"Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?" Billy Abbott would never know, since he pops a fresh stick in his mouth each time he chews it. The way Billy's been chomping on it, his gum has almost become a character on the show. It seems to turn mild-manner Billy Abbott into a dark and twisted creature seeking revenge. Once he pops a stick of gum in his mouth, Billy practically becomes a mirror image of the man he has reason to hate, Adam Newman. The chewing gum is a transformative symbol much like the cape was to Superman, only the gum represents evil rather than good. And unlike Superman, it's a good thing Billy doesn't need a telephone booth to partake in his chewing gum, or he'd really be out of luck.
Billy's loud chomp, chomp, chomp sounded like what he would like to do to Adam's head. I am reminded of the old Doublemint Chewing Gum commercial, "Double your pleasure, double your fun." Billy could accomplish two goals by attempting to kill off his guilty conscience and his enemy at the same time. Hey, what could be more fun than that? The sleep-deprived Billy even started to act like his evil nemesis, since his essence seemed filled with gloom and despair. A black cloud was certainly hovering over Billy, filling him with a murky darkness, as he kept a watchful eye on Adam as Billy chomped, chomped, chomped away on his gum. The soap needed a daunting tune to play every time Billy was shown, just like The Bold and Beautiful did for Thomas. Talk about sinister.
It's ironic that Billy's hatred was caused by his grief and pain over the loss of his daughter, because Delia would be so disappointed in seeing her dad acting in such a despicable manner. However, she would also be very concerned that Billy was consumed with so much guilt. As much as Billy hated Adam, he also had to hold himself accountable for the tragedy that befell his precious girl. His misery was so obvious as he clutched poor clueless Bella to his chest and didn't want to let her go. Billy didn't want to lose the nightmares of his darling daughter, since they were memories and reminders of Delia. He just couldn't bear to lose Delia again, so he refused to seek further help for his mental instability.
I thought Delia's doll was acting as his conscience when I first saw her. She had such a creepy expression on her face...well, as much as a doll can show emotion, that is. She really reminded me of an episode of The Twilight Zone that had a doll who told Telly Savalas, "I'm Talking Tina...and I'm going to kill you." I loved it! It was so spooky yet clever, since the popular doll at the time was Chatty Cathy. But anyway, Talking Tina was determined to kill that mean ol' stepdaddy, just as Billy had every intention of making the world a better place to live in by ridding it of Adam. Delia's doll seemed to represent what was on Billy's mind, and he wanted to kill, too.
Billy broke into Adam's place for the light burglary of a handkerchief -- however, it was a very special handkerchief. No, even if Billy was being haunted by the spirit world, the hanky wasn't magical or anything like that. And we knew that he didn't have a cold. Sure, his mind was a little ill, but physically, he was fine. Actually, the handkerchief was special to Adam because it had belonged to his mother. Even after talking to Chloe, who had been, at one point, as sick as they come, Billy dreamed again of Delia trying to escape from Adam's clutches. Then, out of the blue, Adam received a message from a mysterious someone to meet on the curve at Route 7 (a.k.a., "you know where I mean"), where the darling girl had been run down, on the pretext of having him reclaim a belonging.
Of course, the message was from Billy (although Adam didn't know that) and Billy's trusty sidekick chewing gum, and he sent a picture of the handkerchief to ensure that Adam would zip on over to the highway. Adam demanded that the guy in the car show his face. If he'd seen Billy chomping on his gum, he might have hightailed it out of there. A chewing-gum Billy was a dangerous Billy. No gum, and Billy was as tame as a pussy cat. But the menacing Billy stomped on the gas as he chomped on the gum, and he tried to run Adam down. Then, suddenly, Chloe pushed Adam out of the way to save him. Oh, no! We really were living in an alternate universe if Chloe was coming to Adam's defense. Or the world was rocking completely off its axis. I mean, this just was not right.
