2005 News Archives
Nikki Newman
See Also: Victor Newman

Support Your Friendly FBI

October 28, 2005
by Brent Kellogg

There will not be a great parting of the clouds. There will not be a showering of flowers or a chorus of angels singing and birds chirping or Cassie Newman taking time off from watching over Noah Newman because we knew it all along.

We knew that in the Greek Isles newspapers from Genoa City are not available. We knew that nobody would call Nikki Newman on the day the man she was so hot for kicked the bucket. We knew Nikki wouldn't learn Bobby Marsino was mowed down by a hit and run driver, or that the police won't investigate, until junior PI J.T. Hellstrom delivered the news in person. I mean, who knew?

The media whores stationed in this town jump at a chance to report on a Star Search competition, but when it comes to an obvious Mob hit there's not a peep of real news. No old papers with screaming headlines decrying the Marsino death laying around for Nikki to see when she returned from her romantic getaway. Nothing on TV about the twice attempted Lindbergh, um, Marsino baby kidnapping.

Not a single member of Nikki's family knew either. For all the time Marsino and his wife spent at the Newman Ponderosa as guests, Nick, Sharon, Victor and Victoria Newman haven't, apparently, heard about the tragic event. So what's important now, what will be of great interest, will be how Nikki reacts. Will she wonder why Bobby's widow hasn't made funeral arrangements? Will she take it upon herself to hold a memorial service? If she does, what will this say about a woman who couldn't be bothered to bury her own husband? When Dr. Josh Landers was shot dead at the Ponderosa Nikki couldn't be bothered with the body which lay near the front door for more than eight hours. She had a friend handle disposing the body and never looked back. She never had a nightmare about the very dead doctor.

We should have known too that Nikki wouldn't take J.T.'s word for Bobby's death either. She had to call the FBI in person. Imagine, if you can, that conversation.

"Hello? FBI? This is Nikki Newman. I'd like to know if it's true that a member of your Witness Protection Program was run down and killed last week. What do you mean you don't give that information out over the phone? Do you have any idea who I am? I'm Mrs. Victor Newman. As in Newman Enterprises. As in the most powerful man in Genoa City. That's more like it. Yes, I can appreciate that those in the program almost always die from natural causes. Did I mention this is Genoa City? Okay, now tell me what you know about Bobby Marsino. What relation am I to him? Well, I would have been his lover if it weren't for Bobby... hey! Why am I telling you this? You tell me right now, is Bobby dead?"

That Nikki got the news from J.T. via the FBI was how it had to be just like it had to be that Victor Newman would issue a warning to Brad Carlton to keep his business with Victoria on a professional level. It is truly amazing that for a sleaze like Brad, who gave him so much grief about sniffing around Ashley Carlton and wanting to bond with daughter Ashley, Victor would merely see Brad as just another boy wanting to get into his virginal daughter's pants.

To save everyone a lot of time and trouble, Victor should, for starters, fire Brad from Newman Enterprises. He should storm into the dungeon he calls an office, summon Nick and Victoria and tell them that effective immediately, Brad is history. Screw the fact that Brad owns Newman stock, it doesn't mean he can't be fired. When the kids ask, and you know they will, why daddy wants to rid the company of a valuable employee, Victor should say that theirs is not to reason why, theirs is to do as daddy says. But to appease the kiddies, Victor could say simply he sees nothing but in-fighting ahead and like us, he's had enough. Newman Enterprises is a business, not a goddamn daycare center. When he's done with the kids, Victor should slap a custody suit for Abby on both Brad and that sperm-stealing bitch.

I know, this is not a popular angle. After all, we desperately need to be ignited by Nick's supposedly heralding a huge transformational rebirth, a "sense of purpose" as he grapples with his sister for power and has endless pissing contests with Brad to see who's the bigger man now that Brad poses a threat to his manhood and, good God, his marriage in that if Brad can't have Victoria he'll settle for Nick's wife.

