Chalice in Wonderland

By Amanda

I am happy to report that a bunch of people got killed this week on Passions. If you would like to mourn their passing along with me, you will have to read the recap to find out who bit it. But this week’s episodes weren’t all violence and pain – there was also some spiritual uplift, in the person of one Mr. Pope Benedict XVI! That’s right, His Holiness was a character on Passions this week, and he even wore his famous red shoes. If that doesn’t inspire you to go out and live your life as a better person, I don’t know what will.There were quite a few storylines that didn’t appear on Friday’s show, so I will briefly recap those first. Let’s start with Siren. At the end of last week, Miguel and Siren were about to have sex on the beach. Her tail kept appearing and reappearing because it was sort of in a pool of water, and her tail appears when her legs get wet. Miguel never noticed this. Or rather, he did notice that he FELT a huge fish tail touching his legs, but Siren managed to obstruct his view so that he never actually saw it, and that was good enough for him.

Is that a big, enormous fish-tail in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Ultimately, Kay stopped the big consummation from happening by getting her daddy Sam, the chief of police, to arrest Miguel for indecent exposure. Miguel and Siren claimed that they were just innocently kissing on the beach, but Sam busted them by pointing out that they had condoms with them. So Miguel got tossed in the clink. He was pretty angry and told Sam that he knows Kay is behind this and that it’s all because she thinks Siren is a mermaid.

Sam confronted Kay about thinking Siren is a mermaid, and she made the “Weird things happen in Harmony, so why not this?” argument. Sam also hinted around that Kay might still be in love with Miguel.

Ivy appeared this week, for the first time in – months? I seriously did not know she was still on this show. Maybe this means there is still hope for T.C. and Liz. Anyway, Ivy and Sam are planning their wedding, and Kay and Fox are supposed to be planning theirs too, but the whole time, Ivy and Kay are secretly scheming about how to break up each other’s relationships.

Back in Rome, we saw what I guess was the end of the Spike storyline – thank goodness. First Noah hauled Spike over to Lena’s room, triumphantly announcing that he had figured out that Spike was the one who killed Lena’s partner way back when. Lena then turned the tables on Noah, pulling out a gun and telling him that she and Spike had been working together all along.

Doesn’t this gun make me look cool?

Noah was completely baffled, and he then became extra-mad when it turned out that Maya was in on the whole thing too. You see, it was all a plot by Alistair to keep Noah away from Fancy. Maya only participated because Alistair threatened to kill her family.

Apparently, the next step in this particular evil plan was to kill Jessica. Oh, yeah, she was in the room too because Noah was in the middle of rescuing her from Spike last week when he figured out that Spike was the killer, so he just brought her with him over to Lena’s room.

Spike pulled a gun on Jessica, but he really didn’t want to kill her. Somehow, some people got away from other people, and chase chase chase, lame lame lame, and finally Lena somehow got electrocuted and died. (If you must know, it had to do with the lightning that Alistair caused when he was messing around with the chalice elsewhere in town.) BODY COUNT FOR THIS WEEK: 1.

After all the running around, Spike and Jessica ended up in some little basement room together. She kind of talked him out of killing her by acting like she was still into him, which was gross, but then she got his gun and pulled it on him. His feelings were totally hurt.

Noah and Maya ended up out on a balcony talking, and he was being pretty forgiving about the whole situation where she set him up and played him, but then there was an earthquake and she fell to her death. I was not clear at first whether it was supposed to be an accident or suicide. The dialogue and foreshadowing seemed to indicate suicide, but the way she actually fell looked like an accident (and, you know, it was an earthquake). BODY COUNT: 2.

For Friday’s show, we open on a cheesy, fake exterior shot of Rome – with lightning. Yes, there are apocalyptic doings afoot, and I’m very much afraid that this means we’re coming to the end of our time together in Rome. It’s really been lovely, and it’s just not going to be the same once we’re back in boring old Harmony.

