Days of our Lives Weekly Blog

Poor Justin doesn't have a chance. (Soaps.com)

These are the “Days” of my week for January 18-22:

What a week. Overall things have become a bit contrived, and there were too many flashbacks for my taste, but it had some fun moments and some eye openers. I’ve enjoyed the pairing of certain characters who are thrown together to provide optimum amusement. This week I spoke with Taylor Sprietler, who plays Mia, and she joins me in giving some insight into what Mia’s feeling right now. Let’s delve in and discuss.

My interest wanes when things become too manufactured. For the past week, I’ve been a little annoyed by this. There were far too many flashbacks of Carly giving birth to Melanie in one single episode that made it appear a little over the top. In fact, the drama between Melanie and Carly is way over the top. The storyline, much like the breakup of Bope, has no rhyme or reason to it. There are holes in each storyline and no way to fill them. The secret’s about to come out, as we can see, knowing the women of Salem can’t keep a secret. Carly’s run in with Vivian and Melanie at Java allowed Vivi to figure out quite quickly that Mia’s likely not her gal, thus rushing the storyline at warp speed. In one episode there were about a hundred and fifty flashbacks of Carly giving birth to Melanie. Overkill. Though I felt for Carly, after watching what Lawrence did to her at the hospital while she gave birth, I couldn’t help but find fault in the storyline. What doctor or nurse would have allowed Lawrence to force Carly into giving birth without drugs? Why didn’t Carly demand them from the doctor and give the child to the nurse to hold? So many questions I need in order to care more about Carly and invest in this storyline. It’s as though the writers simply chose this storyline so Carly could be thrown into Bope’s marriage as a catalyst to their marital demise. Otherwise, I’m not sure where this is going. Neither is poor Justin, who is in love with Hope. How sad is that? I really felt for him this week. His sensitivity to her pain really made him come off as a man tortured in love. Well done. What isn’t well done is how Hope is written as completely thick. Lucky for her, Julie, her step-mother/half-sister has a crumb of sense and told her to fight for her man. But alas, Hope still hasn’t clued in that Bo is as good as men get in Salem. Hope says he was her hero who fell from grace. Maybe Hope should grow up and stop putting men on pedestals, because this practice only results in heartache. And furthermore, didn’t he fall off that pedestal when he got into bed with Billie? Bo’s no saint and in reality, relationships take work. I thought Hope already knew that but the writers have changed her character so drastically, I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if she fell to the all time low of believing in horoscopes or fortune cookies.

Melanie went back to her bratty roots this week and treated Carly and Bo Tuesday with the utmost disrespect. They did nothing about it. The animosity Melanie feels for Carly has been blown out of proportion and Melanie’s not a little girl, so why write her as such? It makes no sense why she’d care about who Bo does in his spare time. Mel doesn’t even know Bo or Hope that well and she keeps insisting how she detests Carly, so what gives? Why tell Carly, a virtual stranger that she hates, all about her father pimping her out, unless she felt some connection to Carly? And isn’t showing a sudden connection forced? Melanie, as she pointed out to Philly, doesn’t discuss her personal issues with just anybody. The story’s moving so fast it’s missing vital information. The only good part about this entire storyline is that the acting is good. Though, somebody please give Carly some decent dialogue. When Melanie asks why she’s staring at her, couldn’t she at least throw her a “You remind me of someone.” Or perhaps… “I wasn’t staring at you, I was thinking about something else.” Or even… “I’m sorry. I was thinking and just staring into space. I do that.” Anything, please. The staring with that glazed look – lack of expression all the time, doesn’t make for a good scene.

On the other hand, I did enjoy the last scenes Friday, watching Carly rant to Bo about Vivian and seeing Melanie fume to Philly about Carly, though I’m enjoying Mel and Vivi’s scenes far more, even knowing evil Vivian will likely attempt to off Mel once she learns what she suspects is true, that Mel’s Carly’s daughter, not our sweet mopey Mia. It would be fun if Vivian and Victor did go with Mel and Philly on their honeymoon on the yacht. It could be fun to have Vivi trying in vain to kill Mel, and Carly sneaking on the yacht to stop her. Anything would be more fun than watching poor Stephanie Johnson, a smart, pretty girl from a decent family go after a man who ‘just isn’t that into her’. At least she’s not whining anymore but surely there are other men out there other than Dr. Horton. Well, maybe not. I’ve only seen Philly and Nate. But Max is returning… never mind. We don’t want to go there again. What about Nathan and how he feels about all of this? He knows he is into Mel so he shouldn’t be stringing Steph along.