Why Nick would go through another battle over who gets Sharon boggles the mind. For Christ's sake, why doesn't Nick rid himself of this whore once and for all? How many times must Sharon have sex outside the marriage before Nick gets it through his thick head? She's not worth it! She's not needed. Cassie is dead and Noah is old enough not to need a mother who will, supposedly, spend hours at the office working at a job she does not need. Besides, the Newman slave had been more of a mother to Noah than Sharon will ever be.

We want to feel, with every change of heart Nick has, like we are finally turning a corner, like history is about to be written anew, like glittery good things are afoot and the business world is about to get a whole lot better and God will smile and Noah's IQ will jump 50 points just by witnessing it and everyone will have happy delirious sex at the office.

But deeper down, we know it's not really true. We know after almost any decision Nick makes about anything it quickly reverts to business as usual and snide, revengeful bickering, same as it ever was.

Flying the Friendly Skies

September 28, 2005
by Brent Kellogg

When you stare at and caress the bottle of pills you've fraudulently obtained from a doctor, when you hide the pills if you think someone might see you and accuse invited guests to a party in your honor of spying on you, it's pretty obvious. You're hooked!

What drug Nikki Newman is popping has yet to be determined but clearly, it packs a punch. The aging woman was looking loopy Wednesday and acting strange more so than her usual out of touch with reality self. As the first guests arrived she'd become paranoid and agitated to the point of wanting to leave everyone in the lurch. Even knowing the rent-a-cops guarding the Newman Ponderosa had been placed on high alert seemed to make Nikki edgy as she spaced out during the middle of her husband's mumbling about their dead grandchild and other "precious children."

The marble-mouth blathering came from the lips of Victor Newman who, at a time and space thrown together on a moment's notice to lift his wife's spirits, couldn't help but cough up the bad nightmare of Cassie Newman's death and how death has made him aware that time is "fleeting" and children are "precious" even if two of them are fully grown diaper-wearing adults.

"Huh? What did you say?" Nikki asked, totally zoned, not expecting an answer and worried Victor might not really be able to get away from the office long enough to take a cruise on the Love Boat.

Victor assured his bride of 20+ years - give or take a marriage or two - that yes; they are going on a long, long journey and reminded her that he hasn't worked much since their goofy son and daughter took over the empire. Now that the family business is in good hands, and his are on some mostly worthless shares of Jabot stock, the time has never been better for sailing or rocking their remaining years away on the veranda. Golden years do come at the price, however, in that he had to trade Newman stock for that crappy Jabot stuff.

Nikki flipped. Hadn't the great man always said no outsiders would ever own so much as a piece of used Newman toilet paper? Had Victor gone mad? Taken some of her happy pills? Was he trying to get even with Jack Abbott when old man Abbott had declared a truce? Did trading stock have something to do with his infatuation with his younger daughter, Abby Carlton? The daughter born to him by the woman he's always loved with sperm stolen from a cryogenic freezer whom he rarely sees and when he does persists in having the kid ride a horse when he knows the 6-year-old (depending on what age Ashley says she is today) is deathly afraid of horses? That Abby?

Victor said it's true Cassie's death has reminded him of Abby's existence. As for the stock, it was nothing more than a business deal. Visibly whacked on something, Nikki went off to finish packing for the trip she was already on.

Into the Depths of Addicted Hell
September 27, 2005
by Brent Kellogg

So what's the message? Another PSA about the danger of using drugs? The faux Meth scare? Is this why the filthy rich Nikki Newman has asked Katherine Sterling to share some of those nice pills the old woman has in her medicine cabinet? Nikki didn't have time to get a prescription from Dr. Olivia Winters for a bottle of cough medicine or a few hits of morphine to ease her pain? Did Nikki not learn anything from her previous addiction?

Will we soon see a picture of a healthy-looking Nikki emerging from a Greek Isles swimming pool whiffing the freshly-cut lilies and grinning as if the world was a blob of fluffy joy as she whispers, "You are a godsend, Katherine"?

