"Dirty Sexy Money": Who's Your Baby's Daddy?

Published: October 24, 2007 at 08:13 AM GMT
Last Updated: October 24, 2007 at 08:13 AM GMT

By Kara Rozansky

If Maury Povich has taught us anything it's that a little paternity drama never gets old. No matter how many times I've turned on Maury to see an episode dedicated to "Who's My Babby's Daddy?" I never get tired of trying to guess before the DNA test results are announced. I actually don't know if Maury even plans any other type of segments anymore but does it matter? No.

Taking a page out of Maury's book as well as every soap opera I can think of, Dirty Sexy Money left us last week with the shocking revelation that at least one of the Darling children may not be biologically related to the Grand Pumba himself, Tripp. Once Tripp learns about Letitia's longstanding affair with Dutch he does some digging around and has Letitia's OBGYN look into whether any of the children he's raised do not belong to him. When he gets the results he doesn't open them, instead confronting Letitia again and demanding that she tell him the truth herself. We end (and I gasped) with Letitia agreeing to set the record straight.

I've been racking my brain all week coming up with which Darling child could be the illegitimate one. Here is what I've come up with so far:

Patrick would be the obvious choice. Tripp's pride and joy, his great hope for moving the Darling family into the political elite after his own brother Kenneth mysteriously failed to do so, would hit Tripp the hardest if he weren't a true blue Darling. It would also in some way be a relief to Patrick if he found out he was Dutch's son, not Tripp's. Patrick loved Dutch and the way he never tried to tell Patrick he needed to change who he was to fit some predetermined mold. Patrick and Nick have a brotherly vibe already and seem to have always gotten along. Depending on how Tripp plans to treat whichever child is not biologically his, if Patrick were the one it could make him reevaluate his life and feel free to fully go ahead in his relationship with Carmelita and ditching his political career (because even if he's with his mistress now I can't imagine that things will go smoothly as long as Patrick needs to keep up his image and his marriage for his campaign).

Then again, this choice seems so obvious to me I think it couldn't possibly be right.

The good Reverend does not fail to make me laugh every time he pops up on the screen. He's snarky and operates by his own code of ethics that have nothing to do with his vows to the church. Besides providing him with even more airtime which would make me very happy, if Brian were really Dutch's son this would bring up all sorts of great twists and turns. For starters, Brian HATED Dutch. Brian hates pretty much everyone but from the get-go he's insulted Dutch in front of Nick, going so far as to say terrible things about him in front of Nick's daughter Kiki at Dutch's funeral. Brian and Nick as brothers would bring a whole new definition to sibling rivalry, with the rivalry being wholly on Brian's side. It would disturb Brian to no end to deal with the fact that he isn't a true Darling.

In addition to that, Brian has an illegitimate son of his own that he's been forced to integrate into his life. It would give Brian a whole new perspective on the situation if he found out his true parentage and that he was the result of an affair as well. This would probably be a more interesting turn than Patrick the prodigal son being Dutch's offspring.

Two for the price of one! That's the only major draw I could see to having it turn out to be the twins. It would probably give them the biggest identity crises out of all the children because right now they are only really defined by their wealth and bloodline. They don't do anything that makes them stand out beyond that as far as society is concerned– Juliet is a failed actress and Jeremy is always working on one hair brained scheme after another. The only draw that Jeremy in particular has is that Natalie just told him she is pregnant in the same episode that Letitia owned up to the possible consequences of her affair with Dutch. This makes me wonder if there's a chance Natalie is carrying someone else's baby, possibly that young actor her agent told her to make out with at Patrick's party? The storylines about Jeremy's paternity and that of "his" unborn baby could be played off of each other if this were the case.

Truth be told though, I'm hoping the twins are still in the family. I don't think this would be the strongest way to go compared to the other options available.

NO, NO, NO! This would be so wrong. If Karen is Dutch's daughter that would mean Nick, the man who deflowered her (those are her words, not mine), would be her half-brother. Soaps have their crazy twist but I'll pass on the incest. I'm not even going to think through what this would mean for Karen outside of her past relationship with Nick because it just can't happen that way. At least George Lucas was good enough to not have Luke and Leia do it before they found out they were related. There is simply no going back on this one.

In the back of my mind I keep thinking that none of the above scenarios will be the answer and those clever writers will come up with something I never saw coming. As much as I like to be right about things, I hope this last choice, which always threw me as an answer on every standardized test in high school, will be the right one.  I would love this show all the more if they manage to surprise me.

To communicate with or to be contacted by the executives and/or companies mentioned in this column, link to JackMyers Connection Hotline.