Luis is sad. Very sad. Why so glum, Luis? Well, it’s just because of a little thing called his baby son getting blown to smithereens in a car explosion. Earlier in the week, Beth escaped from the inexplicably masked art-show opening. Luis and Fancy pursued her in a relatively high-budget motorcycle/car chase, but her car blew up, with her and Marty inside. (BODY COUNT: 4.) Luis briefly caught fire while trying to rescue Marty, but it was all for naught.

Notice that Fancy’s cleavage is visible from 100 yards.

Now, I think we all know that anyone who dies in an explosion on a soap opera is very far from being dead. However, poor Luis does not know this (even though he was recently “dead” himself), and so he is devastated. But I find his devastation a little squicky, because it comes across as though Marty being dead is kind of the secondary issue. What is REALLY bugging Luis is that rescuing Marty was supposed to be his in for getting back together with Sheridan.

Luis did talk to Sheridan on the phone after the explosion, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth, so she still hopes he’s going to be bringing Marty home to her. Don’t get me wrong – Luis is acting sad about Marty. I just think it’s questionable that, at this particular moment, he is also all broken up about his relationship. With a woman who’s married to, and pregnant by, someone else. Way to keep your eye on the ball, there, Luis.

So, today, Luis and Fancy are in her hotel suite, and he’s talking about how crushed Sheridan is going to be when he tells her what happened, and about how he couldn’t save Marty. Luis says the whole thing is his fault because it took him so long to believe Sheridan, for all those years when she was telling him that Marty was her son and not Beth’s. Fancy is consoling him by displaying a lot of cleavage in her evening gown.

Then Luis breaks the news that Alistair is probably the evil mastermind behind everything, since Sheridan discovered he’s not in a coma in a nursing home like he’s supposed to be. Fancy is a little defensive, because she thinks her “Grampy” isn’t really that bad.

Elsewhere in the hotel, Theresa is babbling to Ethan for the 4,967th time about how J.T. Cornell is going to prove to him that Gwen and Rebecca were the ones who revealed his paternity. You see, last week, Theresa got J.T. to tell Ethan the truth, but Ethan didn’t believe it because he had just heard Theresa offer the guy $10 million to tell the story. (This was an uncharacteristic display of thinking by Ethan.)

After that, Theresa and J.T. got into a little verbal tussle about whether she had to pay him the money if Ethan wasn’t convinced of the truth. Meanwhile, J.T. was on the phone with Rebecca, who was hint-hinting around that he should kill Theresa. He made a sort of half-hearted attempt to push a big rock onto her or something, but it landed on Ethan instead, but unfortunately, he didn’t die. J.T. got away as per usual.

Um – this was supposed to be nighttime, outdoors, in Rome. How come it looks exactly like the beach set?

Next, Theresa had Crane Security put up a $50 million reward for anyone who could find J.T. again. Yes, that’s right. $50 million to find someone
(a) who has only been missing for 10 minutes;
(b) whom she has successfully located herself, for free, several times in the last few days; and
(c) who has already failed to convince Ethan of anything, even after telling him the whole truth.
I mean, hell, why not just make it $50 billion?

Ethan was appalled. He tried to explain to Theresa that “million” is not just a made-up word like “kajillion,” but she didn’t listen. Now Theresa is eagerly waiting for Crane Security to bring her someone whom she thinks is J.T. – but she’s about to get a nasty surprise.

Elsewhere in Rome, the big climax is going down. No, not like that, you perverts. Alistair has been unmasked. Yes, that’s right – the key players now know that EvilMonk is Alistair. But before the unmasking, Alistair finally figured out how to get hold of the chalice, which apparently gives godlike powers to anyone who can get close enough to it to read the inscription out loud, or something. The whole time Alistair was fooling around with the chalice this week, it was causing lightning and earthquakes all over the city. Nobody seemed to notice, except for Lena and Maya, who got killed by these phenomena.