What exactly will Katherine give Nikki? Celebrex? The stuff that makes users feel like themselves again? Shouldn't Lauren Fenmore and others who haven't seemed like themselves lately be taking it too? What's that? Celebrex has sides effects? It makes people who use it have nausea, diarrhea, anxiety, sleeplessness, headaches and genital warts? Why would Katherine be taking Celebrex? Doesn't she know the recently deceased are advised against using it?

Think Nikki will ask what Katherine is giving her? Think she'll notice nobody really knows? The makers of Celebrex don't say in their TV ads. They do show pretty purple pills raining down and urge those watching to get to their doctors because drugs are the answer to all problems.

If Nikki wants to drug herself out, who are we, probably taking a slew of drugs too, to criticize? Isn't there a good chance Nikki will become Yolanda Hamilton-like and maybe die? Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't it serve her right insomuch as she's gone down this deadly road before and doesn't have the self-esteem required to become more aware of her sad life?

Will Nikki's addiction go on and on until some happy doctor hands her a bag full of samples from the savage and shameless pharmaceutical companies? Will she turn on the tube and see one of those inexplicable commercials for bizarre-sounding drugs that features as its active ingredient siflintrate sulfate but which they call Oozum or maybe NumbYouDown? Will we see Nikki emerge from her funk as the well-drugged housewife happily baking cookies for the grandkids? Will she go about life as the always smiling Mrs. Victor Newman without a care in the world; the troubled past blocked from her brain cells?

Will it ever be revealed that the legal drugs Nikki gulps down like tiny M&Ms are actually eating away at her colon and liver, forcing her kidneys to work overtime and preventing normal bowel movements? Will it be told that many of these drugs are quite likely more toxic and destructive to the mind and body than marijuana or cocaine, but hey, as every major pharmaceutical CEO knows, education and common sense are the true enemies of profit?

Simply put, Nikki would be better off scoring from the drug dealers in Glo Ho Park then taking anything that comes out of Katherine's medicine cabinet. True, Genoa City's wealthiest residents are afflicted by a many ailments, each one more creepy and ravaging than the last for which they need drugs, but obtaining those drugs from their friends is not the answer.

As this report was being written there was a slim hope Katherine will remind Nikki she's an addict. There's a chance the old woman's memory will not lapse and she'll lecture Nikki on those days she sat around the Ponderosa in deep sadness, tinkling the piano keys, washing pills down with booze and that Nikki's too old to ride in a time machine stuck on reverse.

Alas, it didn't happen exactly that way. Katherine simply refused to enable Nikki and for that should have been given a medal - or something. Nikki did, as feared, score her dope from a quack at the God Have Mercy Medical Center. No, not the butchering Dr. Winters; Dr. Feelgood Nora Thompson who bought Nikki's song and dance about her own physician being out of town. Without checking, without wondering why Nikki's doctor doesn't have someone covering for him or her, Thompson wrote a prescription for something to "take the edge off."

Given her history of medical malfeasance, will the State Medical Board conduct an investigation in Dr. Thompson's prescribing habits? More importantly, will Nikki ever be charged with fraudulently obtaining a controlled substance? In a town where so-called doctors allow unlicensed in America doctors from Paris to use their prescription pads, where said doctors are allowed to practice medicine, is it any surprise Nikki is on her way back into the depths of addicted hell?

Back to the Pills
September 25, 2005
 

If we didn't know better those creating what passes for Genoa City and its people these days would have us think it's a "turning point" when it's really just a regurgitation of the past like the swill we've seen along the lines of Sheila Carter's return. The talk of a returning Nina Webster and her son should make the point: They've run out of ideas. That's what happens when the focus is on the wealthy. The rich have no problems they can't buy their way out of.

Nevertheless, Victor and Nikki Newman's marriage is said to be in trouble again now that the "blonde stunner", the old cow, the granny doing her best to look 29, is dealing with a case of "shattered nerves". While Victor pretends not knowing what's wrong with Nikki, and she's keeping him in "the dark" when practically everyone knows what's going on, Victor doesn't know Nikki has post-traumatic stress.

