A psychic, love potions, and Halloween hijinks

Will the specter of Sharon's secret haunt her Halloween wedding to Nick? Was Stitch feeling his oats or was it pheromones when he kissed Ashley? Is Hilary pregnant or was it betraying Neil that made her sick? Has Phyllis returned as a raving banshee or is she just being Phyllis? Will the ghosts of spouses past overshadow Chelsea and Billy's rebound romance? Check it out in this week's Two Scoops.

I'm not home to pass out goodies. Even when I am, very few children come around, so I end up eating most of the candy myself. This year, I'm buying stuff I don't like -- if there is such a thing -- oh my, oh my, how many kinds will I have to try before I find a candy I don't like? All together now, "Fat chance!"

Enough about me -- what about Nick? Will it be trick or treat for him on Halloween? Will he marry Sharon and then find out the secret that she's been keeping, or will he find out the secret and marry her anyway? I'm a romantic, so I vote for the latter. I'm firmly on Team Sharon. I forgive her -- like a lot of you -- for being mentally ill at the time she made that very poor choice to change the paternity test. (Wish I'd had that good of an excuse when I did some things that I wish I hadn't!)

Sharon and Nick are great together. They have children together, and I would like to see at least one happy family on the show! Speaking of happy, I think Mariah will also switch to Team Sharon. There was a definite softening in Mariah's attitude when Sharon told Mariah how much she loved her children and that Mariah could ask Sharon anything. What could be better than that? Let's call it "The Brady Bunch, Newman Style."

I do hope Nick stands behind what he has told everyone, that he will marry Sharon no matter what her secret is. If he doesn't, I'm going to refer to him as a "wimpy limp dishrag" for a very long time. So, please, writers, don't trick me. Just give me a sweet treat instead! Make Nick a family man who stands by his woman.

I love Nick, even though I'm not convinced that he's all that bright. When Nick told Sharon that they would be the first to get married on Halloween, I let that pass on the assumption that he forgot to check the newspaper announcements in that other soap-i-verse where a Halloween wedding was reported weeks ago. But when he mentioned how difficult it had been to schedule an appointment for the wedding, I just scratched my head, rolled my eyes, and said to myself, "If you are the first ones getting married, then what are all those other couples making Halloween appointments going to do? Have non-weddings? Some of those couples have to be Goths, or don't they have those in Genoa City?" And isn't Halloween to Goths what June is to people who don't wear black to weddings? I know, picky, picky, picky.

If Sharon thought Madam Isadora was spooky, she must be terrified of Phyllis, who swooped in like she was being chased by the furies. Even at this agonizingly slow pace, someone must surely discover and spill Sharon's secret soon. This has to set the record for longest period of time a secret was know to viewers and kept from characters. Two columns ago, I wondered how they would drag the secret through until November Sweeps. Now I know!

I am very happy with Gina Tognoni as Phyllis. She has slipped into her role seamlessly. She is totally believable. I don't even want to compare her to anyone else. She is not mimicking her predecessor; she is the real deal. It's a treat to watch her breathe life into Phyllis. It can only get better from here. Instead of some zombie impersonation, we got a living, breathing dynamic actress! Way to go, Y&R.

Speaking of zombies, I can't help but feel that Jack is one of the walking dead after being blindsided to learn that Phyllis's remarkable recovery was due to the "Dark Knight." While Jack really wanted to throttle Victor for tricking Summer into giving permission for the experimental drug therapy that brought Phyllis out of her coma, he really couldn't, or he would have had to explain his churlishness. Victor, of course, knew the source of Jack's discomfort and couldn't help but enjoy his trick.

Jack and Kelly shared some uncomfortable moments with Phyllis and with each other. Jack is doing a great job of being befuddled at the end of almost every scene, when he isn't bewitched, bewildered, or bothered by whichever lady he is with at the time. In retrospect, it does seem that Jack moved on from Phyllis mighty fast -- too fast, some might say, and I do think that Summer said exactly that to Noah!

I believe that I read somewhere that it usually takes about 18 months before widows and widowers are ready to move on. It took Jack less than a year to duck out on the woman he proposed to and promised to be loyal to for as long as it took for her to recover. His word certainly wasn't very good, or if it was, then it's a trick on Kelly who will get dropped like a hot potato.

No matter who Jack picks, I don't think Phyllis is going to consider it a treat that Jack was having a relationship with Kelly while Phyllis lay in a coma. She might even consider that he was cheating on her, and I can see Phyllis going banshee crazy all over Kelly and Jack. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. I might feel that way, too, if what brought me out of a coma was the man I loved proposing to me and then, when I was awake again, I learned that he'd moved on. Hmm, guess I'll have to sleep on that one!

