Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children?

Days Drama Beat

Nicole tells EJ she's noticed all the noise coming from the basement.  After dancing around it for just enough time to take us to a commercial break, she tells EJ that the jig is up.

When Days returns, leaving me thankful that I didn't injure my knees too badly when I landed on them after tumbling off the edge of my seat, Nicole explains to EJ that she knows what's actually happening in the basement.  He's having a rubber room built for Johnny so at least when the poor kid keeps running into the wall because the one eye he has left can't see past that gigantic costume eyepatch he's wearing, he won't bruise any internal organs. 

Okay, not exactly. 

The point is that she thinks it's some sort of playroom for Johnny and we're supposed to believe that EJ was keeping that a secret from her for some reason.  Oh, wait.  I lied.  The real point is that Days just wasted a bunch of my time.

The Difference between "post-partum depression" and "I got knocked up by my step son-in-law" depression

There is one.

Philip finds Chloe at the Cheatin' Heart baby-free and on the sauce.

He points out to her that it's probably not a good idea to be drinking while she's nursing.  Chloe snips at him that Parker, much like his mother, is now "on the bottle".

Completely out of character and inconsistent with the past few months (surprise, surprise), Philip starts treating Chloe like...well...like someone who didn't say just a few months ago that no matter what happened, he would emotionally support her and her baby like any good friend would.

"Pfft.  I can't believe you named him after the mother of a guy who wants nothing to do with him.  Or you.  I mean (eye roll) Parker Daniel Jonas?"

Um...yeah.

Melanie hurts Kate's feelings

Kate gives Melanie a small, ornate music box that Philip used to love listening to when he was an itty-bitty.  Melanie unenthusiastically examines it.

"So it's got a magic potion inside it, right?  So that when I wind it up it'll start controlling my thoughts?"

Kate looks stricken, and frankly I got a little lump in my throat.  It's different from the lump I'm going to have in my throat in about one minute.

On the off-chance you've forgotten...

...Sami and Rafe are in love.

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love YOU."

"No, I love YOU."

Taylor:  Twenty seconds in and I'm already unimpressed

We don't actually see Taylor in this episode.  What we see are her hands holding various objects while she talks to herself.  In the first scene, she's just discovering she's completely broke when she goes to purchase a ticket to Salem (if you just draw a pentagram on the floor and sprinkle goat's blood around it the ground will split and take you there for free, but whatever) and her credit card is declined.

From the kitchen Alex commented that he hated those corny public service announcements about online credit card fraud.  I have nothing else to add to that.

In case you've forgotten, Jen has Dr. Ben's keys

To make one hundred percent certain that we know Jen has Ben's (oh, lordy) keys, she waggles them around a few times and tells us a little story about them.  Then Nancy Drew lets us know, again, that she thought he was a nice guy before she and her traffic cone coat shuffle off to do some more super sleuthing.

Maggie shows up to let Chloe know her baby is starving

Maggie has to remind Chloe that Parker does not go into suspended animation

whenever she takes her eyes off him. 

"You only left me one bottle.  You were supposed to pick him up over an hour ago."

Once again Days has me confused.  Who am I supposed to be feeling sorriest for here? 

a) Chloe for being dumped and shipped off to a one-bedroom apartment in Homewrecker Hills. 

b)  Philip for worrying that his son is being raised by a self-absorbed, moronic sad-sack. 

c)  Maggie for having to wear that ridiculous Super Fly coat. 

d)  Parker for having absolutely no idea what he's in for.

I'm gonna have to go with me here.

Jennifer vs. a locked filing cabinet

Jen is reeling after finding out that medical records are in a locked filing cabinet.  Shit!  What now?

Jennifer looks to her left and sees a drawer.  Thrill as Jennifer opens the drawer!  Marvel as she deftly rummages through the drawer with the nimble fingers of something that has nimble fingers!

The folders are blue

Oy vey.

"What is she doing here?"

The second Nicole enters the room, Sami's post-coitus glow drains from her body and starts coming out straight through her eyes like lasers aimed at Ms. Soon-to-be-Walker-DiMera-DiMera's forehead.

Remember all that stuff where Sami thanked Nicole for saving Johnny's life?  Yeah, me neither. Oh, hey - what about when Rafe told Nicole that he could see that Nicole really loved the kids? Drawing a blank again, right?  Me too.

Jennifer vs. Her Average Hearing

Jennifer tries to eavesdrop on a conversation between Warden Jane and Lee, who are the only two people in Salem with the sense to whisper their misdeeds.

"Come on, ladies!  Don't whisper!  It's not fair!"

For the love of all that is soapy, WHERE IS JACK?!

Everyone in Salem knows everyone else's phone number

Because Chloe's cellphone was off, Maggie had to locate her by "calling places" until she got a hold of Adrienne, who let her know Mrs. Lane-Black-Horton-Jonas was slowly numbing herself with vino at The Cheatin' Heart.

Philip is abhorred.  So is that extra in the background.

It would have been faster if Maggie had just shuffled the kid around to each of the only five places in Salem.  that wouldn't have taken more than four minutes and there was a good chance Parker would have fallen asleep somewhere along the way.

At the very least, we know Taylor can count

I held my breath watching Taylor slowly counting her money to see if she had enough bus fare to get to Salem.