"I don't think there is one person in Nikki's life right now who she could successfully receive help and understanding from," says Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki).

While feeling isolated only serves to frazzle her further, there is one person who knows what Nikki is going through. That person, that college dropout, that 20-something year-old once so hot for young, underage girls, is J.T. Hellstrom.

This knowledge that a "junior PI" will rat her out, perhaps even jeopardize her long-awaited cruise with Victor, will be cause for Nikki to swear J.T. to secrecy. And when that happens it will only add to Nikki's stress so says top Y&R scribe Jack Smith.

"As we know, the relationship between J.T. and Nikki is edgy at best," says Smith.

Oh, really? That peeping tom J.T. once saw Nikki and Bobby Marsino in an embrace has caused an edgy relationship? Why should Nikki care what the pipsqueak saw? J.T. is but a common slug she could step on and be rid of. It's not like Victor doesn't know about her feelings for Bobby. The poor woman was dealing with the stress of having killed a five-year-old boy, Bobby's brother. Stress by the way, Nikki quickly got over.

We also know that at Victor's upcoming dinner party something will set Nikki off, but not to such a degree it will prevent them from setting sail on the love boat. Still, Smith is bound and determined to convince us.

"It could be pretty explosive."

Memo to Jack Smith: How many times have you called something "explosive" only to have it fizzle out? Please, break out a thesaurus. Find another adjective to describe your pathetic duds.

And Justice For All?

August 24, 2005
by Brent Kellogg 

Hearing that socialite Nikki Newman had what was called a "panic attack" this week at her sprawling ponderosa home I got to wondering. Why would being kidnapped by members of the Mob cause panic attacks? It's not like the old heifer was held for weeks or beaten within an inch of her life. All she got from her few hour ordeal was a few blemishes on her botoxed face. The blemishes were so trivial as not to induce massive fits, like those thrown by former stripper Brittany Hodges, or require the services of a plastic surgeon. Nikki suffered more trauma when she remembered a few months ago some twenty-plus years after the fact that she'd shot a five-year-old boy dead in the head.

Nikki was so distraught at having killed Joshua Casein she had repeated flashbacks and nightmares but none so severe she couldn't turn them on and off at will, or get all gussied up to serve as host at Bobby Marsino's strip club. And now her dreams have graduated to panic attacks? Now she's suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? She's seeing delivery persons dropping off sympathy bouquets for her husband from gangster Vinny Trabuco and shooting her? Considering the high-level of ponderosa security wouldn't Nikki's psyche have blocked these dreams from occurring in her own living room?

What woman so well protected would lock her front door? She never locked it when Cameron Kirsten was prowling around the place. It wasn't locked when her daughter-in-law blew in a few hours earlier looking for her son. Moreover, what husband of a woman suffering so doesn't have a key to his own home? Why did Victor Newman have to pound on the window to get her to open up? Where was man-slave Miguel Rodriguez? Didn't he hear the commotion or was he too busy running errands?

And how about the conversation between Nikki and Victor subsequently?

"I'm scared and I can't breathe," Nikki sniveled, yet she appeared to be breathing just fine.

"It's okay to be scared after what has happened to you," Victor mumbled, yet despite knowing of Nikki's fragile state had left her alone without taking his keys? What sort of man does this?

Why did Victor say he didn't know whether their son had come home? Wasn't he outside the house? Isn't the outhouse where their goofy son lives with Sharon within plain view of the main house? Couldn't Victor see Nick's car parked in the driveway? If Victor didn't know where Nick was why did he call down to the outhouse to get help? If the great man knew Sharon was there wouldn't he have also known Nick was there?

