DOO-DAH! DOO-DAH!

Birthday Cake! Six candles! They even got her mental age right! Nick lights the candles on Melanie's birthday cake as she comes out rambling. Nick sneaks up behind her and yells...

"SURPRISE!"

Eeeuuuwwww. Now they need another cake.

Bo and Hope listen to the recording of Nicole's confession. In other words, it's an audio flashback. Then they discuss Nicole's confession. Another audio flashback. Bo has an uncomfortable feeling Nicole is telling the truth.

Nicole and EJ argue. Nicole thinks Stefano framed her so he can take her baby. "Haven't we already established that is what you think and haven't we also established that I've assured you that isn't true," asks EJ.

"Not really," says Nicole, "On this show, you really don't establish anything until you go over it about a hundred times and the viewers run out screaming. Have you seen our ratings? There are actually some nuts still watching this show. It's our professional duty to chase them off."

Sami gets out of the shower and pounds on the door, "I'm freezing in here! Bring me my clothes!"

"Pipe down," says Rafe, "I'm watching the Bulls-Knicks game and I have $20 riding on it."

Sami cracks the door open and peeks out, "I'm the witness and you're supposed to protect me!"

Rafe says, "I am. I've got your clothes and towel right here. You're not going anywhere." Sami shrieks.

Rafe asks, "What are you — a Kicks fan?"

Sami rambles and lectures, "When I get outta here I'm gonna report you! You'll wind up guarding a grocery store on the graveyard shift. I will make you pay for this!"

"I was hoping you'd walk out for free."

Sami throws a fit, "WAH! I want my daddy! WAH! I've never felt so alone in my life! WAH"

"Then shut the door and be completely alone," says Rafe as he turns his attention back to the game, "Aw, come on ref, thats not a foul! What do you think this is, a ballet?"

"The ref looks at the camera and says, "Well, it's certainly not good drama."

Sami shuts the door, slides down onto to the floor and whimpers, "I hope I never see another hit man as long as I live."

Hope asks, "Do you think we're living in an alternative universe where Nicole could be telling the truth?" Bo and Hope wonder if Nicole really saw the killer. Bo thinks he should have pushed harder, "I thought she was hiding something, but if she saw that guy... waitaminute... Is she really that stupid?"

"Yeah," says Hope, "And, believe me, I know stupid. I married it. "

"If she saw the guy at the crime scene, why didn't she tell us about it... get us off her tail?"

"She didn't want us to know she was there in the first place," says Hope, "Nicole is resourceful. She could have steered us in the opposite direction."

Bo thinks it over. "Unless... she knows the person and wants to take care of him herself."

Nicole and EJ continue to argue. EJ says he didn't know she was pregnant until several days after Trent was murdered, "You're being paranoid."

"You know I'm not," snorts Nicole, "This is all about control with you." EJ assures her no one is trying to set her up. "You have done it before," says Nicole.

Nick apologizes for scaring Melanie. Melanie confides in him, "This is gonna sound weird, but tonight, at the Cheatin' Heart, when that guy called, I got this really weird feeling like he was watching me."

"It's just a feeling," says Melanie, "But it got me to thinking."

"Thinking," asks Nick, "Now you're scaring me."

"I think he likes knowing he can scare me..."

Nick interrupts, "NO! That's not it... er... I mean you shouldn't think like that."

"I would kill whoever it is if I found him," says Melanie. Nick gulps.

Bo gets off the phone, "Well, that was DA Jenkins. She wants a breakfast meeting with me, or as she put it, a little duel and egg."

"Are you sure she didn't say DOOL and yuck," says Hope, "Those words seem to go together so well."

Bo tells her he thinks he won't love the commissioner's job. "I think things will be better with you on top," says Hope.

All right. I would put a censored link to Bo's response in here, but it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

Hope thinks they should go home and light candles and take a nice hot bath together. She paints a picture of all the wonderful things they could do, "And after that, we could go look for Ciara. "

"I think we should listen to Nicole's testimony again," says Bo, "Frankly, that's a lot more fun than jumping into bed with you. " They also decide Melanie is still a suspect.

Nick apologizes again. Melanie wants to eat cake. She makes a wish and blows out the candles. He asks what she wished for. She says she can't tell or it won't come true. Nick zones, "What if I can make it come true? Tell me what it is and I will see what I can do."

Melanie says, "What I wished for was to find out who killed my father."

Meanwhile, back in unsupervised day care... Sami screams, "You can't keep me in here forever!"

Rafe taunts, "Come on out. It's halftime. I'm starving, how about you? Come out and get some food."

The cutesy banter continues ad nauseam (actually beyond nauseam) and the thirty-something adolescents continue to bicker like juveniles. My apologies for insulting juveniles everywhere.

"I don't want your cell phone any more," whines Sami, "I want your gun!"

Nick asks what if she never finds out who killed Trent. He thinks she should move on. Melanie insists, "I'm not obsessing about it. I just think about it all the time. Over and over and over again until it consumes my every thought night and day, but I'm not obsessing. If I don't find out, I will wonder who killed him for all the Days Of Our Lives. The way he treated me doesn't mean he deserved to die. I miss him. I was mad at him and hated him but that doesn't mean I wanted him dead." She starts to rush off. He stops her, says she hasn't opened her presents yet, picks up a sack and hands it to her."

"Wow," says Melanie, "Wal Mart. I didn't know you cared so much. " She pulls the present out. It's a snow globe of Marseilles.

"That's so you will always have a souvenir of when we met," says Nick.