Michael, Kevin, and Chloe had earlier been practically declaring war on "the prince of doom." Hey, one could never accuse Adam of being boring. Because nobody in Genoa City has ever had to pay for any crime committed, Michael was able to get Chloe off with a slap on the wrist for all her wrongdoing, so she could come and go freely within the community. Even though she vowed to Michael that she would stay clear of Adam, the chances of that happening were zero to nil. When Adam was a "decent" guy before the explosion, Chloe had made sure he paid. She destroyed Adam's life and changed Chelsea and Connor's world right along with it. Hey, what were best friends for? There was no way that Chloe was going be all sweet and innocent when Adam was still around.
But even though she had saved Adam, Chloe had actually been Billy's heroine. Whew...and then, suddenly, all was right with the world again. Kevin was more concerned that Chloe would move to the top of Adam's hit list once he knew of her return. It was too bad Adam didn't know she was the one who had saved him. Kevin had a plan to spread the news that Chloe's funeral had been a huge fake-out. He probably should have warned Chelsea first, though, since she didn't take Chloe's resurrection well at all. Chloe should understand better than anyone why Chelsea refused to forgive her. Chloe had tried to blow up the good Adam, Justin Hartley's version, and after that, Mr. Hartley went on to become a big star on This is Us, leaving Chelsea in the dust. That truly was unforgivable.
Kevin and Chloe should count their lucky stars that Adam had no clue who had tried to run him down. Billy, of course, should be thankful, too; however, I doubt if he would care too much about that. Billy really seemed off the hook when Phyllis decided that Victor had been the culprit. Victor seemed to be getting the blame for everything, but that was his own fault after actually doing the dirty deeds for years. Of course, Victor was crushed when Adam accused him of doing such a thing. But then Adam did the unthinkable -- he deliberately knocked the chess pieces off his father's chess set. Uh-oh, Adam was in trouble. To Victor, that was like a slap in the face. However, Adam was on the warpath, also, to exact a deep, personal, and long-lasting payback against the "frail old man."
Billy and Chloe weren't the only ones who wanted Adam long gone, since Nick still held a grudge against the guy for trying to take his son away. Okay, grudge was probably a gross understatement. Even though Adam handed him a court document legally relinquishing his rights to Christian, Nick didn't trust him a bit, and who could blame him? Adam even made it very clear that he was determined to destroy all the Newmans, so he still gave them plenty of reason to join forces against him. I'm still unclear how this helped Adam's cause, though. If he wanted his family's love and respect, it seemed to me that he was going about it the wrong way. Adam, though, was driven by anger. Maybe he should read the book on how to make friends and influence people. Nah, it wouldn't help.
But, of course, Adam wasn't willing to play by the rules and refused to attend the court hearing regarding custody, which could have made the court document a moot point. The judge was ready to cancel the hearing, but luckily, Nick was a fast talker and begged him to let Christian return home. Justice should never have been about keeping the boy away from the only father he had ever known. That never made sense. It should have been about what was best for the child. Thankfully, the judge let Christian go home with his father, but since everything Adam did had an ulterior motive attached, he requested that Nick drop the restraining order, so Adam could see Christian. Nick refused, of course, since that would give Adam ample opportunity to poison the boy's mind against the Newmans.
Even with all the hoops Adam had forced Nick to jump through to keep his son, Chelsea still saw the good in Adam as Connor's daddy. Even if she was hitting the hay with Nick, it was obvious that Chelsea was falling more and more under Adam's charms. Clearly, she was going to have to learn the hard way -- again.
Phyllis was eager and ready to jump on Adam's hate bandwagon of everything Newman. Poor, poor Phyllis. As she was quick to point out, Abby and Victor had screwed her over with her hotel deal, and after Red had helped Victoria and Nick with Dark Horse, she had received nothing in return. Boo-hoo. It just proved again that Phyllis had only been looking at what was in it for her, which meant she was in typical Phyllis mode. So, Phyllis joined forces with Adam to crush their mutual enemy, or enemies in this case...the overly glorified Newmans.