What about those mobsters? Sure, they're in jail. But for how long? Why haven't they been bailed out like practically everyone else charged with a serious crime in this city? If the thugs who have scared Nikki so are such evildoers aren't they entitled to a trial? Won't Nikki have to testify at said trial? Both Trabuco and his goon are white so that's no excuse not to have a trial. Isn't there a saying in Genoa City that everyone is entitled to their day in court? Didn't DA Glenn Richards say that at the outset of the Romalotti trial?

These are frazzled loose ends that need closing as much as the Newman's seek closure for Cassie Newman's death. Unless or until the wheels of justice start turning for all, Nikki's continued whining will only add to the ideal that in Genoa City democracy is for only the privileged few.

God Goes to Hell

August 8, 2005

What's that you say? Just when you think you've heard and seen everything someone or something pops up in Genoa City to say you ain't seen nothing yet? Scream and holler and beg the soap gods to make it stop and kill you now all you want it won't do much good for we voyeurs are destined to have our intelligence constantly stomped on.

At the Newman Ponderosa this fine Monday there Nick was in all his glory, on his knees before his mother, the same woman he not so long ago wanted nothing to do with and for that matter had wished not to carry the Newman name, moaning how he couldn't believe the family had come close to losing her.

That Nikki Newman's life was never in jeopardy - not because she cannot die but rather due to the fact so-called gangsters in this city are such pussies - did not matter. "That bastard" Vinny Trabuco could have pulled the trigger at any moment and Nikki was so scared which explains why she spat in his face.

Unaware his mother's rescuers sat around watching a strip show long before Victor Newman took it upon himself to act, Nick said it was "a miracle" Nikki was saved. Herself unaware of how long the crime fighters waited around Nikki said if anyone deserved thanks it was Victor until Victor said he was but a pawn. What really saved Nikki was the "guardian angel" watching over her!

And it wasn't just any run of the mill guardian angel. It was the very dead Cassie Newman!

It's true! Cassie is right now flying high in the sky. She's supposed to be her half-brother's personal GA, but when you're just starting out in the angel business you have to be prepared to save those you can.

Sharon Newman was certain of it. There's no way her daughter would have let the Newmans suffer though another tragedy so Cassie almost had a duty to intervene.

Jumping on the fantasy Victor said he doesn't want the family to go through another crisis, but had to have known deep down it will in roughly six months or so.

As to why Nikki placed herself in danger, caused the family such grief, and had anything happened to her the Newmans would have spent endless weeks grieving and searching for closure, she said she did it for love. Not the love of her own family which might have made just the slightest bit of sense, but for two people who really, in the grand scheme of things, don't mean squat to the Newmans.

Yes, Nikki had to "make things right" for Bobby and Brittany Marsino. It was the least she could do after having killed Bobby's brother all those years ago. A cleansing of the guilt as it were.

"Love is something we all should cling to," Nikki regurgitated, as a concerned Nick suspected she was having pain, which she wasn't, because if she was she wouldn't have declined a night at the God Have Mercy Medical Center for observation, or at least asked for some pain pills, which she didn't.

Before the surreal spectacle could continue with more people kneeling down in heartfelt gratitude there was a knock at the door.

Brad Carlton, not wanting to intrude, did so anyway. He asked how Nikki was holding up and told she's better with "family around me" although Noah and Victoria Newman were nowhere to be seen, Brad said he was sure of it because nobody recovers from tragedies like the Newmans. If Brad knew this, one might have wondered why he came by at all.

Brad hadn't been in the room more than five minutes when an exhausted Nikki got up and went off to bed leaving Brad alone to play with himself. Nick and Sharon left too. Returning to their outhouse Nick said again, in the event Sharon hadn't heard the first time, how hard he found it that his mother survived her ordeal. And in case Nick hadn't heard Sharon said it was all thanks to Cassie watching over them. Not prayer. No nearly naked virgin car-wash fund-raiser offered up by way of thank you Jesus our miserable lives were spared again. Not God.

