OLTL: Thoughts on Episode 5

Here are my thoughts and a brief summary about episode five (May 6, 2013) of One Life to Live.

Victor is at home and you hear Tea's voice with our baby died and Todd switched the babies. Victor then is online looking for ways to murder someone. Tea brought Dani home. They start arguing as Dani wants to go out for coffee, and Tea doesn't want her to go. Dani says she's 21, and can do what she wants. Eventually Dani leaves, and Victor holds Tea back as the scene ends. Victor and Tea are then alone, but he wants to go out to take a walk. We then see Victor in a hotel, looking at a room that is being cleaned by housekeeping.

Jeffrey and Matthew are in a coffee shop and Jeffrey is looking at Facebook and a profile of a girl named Michelle. (While Jeffrey is chatting online, Matthew was with Clint.) Clint is in his office on the phone, and Matthew enters the room. Clint wants Matthew to become his special assistant and tells him to stay plugged in as he may call at anytime. Matthew says how he always comes through for him as he needed a job as he now has an apartment. Clint then says how he doesn't want to regret this and that Matthew cannot let him down again.

Dani runs into Matthew and Jeffrey outside. Jeffrey left to get Dani her coffee, while Matthew tries to convince her there is a difference between partying and emergency room. Dani finds out that Matthew and Jeffrey moved in together and they sort of snub her. Matthew and Jeffrey are in their new apartment, and talk again about Michelle. They take a photo for her to see what they look like. Matthew and Jeffrey try to put together furniture. Jeffrey leaves to go eat and Matthew gets a friend request from Michelle.

Natalie is asleep at her desk at the Llanview PD. Nora finds her and they chat. They talk about how she feels less than and Nora tries to cheer her up suggesting they go shopping together. Natalie says it is not her clothes, but something inside her that needs to be fixed. After Nora leaves, Clint arrives. He asks about Liam and Natalie says he's a handful just like his grandfather. Clint says that he and Viki are always available to babysit. Natalie can tell that her Dad wishes she'd move back into Llanview with her son, instead of staying alone.

David is at Shelter with his cameraman in Leo. He and Todd are speaking as the video is being taken and they make jokes about the kind of show it could be.

David says that Todd should be on his show and has four questions for him…

When did you first fall in love?

When did it fall apart?

When did it turn into hate?

When did that hate turn back into love?

All of his questions were answered as no comment. And then David asked about Blair and Todd started to tell him to turn off the camera that all he does breaks her heart. They toast to all the real housewives of Llanview.

Blair and Todd talk at the bar, and he's drunk. She wants him to go, and says they can be loving friends in front of the kids, but alone they will be truthful with each other. She tells him how she will never trust him again, and how he lied again to her. They talk about how she feels like a fool, because he said that he loved her.

Tea has a family dinner planned. Victor has a headache, so he doesn't want to go. While alone Victor goes into his wallet and puts on a jacket. Jack comes into Shelter for Tea's dinner and runs into Todd. Tea and Dani are already in their seats. Blair than asks Todd to leave now, but instead he goes up to their table. Then we see a video feed again.

We see a gloved hand and a someone going into a hotel room. The suitcase says Manning, and it looks like Victor has gone in to drug Todd's hotel room presumably with arsenic. Todd goes in and Victor sneaks out as something was put in the decanter. Todd goes to pour a drink, puts his feet up and starts to drink as the episode goes to the credits.

General Thoughts about this episode

Shelter is more than a nightclub, but also a full service restaurant. That wasn't apparent from the first episode. It was nice to see that Todd and David could act maturely with one another without being written out of character. David had actual insight on Todd's relationships, which I appreciated.

It looked like Jeffrey was running Windows on his Mac. I wonder if Matthew will go after Michelle, whom Jeffrey likes or if he will find someone else. Also how long will Matthew and Jeffrey live with unopened boxes and no furniture. Will it be realistic or will they go from nothing to having a deluxe furnished apartment in five minutes.

Clint's office seemed to be at Llanfair and not at the BE offices. I hope if/when Clint and Viki have problems he will have somewhere to go that isn't a coffee shop. There seemed to be distance between Natalie and Clint when they interacted. I can't recall a time when he greeted her in that way using 'hey baby' and wonder if there is something wrong in their relationship that we don't know about yet.

The central mystery of people being taped is continuing. I wonder is it just Tea's house and people related to her or if it is related to Victor. Considering this is only episode five (I don't count the more Episodes as narrative episodes), I can't see Todd being drugged to death. That would be insane, though it wouldn't be the first time a soap opera did something bizarre.