It’s Only My Opinion For The Soap Week Ending January 3

Calendar Girls: (From l.) B&B’s Luna (Lisa Yamada), GH’s Ava (Maura West) and Y&R’s Sharon (Sharon Case) and Jordan (Colleen Zenk) kicked off 2025 in dramatic fashion.

Happy New Year! Well, for some of our faves, anyway.

It was an OG celebration on Y&R with Michael, Lauren, Jack, Diane, Traci, and Christine toasting and making amends. (Jack pleaded Diane’s case to Lauren while Diane convinced Michael to forgive her for lying about her split from Jack.) The always-angry Phyllis told Michael she can’t wait for the reopened investigation into Heather’s murder to blow up in his face and then turned her wrath on Christine.

Phyllis: “Hey Cricket, where’s Danny? Did he finally get wise and dump you?”

They exchanged words and Danny showed up to surprise Christine. Take that! Phyllis gave them all the stink eye from across the room.

Daniel: “You know you’ve been staring at them for 10 minutes, right?”

Phyllis: “I don’t understand how Michael can celebrate knowing he’s supporting a murderer.”

The actual murderer(s) were lurking. Ian drugged Tessa’s drink and pretended to help her when she went outside for air. In came Mariah to aid her wife and turn her wrath on her former kidnapper and cult leader. He offered a bogus explanation for his reappearance in Genoa City, the alias he was using, etc. but Mariah, Nick and Faith weren’t buying it.

Ian: “I’m reformed.”

Nick: “An innocent man wouldn’t need an alias, Warren.”

Over in the parking lot, Jordan chloroformed Sharon just as the celebrants were counting down to midnight and she wound up bound and gagged in their motel room. Sharon’s resolution will be to escape.

The DiMeras’ resolution should be to never have another NYE party. EJ had committed every crime in the book on DAYS, so it was always difficult to understand how he was named DA. Paulina rectified that by firing him on NYE.

EJ: “We’re family. Our children are married!”

Paulina (shrugging): “At least we made it through the holiday.”

EJ: “This last day of the year has gone from bad to worse.”

With more to come, especially for those married “children.” Joy showed up to the party with Alex; Johnny inexplicably chose midnight to lead her away from the party to discuss their sex romp. That ensured Chanel would come looking for Johnny so she could overhear their discussion in the most clichéd soap opera way possible.

Johnny: “Why did you come here?”

Joy: “Your wife is not an easy person to say no to.”

Johnny: “It’s very stressful having you here.”

Joy: “If Chanel knew what happened between you and me…”

Chanel (entering): “Tell me what happened between you and my husband.”

He came clean.

Johnny: “I totally betrayed you.”

Chanel stormed out. Joy coped by sleeping with Alex.

Elsewhere, Stephanie invited Philip to the DiMera bash.

Philip: “EJ hates my guts.”

Stephanie: “Whose guts doesn’t EJ hate?”

Fair point. EJ wasn’t happy to see them — or Gabi with JJ or Fake Rafe kissing his “fiancée” Jada or even Belle, who arrived solo. So, he just scowled and chugged champagne.

JJ: “EJ was acting stranger than usual.”

Gabi: “It was a DiMera affair, what did we expect? EJ was having a worse time than us so that was a win.”

There wasn’t much winning on B&B as 2024 came to a close, unless you count Bill being able to secure early release for confessed murderer Luna so she can hide out in his house (huh?). And I suppose Electra finally realizing that Remy (who followed her to L.A. and chased her to Il Giardino and possessively challenged her new boyfriend) was her stalker was a small win for the newbie who should have known better.

But Brooke catching Ridge with Taylor was nothing to celebrate and she got some overdue tough love from her daughter.

Hope: “If you were ‘meant to be’ Ridge wouldn’t be seeking solace with Taylor, he would be here with you. Would a committed man do that? Is Ridge really your destiny?”

Brooke: “There’s only one man for me: Ridge Forrester.”

Too bad that man chooses to bed Taylor every time he and Brooke have a misunderstanding. Worse, Ridge told Steffy that she, Taylor, and the kids have always been a “safety net” for him despite his eight marriages to Brooke. That’s not destiny, Brooke. It’s delusion.

GH’s Lulu was delusional to think she could safely track her daughter, Charlotte, down in Prague (on the run with her father Valentin) despite being warned by everyone that it was too dangerous. First Valentin showed up, then Dante. Shots rang out; Valentin grabbed Charlotte and ran.

Lulu: “I put an AirTag in her bag, we can track her!”

Um… how did a woman fresh out of a four-year coma find out about AirTags, never mind get her hands on an iPhone and a working credit card? No matter, Valentin found the tracker and ditched it.

Dante: “You cannot run aimlessly through Prague with no leads.”

Wanna bet?

Back in Port Charles, the new year was not commemorated. But Alexis got her own celebration when Martin dropped a bombshell about the woman Alexis blames for killing her grandchild.

Martin: “The Cassadines got Wyndemere back.”

Alexis: “That belongs to Ava.”

Martin: “Not anymore.”

Turned out, a court in Greece decreed Nikolas’s money should go to his young son, so they put the money in trust for Ace and named Auntie Alexis as executor.

Alexis: “It gives me more pleasure than it should to tell you that the Cassadine estate doesn’t owe you a dime.”

Ava: “That money was part of my divorce settlement from Nikolas!”

Alexis: “You left him more times than I can count.”

And he’s in prison. The Cassadine money has always been murky, so I buy this broke turn of events for our favorite mob moll. And miss me with “But Ava owns the gallery!” because we all know she’s the type to mortgage the place to the hilt and live well beyond her means. Alexis knows that, too.

Alexis (kicking her out): “If you’ll excuse me, I have clients who can actually afford to pay me.”

It’s fun to see Ava down, but never out. That’s not her MO.

Ava: “This isn’t over!”

That’s better.

Hey. It’s only my opinion.