The chalice was in a fire in a fireplace, because it has to heat up to release its powers, and while Alistair was working with it or whatever, he was using Whitney to guard the door and make sure nobody else came into the room. Meanwhile, Chad, Simone, Paloma, and the fat old Italian nun were hot on his trail. They got to the door and started begging Whitney to unlock it and let them in.

No, really, y’all, he’s a good guy. This is just how he rolls.

There was a whole debate between Whitney and Chad (through the door) about whether EvilMonk was evil or not. Chad and his posse swore that EvilMonk was the Deceiver and that he was just using Whitney to steal the secrets of the Church. Whitney, on the other hand, claimed that EvilMonk was trying to help the Church and that she had to assist him in order to save her own dirty, sinful, incestuous soul. Oh, and also Chad’s similarly filthy soul.

Alistair finally got the chalice and laughed many ostentatiously evil laughs. He hadn’t read the inscription on the chalice yet, but it gradually started to dawn on Whitney that he might be evil when he pulled a gun on everybody.

Should I trust my friends and family, or should I trust this sketchy monk with the maniacal laugh? Tough call….

In the midst of all this discussion, Chad busted into the room and Alistair’s hood somehow came off, so that pretty much resolved that argument about whether or not he was evil. (Hint: Whitney lost.) Alistair knocked Chad down and gave a Scooby-Doo-villain-style speech about how the chalice will allow him to rule the world.

Alistair did clear up one loose end in his speech, when he mocked Simone and Paloma for being dumb enough to get sucked into that whole stolen-paintings plotline. You see, that was just a little something that he faked up to get them to Rome. Good – I’m glad Passions isn’t going to overextend itself by trying to actually resolve that storyline in some logical way. As Alistair gloated, Whitney finally rounded up a few stray brain cells and grabbed Alistair’s gun.

So, now, Whitney is holding a gun on Alistair as Chad lies all wussy on the floor. Everybody, even the old nun, wants Whitney to kill Alistair, but Alistair says she doesn’t have the guts. She pulls the trigger and then passes out briefly from the sinfulness. The nun tells her it wasn’t a sin to kill Alistair, under the circumstances. I wonder if that free pass is Church-approved, or if it’s just courtesy of this slightly occult-leaning old nun.

Meanwhile, we see Alistair’s robe on the floor, and it just looks like a sack of potatoes, not remotely like a person. (For the moment: BODY COUNT: 5.) Roughly one second later (after the commercial), Paloma picks up the robe and everyone sees that it’s empty. All right, BODY COUNT back to 4. The kids all think that maybe they can still catch Alistair, but the nun says that her second sight-a tells her that he has escaped-a. We see Alistair sneaking around the building in a cat-burglar-type outfit, cackling to himself about how no one can stop him.

Oh my God! Whitney! You killed this sack of potatoes!

The nun tells them all not to even bother looking for Alistair, even though Whitney says there’s a secret passageway. Chad sees where the shot Whitney fired hit the wall, and tells her, “You must have missed.” Simone says “DAMN it,” in this tone that suggests that she is really disgusted with Whitney for being such a poor shot, and possibly is even ashamed to be related to her. Hilariously, the nun criticizes Simone for cursing. This is after the nun just egged Whitney on to murder someone. I wonder if the nun knows Simone is a lesbian.

At long last, Whitney engages in a little much-needed introspection about her absolute brain-deadness in teaming up with this shady evil monk for months of her life. She tells Chad the whole deal about how Alistair convinced her that she had to save her and Chad’s souls by separating herself from Chad. Chad is really touched by the sacrifice she made for him, and they share an incestuous embrace.

Back in Theresa’s room, Ethan and Theresa have the same damn conversation, again, some more. I really had high hopes a couple of days ago when it looked like Ethan was near death from that blow to the head. Oh well. There’s a knock at the door and Theresa opens it with great gusto, expecting J.T. to be dragged in by Crane Security – but instead, it’s Gwen. Um, how fast did she get there? We just saw her in Harmony when Rebecca was on the phone with J.T., and in show time it’s been maybe a couple of hours since then…. Never mind.

