Recap by Kaydee

One Life to Live Recap for Tuesday, July 2, 2002

OMG, people! She actually FLIPPED!!  Niki went off the deep end and now we're stuck smack in the middle of a slapstick murder comedy routine. I've got my hangman's noose ready for this chick!! She's got to GO!!!

There, I've vented for the moment. Thank you. Here's the recap....

MURDER PLOT ON THE LOONFAIR EXPRESS–
THE ALTER DID IT!!

After the brutal shove that Niki gave Ben that sent him sailing through the Llanfair window, Jessica, Rex and Niki stand around his broken, near-lifeless body. The teens are horrified, praying for his recovery, while Niki prays for his death. They look up and see a terrified Natalie looking down over the scene in a panic.

Niki is thrilled to see Jessica going after Natalie, realizing that she still has a cover-up card left to play. From the looks of things, good ol' Benjy is about to croak, and her original plan to frame Natalie is falling into play.
Natalie tries desperately to tell Jessica that she didn't push Ben, but her drugged, sketchy memories do nothing to help her defense.

Rex plays Natalie's advocate, softening the harsh blows of circumstantial scenarios in which Jess is placing Natalie to confirm her as the perpetrator, but Jess isn't budging and Niki is doing her absolute, Viki-discreet best to seal Natalie's coffin. She's making "motherly" insinuations, while "defending" Natalie in the same breath, and then the impending assault is cut short, (for the moment), by EMS' panicked shouts that they're losing Ben. Jess and Rex immediately turn their attention to Ben, praying aloud that he makes it, while Niki crosses her fingers, with her back turned to the audience, and silently mouths the word "DIE" repeatedly. After a few seemingly unsuccessful attempts, Niki dares to ask the ambulatory staff if Ben is going to die. They tell her he's not.

A few seconds later, they announce that they'll need a family member to accompany them to the hospital, and Niki, (after a very long delay), realizes that she is who they're referring to. She jumps up at the last minute and says,

"Oh, right"Oh, right. I'm his wife. I guess that would mean me." (Umm...Duh???)

She rushes off toward the ambulance to keep up her role as the distraught wife, and Jess and Rex announce that they'll follow the ambulance. Natalie stops Niki, asking her what she should do. Niki tells her in her ever-so-distraught manner that she should stay home. Natalie asks her again, what should she do, Niki tells her that she's done enough and rushes off to the ambulance.

Natalie is hurt by the curt dismissal, and she backs off. Later, she kneels in to the clutter of broken, bloody glass and cracked wood and begins to cry. A few seconds into trying to pick up the pieces, she is haunted by the voices of Jess and Rex interrogating her about what she was doing in the master bedroom, as well as her own voice feebly and desperately replying that she doesn't know. Now, her soft cries escalate into a series of body-wracking sobs as she picks up the clutter. Cristian arrives and finds out what happened. She tells him that she thinks she was the one who did it, and he assures her that she didn't. He convinces her to get out of the dangerous mess and leads her back to her room.

He presses her to tell him everything she can remember. He urges her to think real hard. She does, and she comes up with all that she remembers:

She remembers her confrontation with Jen, and all of the accusations therein, she remembers talking to him after the incident. She remembers Jen calling for him and her telling him to leave. After he left, she began writing in her journal in her laptop. She wrote about the nice way that Cris helped her out, and then she remembered feeling lightheaded and sleepy. She fell asleep, and then she heard a lot of shouting between Niki and Ben. The next memories she had were of her being in the master bedroom looking down over Ben in a heap of wood and broken glass.

She jumps up in a panic, saying that she had to be the guilty party. She was the one who pushed Ben! It had to be. Maybe Niki was right and she suffers from DID. Cris reminds her that she herself said that it wasn't hereditary, and didn't she tell him that she read it came from a bad childhood?

"Believe me, Cris", Natalie retorts, "being raised by Roxy certainly qualifies as a bad childhood."

"But doesn't it involve sexual abuse?" Cris reinforces. Natalie tells him:

"I know that that's what Rae said, but.."
(Good move, kid. I never thought Rae qualified as a certified psychologist in the first place, and after her latest escapde, I wouldn't invest in her advice either! Ha ha ha ha ha!)

Cris assures her that she couldn't have done it. She's too good a person...

"What, Cris? What are you looking at?" She follows his gaze and is horrified to find an entry in her laptop that says something about her hating Viki and Ben and wanting them out of her life. She tells Cris with confidence, that she did NOT write the entry...at least she doesn't remember writing it. Cris tells her that it's quite possible that she didn't. But someone else did while she slept.

(Umm...what's that saying about hiding in plain sight? Or about the answer being right under your nose? All applicable here, don't ya think???)