Sami and Rafe spiral into the depths of stupidity. Rafe yells, "The game is about to start again. Can you please be the silent victim?"

Sami screams, "You've got me naked in the bathroom! I can't just walk out there. You'd be the first guy ever to see me naked. "

"Right," says Rafe, "Just like there are raisins out there that have never seen the sun."

Sami freaks, "You think because I'm naked in the bathroom I can't make your life miserable? I have not yet begun to fight!" She picks up the toilet plunger and starts banging the wooden stick against the wall as she launches into what we will loosely refer to as song...

CAMPTOWN LADIES SING THIS SONG,
DOO-DAH! DOO-DAH!
CAMPTOWN RACETRACK FIVE MILES LONG,
OH, DOO-DAH DAY!
The woman is not just stark naked, she is also stark raving mad.

Rafe moves right up to the TV and turns up the volume. Sami continues to bellow and pound. Hope is right. We're in an alternative universe. And we're about to get voted out of it.

EJ and Nicole continue to argue. EJ tries every trick in the book to convince her. Nicole snorts, "Tonight I am sleeping in the same room as my toilet, so don't patronize me."

"What you did earlier scared me," says EJ.

"OMG," gasps Nicole, "You're gonna use this against me. You're gonna say I'm crazy in the custody case."

"There will be no custody case," says EJ, "I am on your side and the baby's side. I know this is awful and I'll get you out if you trust me."

"I think that would be the dumbest thing I ever did," says Nicole, "And that's coming form a woman that married Lucas. "

Speaking of adolescents, Sami hears the bulls lost and chortles.

Rafe says, "It's not whether they win or lose..."

Sami interrupts, "I know. It's how they play the game."

"No," says Rafe, "It's whether they make the spread. And in this case, they didn't."

"My heart bleeds," screams Sami, "I'm sitting here with a splintering butt from sitting on the floor." Sami begs.

Rafe is unmoved, "Anything you need before I go to bed?"

Sami explodes, "YOU SON OF A... I won't let you get a moment's sleep." Silence. "You hear me?" Silence. Sami opens the door and sees Rafe has instantly fallen asleep wearing headphones.

Nick gets off the phone, "That was Max. He thinks he got the equation. We can resubmit the proposal and you might see your profit sooner than we thought."

Melanie is confused (sorry for the redundancy), "Whenever you talk about your project you always talk about what it can do for me. Why?"

"Don't you understand," says Nick, "I'll do anything for you. Anything."

EJ tries every avenue he can think of to reassure Nicole, but she's not in the mood to buy any of it. She asks, "Have you ever been pregnant."

"Even this show isn't dumb enough for that," says EJ.

"It's weird," says Nicole, "Not just physically. There are those who say I can be selfish but now I'm actually thinking about someone else and I don't know how to handle it." EJ tries to comfort her as she turns on the water works, "I know I'm not here because you set me up but because I lied. My baby is counting on me and that is a horrible position to be in."

"If you're the baby," says EJ. He reminds her they discussed marriage because they both want what is best for the baby. He says what is best is that they trust each other. "That can't happen," says Nicole, "because you don't trust me. It's a public record that I lie cheat and murder. EJ reminds her his history is also checkered.

"Not mine," says Nicole, "Mine's all black." EJ wonders if two untrustworthy people can come together to trust each other.

Hope thinks EJ might think Nicole did it. She also thinks whoever did it is linked to Nicole or Melanie. That's a new record. This is DOOL and we used the word "think" three times in that paragraph.

More presents for Melanie. She opens the next one and it's an empty picture frame. "That one said 'you' to me," says Nick, "A square with nothing inside." Melanie knows just what to do with it. She bolts into the next room. Nick looks at the next present. It's a picture of Melanie and him to go inside the frame.

Nicole thinks things are hopeless. EJ doesn't. Blah, blah, blah. Things are certainly hopeless if you're watching this drivel.

EJ says for a bit he thought Nicole killed Trent. Now he thinks she didn't. Nicole is sarcastic, "Right. I'm known far and wide for my restraint."

"No," says EJ, "Actually you're not. I may not trust you to do the books for my company or rotate my tires, but I do trust you to do what is right for our child and to (say it with him) be there for our child."

Hope wonders if Bo is having second thoughts about becoming commissioner. Bo thinks he should be out there chasing bad guys. Hope thinks they are closing in on the solution to Trent's case.

Melanie puts a picture of her and Trent in the frame. Nick deflates. Melanie says she wants to remember what was good about her father. Nick says, "I just want you to be happy."

A gal in the audience stands up and shoults, "Make us all happy. Leave town with her."

WHAT TH... Sami is completely dressed and rummaging through her purse. Rafe comes up to her, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Nicole tells EJ he's a smooth talker. He tells her it's not just talk. They decide they need to trust each other. "Come on," says EJ, "you might just like it. Maybe it will turn out to be the right thing for us."

"Well then, get me outta here," says Nicole, "I'd like to test that theory."

Melanie decides she wants cake. Nick walks over to the counter, gets the Trent Robbins memorial knife and flashes back to the cemetery where Trent and Melanie fight and Trent throws Melanie to the ground. The fall knocks her out. Trent turns around to see Nick emerge from the bushes, "Leave it to Malanie to have a dork like you for a knight in shining armor." Nick picks up the knife...

STAB!

Trent staggers. And staggers. And staggers. When he reaches Pittsburgh he finally falls to the ground. I guess since he knew he was leaving the show he tried to go out with a performance which would win the Emmy for the longest death scene since Forest Gump's mother died.

Back in the kitchen, Nick twirls the knife and comes at Melanie.


Previews
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