The price of power

Diane has wasted no time trying to insinuate herself into the Abbott family by asking for a promotion to Marchetti Home, Lily and Devon's contentious war continues, Victoria wants to own Tucker and his company, Sally is waiting for the paternity results, Nick defends Sally to Jill, and Nate's ego knows no bounds. Join our columnist for her views and opinions in Two Scoops for this week

Yikes! Diane isn't wasting any time trying to insinuate herself into the Abbott family since she has started sleeping with Jack. What's her excuse for wanting Phyllis' old job at Marchetti Home? I'm sure it's not to stick it to Phyllis... Diane has really laid it on thick with Kyle. She has Kyle completely snowed about wanting to belong in the Abbott circle. She has pushed very hard to promote herself as the most qualified person to head up the Marchetti Home department.

Pretty good, huh? From PR to a high-level job. That's like going from the mailroom to a vice-president's position in one fell swoop. I thought it was quite telling when Diane entered Jack's office and sat in Jack's chair with her feet up on his desk. You could see the wheels were spinning and she was planning something now that she had Jack and Kyle's ear. You could almost see her rubbing her hands together like she'd succeeded in winning the lottery -- or like she was Scrooge McDuck.

I really hate the Jack and Diane lovefest. To me, it's all B.S., and Jack is going to be badly burned. I think this "romance" diminishes Jack's standing as a wise and savvy character. He has blindly defended Diane because he believes all the lies that she's told. She has put on a good act of pretending she had changed, and Jack has bought the whole package. Jack has done nothing but extricate Diane from one situation after another. I'm still trying to understand how Jack has completely locked Phyllis out, but he has forgiven Diane.

Diane's past and present history includes infidelity, theft of Jack's sperm, manipulating Jack, faking her own death, framing a number of people for her fake death, fraud, and most recently, allowing Jack to steal Nikki's necklace for Diane to give to Jeremy Stark to prove her loyalty to Stark. Jack saw this as protecting Diane. Phyllis' past seems modest in comparison, but unlike Diane, Phyllis has turned her life around.

Isn't Victor a piece of work? He managed to hook Kyle into helping him get Adam out of Jabot. We know Adam isn't happy at Jabot, but this needed to be his decision. Victor has no business claiming he knows Adam wants to be within the family fold. Adam is old enough and makes his own decisions, and he gets to decide whether he wants to be in the Newman fold and working at Newman. Victor's actions have put quite a wedge between Jack and Kyle. Granted, Kyle was partially to blame, one, for accepting to help Victor, and two, for lying to Jack.

Victor and Victoria are really going after Tucker's company with a vengeance. Tucker is a no-goodnik, and it's time someone knocked him on his lying ass. A little payback would be a welcome treat. Let's recap Tucker's short time in Genoa City. He arrived in town, hoping to win Ashley's heart again, but he failed. He has slept with Audra while claiming to be in love with Ashley, he struck out at getting close to Devon, and he lost his chance at infiltrating Chancellor-Winters. Tucker wins the prize for big-time losers.

With Victor and Victoria's determination to own Tucker's company, this should turn out to be one hell of a battle and fun to watch. We will have two master manipulators going head to head over McCall Unlimited. Who will be the victor? (No pun intended.) Wait a minute, have we ever seen Tucker working at his company or even in his suite? He seems to be too busy trying to steal companies like Jabot and Chancellor-Winters, but he has Audra doing all the work. Tucker is busy schmoozing Daniel and trying to entice him to launch his gaming platform with Tucker's company. I see another failure to launch coming for Tucker.

I enjoy Michael. He makes me laugh. He told Victor he was poised like a jungle cat because he couldn't wait to go after Tucker. I was a paralegal, and I would have loved to work with someone with Michael's sense of humor.

My opinion of Adam has been quite unpopular, and this isn't going to endear me to anyone. We all have characters we don't like. I have read a number of derogatory comments about Phyllis, Diane, Victoria, and Tucker, to name a few. I admit I have never been an Adam fan, but I have given him credit where credit was due.

At the moment, Adam believes he has the right to interfere in Sally and Chelsea's lives. Sally has already given him the heave-ho, and she has told him she has moved on, yet he keeps insinuating himself into her life. What she does or who she sees is none of his business. Then there is Chelsea, whom he divorced well over a year ago. For some reason, he thinks he can dictate who she sees, in particular, not Billy. Adam has forgotten that Chelsea and Billy have a history, and Johnny is the proof. Chelsea asked Adam to stop maligning Billy because she got to choose who she was friends with.

I will applaud Adam for keeping his word to Chelsea. When he ran into Billy at the coffeehouse, he and Billy only discussed arranging for Adam to take the boys out on an outing. I'm sure that must have been difficult for him, but he kept his word.

I will also applaud Adam for taking responsibility about his job at Jabot and admitting he hadn't been doing a stellar job. Adam has always seemed to blame someone else, but not in this instance. He and Jack have always had good rapport, and it was refreshing to see Adam admit to something he'd done or, as the case may be, hadn't done. Could this be a turning point for Adam? Could he really be serious this time about turning over a new leaf and sticking to it? I hope so. It seemed that Adam wanted to stop the fight between Jack and Kyle because he didn't want there to be a wedge between father and son. With Adam's resignation from Jabot, I doubt he will return to Newman Enterprises. If Victor gets McCall Unlimited and sections off a portion for Adam, I doubt Adam would accept it. It's quite possible Adam might decide to strike out on his own. He's done it before and been successful at it.

