The Grim Reaper riding shotgun

All signs point to a treacherous journey as the teens set out on an adventurous road trip to Niagara Falls, Ryan and Ava decide to elope -- unless Carly can throw up a roadblock, and several begin to unravel a deadly mystery. Will tragedy strike before the travelers reach their final destination, or are there a few more slick turns ahead?

People driving are one of the top three causes of deaths on soap operas, right behind serial killers and evil twins with guns. Currently, we have all three in Port Charles, which means a crash is imminent, and heartbreak is soon to follow. But who will die?

Will it be Trina, who has suddenly popped up out of nowhere and seems to be everywhere that the teens are these days? Or will Ryan, evil twin/serial killer/man on the lam, meet a just and gruesome end to his tyranny of terror when he whisks his lady love away to marry him before the law -- and Carly -- expose his deadly secret? Then there is Chase, who finally appears to be putting all of the pieces together now that Franco has revealed that Ryan Chamberlain is the true killer.

Chase is on his way to the hospital with Franco, while Curtis is about to check his wife's voicemail message from someone named "Urgent." Pretty subtle, those writers. Once Mac and Felicia reveal that Ryan took off with Ava to elope, there's a strong possibility that Chase is going to head to Niagara Falls, as well. Three cars on the same road, driven by people from Port Charles, are destined to collide, with the Grim Reaper riding shotgun in one of the ill-fated vehicles.

If I was a writer, I would choose Oscar. Not because he's terminally ill, but rather because it would be completely unexpected for his loved ones. Everyone had been preparing themselves for the worst and waiting for a sign that the end was near when, in truth, no one really knows when that time will come.

We are all destined to die, but we have little control over when that will be.

Honestly, I have no desire to watch a young kid slowly fade away. I'd much rather think of Oscar enjoying life when he met his end rather than struggling to hold onto the last vestiges of it. Drew and Kim are the type of people who might find a bit of comfort in knowing that Oscar was having a grand adventure when he took his last breath and that it spared him the agonizing death that he was promised as the cancer ravaged his body.

It would be like the ultimate life lesson to his loved ones on how to live. Live as if every moment could be your last because it just might be.

However, it's probably going to be Trina. She has all the earmarks of the random Star Trek crew member who beams down to dangerous planets with the captain and his friends then promptly gets eaten by space monsters.

Jax is going to have a lot of explaining to do when Carly finds out that their daughter financed the trip with a secret "adventure fund" that he set up with the money that Lady Jane left to Josslyn. Somehow, I don't think that Jax had a rebellious road trip in mind when he encouraged Josslyn to follow her dream and embrace adventures.

The biggest indicator that tragedy is about to strike, though, is Jordan's sudden dire need for a life-saving kidney transplant. It likely means that whoever perishes will give Jordan the gift of life. Granted, people can live long, healthy lives with just one kidney, and there are countless people who rely on dialysis to stay alive, but the reality of long-term disability is not very glamorous, which means Jordan will be getting a new kidney much sooner than later.

Jordan will be delighted when she starts feeling better and learns that her plan to flush out a killer worked like a charm, but she's also going to owe Franco a great big apology for making him a sitting duck without any defenses or protection. Did she honestly think that the killer would show up for a visit, confess to Franco, then wait for him to call Jordan? Sure, Franco taking credit for the murders was a great idea, but the rest of the plan was completely cockeyed and left Franco fighting for his life.

Jordan needs to answer for that because the police are there to protect and to serve, not to use innocent people as bait for serial killers.

What I find most alarming is that Lulu and Maxie are figuring things out faster than the police have -- and with far less information than the police had. Heck, even Carly is onto Todd Wilson, a.k.a. Ryan Chamberlain, and she's wasn't even looking for the killer. Sadly, I suspect that her unwitting discovery is going to cost her, because even if Ryan knocks Carly out and shoves her into the trunk, the stress of something like that can't bode well for her or the baby. My gut tells me that the events about to unfold are going to be a catalyst for something big in Carly's life that will have a profound effect on her relationship with Sonny.

Soap opera couples don't live happily ever after. That's boring. They must always be tested, challenged, and pushed beyond their limits because that's where the drama is, and drama is what pays the bills.

There have already been cracks in the marriage because of Nelle then Margaux, and Sonny was not exactly thrilled when Carly announced that she was pregnant, because he was concerned about her health. It's been my experience that things are seldom random on a soap opera, so I believe Sonny's reservations about the pregnancy will return to haunt him.

I'm intrigued with where things are going between Sonny and Carly, so the writers definitely did a good job baiting the hook. I haven't been this interested in Sonny and Carly's story since Nelle drugged him.

Folks, the wait is over. Ryan is about to be unmasked. Finally. Ava will know the horrible truth about her daughter's murder and that she'd been sleeping with the enemy all along. Ava's wrath is going to be epic, and I can't wait to see Maura West unleash Ava's fury. I've been anticipating Ryan's downfall since the day he knocked on Kiki's door.

In real life, I would never wish for someone's death, but fictional characters are an entirely different matter. I want Ryan dead! Truly dead, not soap opera dead. I don't want there to be any possibility that he will ever rise again. Ava is the only person that can mete out the justice that Ryan so richly deserves, so I consider it poetic justice for the mother of one of his victims to snuff out his life. I just hopes she makes him suffer for a while.

Ava isn't just a grieving mother. She killed an innocent woman in cold blood, framed an innocent man then orchestrated his murder, and ran a mob organization with her brother for years. She is a skilled killer in her own right, and she has a cruel streak that probably rivals Ryan's. It's probably what drew him to her in the first place.

