Days Week in Review: Age-Old Stories

I will say this for Days of Our Lives, the creativity level of the writers has gone through the roof lately.  For a while there, by which I mean the last five years or so, everything you saw was something that had happened before, possibly even to the same characters, only the most recent time around it would take six months longer to tell the story than it had the last time around.  Well, those days are apparently behind us.  There are actually totally new stories being told!  Most are ridiculous, but we don't need to focus on that, do we?  We're all about positivity around here.

Then again, I only watch two soaps.  So maybe what I think are new and creative arcs are actually age-old stories, well-trod soap terrain that I'm just now getting exposed to. 

Take, for example, the age-old story of a doctor/human-and-feral-cat-hybrid trapped for months in a tunnel beneath an abandoned 1980s nightclub, who hisses, howls, and grunts her way to discovery by some of the town's upstanding citizens, necessitating cartwheeling through a hole in some drywall and instigating a karate fight with two senior citizens that is averted only by the realization that the woman she has just tried to strangle is someone she knows and who suddenly refers to her as her best friend.

I considered retiring from soap viewing after the Lexie scenes this week.  You almost had to find new bloggers, because Promising Ingénue came close to overdosing on awesome and I nearly just walked away, content that I had seen soaps get as cheesily great as they can be.

God bless these actors for taking the scenes so seriously.  I kind of want to frame this:

Have I mentioned how awesome it is to have Doug and Julie back?  And how I am totally astonished that Bill Hayes is 82 years old?

This was all just spectacular soapiness.  You knew it was really getting good when Kristian Alfonso busted out The Eyebrow.

She rocks.  Anyway, welcome back Lexie/Nell:

We've missed you.  Well, that's not true, I didn't really miss you at all, and I imagine all the people concerned about maintaining some level of quality control in the provision of medical services in Salem didn't miss you either, but you're back.  And you're a freakish, possibly brainwashed, hissing and grunting fool.  Which is, let's face it, an improvement for you.

 

Next there's the age-old story of a toddler, surviving being thrown off a cruise ship by her parents who don't remember having the sex that resulted in her, surviving a near-fatal finger infection and then getting lost in the ocean in the midst of a typhoon, plucked from the waters by a fishing boat and then kidnapped in order to compete as a transgendered contestant in a creepy children’s beauty pageant.

I have actually been enjoying these last few episodes, which if you know my position on Shawn and Belle you can understand is a huge step forward for me.  I think the biggest change has been that Belle has developed a backbone, culminating in her yelling at full volume "you baby-stealing BITCH!!!"  That was awesome. General Hospital is doing a babynapping storyline right now, but do you think I'll get the satisfaction of a line like that?  I predict I will not.  It helps that the "heroes" in the Clairenapping are actually her parents and a semi-crazy dude who still thinks he's one of her parents, instead of a hitman. 

Next is the age-old story of a guy encouraging another guy to bang the first guy's sister like a screen door in a hurricane. 

Shawn egging Nick on to have sex with Chelsea, Shawn's SISTER, was seriously disturbing.  The guys I know with sisters don't even want to acknowledge that the sisters have sexual organs, let alone what they might use them for or with whom.  Even the idea of sitting around a pub, throwing back a couple of beers, listening to a dude talk about wanting to do the deed with your sister would probably cause most of them to want to jump off a building.

And finally, the age-old story of a one-eyed guy who died but not really because he was held hostage and brainwashed and then accidentally stumbled upon his family thanks to his brother who had died four times and then found out that his teenaged daughter was a race car driver turned flight attendant who is dating a guy so cartoonishly sleazy that if he were dating Paris Hilton you would think she deserved better, taking sage advice from his sister who has four invisible children.

I loved Adrienne schooling Steve about how to deal with the Jeremy situation, especially her Kayla impression.

And I loved that Steve was both amused, and paying attention.

Those two play so well off each other, and it's so nice to see the show remembering the relationship that they had 20 years ago, but changing the dynamic a bit to keep it interesting.

Of course, my favorite line of the week came from Adrienne:  "The kid really is an ass."  No shit.

As you've probably gathered, I cannot adequately put into words how much I hate Jeremy Horton.  Or should that be "Horton," since THIS IS NOT MIKE HORTON'S SON.  He's just so...grody. I had to reach back into my middle school vocabulary to find the appropriate adjective.  There are lots of nouns, though, but you know we like to keep it clean around here. 