Ethan and Gwen hug while Theresa stands there in shock. She harangues the Crane Security guy about bringing her Gwen instead of J.T. and then she kicks him out of the room. Ethan attempts to fill the plot hole by asking Gwen how she got there so fast, and she exposits, “My mother is still married to Julian, so one phone call and I was on the Crane jet.” Yes, but does the Crane jet travel at the speed of light? Also, I love how on soaps, if you are legally married to someone, you totally get to use their house and all of their stuff whenever you want, even if you have been bitterly separated for years.

For example: Theresa is the head of Crane Everything, even though she and Alistair openly hate each other and she has openly tried to kill him. Yet she is now the boss of all his companies and has so much authority that she can post a $50 zillion cash reward in a case that has nothing to do with Crane Industries. Hey, wait, couldn’t she probably also stop Gwen from using the Crane jet? Luckily, the characters exposit some more that she maybe could have, but she didn’t know about it.

There is some bickering amongst the three of them. I’m sure you can recreate it word for word without my assistance. Eventually, Gwen mentions “what Sheridan found out” – namely, that Alistair is missing, presumed alive, conscious, and evil. Ethan and Theresa are shocked.

Luis explains the whole deal to Fancy, about how the person whom they all thought was Alistair in a coma was “just some other poor patient who was in a coma, and Alistair had his face fitted with a latex mask to make it look like himself. Think about it! It’s perfect!” Yeah, sounds like a foolproof plan to me.

Gwen is simultaneously relating these same details to Ethan and Theresa: “So Sheridan thought something looked strange about Alistair’s face, and she went up to take a closer look. His face was a mask; she pulled it off. It was a mask that was fitted on another coma patient.” Ethan says that they all should have known. Yes, you REALLY SHOULD HAVE. He also says that it was a brilliant plan on Alistair’s part. Sorry, Ethan, you lost me there.

Gwen takes an opportunity to get in some digs at Theresa, reminding her that once Alistair resurfaces, he’s going to want Theresa back in his bed. Gross. Theresa agrees with me, commenting that she would rather be dead.

Luis and Fancy argue about Alistair’s degree of evilness. “No,” she whines, “my Grampy loves me!” Luis goes for the crystal decanter. Oh, wait, he’s actually drinking wine this time. Fancy thinks her Grampy wouldn’t have brought them all to Rome without trying to get in touch with her. Luis suddenly realizes that Alistair was the monk he saw spying on him a few days ago.

Whitney et al. are still hanging out in that same room, being upset that Alistair got away. There’s a knock at the door. It’s the Swiss Guard. Simone opens it – and suddenly they all start kneeling and crossing themselves. Ohmygosh! It’s the Pope! Squeeee! (Hey, is Simone an observant Catholic? And gay? Not saying it’s not possible – just saying it might merit some discussion, PASSIONS.)

Unfortunately, they don’t show the Pope’s face. They shoot the first scene from the Pope’s POV, with holy music playing in the background. Then they show the Pope’s hands and some of his outfit. The nun gives him a recap, and he says, “Gott im Himmel.” So this is not just a generic Pope! This Pope is German, so he is supposed to be the actual Pope. Big points to Passions!

The Pope wants to know who helped Alistair in his evil plan. Whitney gets down on her knees, kisses his hand, begs for forgiveness, and offers up her lame explanation. The Pope tells her to chill – it’s not her fault; the Deceiver is super-bad. The Pope is just psyched that the chalice is still in the fireplace. Except – it’s not! Dun-dun-DUN! The Pope explains, in a very non-German accent, that this is a really bad thing. Sometimes he sounds like Christopher Walken, and sometimes he sounds like Groundskeeper Willie, and sometimes he sounds like Bruce Lee.