Abby must have gotten so much pleasure from rubbing Phyllis' nose into the fact that not only were the Naked Heiress and the Black Widow the new owners of the Grand Phoenix but that they were keeping the name of the hotel, too. When Phyllis declared that Chelsea was more of a jailbird than a phoenix, Abby saw that they had ruffled Red's feathers, so Phyllis started flapping her arms and cawing like a bird. Why, she could have had a new career as a greeter with that exhibition, but somehow, I think her standards were just a tad higher than that. Phyllis was hurt when she learned that her own daughter was assisting with the Grand Phoenix's opening. Really, Phyllis needed to quit playing both sides against the middle, since she kept coming out the loser in every way.
Kyle and Lola returned home from their honeymoon, ready to play a little game of baseball. They were so adorable. "Play ball." Oh, Kyle was ready, even with his former friend Theo always on his mind. Kyle had better be careful, or he will end up striking himself out of the game -- and out of Lola's heart. She absolutely loved him, so why wouldn't Kyle tell Lola the entire truth about the incident in New York City and be done with it? Oh, I get it. Then Theo wouldn't have something to hold over Kyle's head, and Theo had to have some reason to hang around Genoa City. We know the partnership between Theo and Mariah won't last, since they were both out to get each other. It's a shame (and rather weird), though, that each one didn't realize that about the other.
The two lovebirds (Kyle and Lola, not Theo and Mariah) were just so cute and sweet, even as they hosted a bon voyage dinner for Celeste, dearly departed fridge and all. They really should take it slow on having kids, since they were still so young and so newly married. There was plenty of time for children down the road. As we all know, adding children to one's life changes everything. But what's the deal with everyone trying to push Rey and Sharon back together? Leave well enough alone, please. Actually, pairing up Rey and Sharon as a couple made me more tolerant to having Kevin and Chloe back together. And I never thought I'd ever say that.
With Nate always lurking around, it seemed that Devon and Elena were headed for the notorious soapy love triangle. Nate almost appeared to have trouble remembering Abby's name whenever he was around Elena. Well, Elena did get that good-paying job. It probably elevated her right up into the great catch ranks of the eligible bachelorettes in Genoa City. Devon didn't seem to be too threatened, but, after all, he was numero uno on the eligible bachelors list. Besides, he thought their friendship was totally innocent. But why was Elena so willing to share all the gory details (such as they were) of her first day with Nate and blow off telling them to Devon? Inquiring minds want to know.
Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, there appeared to be a glitch with Katherine's will, which baffled Devon. But it sounded like we won't be able to find out what the glitch was until September 16th. What?! That's too long to wait. Forget Devon, I want to know now. Wow, it's hard to believe that it's already been six years since Katherine's death, but in another way, it seems like forever. Whichever way, the soap fans still miss her gracious presence.
As Theo raised a toast to Mariah, he said, "We're all about the business, but the business is all about fun." Hey, maybe that should be Power Communication's new slogan. Maybe Theo should go into the jingles business.
Chloe joyously remarked to Kevin how happy she was to be able to return to a "perfectly normal life." Come on, we are talking about Chloe here. When she's involved, there's no such thing as normal.
Chelsea expressed to Nick, "A dollar for your thoughts." Well, you know, inflation.
Lola, a supposedly renowned chef, served that glorious food at her family gathering, yet no one took a single bite out of it. Usually, people talk as they eat at festive gatherings, so it all came across as being just a little weird.
Apparently, Sharon needs to work on Crimson Lights' reputation, since Kevin remarked to Chloe, "This town is a hotbed of gossip. Where are the loudmouths when you need them?" Or maybe that was a glowing endorsement.
Abby really was fortunate to be the one Newman who didn't draw Adam's ire. He proved that when he handed her the Grand Phoenix on a silver platter. And knowing the Newmans, it was a sterling silver one.
Until next time, please stay tuned.
Teddi
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