EJ, Rafe and Sami:

Speaking of stringing along...The kidnapping storyline is twisting and turning and never-ending. It’ll move right into February sweeps. How unfortunate, considering I’d love to move on. We know EJ orchestrated the whole kidnapping, right down to the minor details. We know why. To punish Nicole and make Samanther pay. We also know Rafe’s supposed to be this bloody good FBI agent, who had Sami the volcano followed. Wouldn’t he have also had EJ followed? I’m wondering if Rafe knows more than he’s letting on. If not now, he will, right? Right? I can’t forget that EJ, while he’s trying to make blondie and Rafael pay, must also have those warm fuzzies still, for Samanther, deep down. That’s how the DiMera men work. Well, Stefano and EJ, anyway. I think EJ’s plan is to keep Syd from her and split up Safe in order to make her suffer as much as he has. Then maybe he’ll realize that she’s not a horrid wicked witch he paints her as, but really just a sullen child trying to ensure her kid isn’t brought up the DiMera way. If he took himself out of the situation or if he had somebody like Tony to talk to, he might figure that out. I don’t care who she ends up with but it’s going to be a rocky road with Rafe coming up. Sami played right into EJ’s hands when she blamed Rafe for handling the kidnapping badly. Well done, EJ. Poor Sami. She must be exhausted because she’s losing it in her willingness to fall for evil EJ’s plotting instead of realizing what he’s really doing to her. Anna pointed out that she was never that smart. Though that made me laugh aloud, Sami’s not stupid and Anna’s not one to talk. Speaking of Auntie Anna, I do love her, but her scenes with EJ again are just too forced. He is visiting his daughter and nobody’s following him, not even Stefano? Rafe? He doesn’t tell Anna when the jig is up, doesn’t want to tell her anything, and all she does is ask questions. It’s obvious and tedious.

All of this talk of Sydney reminds me of Mia’s scene with Grace’s grave. Poor Grace. Her headstone has been replaced three times now. Her birth certificate reads Grace Rafael Brady, but her name was changed to Grace Rafael DiMera by EJ, and now it reads ‘Grace McCormick Woods’. Good attention to detail. Shame it reminds me of how annoyed I was with that baby storyline.

Kate did what Kate does this week and did some sleuthing at Maggie's place in order to find ways to bond with Melanie. Maggie saw right through her and gave nothing away, instead showing us a side of Maggie I didn't know existed. Love. It.

I've got to touch base on the teen scene. Did you love Jan Spears... er... Kinsey’s little jabs to Gabi at Java? She’s so much fun, like her predecessor. Here's what Taylor Sprietler (Mia) had to say about Kinsey. "Kinsey-Wow, she is just something else! I think Kinsey's snarcastic comments used to really bother Mia but now after all she has been through she just sees her as an annoyance more than anything else!" Kinsey may not be your favourite character, but you have to admit she's no snore! In fact, the teen scene isn't right now, either. It intrigues me right now. I’m hoping we’ll see them all at the Olympics as long as they've got more to do than having Chad try to get into Gabi’s fugly prom dress. (Did you see the girls’ dresses at the winter dance? Ugh!) I’d like some mystery thrown in for good measure. Course, I’d like to see Jarlena return, but I doubt if that’ll happen. A girl can dream.

Last week we touched on Mia and how she's got two boys on the mind these days. I figured you might like some insight from Mia's portrayer, Taylor Sprietler, about what Mia's thinking concerning her love triangle. "She has strong feelings for both! I think she will always have feelings for Chad because they shared so much and he was her first. When Chad was being really mean to her during the baby stuff she seemed to put up a wall where he was concerned. Now that he has softened up to her again that wall is slowly crumbling and all those old feelings are coming back. She also doesn't like Gabby getting attention from him - it's making her very jealous! She wants to keep Gabby far away from Chad. And then there is Will who has been so sweet and always ends up forgiving her for stuff she does. She doesn't want to lose either one of them so she is playing them both with Gabby caught in the middle!"

Two things worth mentioning about Bo this week. First, each of Bo’s scenes start with him on the phone to Salem PD. It’s like clockwork. Watch for it. The second is that Bo asked Daniel to keep an eye out for Carly. Signs still point out that Daniel could be Mel’s daddy. Chloe’s run in with Philly gave us indication that she’s far from over being barren and since she and Daniel are happy, and this is a soap, I assume we’re about to see a monkey wrench thrown into their happiness.

I hesitate to even cover Ari’s busy week, as pointless as it all was. First, Bradianna seem to be doing well this week. Brady’s insisting to Chloe that he’s over Nicole, but I don’t believe him. Ari’s undercover drug op is finished. I’m not sure how to feel about this. It was going nowhere anyway but I thought the whole point of the operation was to flush out EJ and the writing screamed that it was leaning towards EJ getting between Ari and Brady. No such luck. Instead, the op was over, Ari’s cover was blown when Troy realized she was a narc. I liked how he directed this toward EJ, but doubt if anybody at Salem PD was wise to it. So what’ll happen now? Was there a point to all of this that I somehow missed? Will EJ still go after Ari’s lucky charms? At least we know Ari’s not going to head back to prison, though I thought a few scenes in the slammer with Nicole could be fun.

You know what else could be fun? Having two days off. I wish you all adieu and hope your weekend will be as full and fun as I’ve planned mine to be. Before you head out, please feel free to leave a comment about how you saw things go down this week on the show.

- Christine