Liveblogging "As the World Turns": Babysitting's the pits

Today's episode, in which the Snyder family rallies around a hole in the ground to try to save tumbled toddler Ethan, has all the makings of white-hot soap brilliance. Babies in peril? Check. Irresponsible, slutty parents? Check. Unconvincing rescues? Check. This is one oatmeal pool away from last year's finest hour.

Yes, Luke's little brother fell into a hole (which the Ice Truck Killer dug to try to find a buried treasure) because Lily and Holden were too busy trying to out-screw one another to pay attention to where their own kids are.

Will poor Little Miss Stormcloud be (more) scarred forever for letting her brother pull a Baby Jessica? Will Luke voluntarily dislocate his collarbone to worm to Ethan's rescue? And will it turn out in the end that it's not even Ethan in the hole, but just a walkie-talkie?

Click on through the jump and refresh often to find out, as it happens!

It puts the lotion on its skin or else it has to sit through Aaron and Allison's wedding again!

2:55PM EDT: Ice Truck Killer tells Meg everything and tells her that he did it all for her. And Dammit! and Matthew Perry 2.0 meet up and make up outside of Holden's hospital room. 

Meanwhile, Blonde Obstacle's Obstacle turns on the radio and picks up what sounds like a chimpanzee singing. Gilded Lily screams "My baby!" and runs to him. Meanwhile, Holden is back at the site and considering another swan-dive...

Preview Time!: Hmmm. More of the same, but no Luke. Sigh.  

2:47PM EDT: At the hospital, Holden literally has a scratch and the doctor tells him not to go playing Indiana Jones again. Luke goes off to wave his magic wand and speed up the release paperwork. Back at the pit, Gilded Lily is still yelling into the abyss. Lady Drumstick drags her off, probably for a drink.

Quaker Oats Lady gives BOO a walkie-talkie (Timmy!!) to send down, which would work as a baby monitor. Not a bad idea. She doesn't want Lily to know it's from her, though. 

2:36PM EDT: Meg tells GrammaEmma to get off the cross because they need the wood to build her a new husband. Luke calls Emma ad lets her know that he and Lady D went straight from the mushroom-hunting trip to the pit, and that Holden got a boo-boo when he fell but that he's at the hospital now. No word on Ethan yet, though. Luke asks GrammaEmma to check on Little Miss Stormcloud because "you know how worried she gets". Yeah, we know.

Before she leaves, Emma tells God that she's a strong woman and can take a lot, but he's really working her last righteous nerve with this one. 

Dammit! goes to get Ethan's backpack, saying, "I think it would help if he sees something familiar coming at him". She would know. Blonde Obstacle's Obstacle goes to get food to add to it, and Quaker Oats Lady has something she wants to add, too. Please tell me it's a bowling ball.

Meanwhile, Ice Truck Killer is back at Madame's Place and Meg finds him, all soaking wet and hitting the decanters. He tells her that someone tried to murder him and that he'll tell her who ... after he takes a shower. Delivery by Ryan Seacrest.

2:24PM EDT: Hey, it's that Shmemmy-winning lady from Desperate Housewives eating enough fiber-rich yogurt in the grocery store to cause an embarrassing brown-out in the freezer section. You've come a long way, baby!

Matthew Perry 2.0 wants to go down after Holden, but they hear him shouting that he's okay. He can't find Ethan ... um, did you check under you?

Meanwhile, Henry is being held captive (still!) and trading quips with James.

Oh, MP2.0 and BOO just repelled down into the hole. Luke is left at the top and he kind of half-heartedly yells, "Hey, can you see my dad? Can you get him out?" He would so rather be at the mall. 

Oh, Ice Truck Killer's captor takes him out on a boat and throws him overboard with a cement block tied to his foot. At least Dexter had the courtesy to cut him up before dumping him, eh?

2:17PM EDT: Gilded Lily asks Holden to tell Ethan she loves him when he's down in the pit. How about we don't give him any reason to be down there any longer than necessary? 

Matthew Perry 2.0 offers to go down for him, but Holden won't let him. Meanwhile, GrammaEmma's putting together a picnic and yelling at Meg and Ice Truck Killer's being held hostage by the guy he owes all the money to. Back at the site of the toddler tragedy, Quaker Oats Lady tells Dammit! she's in a bad mood and Dammit! actually asks "why?" Uh ... no reason, just the whole "dead kid" thing.

Oh! Check out Luke's hair! I think it makes him look pretty sexy, sorry. I dig the whole Half-Transformed Werewolf thing, though. He's also dressed a bit sexier than one might need to be at a pit. Did he go though Second Puberty this week or something? Or maybe Noah's been hiding him under a bushel and now that he's off in Rome he's blossoming?

Holden gets in the sling to go down and in a magnificent slow-mo sequence we see the frame holding him up collapse and hear an echoey "Noooo!" that is the daytime equivalent of whenever Goofy would fall off a cliff in the old Disney shorts. The crowd reacts accordingly. (Hint: Not with laughter. That would be me.)

2:06 PM EDT: Already hot!! We start out with a bizarre nightmare sequence where Ice Truck Killer is hanging from a rope in a dark studio cave and yelling down to a crying baby that he'll come back for him. Is this the part where the blind crawler-thingies attack? Anyway, James shows up and sets the rope on fire, showering ITK with some pretty hilarious CGI flames. He wakes up in what looks for a minute like the main set from Madame's Place. How many decanters does one man need?

Meanwhile, Dammit! is trying to push her coffee on rescue workers and GrammaEmma panics about "contaminated soil, sinkholes" and everything else that's gone wrong at the farm. It's like Erin Brockovich meets The Money Pit up in here!

Meanwhile meanwhile, Gilded Lily is reading a bedtime story into the hole when Holden and The Blonde Obstacle's Obstacle show up and Holden announces that he's going in.