Things Jeremy did to further my hate this week included:

• smarmily told the pizza delivery guy that he was late getting to the door because he was having sex (I want the pizza guy on contract, though, because his sardonic “congratulations” was fantastic.)
• smarmily referred to sex as “a ride in Jeremy-land”
• smarmily referred to his girlfriend’s father, who has just walked in on his smarmy ass half-naked with said girlfriend, as “man” and the girlfriend as “sweet cheeks”
• was not the recipient of a beat-down after this:

Stephanie:  …you wouldn’t even shake his hand.
Steve: The dude had no pants!  [Ed. note:  Hee!]
Jeremy (smarmily):  Do I meet your dress code now?
Steve: Let’s go.

or this:

Jeremy (smarmily): It wouldn’t be a fair fight.  ‘Course, I could wear an eye patch, then maybe you’d have a prayer.

Not that I think Stephanie deserves better.  I hate her too.  “My point is I make my own decisions.  And I’ve decided not to be like mom.  I’m having sex.  And plenty of it.”  What does this even mean?  Kayla had plenty of sex.  She isn't Jennifer or Belle, for heaven's sake.  (BTW, SoapCentral says she had a relationship with Mike Horton, Jeremy's alleged father.  Quelle horreur.  Someone please remind me of what that was about?)

I'm all about bad girls and bad boys on soaps, but I hope the Days writers remember that the villains have to have redeeming characteristics in order to keep viewers interested.  Jeremy does not appear to have a single one.  "Does not participate in human trafficking" is not enough.  And frankly, given his personality and that he has access to an airplane, I wouldn't even rule that out.

Comments

[lascuba]

I hate Jeremy and Stephanie - Jeremy is disgusting, and Stephanie is an annoying twit. I have no problem with her being skanky and bitchy, but she has no redeeming qualities. She doesn't even get any funny, snarky one-liners.

As for the Kayla/Mike thing, I don't think they ever dated on screen. They would mention having dated in high school, but that's it.

[Celine]

Bill Hayes is 82?! Does he store himself in a cryogenic chamber in his off time?

Great recap, as always. I missed part of the shows this week (as usual), but this is better, anyway. :)

[ElementaryDays]

No fucking way Bill Hayes is 82!! I don't believe you.

I agree that KA rocks. She could be a superhero with that brow.

For someone who had never really found SN that physically attractive, other than his awesomeness as Steve, I keep growling the more I see him in past and present scenes. That screencap is delic. It's so nice to grow up and discover the sexy.

[LooseLips]

Most recently, I have little been cracking up out loud when reading your posts. And making fun of Jeremy was no exception. Amazing point of view! LOL.

[Megan Q]

This site is hilarious!! I haven't watched Days in forever but I did catch part of one days episode. Belle grew a backbone WOW didn't think that was possible!!

Bill Hayes is 82 what the hell seriously???

[esp13]

IIRC, Mike and Kayla dated sometime between high school and when she dated Chris before she left town. I don't think it was ever portrayed as anything all that serious, but it was referred to a few times in the late 80's.

Jeremy's a complete tool and a waste of space, but I did love the scenes with Steve last week. "Pants on partyboy" was my favorite line of the week.

[Evil But Twinless]

esp13, now I remember those Kayla/Mike mentions! Since the writers don't seem to realize that Stephanie and Jeremy are an inch away from being related, I doubt they remember their parents dated.

ElementaryDays, I swear it's true, he was born in 1925 according to IMDB. Unreal. As far as Stephen Nichols, I've never really found him hot, even back in the 80s (he's quite a bit older than I am), but my god, he has taken excellent care of himself. I mean, 56?! That's on par with Bill Hayes being 82.

[Michaela]

Okay, wait just a minute. Days gets a cat hybrid hissing woman AND some dude on a horse in a house AND Drake Hoosiewhatsis' Smell the Fart Eyebrow of Everything and I, a GH watcher from way back, get a robotic brain damaged hit man with a secret box of man pain and a mumbling breast-saddled aging mobster who once spent a week's worth of episodes debating whether or not to take a pill? I cry FOUL, Soap Gods! Foul, I say!!! ::::shaking vengeful soapy fist to the sky:::

[ElementaryDays]

But it just can't beeee, Evil But Twinless. It's not natural.

From a 10/11 year old perspective, Stephen Nichols was not my usual pretty-boy cup of tea, but what attacted me to him later on, and especially now, was Steve's vulnerability. Those tortured and effed up guys are magnets for therapy needing chicks like me. Plus, the dude has been taking his vitamins and looks sexalicious.

[JD]

I would just like to comment on the always predictable who's the daddy storyline. Like seriously, we have known like forever that Sami is pregnant and as usual for DAYS the test are going to be altered. Like it is seriously their signature move.

ii think hope on days please leave salem for good because you are so bad on the show and stay away from john black aka drake hogestyn.