Liveblogging "As the World Turns": Match Game '09

So where were we ... oh, right: GAYSECKS!!!

After a week of being suspiciously off-screen, Oakdale's Favorite Freshly-Deflowered Gay Couple will return today ... or at least one of them will.

Today, Luke drags his battered and spent body out of the bedroom and back into the hornet's nest that is his circle of family and friends, and will set about playing matchmaker with Butters and Alison, much in the way that they fiddled with his and Noah's comfort zones a few weeks back.

Will Luke successfully get the star-crossed lovers together? Refresh often to find out below in our breaking updates! 

Charles, put out that pipe! There are ladies present ... and Brett!

2:56PM EST: Preview Time! No Nuke, but a big box of Clorox will apparently appear in every scene. See you next time! 

2:55PM EST: Jade pops over to Java and sees Butters sitting inside, but before she goes in Luke calls and asks if she got the job. She says she didn't get that job but might take another "special projects" job. He asks if she's seen Butters and when she says she has he asks her to get him up onto the roof of the hospital but not to tell him that Ali will be there.

I'm sure he won't suspect a thing!

Like Jade's even going to tell him, of course. She heads in and of course sets to wedging herself between Butters and Ali. Hey, Noah's not working? Must have thrown his back out doing ... something.

Ali's up on the roof freezing her porn past off, and Jade's making some headway flirting with Butters. She calls Emily to tell her she'll take the job, and that she's already started.

2:50PM EST: So I'm kind of loving the Emily/Jade Powerbitch Deathmatch dynamic. Anyone else?

2:48PM EST: Jade: "I'm not a hooker!" Emily: "Consider it babysitting." This is getting a little twisted.

Luke takes Ali up to the roof, to ... what, lock her up there alone? Kind of messing up the formula a little here, kid!

Luke convinces her to get back on the horse (wait, I thought it was meth?) in regards to Butters and she softens.

Meanwhile, Jade agrees to the "position" but says that she may sleep with Butters even though it's not in the job description, telling Emily she can fire her again if she doesn't like it. Hey, beats stealing office supplies!

2:40PM EST: Ohhhhhhhmygod this has to stop. Finally, Dusty gets the baby back and he leaves, with Josie throwing a serious guilt grenade after him

At the hospital, Luke ambushes Ali asking for a favor, and she says that if it involves political espionage she's not interested. Zing!

He asks her to put in a good word with Emily for Jade and Ali says she doesn't want that job, that they used to call it "the meat grinder". Luke remembers when Casey had the meat grinder. I remember when I used to be able to hear references to food on this show without my mind going to very naughty places.

Luke tells Ali she's an idiot for rejecting Butters, but reminds her that he and Noah were also idiots before she got them back together, and now they're happier than ever. She asks him to stay out of things and he says that it's too late.

Back at downscale Mode, Butters lays into Emily for using him like a cabanaboy and tells her to go to hell and leave him and Ali alone, and Jade hears the whole thing. When Emily realizes that Jade has a connection to Butters and Ali she changes her tune and hires her back, for double pay. Only now the job is to go out with Butters. Um ... looks like she should have been looking at Manster.com after all!

2:28PM EST: Josie (avec Pussycat) drop some science on Meg, with Josie closing with "you're even more of a coward than I thought" and storming off. Whee!

Dusty is now refusing to hand Paul his baby. Does this remind anyone else of when that crazy hen would seductively wave a watermelon in front of the dog in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons?

Butters calls Ali out on the fact that she's letting Emily get in between them, and rushes out to give Emily a beatdown. Meanwhile, Jade shows up for her interview with Emily and asks if she's good at answering the phone, typing, databasing, freebasing, whatever.

Emily gets a call she has to take and Jade picks up the other line and forgets to get a number, so Emily lays into her for being an idiot. She fires Jade without having hired her, and before Jade storms out she says, "and there's the damn number, it's called Caller ID!"

Okay, that was kind of fun. And now Angry Butters storms in. 

2:18PM EST: Show of creepy, talking, white-gloved hands: Who else but me will be having nightmares about that Hamburger Helper ad? Just as I thought.

So Dusty took Meg to Reno for the divorce? She was "Reno-vated"? HA! Don't tell Norma Shearer.

Butters is still chipping away at Ali's shell, and finally figures out that Emily is behind all of this.

Luke finds an ad on Gregslist for a publisher's assistant, and immediately shoots it down when he realizes it would be for old Butterfingers herself. Jade decides she wants to go for it anyway and applies, noting in her application that she has no experience and has been convicted of a crime. Sounds like my resume!

More Meg/Ice Truck Killer/Dusty/Josie and her Pussycat drama. But Dusty's holding a real baby, which is something. Something DELICIOUS, that is!

2:08PM EST: Dusty stops by Meg's cell the farm kitchen to tell her that he wants to find a new house ASAP. Ice Truck Killer of course calls to interrupt and ask her to drop off Eliza but she's not feeling it. She and Dusty discuss whether it's a good idea or not to tell ITK about her and Dusty being married. I think it sounds like a great idea!

Back at the Lily Pad, Luke is reading something (The Joy of Gay Sex?) when Jade comes in and gets all Poor Lady Nofamily. He gives her a peptalk and reveals he's reading Spinoza. Not nearly as exciting. He talks her into getting a job and suggests she look at "Gregslist". Ha! If that doesn't work maybe she can try Manster.com.

Over at the hospital, Butters tries to talk Ali into going to Chicago with him to get some booze. What is this, The Untouchables? She shoots him down, Al Capone-style.

Dusty stops by Paul's to drop off the baby. Literally - he plops it on the couch and tells Paul that Meg sent him because she never wants to see him again.