I had planned to let you, the readers, have the say in this week's column. After all, last week featured just three new episodes -- and what could happen in that short amount of time? Boy, was I wrong.

From writing this column for the past few centuries, I know that fans have feelings about certain actors, characters, and storylines. Over the years, many of you have written in to complain about All My Children being "The Zach and Kendall Hour," and others of you have questioned the strength of Alicia Minshew's acting. Regardless of your personal feelings, I don't think anyone can fault Alicia's performance in last week's shows. I thought that her portrayal of Kendall's reaction to Zach's death was... so moving. The confrontation in the courtroom, the sitting in the hallway staring when she was unable to go into the room she shared with Zach, and the tender moments with her children... they really struck a chord with me.

Not to take anything away from that performance -- which I strongly believe will earn Minshew an Emmy nomination -- but I can't help but wonder if any of that emotion was from Minshew's real-life sadness that Thorsten Kaye had been written out of the show. Alicia and Thorsten seemed to have such a great off-screen relationship, and I'd imagine that it was hard for Alicia knowing that her "Zendall" days are over (for the time being, anyway).

I do have to ask, though: Has anyone checked the safe room that Zach had constructed to hide Kendall? Maybe he's in that room, hiding, waiting patiently for people to stop asking questions and talking about his death. We've already been told that the room is soundproof -- at least when it's convenient for storyline purposes. Shoot, there could be a lot of people hiding in that secret room. We haven't seen Angie or Randi in what seems like ages. Brooke and Adam could be having a little secret tryst in there. We never did find out where Carmen went off to. Did Joe and Ruth ever really make it to Florida for their retirement? I feel like there is an alternate world in that room just waiting to be let out. I call it Willow Canyon. Maybe Stuart is alive and well in there, too. The writers can say that the Chandler that died was a never-before-seen triplet. Hey, anything is possible in Willow Canyon.

The week kicked off with a bang, too. Did you mouth drop when David entered the courtroom at Greenlee's sentencing? I know that many of you had already "decided" that David wasn't dead and said that the plot twist didn't really surprise you. You know, we all assume that no one is ever dead -- but that doesn't mean that we can't be surprised. I can't tell you how annoyed I was to read various comments elsewhere on the Internet from fans who belittled AMC's very top-secret storyline bombshell because they said that they'd known` all along that David wasn't dead. I can tell you now that there will be a news story about some animal that was born with two heads or seven legs, but it doesn't mean that I know what the story will be before it's reported.

Anyway, enough grumpiness.

I liked that the soap magazines and web sites didn't blow the secret about David's "undeath." I did get a few messages from readers asking me why I didn't mention in last week's column that David would return from the dead. Why would I want to ruin the surprise? It's such a hard decision, sometimes, to decide what scoops to give in this column and on the Soap Central site. I've heard the accusations that the proliferation of spoiler sites has ruined the soap-viewing experience. I prefer not to use the term spoiler in The Scoop sections of the site because I don't want to "spoil" the experience, but rather offer some teasers as to what will happen.

I remember back when Gillian was killed off -- that was long before there were so many blogs and whatnot out there in the webosphere. Soap Opera Weekly featured one of its "One of these five people will die!" covers, and Soap Central followed suit by not posting the identity of the victim. It was the right thing to do at the time, but I am not sure that others would follow suit if that were taking place in 2010. There's such a race to be first without regard to the implications of what it means to put that information out there.

Sorry, I got grumpy again. I must need another slice of pumpkin pie.

Does anyone else wonder why judges, cops, and other law enforcement folks allow random citizens to tell them what to do? Would a judge really allow someone -- or several someones -- to just storm the witness stand and tear into a witness? Or would a police officer, who has orders to escort a criminal to jail, just stop and allow passersby to shoot the breeze with him? I'm sure it doesn't happen in the real world, but on the soaps, it does make for interesting story.

Sometimes lawyers say the darnedest things. Did anyone catch Liza's first response when Jack demanded that someone persecute, er, prosecute David for faking his death? "And that someone would be me?" she asked. I won't tell you the real words I used in my head, but I gave the television a cross look and thought to myself, "Um, chick, it's your job to go after lawbreakers!" I was glad that in the next scene Liza quickly assured Jack that she, too, was irked by David and wanted to see him behind bars.

Of course, many of you have been wondering if Vincent Irizarry's "return" as David is permanent or just to help wrap up the current storyline. I can't tell you the answer to that -- and I honestly don't know the answer as of the time I was writing this column. It certainly does seem unlikely that David will be able to weasel out of serving time in jail. Scott Chandler got sent up the river for a lesser crime. Maybe David and Scott will end up in adjacent cells or have recess together. They can plot against everyone in Pine Valley while they're incarcerated, and then return to wreak havoc on everyone.

Or David can break out of jail and go hide in the Slaters' safe room.

dan

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