Theresa's first impulse was to run off and break the happy paternity news to Ethan. However, she has since changed her mind and has no plans to tell him at all. Her change of heart was brought on by an extremely clumsy plot device, whose name I can't remember now, but it might have been "Harvey," so let's call him that. You see, "Harvey" is an old college friend of Ethan's who just happened to run into Ethan, Gwen, Theresa, and Whitney in the piazza. Harvey thanked Ethan for the great advice and then walked away, and Ethan then proceeded to spill Harvey's personal business to everyone assembled. Here is Harvey's tragic tale: He is married to a woman named Missy, who is an old sorority sister of Gwen's. Missy is unable to get pregnant. This placed strain on the marriage, and Harvey cheated on Missy and got another woman pregnant. The other woman now wants Harvey to leave his wife for her and be a full-time dad to his bastard son. She is threatening to cut off his visitation rights if he does not comply.

After Ethan told this story, Theresa demanded to know if Ethan had done the right thing and instructed Harvey to dump his wife, stat, in order to "be a family" with his babymama. Meanwhile, Gwen demanded to know if Ethan had done the right thing and instructed Harvey to stay with his wife, while suing that hussy of an other woman for joint custody. Of course, Ethan confirmed that he had recommended the latter course of action.

Suddenly Theresa realized what she should have realized from Minute One of this storyline: Once Ethan and Gwen know that Little Ethan is Ethan's, they are going to try to get joint custody, at an absolute minimum. The fact that Theresa didn't think of this until Harvey popped up just proves that she has rocks in her head. Remember, Ethan and Gwen are already raising Theresa's daughter Jane, and in the past, Rebecca managed to get Little Ethan away from Theresa and give him to Gwen to raise temporarily. These people have a real track record of wanting to take Theresa's kids. Wisely, she finally remembered this and decided to keep her mouth shut.

Now that that's been decided, Theresa is turning her attention back to the part of the e-mail that said that someone from Harmony would die. Theresa and Whitney have already considered the possibility that this referred to Noah's ex, Maya, who died a few weeks ago when she pitched over a balcony during a lightning storm/earthquake. However, Theresa doesn't think that the e-mail was referring to Maya, because Maya was never a main cast member. I mean, because Maya had spent some time living away from Harmony, so maybe she wasn't "from Harmony" enough to satisfy the terms of the e-mail. Whatever.

Chad sits down with Theresa and Whitney to parse the e-mail, which Theresa is now irrationally convinced is about Ethan. By the way, Whitney is permanently back to sporting her old '80s hairstyle; her nun days are but a distant memory. I guess she and Chad are really relaxed and happy now from all the suddenly non-incestuous sex they've been having, but thankfully, we haven't had to see them make out since the end of my last recap. Chad lets Theresa borrow his cell phone so that she can harass, I mean warn, Ethan that he's possibly about to die. Cut to Ethan and Gwen getting hot and heavy in their hotel room. Ethan ignores the ringing phone, causing Theresa to conclude that he may already be dead.

The next scene takes us back to Harmony - specifically, to Harmony Hospital, where the set is getting a real workout, because there are two new patients. One, T.C. is there because he got into a drunk-driving wreck, and now Eve feels sorry for him and it's going to end up destroying her relationship with Julian. Two, Sheridan went into premature labor, and now the baby's fine but she's on bed rest in the hospital.

A couple of things about Sheridan. First of all, she's being played by another actress right now. This is temporary; I'm sure it's because the real actress is on her real maternity leave. The temp is named Kam Heskin, and she seems familiar because she was on the short-lived NBC soap Sunset Beach, which starred Randy Spelling, among others. So far, Kam is doing a very wooden impersonation of Sheridan. She is really making the original actress look good, which I hadn't thought was possible.

The new fake Sheridan, with Chris and his kid.

Now, the reason why Sheridan went into premature labor. This is the one storyline that I'm deeply sorry to have missed, for recapping purposes. Remember how at the end of my last recap, the lesbians had defeated Alistair's thugs, and then Alistair and Beth had disappeared from the piazza in a puff of smoke? Well, of course Luis and Fancy chased after them, and the chase culminated in one of the funniest setups of this whole Rome trip when Alistair arranged for Luis and Fancy to be trapped in an old Roman arena with some hungry lions. There were real lions, but I think it was stock footage because I don't think they were ever shown in the same scene with any of the characters. Beth and Marty ended up in some danger from the lions, too, but no one got eaten, dammit.

Posted by Amanda on July 19, 2006 1:31 PM