The Pope breaks it all down for everybody.

Then we see a bunch of new monks praying in some random stone chamber. They have creepy glowing eyes. Alistair comes in with the chalice and monologues that these monks are blind. Huh. So blind people have glowing eyes? Well, you learn something new every day. Apparently, blind people also can’t hear, because Alistair stands about four feet away from them and delivers a speech about himself, his evilness, the chalice, etc. etc. He says he is God on Earth.

The new face of blindness.

Ethan goes off to make a phone call and leaves Gwen and Theresa alone together. They have the usual conversation, highlighted by Theresa saying, “I’m breaking it down, bitch.” Theresa says that Gwen is running scared because of the $50 trillion reward for anyone who finds J.T. Gwen taunts Theresa by telling her that she already notified Crane Security that Alistair is alive, so now Theresa doesn’t control Crane Industries anymore, and Theresa can’t offer her $50 quintillion reward. Theresa starts to lose her composure.

Alistair suits up as a monk again. He wanders in and out of the praying blind monks, who, again, obviously have none of their five senses at all, because they don’t notice Alistair shoving up against them, possibly stepping on their feet, and talking to himself. Suddenly, a mysterious guy in a suit comes up behind Alistair and puts his hand on his shoulder. Alistair is displeased. He says, “I told you never to come here unless it was an emergency.” And it’s … J.T. Cornell, who is surprised to find that Alistair is alive and kicking.

J.T. explains (to us) that Alistair told him that if he was ever in trouble, he should go to this particular church. However, he never thought he was actually going to find Alistair there. Okay, huh? Since when does J.T. work for Alistair, and if he does, why didn’t he know Alistair was alive? And why would Alistair tell him to go to this church? My brain hurts. Anyway, Alistair is pissed that J.T. is there potentially blowing his cover. J.T. begs for help escaping Theresa’s manhunt. Alistair cackles evilly. By the way, the chalice is totally made of plastic, like one of those chalice air fresheners.

Do you think it comes in New Car Scent?

Alistair is totally repellent as he tells J.T. how “tender” Theresa is. Now that he has absolute power, he’s going to miss “the thrill of the chase” with her, since he can just make her do anything he wants in bed. Oh, ew.

The Pope and all the idiots establish that they must find the chalice before Alistair is able to read the inscription. Um, I thought we already figured that out several days ago. I mean, um, good work, guys. The Pope explains that even he has never read the inscription, because it is too much power for any one man to have.

Paloma and Simone engage in an aside about how the Pope’s shoes are fabulous, and we see that he’s wearing red loafers. Oh my God! That is FUNNY. There was a story in (I think) the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago about how the Pope attracted a bunch of attention for wearing these shoes. Again, big ups to Passions today.

Big Popin’

Theresa is losing her shit, trying to get Crane Security on the phone and make them follow instructions. They won’t even take her calls because she’s not their boss anymore. I don’t get it. If Theresa was acting head of the company when Alistair was in a coma, why isn’t she acting head now that Alistair is missing? Gwen gloats and gets Ethan to agree to move to another hotel room with her. Theresa looks like she is at absolute rock bottom, but after they leave, she talks to herself about how she isn’t giving up.

Fancy wants to go with Luis to look for Alistair, but he says she can’t come, because he wants to kill Alistair. He says Alistair killed Marty. I guess he means indirectly. “An eye for an eye; a life for a life,” he says. And … scene.

Note that four characters were killed off this week (and Spike’s and J.T.’s life expectancies don’t look so great, either). I think perhaps we are seeing the beginnings of those budget cuts. And thanks once again to All4Passions for many of the screencaps. (No, I didn’t have a DVR problem – she just has good screencaps.)

Previews: Fancy follows Luis into the catacombs or wherever so she can learn the truth about Alistair. Noah also wants to kill Alistair. Alistair is still fooling with the chalice, with J.T. standing behind him.