Days of Our Lives: The Aftermath

Recap time! Just for context, I've only been watching this show for just over a week so I have no idea what I'm talking about. I've been getting some background info from some very helpful folks on Twitter whenever I'm watching (come play! @SerialDrama) but otherwise my entire frame of reference is just my very occasional visits over the years and general awareness from soap magazines and the like. 

Here we go! 

Will is hanging out alone and having flashbacks to Sonny and Sami trying to explain who he is. This involves grimacing.

Sami spent the night in jail and is very grumpy about it. It's because she punched Susan, which was awesome. The attending cop finds her whole story pretty hilarious. Marlena shows up.

Paul is sitting at the bar where Will works, which has literally never had a customer but apparently has no problem with people in emotional crisis hanging out there and never ordering a damn drink. He leaves a voicemail for Will. Paul is sad, and John shows up to hug him.

Will asks Susan if she's really his mother.

Marlena is delighted to learn that Sami punched Susan. Sami mentions that Paul knew Will was alive and didn't tell anyone, but I feel like I need to point out to her that he only knew for sure for one whole day and under the Soap Code of Ethics keeping a secret for only a day is practically a qualification for sainthood. (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we all know who the only true soap saint is, Praise Jaysus.) John is congratulating Paul for coming forward with the truth, but Paul thinks he should be ashamed. (Paul is a long-lost-heretofore-unknown-son of John, right?)

When Susan shows Will the (very minor) black eye Sami gave her, he accepts her insistence that he's not Will. But he wants to go out and prove that he's really EJ. 

Eli is at the crime scene where JJ shot Theo (thank goodness someone's finally doing some police work around there!). Gabi delivers some expositional dialogue explaining exactly that. Rafe shows up looking for Hope, and these scenes are way too short.

Adrienne asks Sonny how Paul is handling this, and he says that he doesn't know and doesn't care, which doesn't seem very nice!

Paul tells his dad that he'd kept the whole "Will is alive" secret and how he can never forgive himself, while Sami fills Marlena in on the whole madness with Will thinking he's EJ. Will confronts Susan about why there's no computers in the house, which she insists is because computers aren't good for "growing boys' brains" and I'm wondering how old Will thinks he is. He's very young looking, but this is pushing it!

Sonny tells his mother about how Paul kept the Will secret, while Paul tries to explain his reasoning to his dad. (Today's theme seems to be "everyone checks in with their parents.") 

Rafe tells Gabi that Will is alive, and she's delighted. I don't have the slightest idea what either of their relationships are to Will, there's so many damn people on this show!

Marlena asks how Will could possibly believe that he's EJ, making Sami his ex-wife, and Sami again goes through the hilarious litany of why Will can't possibly be EJ: it's because EJ is British and tall and straight and dead. I always feel like the loved ones in these soap back-from-the-dead stories don't take enough time to bask in the ACTUALLY REALLY MIRACULOUSLY GOOD NEWS that the person is alive because they're so immediately outraged about amnesia and solving problems. Sami! Take a moment! Breathe a little! Your dead son isn't dead! Speaking of her dead son, Susan is showing him a bunch of "proof" of his EJ-esque childhood. The reason he can't see the date on his birth certificate is because he was a very messy kid with bananas and eggs!

That sounds like a very real thing, since most parents let their children play with their birth certificates while eating! I've rarely had a dinner without the whole family's birth certificates on the table! Isn't that what they're for?

Marlena explains that she and Sami got past her affair with John, so Sami and Will can get past this, which doesn't make the slightest bit of sense as they are possibly the world's least comparable situations? 

Susan tells Will all these people are scamming him because they want to get their hands on the DiMera fortune which.... Susan and Will don't exactly look like they're living large?

Paul: Will's lapse in judgement might be the thing that pushes Sonny back into Will's arms!

I legitimately have no idea what he means by that.

Sonny doesn't understand why Paul is being insecure since he and Will were separated when Will "died." But then he says he has to make Will remember who he is and what they had together, so gee, I wonder why Paul is insecure!

Okay, so I guess Gabi is Will's ex and the mother of his child? Rafe explains the whole amnesia/EJ sitch which Gabi responds to the correct way, which is to be concerned but moreover VERY HAPPY THAT HE'S NOT ACTUALLY DEAD.

John tells Paul that if he's competitive as he knows he is, he won't stop fighting for Sonny, which seems like a weird motivation? Don't fight because you love him, fight because you love a good competition! Meanwhile, Marlena assures Sami that Will will remember that she's the one who loved him the most. The cop comes in to tell Sami's she's being released.

Susan has a "premonition" that Sami's going to come and take Will away, so they need to run away "just you and me" and for some reason he does not respond, "Woman, you are the world's most annoying lunatic, why would I want to go anywhere with just you?"

Gabi is concerned about how it would make Arianna feel if her dad doesn't remember her. I have no idea how old Arianna is, but it honestly seems like she should barely be old enough to remember him at all?

Sonny remembers that it's Will's birthday. He tells Adrienne a story about one birthday where they went to Chicago and the fancy restaurant didn't have their reservation and they ended up having more fun eating tacos in the park than they would have at that "stuffy restaurant" (how does he know?) and all I can think about is: YOU ATE OUTSIDE IN CHICAGO IN LATE NOVEMBER??? THAT'S VERY, VERY COLD! Adrienne advises him to follow his heart. 

