Is this the face of a killer?

If you were listening, you could hear the collective gasp of "OMG's from all across the country as Paul faced his mother and muttered, "it wasn't you, it was Will."  We realized that the clues were there all along for us to figure out, and it was an edge-of-your-seat ride from the day Rose died right up to Barbara's attempt to flee the country with her son.  We first thought it was Paul, then Dusty, then Mitzi (who is creeping me out with her sudden change from a mild-mannered ditz to evil little conniver), then we got a little wild with our guessing; maybe it was Lily, trying to prevent the wedding!  Maybe it was James, you know he always has his finger in every crime!  Maybe it was Molly, she declared right there in Al's Diner that she thought Rose got what she deserved!  Of course it could be Barbara, she hated Rose more than anything.  But the writers did what soap writers should do; they kept us guessing and hooked.

I don't know about you, but this was one murder that kept me running to the tv every day to see what was going to happen next.  I'd heard rumors since Thanksgiving that someone 'major' was being killed off, and I'd finally guessed that it would be Rose.  Martha Byrne is a strong, talented actress who won an Emmy in 2001 for her portrayal of Lily Snyder and Rose D'Angelo.  But my reasoning (and this is JUST SPECULATION on my part, Martha NEVER calls me)  was that Ms. Byrne and her husband had just welcomed their second child in September of 2002, and with two little ones at home now, maybe she wanted to cut back on her work load.  I knew that Lily would be safe if this were the case, so Rose would be the one who got killed.   And finally, we all found out that, yes, Rose was going to be murdered.  The Jersey gal who'd been a scrapper all her life and was finally on track to be married and live happily ever after, was on her way out.

Rose did get an emotional storyline before her demise.  First Paul disappeared, then returned a new man, both emotionally and physically, as actor Scott Holroyd was fired and Roger Howarth took over playing the Stenbeck heir.  But by the time Paul came back to Oakdale, Rose had fallen for Paul's boyhood best friend, Dusty Donovan.  Fans were not exactly pleased to see the change in Dusty from a good kid to a rogue who was mixed up with criminals.  Slicked back and sly, with a voice that some fans described as 'velvet gravel,' actor Grayson McCouch caught viewers' interest every time he took off his shirt.  But Rose was loyal; she went back to Paul when he returned, even though Dusty continued to tempt her.  The night before her wedding to Paul, Dusty came to see her one last time, and although their meeting was platonic, from Paul's view hidden in the bushes it looked like his bride-to-be was exchanging a few private vows with his ex-best friend.  Paul determined he would punish her for this supposed infidelity.

From the first time that Paul and Rose had announced their engagement, his momma Barbara had ranted and raged that she was not good enough for her son.  You have to hand it to Colleen Zenk Pinter, who in my most humble opinion is one of the best actresses on daytime today.  She has played Barbara Ryan as the ultimate psycho-mommy from hell, who will bind her children to her for life if she has anything to do with it.  She pledged loud and long that her son would never marry that tramp.  She came up with scheme after scheme to prevent the wedding, and she drew her younger son, 13 year old Will, into her web.  She vandalized, she lied, she manipulated, she even entered with church dressed like a nun, clutching a pistol. 

I just had a feeling that Barbara was lying when she confessed, but the way she stared right into the camera and smugly told her tale was compelling.  Then she told Paul, "I would do anything to protect my son."  There was the breaking clue; we all knew she WOULD do anything, but not so much for Paul as for Will.  Slowly the light bulb flickered on for us.  Barbara pulled a fast one in court and escaped, and when Paul was shown the evidence from his computer, the truth hit him between the eyes like a patriot missile. 

After overcoming a pretty much ineffectual Emily, Barbara and Will headed for a convenient heliport, where she had arranged for transportation to Canada.  But Paul caught up with her and Will confessed.   I'll admit that up to here I hadn't been all that impressed with young actor Brett Groneman, who plays Will.  He's played the part since 2000, but I figured he'd been cast mainly because he was a cute little redheaded kid, hired to match tv dad Hal Munson's red hair.  (The show has pretty much gone overboard with the redheaded Munson children, even Jennifer, who is actually his adopted daughter, and Daniel, who is Tom Hughes's son.)  In any case, he was the typical child soap actor, only seen in an occasional episode and encouraged not to stare at the camera or lights.  But Groneman has stepped up to the plate with this story, and managed to convince viewers that he has been completely controlled by his uber-domineering matriarch.  Viewers have complained that, as a young teen, Will needed to break free of his childish desire to keep his brother and sister so close they could have no life of their own.  Will needed to become a normal young adult, and realize that life is about change and growth, emotionally as well as physically, and stop moping around with a hangdog look on his face.  What viewers didn't realize was how completely under his mother's thumb poor Will was.  Barbara has her hooks so deeply into Will that he may never be psychologically healthy.

Paul embraced his brother, and they both cried for what they have lost and what they stand to lose.  I had a tear or two myself at this point.  Then Hal arrived, and clung to his son, and we could almost hear his heart breaking.  He spoke of how Will's birth had been the happiest day of his life, and now he had to make sure that Will did the right thing.   The right thing was to go to the Oakdale police station and arrest Will for the murder of Rose D'Angelo.

I have a feeling that this isn't over yet.  There's still the matter of Craig bribing Mitzi to lie about seeing Paul at the church.  Carly's figured this one out, and sooner or later so will Rosanna.  Dusty still hates Paul and blames him for Rose's demise.  Hal has to see the son he tried so hard to protect go through the legal system.  And then there's Barbara.  She is still blaming everyone else.  Barbara will not go down without a fight on this one.  She will continue to fight and claw to protect her son.  Will's going to psychiatric confinement for observation, and Barbara is busy wriggling off the legal hook.  We KNOW she will never stop until she gets her son back.  As Bette Davis once said, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

I'm in an Oakdale state of mind!
  CAROL