HIT Enraging Grace on Passions
Soap Opera Weekly
March 20, 2001

After nearly two years as the village idiot ("Tabitha! Come up from the basement! I brought you some cookies!"), it was a refreshing turn of events when Passions goody-goody Grace Bennett finally woke up and smelled the burning bodies. Slapped with the awful truth that her husband, Sam, not only had a torrid affair with Ivy but also fathered Ivy's son, Ethan, Grace's picture-perfect world shattered. Grace would never again be the same meek, docile dimwit Harmony knew and loved to step on.

A feisty, furious Grace emerged from her hospital room while recovering from her miscarriage. First, she directed her wrath toward Sam when he begged her forgiveness for not coming clean about his past with Ivy. Then, Grace announced that their whole marriage was a sham, and that she would never again believe a word out of Sam's mouth. "I lost my baby. If I can ever forgive you, I can never forget that," Grace avowed.

That tirade was mild compared to the one Grace unleashed on Ivy when Ivy dared to express her "condolences." You've played me for the worst kind of fool," Grace erupted, her entire body shaking with anger as she recounted how Ivy had pretended to be her friend while lusting after her husband. As Grace's fury escalated and her secret powers emerged all of Harmony shook violently. Dana Sparks, who for so long had been stifled in a one-note role, cut loose with gusto as Grace cursed Ivy to the same "unspeakable pain" Grace had just suffered, and damned her "to a life of hell on Earth."

At long last, Grace is a doormat no more. Stay out of her basement, Ivy.

By: Janet Di Lauro