Things are also starting to heat up with the Dawn of Day storyline, as Sam spins her web, hoping to snare the sinister cult leader. Shiloh's carefully crafted veneer of enlightened guru slowly begins to slip as his confidence grows, but Shiloh is overplaying his hand by threatening Jason. I mean, does Shiloh not realize that Jason is a mob enforcer who kills people for a living? Why would you poke a bear like that?

And what is with the creepy way that Shank (Shiloh/Hank) touches women? It makes my skin crawl.

A word of advice, fellas. If you put your hands on the small of a woman's back, squeeze her thigh, stroke her hand/arm in an intimate way, or otherwise invade her personal space without her permission, then you have a very high likelihood of getting a face full of mace and the police knocking on your door. Keep your hands to yourself unless you are given permission or you are saving a life. That goes for the ladies, too.

Shank's lecherous touches aside, I honestly don't know how he's not onto Sam. She genuinely sucks at subterfuge. It's not how she handled the situation with Jason when he was struck blind and collapsed in the lighthouse or even the kiss. She covered their tracks well enough on that front. No, her issue is her inability to stay away from Jason.

Sam says all the right words, but she's constantly in Jason's orbit. That should be raising red flags big time, but it's not, because Sam is supposed to be a con woman extraordinaire and because Shank is full of himself. He truly believes that he's the smartest person in the room, and that kind of arrogance inevitably leads to mistakes.

I do believe that Carly was right, though; Sam appears to be playing right into Shiloh's hands. If she's not careful, the player is going to get played, which I suppose is the point. Jason needs a damsel in distress to rescue. It's what he lives for.

It surprised me that Sam didn't recognize the truth in what she told Kristina when she insisted that Jason would never put Sam first. I wondered if it occurred to Sam that the reason that Kristina so easily believed the "lies" was because they were, in fact, little truth bombs. Everything that Sam said about having to live by Jason's terms, his lack of dependability when she needs him most, and the way that he always puts Sonny and Carly first are things that I've read over the years from those who view Jason and Sam's relationship as fundamentally dysfunctional, especially for Sam.

I must confess, though, that I thought the Dawn of Day storyline had much more potential when Shiloh's intentions were far less transparent. I had really hoped that Shiloh was going to be a more complex guy with less clear-cut motives for being in town beyond spreading his message of enlightenment. It would have been fascinating if Jason and Sam had faced a situation a bit more challenging.

Even if Shiloh had ultimately been proven to be a bad guy, it would have been a much more interesting story if Jason and Sam had been sucked in like everyone else for a little while. It makes the twist all that more shocking.

Speaking of shocking, did anyone else find Peter's reaction to Robert and Anna's questioning about the DVX and Dr. Cabot experiments a little over the top? I understand being defensive, but that somehow seemed more than that. I can't help but wonder if he knows something, even on a subconscious level, that he doesn't want to acknowledge.

It's pretty clear that the writers are playing with the idea of having it revealed that Anna's memory of giving birth to Peter was actually her twin sister's implanted memory. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I admit that I wasn't happy when it was revealed that Anna had seduced Faison and borne him a son. Faison had spent decades stalking and tormenting Anna, and I resented the writers giving him, rather than Duke, a son with Anna. Duke was the love of her life, and I always believed that Griffin should have been revealed to be their son, but the writers had other ideas. I didn't agree with them, but I've grown to accept them.

What's the point of changing things now? Are we about to trade in one evil twin (Ryan) in for another (Alex), or is there something else at work here? If not, then leave it alone. Despite how it was put together, it's not broken. I like Peter, and I like Anna having a child around. If the writers want to fix something, then change Griffin's maternity and give Peter a brother.

Finally, I do not trust Alexis' new doctor. Not one bit. He's super shady, and not for a minute do I believe that he didn't know about Alexis' infamous past. Asking Alexis if she was dangerous was rather insightful, but I'm certain that he posed the question for nefarious reasons.

I'm definitely liking where this is going. Will Julian have to rescue Alexis from her dastardly doctor? Fingers crossed.

You would think that someone like Stella, who works at the hospital, would know that it's far more expedient to notify the nurses' station of a medical emergency by using the intercom in the room rather than stepping into the hallway and yelling, "Nurse!"

Wow, Nina is bold. I couldn't believe that Curtis let her paw through his wife's purse. In this house, it's, "Mitts off of Mom's purse or else!" "Or else" is code for "Mom will go nuclear." Curtis has a lot to learn about being a husband.

Miracle Hospital strikes again. Jason and Drew each were struck blind at the end of one episode then were suddenly cured at the beginning of the next one. They weren't even sporting so much as a Band-Aid, and if they hadn't been sitting in hospital beds, I wouldn't have known that they'd recently had the corrective eye surgery.

I don't know how far away Ferncliff is from Liz's house, but I'm impressed that Franco was able to walk that far while stanching the bleeding long enough to get there. Do I think he will die? Not for a minute. Friz (Franco/Liz) fans are owed a proper wedding.

If Carly had a risk of stroke, what doctor would have prescribed the pill to her anyway? Sonny needs to put a sock on it, not expect his partners to take care of it. -- Kim LaSota

Last week, I noticed there was no peephole in Kim's door, and then on Monday, I noticed the same thing about Jason's door. Don't they know there's a serial killer on the loose? You'd think at the very least, Spinelli would've set up one of those doorbell cams for Jason, so he could see on his phone who was at his door. Something like that would come in handy the next time the cops show up to arrest Jason, and there WILL be a next time. -- Scrimmage

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. I love hearing from readers, so please feel free to email me or leave a comment below.

Take care and happy viewing,Liz Masters

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