But of course she doesn't! She has to have DID! That explains why she didn't remember the red sweatsuit being in the trunk, or the incident with Jen, or buying up the Silver Moon Boutique..

Cris assures her that they'll get to the bottom of things.

Let's leave the mansion and see what's going on in....

LLANVIEW ER: THE BRINK OF DEATH!

Sam is at the hospital looking for Ben. After several unsuccessful attempts to find him himself, he asks a nurse if she's seen him. No luck there either. Finally, he finds Bo. He tells Bo that Ben left a message that sounded important, has Bo seen him? Bo says no, but was the message about Viki?

Sam is flustered by the question, as it's laced with a hint of "I know something you don't." Sam asks Bo if there is something going on between Ben and Viki, and Bo, saint that he is, (YAWN), tells him that Sam needs to take that up with Ben. Sam tells him that he's trying to , but he can't find Ben anywhere, and he's worried. Bo assures him that he'll turn up somewhere. (What a PUN!)

Sam presses Bo to fess up with what he knows. Ben is nowhere to be found after leaving Sam an urgent sounding message. Bo offers a little info...Ben needs to control his temper.
"WHAT!" Sam says, slightly offended, " What are you talking about? With whom has Ben lost his temper? Is that what Viki has been saying to you?"

"Never mind what Viki said. I saw it for myself." (Yeah, right!!)
"Okay, name them," Sam prompts. Well, Allison Perkins, for starters.
Sam says indignantly, "Allison Perkins? That NUT?" (Giggles from me.)
"The woman threatened his wife's life! Who else? Viki?"

Sam listens in disbelief as Bo spins the tale that Niki spun him about the "marital problems" she and Ben were having. Sam is about to defend his brother when the Llanfair circus comes barreling through, Ben on a stretcher at the head of the line.

Bo and Sam are in a panic. Niki quickly puts on her best terrified act as she spots her brothers-in-law approaching. She tells Bo that she so ffffrightened...All of the things she told Bo seem so unimportant now. Oh, my Ben, my Ben!

(Okay, folks, keep your barf bags close. This is the worst imitation of a Shakespeare play I've ever witnessed! She made me feel like I was in the audience watching a bootleg rendition of Romeo and Juliet.)

Sam seemed a tad bit suspicious of her, while Gullible Commish sucked the whole act right up with a straw, and slipped right in to the Great Comforter. Careful, Bo! She might turn around and plant a big fat kiss on you!

She sobs, and Bo dutifully embraces her...

(Okay, everybody, are you ready for this week's game of "Is It Me, or...??
Here we go...

Is it me, or does NO ONE seem to notice that Ms. Davidson never has any TEARS when she sobs?? Come on, Loonview, puhleeeeeeze tell me you people have a LITTLE brains left!)

Well, everyone is comforting poor "Viki", but no one notices that the woman is ALWAYS turning her back on them and grimacing with disgust!

Anyway, Sam leaves to another room and Bo inquires after Jessica. Niki tells him that they're on their way, but Natalie stayed behind. This, folks, was after she told Bo that Jessica happens to think that Natalie shoved Ben over. Enter Rex and Jessica, who both feed Bo more circumstantial but incriminating evidence against Natalie; Rex while trying to defend her, Jessie while trying to fry her.

Bo disappears and Jess and Rex overhear Niki talking to herself. Jess arrives at the tail end of Niki's comment: to paraphrase:

"I hope he croaks soon, cause if he makes it, I'm doomed!"

And Jessica's reply? "Oh, Mom, why are you're saying you're doomed?"

Naturally Niki has a cover. She meant that if her dear Benjy dies, she's doomed. How will she go on without him??

Jessica assures her that he'll pull through. Jessie reminds the impostor she believes to be her mom that her powerful faith pulled almost every family member through tragedies when even the doctors thought they wouldn't make it. Doesn't she remember how many times she focused and they all came through? DING! Niki turns Jess' words around to play right into her plans. She'll use her powerful positive thinking to focus and get what she wants! Like ol' Benjy's death for example.

Later, she is anxious as she sees Larry wheeling Ben out into the hall and to another location. For a split second, she was hopeful that Ben and passed on, but Larry informed her that he found swelling around Ben's brain, and he wants to take Ben to surgery. He hands Niki a consent form to permit the surgery, and Niki realizes that she has to the power to kill Ben legally. She tells Larry that she can't and won't sign the form!

MACIVER ADVENTURES:

And they all tie in to Llanview ER and the Niki-Viki I'm so sickie storyline.
(That's for you, Gabrielle, my recap reader, not Gabby Medina-- Ha ha!)

Okay, folks, let's get on with it.