Thank Cassie, the new megachurch the Newmans can gather in from now on so as to redefine the Christian experience in Genoa City. Because make no mistake, Cassie is up there right now forcibly blessing the white as bleached teeth Newmans making them numbly patriotic and want to throw money at their problems turning to prayer only as a last resort. Now that they've got Cassie they can throw away their copies of He Died for Your Pathetic Sins and the vibe is so amped and the Cassie mania so cranked you'd think it's a Victor Newman is the Toughest Man I Know festival.

Of course, the Newmans want to belong right now. They are desperate to connect to something, anything, bigger than themselves and that ain't easy given no mortal is more powerful than they especially now, especially when their identity is imploding and moral codes are evolving.

This is what's happening. The new narcotic. The mass self-righteousness, sterilized for easy suppository insertion. Go to Hell, God. We Newmans have Cassie to watch over us now.

Cows In Heat, the Great Booty Call

March 3, 2005

Why is it that Nikki and Victor Newman must repeatedly tell each other how desperately in love they are only to end up haggling over not having enough time with each other? If they'd use the time they waste telling each other how busy and miserable they are they'd have more than enough time for the sex Mrs. Newman craves but can't get.

What of their busy lives? Who are they kidding? Besides attending a board meeting now and then when does Nikki ever work? Why does she have time to waste tripping around town telling people of her troubles, working out at the gym when she's all skin and bones, but none leftover to romp in bed with her husband? What exactly do these people do at night? Do persistent poor me agendas during the day tucker them so they go straight to bed at night?

And what of Victor's constantly harping that he has so much to do at Jabot Cosmetics? Hasn't the company been saved? Hasn't Ashley Carlton said it's her goal in life to make Jabot better than ever? Hasn't she given up men in exchange for hard labor at the office? What of the rest of these Jabot slugs? Now that the family business has been rescued why aren't they at work? Why must Victor do their jobs?

Moreover, if Victor has enough time to take the little woman out to dinner why doesn't Nikki maybe say, "I don't want to eat, I want to screw." Wouldn't a good roll in the hay solve this old woman's insidious desire to be with a man? Isn't it true? Don't old people like the Newman only have sex once a month? Where do they get such sexual appetites?

What's it gonna take to satisfy the old cow? Here Victor offered to take her to dinner or to breakfast and a pony ride and still it wasn't good enough. She wants an entire day with the stud. What about Sunday? It's not like these people go to church. Can't Victor put Jabot out of his mind for just one day? He said it himself. The Jabot project is about wrapped up. Can't Nikki wait a few more days? If going without sex is what's eating her why not whip out the Magic Hitachi? What is it that's keeping these two love birds apart?

Why is she now saying she feels more like a roommate than a wife? Why is she suddenly "different" and restless? God knows Victor doesn't know. At his age sex is more an annoyance, a manly chore he must perform. So why can't he see the heifer needs a good poke, take thirty minutes out of his busy schedule and give it to her?

Wouldn't that end the nagging? The moaning from Nikki that she wants to share her life with him? What does she think she's doing now? Oh, that's right. She's being her usual hypocritical self. All the Hallmark moments an excuse to justify her impure thoughts of being with a younger man.

How pathetic. Victor is so blind he can't see what's happening. Says he'll go "crazy" if he stops working to go on a trip around the world with bossy, then agrees they both need more in their lives besides work, but never asks what work she does or why he, the richest man in Genoa City, can't get away from the office for a couple of months. It's not like Jabot is his company or that he's saving his own empire from being run into the ground by an inept son.

If Victor has no intention of milking the cow why did he tell her this week about seeing the colors of Germany in the Fall? Is this how long it's going to take him to wrap-up the loose ends at Jabot? Is that Victor can't drag himself away from work for nearly another year why Nikki said she'd settle for a European trip if that's the best she can get? He may be able to wait that long for sex, but can she?

Was all this rehash a means to an end where Victor wakes up one morning to discover the sound coming from the guest bedroom is his wife being serviced by Bobby Marsino's bull? Is it bull that any woman Nikki's age would be in such heat? Shouldn't she be managing time more effectively so as not to miss the next bovine hormone injection?