I agree with Sally's decision not to tell Adam yet that he might be her baby's father. Sally knows Adam would be in her face constantly if he thought there was a possibility that he could be the baby's father. She told Nick it would be better to wait for the paternity results, and if Nick wasn't the father, then she would tell Adam. Not much point in getting his hopes up unnecessarily. He's already heartbroken over his breakup with Sally, and if he wasn't the baby daddy, it would only add to his heartbreak. I think this was a good call on Sally's part.

I'm finding it hard to fathom that Nick is taking this pregnancy so calmly. What are Nick and Sally going to do if this turns out to be Adam's child? Nick is already raising Adam's son Christian, and I'm wondering if it turns out that this is Adam's child and Sally chooses to remain with Nick, how happy Nick will be co-parenting this child with Adam.

I'm anxious for the paternity results. If we were placing bets, I would bet Adam is going to be the baby's father. I can't see it being Nick's, only because I think it would be a boring storyline, but if Adam is the baby daddy, and Nick and Sally continue their relationship, there would be a lot of potential for great storylines. The predominant one would be Adam suing for full custody and the battle that would ensue.

I loved that Nick intervened on Sally's behalf with Jill and that Jill gave Sally and Chloe another chance to do their presentation. Jill was very impressed, but she was furious that Victor had used her for his own petty purposes. I really want to see Victor lose for a change. Good for Nick going to bat for Sally.

When Sally showed up in Genoa City, I really didn't like her, but then I hadn't cared for her on The Bold and the Beautiful, either. She was constantly scheming, manipulating, and eavesdropping on people's conversations. Sally has changed my mind about her. She has done a complete turnaround, and I have enjoyed watching her blossom into the independent and caring person she is now. Granted, Adam had something to do with that, but on the whole, Sally has worked hard at changing to become a better person.

Who was surprised when Victoria locked lips with Nate? That kiss must have inflated Nate's ego big time. I used to really like Nate, but since he retired his stethoscope for the corporate world, he has become an egotistical and power-hungry individual who seems to believe he knows as much or more than seasoned CEOs. What happened to the sweet Nate who used to care about people? Now he uses people like Audra to get what he wants.

The one thing I find very interesting is that in every business meeting, Nate brings up Devon and how things wouldn't happen because Devon wasn't willing to take a leap of faith or make a bold move. Is this Nate's way of easing his guilt about his actions and betraying his family? Victoria isn't helping because she is encouraging Nate. She gave him a little advice. She told Nate not to allow anyone to dictate who he should be because they had no idea what it took to fill their shoes or make things really happen.

I really thought Victoria would have mellowed after what she'd been though with Ashland, but I guess it just made her more ruthless. She might be on a par with Victor in the ruthless department. She is determined to own Tucker and his company. Frankly, I'm all in. Tucker is a cad, and I believe he has outmaneuvered himself this time. Victoria made me laugh when she said she didn't know which she was looking forward to more, owning Tucker's company or the look on his face when he realized he'd been bested. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to it, as well.

I wish Lily and Devon could come to a decision and mend their fences without a court battle. Both sides of the argument have resonated with me, but I'm leaning more toward Devon's argument. It isn't just a business to him but an emotional connection to a father he adored, and together, they had built Hamilton-Winters.

Yes, Lily loved her father, but she didn't have the connection to the company that Devon had. Yes, both companies would lose money over the short term if they severed the merger, but they would survive. Chancellor Industries has been around for a very long time. They would rebound in a short period of time, and then they could go public. With Daniel's gaming platform, their profit margin would escalate.

Devon had been reluctant to merge with Chancellor, but he joined because he wanted to work with family and retain autonomy of his company. At the time of the merger, no one had mentioned anything about going public. Devon has objected to the IPO from the beginning. Is Jill really that money hungry that she couldn't release Devon's company and wait for the dust to settle before going public? Her offer to Devon of allowing him to keep the Hamilton-Winters name while Chancellor kept his company and rebranded it isn't what I would agree to. I don't blame Devon for holding out, and this court battle should be an interesting one.

So far, Phyllis hasn't had a very good year. I really thought she and Jack were going to become a couple again, but Phyllis blew that because of her vendetta against Diane. She endangered a number of people by bringing Jeremy Stark to town for the purpose of getting Diane out of Genoa City. She lost her job at Marchetti Home because of her rivalry with Diane.

Phyllis thought she had it made when Daniel hired her to help him create his gaming platform at Chancellor-Winters, but that wasn't meant to be, either. When Phyllis learned Chancellor-Winters was in flux, without Daniel's knowledge, she once again went behind his back and tried to stir up interest in Daniel's project with Newman and with Tucker. Then Phyllis thought it would be a good idea to see Heather in Portugal and try to fix what was broken in Heather and Daniel's relationship, again, without Daniel's knowledge. Needless to say, Daniel was far from happy.

What is this redhead going to do now? She sold her hotel so she could work with Summer (and saw a perfect opportunity to sabotage Diane), got fired by Summer, lost Jack to Diane, and got fired by Daniel before she even got started with his project. What's next for Phyllis? I'd love to hear what you think.

Those are my opinions for this week. I'd love to hear yours. Feel free to drop them off in the Comments box just below this column. And until next time, stay safe!Nel

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