Passions Vendetta

Passions Vendetta was a storyline on the American soap opera "Passions", featured most prominently from April to July of 2006. Involving over a dozen key characters, the plot was engineered by supervillain Alistair Crane, who disguised himself as a monk and lured several Harmony citizens to Rome, where he hoped to come to possess an ancient chalice hidden within the Vatican, thus allowing him to become omnipotent.

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Liz Sanbourne stabbed Alistair Crane in the neck on New Years' Eve 2005, leaving the billionaire comatose. His family, bitter after years of abuse from the patriarch, quickly shipped Alistair off to Lyndon Hill nursing home, where he received few visits. There, Alistair awoke from his coma and paid the director to keep his recovery a secret; Alistair took another comatose man and had him fitted with a mask to make him appear to be Alistair. It was not until June 2006 that Alistair's daughter, Sheridan, discovered that the man lying in her father's room was an imposter.

Meanwhile, Alistair had set his sights on a mystical chalice located in the Pope's private quarters. To attain the chalice, Alistair convinced then a young novitiate, Whitney Russell, who was desperate for atonement after having sex with whom she had believed to be her half-brother Chad Harris, that he, disguised as a monk, was God, and that he needed her help to defeat evil forces that the Pope could not defeat. For this, Whitney was given a complete makeover. Together they went to Rome, where Alistair was met by several henchmen, including Spike and Lena, and his daughter and grandson, Beth and Marty.

In addition to those people, Alistair also lured several of his enemies in Harmony to Rome. Paloma Lopez-Fitzgerald and Simone Russell found several omega documents below the Book Café in Harmony and, along with their friend, Jessica, traveled to Rome to investigate. When the girls fell into peril, Paloma's sister, Theresa, who had become Alistair's wife, convinced the longtime object of her affections, Ethan Winthrop, to accompany her to Rome in hopes of saving their sisters, Paloma and Jessica respectively. Noah Bennett and Maya Chinn arrived in Rome to do bidding for Lena's terrorist organization (secretly controlled by Alistair) on behest of the FBI, while Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald went to Rome to recover his son, Marty, from Beth, who had kidnapped the boy as a newborn and passed him off as her own son in Harmony until a year prior. Chad Harris, meanwhile, arrived in Rome to search for Whitney. The only person whom Alistair did not purposely lure to Rome was his beloved granddaughter, Fancy, who arrived in the city with hopes that it would remove her mind from her break-up with Noah.

After using a virtual reality headset, Whitney was able to get Alistair into the Pope's private quarters and retrieve the chalice by using the password "agape", a clue hidden in a painting. Alistair placed the chalice in the fireplace, hoping that the flames would bring forth the hidden words written on the chalice, but Chad, Simone, Paloma, and a mysterious old nun stopped him and revealed his true identity. Alistair fled with the chalice to a church he had patronized where he attempted to again heat the chalice, but this time Luis, Fancy, Ethan, Chad, and several others cornered him; he only escaped by causing the ceiling to collapse on them all while only styrofoam fell on him.

Alistair fled to his subterranean Roman office, but he was again captured, along with Beth. In the piazza above ground, he ordered his army of henchmen to attack all of Harmony's citizens; they were defeated when Simone and Paloma brought an army of lesbians to help. Still, Alistair again escaped when he detonated a device that rendered everyone else unconscious. At this point, his vendetta was a loss; JT Cornell, a tabloid reporter, and Crane lackey had stolen the chalice, and Chad had retrieved it from him and returned it to the Pope. Alistair was eager at this point to escape Rome with Beth and Marty, and set lions loose on Luis and Fancy, who were trying to regain Marty.

He, Beth, and Marty were ready to escape Rome on a train, but delusional Beth, eager for a life with Luis, called Luis, allowing Interpol to trace the call. Luis, Fancy, and Noah took a helicopter in order to pursue the train, but a drone plane appeared and fired missiles at a bridge, causing the train to plummet into a ravine and killing Alistair, Beth, and Marty on July 17. Alistair and Marty were revealed to be alive a year later.

Omega symbol

In order to link all of the members of his vendetta together, Alistair placed the uppercase Greek letter omega on all documents pertaining to the vendetta. Buildings friendly to the vendetta also discreetly displayed the omega on its exterior, and an art gallery containing a painting important to the vendetta contained an omega on its invitations. Alistair's daughter, Beth, also wore a bracelet with an omega on her wrist, and Spike Lester had the omega tattooed on then-girlfriend Jessica's lower back.

Commonly referred to simply as "the symbol" until late in the storyline, the omega is often used to denote the last, end, or ultimate limit of a set.

Impact

The storyline itself, most importantly, saw the supposed deaths of Alistair, Beth, Marty, and Maya; however, Vendetta also saw new twists and/or resolutions to other ongoing storylines:

*Tabloid reporter JT Cornell found evidence in Alistair's subterranean Roman office that Chad Harris was the product of Alistair's rape of Liz Sanbourne and not Julian and Eve's affair. This, coupled with the fact that Liz was adopted, meant that Chad and Whitney were adoptive half-cousins and not half-siblings as previously believed, thus allowing the two to pursue a romantic relationship. The audience also learned in Rome that Chad was having an affair (later revealed to be with Vincent Clarkson). A year later, the affair was exposed, and Chad was murdered shortly after he and Whitney married. A devastated, and pregnant Whitney moved to Louisiana with her young son, and sister. Vincent faked his death in order to gaslight his mother Eve.

*JT also provided Theresa with his own research that concluded that Ethan, not Julian, had fathered her son, Little Ethan. Fearful that Ethan and his wife, Gwen, would pursue custody of her son, as they had of her daughter, Jane, Theresa decided to stop trying to seduce Ethan away from his wife and never tell Ethan that they shared a son. Eventually, Gwen and her mother learned the truth and blackmailed Theresa's mother into driving a wedge between the former lovers.

*Marty's death destroyed both his parents, Luis and Sheridan, dashing any hopes that they might have had at reuniting. However, Sheridan's niece, Fancy, developed a crush on Luis in Rome that blossomed into a mutual friendship and, eventually, a relationship late in 2006; Sheridan, meanwhile, suffered a miscarriage on July 20 after learning of her son's death. Sheridan's love for Luis caused her to separate herself from her husband and adopted son. Luis, however fell in love with Fancy. A year later, Marty was revealed to be alive.

*Spike convinced Jessica to marry him in Rome so that he could not be called to testify against her in court should she be charged with the murders of her dead johns. Their June 23 wedding allowed Spike to take even more control over Jessica. A year later, Jessica found out she was pregnant, and was nearly murdered by Spike who was revealed to be the true murderer of the men.

Characters involved

*Jessica Bennett
*Noah Bennett
*Maya Chinn
*JT Cornell
*Alistair Crane
*Fancy Crane
*Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald Crane
*Chad Harris
*Spike Lester
*Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald
*Marty Lopez-Fitzgerald
*Paloma Lopez-Fitzgerald
*Simone Russell
*Whitney Russell
*Esme Vanderheusen
*Beth Wallace
*Ethan Winthrop
*Gwen Winthrop

External links

* [http://www.passionsvendetta.com Passions Vendetta at NBC]