Abbey, as she was
Tino at the scene of the bang
On Thursday night (13 August)
Scandal! exploded when longtime she-devil Abigail Rodriquez-Martins (played by
Michele Maxwell) went out in a blaze after a bomb detonated in her car.
Abbey, who's spent her life involved with crime, an alter ego, family feuds, power games, kidnappings, cougar sexploits and helldog tactics most recently softened a bit when greedy toyboy Cole (
Emmanuel Castis) came into her life.
It didn't last long of course - after she realised that he's much more turned on by her cash and sort-of daughter Shakira, any hope of him making her cuddly disappeared.
The past few weeks have seen Abbey's relationships burn up into a frenzy of max loathing i.e. loads of people would want to blow her up .
This week Tino (
Clint Brink) goes out of his mind as he starts a frenzied search for the culprit.
The main suspects and their motives on Tino (and the law's) list are:
Cole. It's been established that although he received a gift of 50% ownership of Abbey Johannesburg club, RT’s, he was still furnace-hot furious over her declaration that the Bank of Abigail was now closed in terms of extra funding for his demo studio CD that he had hoped would snare a record company deal.
Suspiciously, Cole will disappear yet again.
NZH CEO Daniel Nyathi (
Sello Maake ka Ncube): Abbey's long-standing business rival who, it is claimed, vowed vicious vengeance when she inadvertently revealed that it was her who orchestrated the recent abduction of his son, Mangi (
Kagiso Modupe) in order to execute her vengeance against him.
Mangi went cold turkey, suffering crushing withdrawal symptoms after being released. He is still in the process of recovery. However, there will always be the fear of relapse.
Abbey's horrendous act was in retaliation for Daniel having had her kidnapped last year and faking her death (in a fiery car crash), to prompt the cops to probe into her life and discover her criminal history.
Daniel also knew - and he was right - that what the cops dug up would forever taint the relationship between Tino and his mom, especially when he found out that she was responsible for the death of his dad.
Shakira (
Dawn Matthews): Abbey's emotionally needy, mentally unbalanced, red-hot sex kitten of a surrogate daughter - Abbey taught her every illicit thing she knows.
Shakira was spitefully jealous of opportunistic Cole’s choice to commit to her mother after Abbey's ultimatum to the singer that he choose between her and Shakira. This after discovering that Cole and Shakira were having a sizzling fling (mainly in car parks and lifts) behind her back.
Insecure Shakira was also steamed about Cole receiving the bulk of Abbey's affection/attention and his persistent siphoning of his sugar momma’s considerable earnings.
Shakira was also resentful of Abbey's recently revealed favouritism with regard to her half-brother, Tino. Mother and daughter had been blackmailing each other with their tenuous relationship finally erupting into physical threats and venomous verbal insults.
Also under suspicion ... unnamed kingpins of criminal syndicates whom Abbey's double-crossed/blackmailed/fallen foul of over the years.
W.H.O.D.U.N.N.I.T?
The BodyAs for Abbey's booty - actress Michele Maxwell is currently doing stage and theatre and will only be available to return to the show after September - if required. She is
definitely dead - if she does ever return, our guess is she'll make a comeback as a ghost.
PS: Word from the set of Scandal! is that the show doesn't want to turn into
Salem so this probably won't happen.
Abbey's Will will be read soon.