Troy and Emily are in Troy's loft. Troy informs Emily that he's expecting Nora to pick him up for an appointment at the hospital. However he's running late, and he has to shower, so when Nora gets there, let her in. Emily drops a line about being the downstairs maid, but Troy tells her that she can't be the downstairs maid because she lives upstairs. (OOOOkaay.)

Anyway, he disappears into the shower and Nora arrives shortly thereafter.
Emily informs he rthat Troy is running late and is the shower. She and Nora share a feminist man joke and then Nora chit chats about how Emily is doing in Llanview. Emily says noncommitally that school is good and confirms Nora's next statement that she met a guy. The guy's name is Chad.
"Ooooh, Chad!" Nora says, enhancing the powerful sounding jock-like name. Emily briefly describes how they had a huge misunderstanding that they worked out, but then she heard a terrible story about him, and she thought it must have been a vicious rumor, but Chad confirmed it to be true.

Nora sympathizes with Emily, realizing from the grave look on the younger woman's face that the story was no laughing matter. Emily asks her advice on whether Nora personally believes that Chad should get a second chance.
(Nah-ah, kid, I'm not getting caught in that noose! You're on your own on that one!)

Nora tells her that she has to make that decision on her own. Emily prods a little further, and asks Nora to be more personally specific, and Nora tells her that some things are unforgivable. For example, she herself did some unforgivable things to people and when she looked back on those things from the other parties' points of view, she could understand and certainly categorized her actions as unforgivable.

(Is it me, or do we have YET to discover Nora's unforgivable deeds? It seems to me that she is the one who should be forgiving!)

Well, now, along comes Troy, just-showered fresh and nosy as hell, poking in his comments about a conversation he only heard ONE-EIGHTH of, and sticks his big old medical foot in is mouth!

He comes out, fuming, mind you, and asks Nora how can she say that people should not be forgiven for the mistakes they've made in the past? Nora and Emily look at him as if to assess whether or not he needs to spend a little couch time next to Rae in a REAL psychologist's office??

(Ha HA! I'm sorry folks, but I will not be letting up on this Gretal-Rae-Ray Cummings thing anytime soon! Hee-hee!)

Nora tells Troy that she most certainly didn't say anything close to what troy a-s-s-umed he heard. But she is definitely to know from where that, yes, CRAZY reaction came. Emily excuses herself and they talk. She tells him what really was said and he tells her that he thought she was still feeling bitterly about his actions with Lindsay.

Nora, still, baffled, tells him that she was upset with her own extremities with regards to Lindsay. Troy says that he, too, exercised some over-the-line extremities where Lindsane was concerned. (Hmph, not in MY book!)

Well the rest is yada-yada-yada, not really worth mentioning, so I'll fast-forward a bit. Troy tells Nora that he'll have to catch up to her at the hospital, because he wants to talk to his little sis, and Nora feigns frustration, but kisses him and leaves.

She heads to the hospital, where she spots Sam alone in one of the lounges, and she says,
"Hey, Sam! I didn't know you were on this case!"
Sam looks up at her, his blue eyes darkened by pain over his brother's critical state, and Nora is immediately alarmed. What is it, Sam? He tells her, and she hugs him.

Back at the loft, Emily confronts her brother on the reason for his outburst. She tells him that she knows it's his feeling guilty over Joanna, and he has to stop blaming himself for what happened to her. Troy begins to feel a little better after talking to his sister, and he tells her that he has to leave. He leaves her alone, and she gathers up her books and heads out, preparing to lock up after herself. She opens the door to face a bumbling, blushing Chad. He tells her that he wants to wish her a great stay, a wonderful school year, tell her that she has great classes, let her know that he really likes her, and apologizes for wasting her time and for whatever else.

She smiles and stops him form leaving. He's not wasting her time. She had a wonderful time with him and wants to go out with him again. Chad puts on a big Colgate grin and accepts the opportunity for a second chance with her.

Over at the hospital, a newly arrived Troy is stopped dead in his tracks as he spots Nora and Sam in an embrace. He's about to chew on that medical shoe again!

On our way out, we stop at Llanfair...

Just one last time. Here we find Natalie freaking out as she gets suckered into her self-diagnosis of DID. She tells Cris that she has to get out of there and get some air. Cris is trying to stop her rapidly retreating figure, but instead, Bo gets the job done. She stops dead in her tracks as she comes face-to-face with Uncle Commish!

Tune in tomorrow folks, for WKAYDEE-TV's next edition of Loonview: Chaos in the Midst, With a couple of Loons and Frauds to Boot.

However, if you have any discussions at all that you would like to share with me, from today's freaky episode, to recap feedback, to Crazy Niki and silly Loonview residents, feel free to contact me at KaydeesHouse@aol.com.  All comments about Rae-Ray are especially welcomed!!

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Recap written by Kimberley Barnett, © Copyright by Katherine Thurston & 2002.