As many of us have been speculating, it's becoming clear that Ben/Stitch did not murder his father. He took the blame for someone else, either Kelly or his mother, Maureen. It looks like Ben is finally going to tell Victoria the truth -- which he should have done in the first place -- and we will finally learn the deep, dark Rayburn secret. I suspect that it will make Ben appear so heroic in Victoria's eyes, not to mention Victor's, that she will do everything in her power to make sure that Ben is her baby's father -- no matter how many people she has to trick. I have no doubt that Victor will help if he finds out. Victor will definitely prefer Ben to Billy as his grandbaby's father.

At first, I thought that Ben was covering for his mom, but now I think that both Ben and Maureen are covering for Kelly, who is probably suffering from undiagnosed PTSD. If Kelly killed her father, then Kelly forgot what she did, because her father's abuse was so awful. That's why Kelly has such an idealized memory of her father and blames both Ben and Maureen for what happened. The truth is too painful for Kelly to remember. Kelly may still snag Jack, who is inclined to rescue damsels in distress, and Kelly may need a whole lot of rescuing before her story is told.

It's only my opinion, but I am giving two thumbs-up to Burgess Jenkins for his portrayal of Billy Abbott. I think he has made the character his own. I like the way he is playing Billy as a more entitled Abbott. His scenes with Chelsea are terrific. Of course, we know they are a doomed couple because Adam is on his way back, and there is no way Billy will stay away from Victoria if she has his child!

So, like any rebound romance, this one will eventually be felled by the ghosts of spouses past. If I have one complaint about this Billy, it's his too-perfect hair. It's very attractive, but I never see it messed up or out of place. Either he has really, really, really, really thick hair, or his stylist uses hair spray one step below super glue. Note to hair stylist: where can I get some of that?

Stitch/Ben is proving to be quite the ladies man. He's got chemistry with both Victoria and Ashley, and now Abby has confessed that she likes Stitch also. Once the truth emerges and he gets to keep his doctor bag, there is no telling how many women will be at his beck and call, even without a love potion.

Being my cynical self, I immediately questioned the ethics of using a "love potion" on another human being, even as a perfume. When Stitch and Ashley kissed, and Stitch referenced the smell of "rotting garbage," it made me think of my rescued dog, Boomer, and his reaction to food. Just as Stitch could not resist Ashley, Boomer cannot resist food of any kind, no matter where I put it or how difficult it is to reach. I made tunnels that I thought only the cats could navigate, but Boomer found a way. I suspect it would be the same with men and pheromones. I'm not ready for that. Even on Halloween, it seems more like a trick than a treat.

Then I started questioning how it would work scientifically. Would the potion have the same result for every person that wore it? Could men wear it, or could only women wear it? What about gays and lesbians? Would lesbians who wore it have to fight off straight men? If only women could wear it, would every man, including gay men, who smelled it want to kiss the women wearing it? Wouldn't you need some kind of filter?

Frankly, I wouldn't want every guy who smelled me to be attracted to me and want to kiss me. How would you ever get anything done if you had to spend all your time fending off men? And another thing, if guys couldn't fight the attraction, couldn't a woman be accused of doing the same thing to a man that men are accused of doing to women when they use a date rape drug? Okay, now that your head is spinning -- just call me "The Exorcist known as Boone" -- repeat after me, "It's only a soap!"

Besides, as some of you will surely point out, Ashley and Abby did address some of my issues. After Ashley got through explaining to Abby that the fragrance "lights the fire, and you keep it burning," I was not so concerned, because that made the fragrance sound more like a mild suggestion than a demand.

I liked Lily's thought process when she jumped to the conclusion that Hilary is pregnant. I hope it's true, though I would be equally satisfied if Hilary was nauseated due to the stress caused by deceiving Neil. I'm a little nauseated by that myself.

In soap logic, it's about time for someone to get pregnant and play keep away from the real baby daddy, a staple of the soap genre. This time it might as well be Hilary, who can pretend that the baby is Neil's, but it will actually be Devon's. I'm still waiting for Neil to get his sight back and realize that Hilary and Devon are in love. Let the gaslighting begin!

One last nitpick before I call it quits. I don't know how they do it in your neck of the woods, but where I live, we put our pants on one leg at a time, and we put our coats on before we go outside. I noticed that both Phyllis and Mariah grabbed their purses and coats then went outside, where I can only assume that they finally put on their jackets.

I suspect it is too chilly in Wisconsin at Halloween to run around in summer sleeves. I can understand that Phyllis might still be confused from the coma, but Sharon had to remind Mariah to take her jacket, or Mariah would have left home without it. Typical teen -- oh wait; Mariah is 30 going on 19.

I was brought up in a barn, and Miss Manners was a stranger in our home, so maybe I'm the one who's wrong. Perhaps it is bad manners to put your coat on before you go outside, and nobody told me because everyone is too mannerly to point it out.

Kudos to Y&R, which is getting better and better. How do I know? I'm finding less and less to complain or even joke about!

Until next time, fellow fan addicts, I will imagine you having an unimaginably fun Halloween, safe from imaginary cars in imaginary crosswalks, as you go trick-or-treating in your imagination with our magical, imaginary friends.

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