll make Rex pay for what he's done.

We have a little banter between Matt and Grace... involving dinner and
zingers.  I'll leave that to your imagination.  Bottom line:  Matt owes
Grace a dinner 'cause he's got to bag out for their planned dinner that
night.

Dr. Devlin (the old male one) tells Dr. Devlin (the young female one who
I'll just refer to as Julie from now one) that he's going to try going to
a marriage counselor with Dr. Devlin (the one he's married to, who isn't
a doctor, so we'll call her Nicole [bear with me, it's 3:30 in the
morning, but if I don't do this now, it won't get done ;) ]).  Dr. Devlin
doesn't really believe in marriage counselling, but is willing to do what
it takes to get Nicole back.  Julie doesn't look convinced.

Lucy and Kevin are back at the lighthouse, Lucy congratulating herself on
the scene with Scott.  She worries a bit that people who don't know what's
going on will think she's back to her Old-Scene-Making-Bad-Lucy self, but
Kevin reassures her that when people find out what was going on, they'll
just applaud her performance.  When Scott joins them, he is upset about
having to keep the truth from Karen.  Lucy thinks he should be able to
tell her, so he doesn't have to lie to his children, but as she and Scott
then talk about telling Lee and Gail, Kevin steps in and insists that they
need to keep the plan to just the three of them.  He says the more people
who know, the more room there is for a mistake.  Scott is surprised to see
Kevin the strongest voice advocating the plan at this point, but Kevin
says "Either we go full steam ahead on this or we stop right now."  Guess
which option they choose.

Chris goes to Nicole's hotel room to apologize for not telling her about
Eve staying with him and to assure her that there's nothing going on.
After one of my favorite exchanges on today's show (Chris:  "There's
nothing going on between us"  Nicole:  "Too bad for you, because there's
nothing going on between us, either"), Nicole slams the door in his face.
As the rejected Chris heads for the elevator, he runs into Dr. Devlin
coming off of the elevator.  After we bite our nails for a whole
commercial wondering how the heck Chris is going to get himself out of
this one, he makes up some story about needing to check out the hotel for
some visiting relatives... blah, blah, blah.

Dr. Devlin goes to Nicole's room and tries again to convince Nicole to
reconsider her divorce plans.  But she's furious that he continues to use
Buddy's suicide as an excuse for his affair with Eve.  Nicole won't budge.
She's going ahead with the divorce... and tells Dr. Devlin if he doesn't
leave, she'll call security.  We move out of the Devlin-trying-to-win-his-
wife-back phase and into what I think is going to be a Devlin-trying-to-
win-PERIOD phase... as he threatens "if you're going to behave like this,
I am going to make this divorce hell on you."

Burgess takes a minute to apologize to Grace, specifically for snapping at
her last week and, in general, for not appreciating her enough.  Grace
asks her if this means the interns will stop ribbing her about coming
between Burgess and Matt.  Burgess says (oh.. and look... coincidence of
all coincidences... here comes Matt to overhear) that's
ridiculous--there's no relationship between her and Matt and she resents
the interns for spreading rumors to that effect.  Matt, unseen by
them, is quite pissed.

Scott comes to the hospital looking for Karen.  He chats with a very
fetching (his adjective) Eve, who asks him if he's made up with Lucy yet.
Scott says that you don't really make up with Lucy, you just stay out of
her way.  When Eve defends Lucy a bit, Scott advises her not to trust
Lucy.

The Plan continues at a restaurant (in the old days, I would have thought
it was the Grill... now I figure it must be Mario's since that's the only
place anybody has eaten in the last 2 weeks... truth be told, I have no
idea where it was 'cause I didn't recognize it... but it had a bar.)  Lucy
and Kevin walk in... see Gail and Lee sitting at a table... in clear sight
of Rex.  The situation is ideal; or, as Kevin puts it, "Great for us, bad
for them."  Lucy lights into Gail and Lee for leaving Serena with the
social worker and her son.  Basically says they're irresponsible and not
caring for her correctly.  Kevin tries to make excuses for her and she
gets mad at him.  When they go to their own table, Kevin says (loudly) "I
hope you're proud of yourself and that display.  Lucy says (quietly) that
she is.  [Updater's complaint:  I *hate* that they can't tell people they
care about about the plan.  I'd totally be the one saying "But I *need* to
tell so-and-so about it... and they can keep a secret.  And so can
so-and-so."  I loved how the whole "family" seemed to be coming together..
and now it's being mucked with :( ) Gail and Lee are very taken aback by
Lucy's attack and attribute it to stress, etc.  Rex watches the whole
exchange with interest.  And that's the only expression I could read on
his face--some kind of interest.  Don't know if he bought it, if he
thought it was a crock or if he just thought Lucy was a hotty... but he
was interested.

As they leave, Lucy makes one more crack at Gail and Lee.  Then she and
Kevin leave, bickering the whole way.  Gail and Lee talk about the
possibility of trying to keep guardianship of Serena if Scott somehow
loses the trial.  Gail brings up the topic and loves that Lee loves the
idea.  (Gail and Lee were incredibly cute today, I thought.)

Karen catches up with Scott who gives her an envelope which turns out to
be her divorce papers.  She's sad, but not surprised.

As Joe is telling Matt and Grace about Rex and Jake's argument at the
funeral home, we pan over to a pay phone where we hear Jake inquiring
about purchasing a gun.

[cue music and roll commercial]

(I hope I didn't break any cardinal rules writing this update.  Be gentle;
it's my first. :) )

Lisa
lisa@clark.net

--
Lisa                                             The One Who Picks the Movies
lisa@clark.net                  One of TOW wants the Zone to read _The Eight_
                                                _
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