I held my breath for about a minute and a half and still couldn't pass out.

Sami calls Nicole "The Salem Slut"

Really, Sami?

  

EJ explains that the terms of the custody agreement - that Nicole would get the children if something was to happen to him - is a sort of life insurance that he is confident will guarantee that he lives to "a ripe old age".

Sami nods across the table at Nicole. 

"Maybe.  But not her."

Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen!

Who doesn't love that she and EJ are both wearing grey while Rafe and Nicole are both in blue?  Given that they're sitting directly across from eachother in their finest monochromatic finery, I'd like to think it was some sort of visual strategy to show that EJ and Sami are mirror images of one another, but who are we kidding?  The stylists were probably just thinking, "Well, they can't all be in blue.  What's the next closest colour to blue?"

Jennifer vs. a public space

Jennifer reels in horror when Ben runs into her at the Brady Pub, the only place we've seen these two people together since they met at the hospital.

Shoot me.

Congratulations, Maggie:  It's a girl!

Chloe feels bad about yelling at Caroline.

"Well, she meddled in something that was none of her business."

Amen, sistah.

After their little chat, Maggie offers to take Chloe and Parker back to their apartment.  Chloe tells Maggie she doesn't want to go back there (probably because Days can't afford a "there"), putting Maggie in the very awkward and soapy position of having to offer Chloe and Parker a room at the Mickey Horton Memorial Halfway House.

"Chloe, you have an infant to take care of, and his needs come first."

"But what about ME?!"  Chloe wails.  "I feel like I don't exist anymore!"

Now it all makes sense.  When Chloe isn't thinking about herself for even a moment, she immediately goes into panic-mode, believing that the earth will tilt and she'll slide off its surface into cold, dark space.  I'm sure there's a name for that.

Taylor knows how to use a cellphone

She's touching each number on the keypad so slowly and methodically that it's like watching a Sesame Street muppet trying to teach me how to use a cellphone.  Which would explain all the blue.

Speaking of...

The custody agreement is blue

...yeah.

 

 

Would I watch the episode?

 

Well, seeing as how this episode aired in the U.S. yesterday, you've probably already watched it.  This afternoon/evening I'll be doing two commentaries to get myself back up to speed.  My PVR rejected the January 26th day ahead like Hemingway's body would have rejected a clean liver.  It must know something I don't.

 

Anyways, if you haven't watched this episode, you didn't miss a helluva lot.  Actually, you didn't even miss a helluva little.  The EJ/Sami custody stuff was pretty good, but it's just more of the same, isn't it?  Sami calls Nicole a bunch of names.  EJ rolls his eyes and checks his watch until it's time for him to pry one woman off the other.  La la la.   I'm trying to figure out what Sami's logic was here.  She doesn't sign the custody agreement despite Rafe telling her it's a good deal.  So rather than share her children with Nicole, Sami has made the decision to...give her children to Nicole.  She's got this Solomon thing all backwards.  Okay, fine.  Whatever. 

 

The whole "Taylor thing" 

 

Taylor.  Okay, here's the deal - I have no problem with Natalia Livingston.  I feel like I need to make that clear.  I make fun of these characters because...well...they're screaming for it.

 

I'm suspecting that Days didn't want to take the time to chem-test NL with anyone before laying this whole "love-struck" thing on us, possibly to hit another one of those plot-points the writers seem to be so fond of.  It doesn't make a lick of sense to take a new character (she might as well be, anyways) and stick her on the frontlines in a romantic pairing with a character who's been on the show for a few years and already has fanbases for two other pairings (Ejami, Ejole).  There's no reason for it.  Rumour has it there will be some sort of EJ/Taylor/Brady triangle, which ends up kicking yet another fanbase in the teeth.  While I'm mostly indifferent to NL as an actress, I don't think it's fair to her or to her fans to be thrown to the lions that way. 

 

I would have liked to have seen Taylor introduced into the fold slowly, chem-tested with a few eligible Salemites, then given a slow-simmering romance the viewers could actually savour with whomever she made that soapy love-match with.  Instead everything's been rushed, which is a huge problem with Days right now.  Relationships begin and end so quickly that we aren't given the chance to decide who's right for who.  Engagements and weddings happen so often now that they're no longer soap opera events.  I'm not talking Luke and Laura, because those days are long gone now.  But I'd like to be able to look forward to a wedding on this show for once without a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, or a big WTF?! stretching the confines of the thought balloon hovering above my head.

 

Frankly, now that Melanie is in generation limbo with the great Days exodus of 2011, I would be thinking about having Taylor fill one of those now-vacant spaces.  Given that she's Nicole's younger sister, it would make sense.  Melanie desperately needs a friend (or rival) close to her age, but because Taylor is entering the scene already locked into the whole EJ/Nicole/Rafe/Sami mess, she's sort of screwed now.  Days likes to group its characters and organize them into little plastic bubbles. They dwell in these bubbles with very little overlap until they're seconds away from suffocating in a crummy, stretched-to-sagging storyline, then they're released and given a few minutes to stretch their legs and catch their breath before they're stuffed back in for another round.

 

I'll be watching through the spaces between the fingers covering my eyes.