Soapside: Advocate's Guide to Daytime

Scene Stealer of the Week

There's something about Mary Jane Benson! The unsettling, disturbing, and brilliant acting choices of Y&R 's Stacy Haiduk (pictured) have made Mary Jane Benson one of Genoa City's all-time whack jobs. That's hard to do considering the long list of contenders, such as Kimberlin Brown's nutty nurse Sheila. But try this one for size: Mary Jane talks to her dead stuffed cat in her hotel room, which she killed. Obviously, she paid a visit to her taxidermist along the way. While she talks to kitty, she opens scrapbooks of pictures of Jack Abbott and hatches plot after plot. One night, she catches Jack making out with his ex-wife Phyllis and gets so upset she kills a bird! As an unhinged woman with an ax to grind (not to mention a new face -- she had plastic surgery to change her identity, thanks to Victor Newman), Stacy is winning us over. Stay tuned in the next two weeks as we find out that the mystery woman could indeed be Patty Williams, the woman Jack drove insane… and who shot him below the belt three times over!

Catfight of the Week

It's so refreshing not to give this week's title to the tough broads. Yup, two gents get my vote this time. All My Children 's dueling physicians, Dr. David Hayward and Dr. Jake Martin, let the fists fly in a medical clinic in Barbados. Amanda and Jake's plot to make David think his baby died during a complicated birth almost backfired. When David found out that his baby seemingly died during a botched delivery job by Jake, Hayward lunged at Martin. I gasped for a minute, as it looked like poor Ricky Paull Goldin (Jake) got his faced smooshed as Vince Irizarry (David) tried to choke the life out of him. If you ask me, Dr David should pick on someone his own size!

Eden Riegel's Imaginary Red Carpet Ride

Finally, from my last column, I asked you to go vote for the five choices for Eden Riegel's acceptance speech for the Webby Awards. As you may recall, our Eden was only allowed five words. When Eden hit the stage to accept the award, she uttered the winning entry, "I'm sleeping with the director." That is of course in reference to the fact that her husband, Andrew Miller, was indeed the director of her performance in Imaginary Bitches .

But for a real laugh, check out Eden's video when she hit the red carpet before the ceremonies. What we learned: It's always important to bring friends with you to award shows for backup, even if they are imaginary! Click here!