Marlena wants to try to talk to Will, but Sami doesn't want her to do that because she wants to be the one to get through to him. Why does it matter who does it? I have no idea.

I'm not a mother but I feel like I'd be all "whatever it takes!"

Will agrees to leave town with Susan. She wants to go somewhere in South America. I guess amnesia also made Will very, very dumb.

Eli asks Gabi about how she happened to end up with a gay boyfriend/babydaddy, and I learn that she had Arianna in high school. So maybe she's not that young? I have no idea.

Sonny goes to the bar where nobody drinks to see Paul.

Marlena tells John she's worried that Sami might lose Will forever "this time" if she alienates him. She already lost him forever! Anyway, Sami shows up at Susan's place and does manage to catch her and Will before they leave. Cliffhanger!

Comments

[C]

DOOL has never been my soap (I was always an ABC soap viewer) and I certainly don't ship them the way I did Kyle/Fish, but I have been keeping an eye on the Will/Sonny/Paul of it all and it's really cool seeing some classic soap tropes - someone being Back From The Dead, a loved one having amnesia, someone lying about a romantic rival, etc. - playing out with gay characters.

I'm with you that I think Sonny's anger is a bit outsized. The lie lasted less than 24 hours. I get Sami not caring if the lie lasted 5 seconds, but it's a little off for Sonny.

And Louise, do you know the whole backstory on Will having cheated on Sonny WITH Paul, with them each not realizing that Will was Sonny's husband and Paul was Sonny's closeted boyfriend from back in the day?

[Louise]

C, no, I didn't know that! I'm going to have to do some googling or something.

I know what you mean about the triangle and all the standard soapy stuff for gay characters, it makes my queermo heart soar. In the wake of the news that Y&R is ditching their story completely and the reality that GH hides its gays and B&B ignores its trans character completely, Days is a breath of fresh air.

I hate to say it but I do kiiiiiind of find Sonny and Will to both be a little bland. Paul is my favorite of the actors in that trio, he's got a little something else going on. Nothing will ever match Kyle and Fish, though. Kyle in particular was so spectacularly UNbland. (Why isn't Brett Claywell acting anymore??)

[marz]

Gabi got pregnant while they were all in college. It was a one night stand, because Will was fighting his attraction to Sonny.

[Louise]

Wait, really? Why did she say it was high school then? I'm so confused.

[C]

Yeah, it's too bad Brett Claywell's not really acting anymore. I think, via his Instagram because I live a full and rich life, that he's doing some kind of BTS producing/charity thing now? Scott Evans does pop up from time to time, he was on "Daytime Divas" for a few episodes over the summer. I really wanted him to get cast as Steven Carrington on the new "Dynasty", not gonna lie.

ANYWAY, yeah, because I'm not rooting for any of the particular pairings in this Will/Sonny/Paul story, it's kinda fun to just kick back and see these gay characters play out these soap tropes. I was actually kinda bummed amnesia Will didn't have a boyfriend, another classic soap trope, and it would have made things even messier.

[Michael McNamara]

Yeah, I'm a childhood Days fan who had my first boyfriend by the time Will was born and I still pinch myself that all of this is happening with gay characters.

[stlbf]

Ari should be 4ish. She really shouldn't have any real memories of her father.

I may actually have to go back to watching Days. Rather than just staying informed via recaps/clips. In the 90s, my then young nieces were obsessed. Thanks to me, people were treated to them acting out entire Sami/Austin/Carrie scenes. They were 4+.

[Michael]

Oh dear. We've been spammed. Heavily. (But some of them are pretty amusing. "Replacing actor Roark Critchlow"? Ummmm . . . I think that ship sailed like 15 years ago or more, didn't it?)

[Louise]

I did some deleting. Wow! But at least now we know that The Situation is now starring on every soap.

[Judy]

I'm late to this party, but I can fill you in somewhat on the Gabi/Will backstory. Will and Gabi were best friends in high school and had a one-night stand when he was in denial about being gay. Gabi was about to marry Nick and was passing off her baby as his, even though they all knew it was Will's from that one-night stand before he came out. I think Nick was some also-ran DiMera but I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, Will decided to claim the baby at the wedding, because of course. Months go by, she has the baby, I think she eventually does marry Nick but then he goes evil or they find out he did something evil and she, Sami, and Kate "kill" him. Gabi ends up doing time for it until Nick shows up alive. Meanwhile, Will and Sonny get together and raise Arianna while Gabi is in prison. I think she was 18 or 19 when Ari was born.

Will then gets murdered by Ben, Abby's psycho jealous boyfriend. He wasn't this Will but a new, much blander Will. This guy, Chandler Massey, can actually act so I promise he's better than the replacement guy who got murdered and cheated with Paul.

I only started watching again around the time OLTL was canceled so Ari was born at most five years ago. I think four is about right as someone commented above. So Gabi might say high school because maybe they are SORASing Ari. That's all I got, hope you still needed to know all this, lol.