Patti

 (Regis and Kelly) without Regis.  He’s announced that this is his last year.  He’s finally retiring.  ABC is also considering another talk show on the order of The View, but with all men.  Right, like they need another daytime talk show.

 Rafe2’s personality is so completely opposite Rafe’s.  He’ll give anyone reason to doubt him if he doesn’t know every single person in Sami’s life.  Can’s you just see it now….one day Roman comes knocking on the door, Rafe2 opens the door, looks him up and down and says:  ‘who da’ hell are you?"  LOL!

Punxsutawney Phil did NOT see his shadow this morning; so, soon we should be saying ‘good bye winter, hello early spring’.  Although I wouldn’t run out and put any money on it, Maryland weather reports predicted we would wake up this morning to several inches of ice covering what was dumped on us already, and all we got was rain, with temps in the mid to high 40’s today, so I’m suggesting our local stations fire the meteorologists and hire the groundhog!  LOL

 of the show today; guess what I meant to say was that they didn’t put Jen’s heart back yet, because Dan and Carly had not known until Mel called that the heart Lee took belonged to Jen, so he would not have done the surgery yet.  But, you’re right about Dan’s extremely wide knowledge of "general" surgery, but I guess we’re supposed to consider that he did come to Salem being that renowned surgeon who did the pancreas transplant on Bo, first removing part of Chelsea’s.  Even so, a heart transplant now can be added to his resume…..really?  Why isn’t he the one going to Johns Hopkins?  LOL!

 when she was on GH either.  Beautiful girl; poor acting.  So far not much has changed with NL from what I saw today.  Maybe she’s just nervous, being away from soaps for a while now, but today she sounded and acted like a schoolgirl to me, not a young lady with a degree in occupational therapy, but I’ll hold further judgment for a few more days.  All she did for me today was take up a lot of time in her and Nicole’s scenes, which would have been better served with the Rafe2 scenes.  He was funny.  It was like he was so proud of himself every time he got an answer right that E.J. or Stefano asked him.  I was almost waiting for them to pat him on the head and throw him a treat.

 I read a few things that were surprisingly interesting:

It’s not going to be a ‘who-done-it’ story with Rafe’s kidnapping.  He will know right off the bat that it is E.J. and Stefano, because they will be there when or shortly after he wakes up;

Nicole is constantly suspicious that something is going on in the basement; will she go down there?

Kate, too, will suspect Stefano and E.J. are up to something and will be determined to find out what it is;

Sami will begin to suspect something about Rafe2 right away by the kiss they share, because she knows Rafe and faux Rafe is a ‘bad kisser’ to her.

In 2 weeks Rafe will come face to face with faux Rafe.  I did not think that would happen, so Rafe will know exactly what is going on.

Guess what I’m saying is it’s not going to be like most of these silly kidnapping/doppelganger stories where the original character is clueless that someone is imitating him/her, but all will be out in the open to the audience throughout this whole ordeal.  Trouble is, it will last for several months before everything starts to unravel, and eventually it does.

Finally, I find myself very curious about the last spoiler, because (and this is strictly my opinion/speculation) James Scott’s contract is up in May, and he has confirmed that he will determine by then whether or not he wants to continue as an actor, so will this storyline have anything to do with whether or not James stays, or will this be his exit story?  Time will tell.

 we are all kidding ourselves if we think that new writers will do any better than any of those who came before them ever did.  There have been a few strong women on the show, but they are so so few and far between that it is nearly impossible to recognize them.  I think that’s one of the reasons why I can’t completely condemn Carly.  She’s not only a fantastic actress, but she’s written in a way that I have come to believe that she can and will overcome anything, and although she may wind up crying on the inside when the Bope fiasco finally comes to an end, I’d be willing to bet that she will move on and become an even stronger, self-reliant woman for it, or at least for whatever remains of her time on this show, unlike others, who will continue to depend upon the kindness, or I should say caring, of others like Maggie Horton to fight their inner demons for them.  The writers should recognize that most of their female characters are weak, dependent women who don’t know how to take care of themselves let alone a child or even a husband, and these women are in dire need of an extreme makeover.

 but Stefano is the one who devised this whole doppelganger plan, and it will be Stefano who is determined to take Rafe out of the picture.  E.J. will agree to it, but it will be Stefano who convinces him, once again using the children as pawns.  It was always Stefano’s idea from the very beginning.   Stefano had Rafe2 in the basement long before E.J. knew anything about it.