One thing you can say with certainty about the mob aspect in this story is that its danger is not minimized nor romanticized, and I have yet to see Michelle feeling even a tingle of excitement about it. Why should she? Her whole life turned upside down in one violent brush with it. When she was falling in love with Danny, she never stopped disassociating him from Carmen, from the family business. "He's different" -- that's how she always defended him to her family and friends.

When she finally got to admit to herself (thanks to Aunt Meta) that she had feelings for him and felt good about it, it allowed her to dream of a future with Danny, yet just as she tried to turn a blind eye on his "good" side earlier in the relationship, she wouldn't face his "bad" side this time. What was her knee-jerk reaction to Aunt Meta's reminder, "he was groomed to be ruthless?" She turned away in pain. She'd seen and experienced how ruthless his family could be and it was as if she couldn't bear to associate the man she was falling in love with with that aspect.

This episode actually prompted Rhonda to comment that we were in for a battle of Danny's soul between Michelle and Carmen. When I finally got to watch it, its highlight, its "heart" for me was not the dream but the middle part, the D/D scene in which the mere mention of Michelle's name showed how much Danny was still bleeding wide open followed by Meta's heart-to-heart with Michelle. This part actually captures the "home"/"danger" themes for me.

The one aspect in her attraction to Danny that could be deemed dangerous (as in dangerously exciting) may be the sexual aspect (clashing with Michelle's pre-conceived romantic and, dare I say, "bourgeois" notions about it.) Those erotic fantasies we all entertain about Manny? I bet Michelle does too. That too was apparent in her dream and what makes Manny an oddity in soapland actually.

How many soap couples lead you to fantasize about a re-enactment of, say, on the level of that ice-cube scene from 9 1/2 weeks? I don't know about you, but not many in my case. I'd say Manny's about the only one actually. What's remarkable about it is that a) this is a *married* couple and b) Michelle would have been one of the last characters we'd have picked as candidate a few months ago. Yet not one fan would deny that there's a good chance their love scenes will go down as one of the most torrid in soap annals. There's something wild and combustible about these two, and I think this is part of Michelle's conflicted feelings about her relationship with Danny.

I don't think Danny actually has any idea how much Michelle is scared out of her mind by her "need" for him. Remember the almost love scenes? One minute, she was smilling and feeling good about it and the next hiding her face. What did she say the morning after?

"I sort of led you on."

Michelle Bauer leading a man on?

Her whole family would have a heart attack if they heard that. Heck, society might be scandalized. Sure, he's her husband, but she never really did think of him as her husband, did she? Yet she still led him on, tried to seduce him. And I think she enjoyed it, the knowledge that she has the power to stroke his ego and then she got scared again by the torrent of emotions he was unleashing in her.

Admitting how much she wants him, even subconsciously, is a good start in coming to terms with it, but it should be interesting to see how it plays out when they go through one of their down periods.

kristi