Nicole: Never Fucking Ever Land

Nicole has been one of my favourite characters for some time now, and I have to say I'm really unhappy with what's been done to her over the past couple of years.  The EJ/Nicole sex yesterday pushed me over the edge.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Nicole was once a force to be reckoned with. I mean what's not to love? Funny, clever, sharp-tongued (and often fork-tongued), tough as nails on the outside but with an ooey-gooey centre, that, unfortunately, has been dipped into a few too many times (particularly over the past few months).  Nicole is my lady-crush.

Nicole, much like EJ, hasn't been allowed to grow up.  She's stuck in Never Fucking Ever Land.  The only suspense left in her story these days is whether or not she's going to escape the endless cycle of meaningless sex, get over her obsession with Sydney, or go two weeks without blackmailing anyone, being called a whore or having her porny past thrown up in her face.




I'll be honest with you - I find the fact that Nicole still has frequent run-ins with her past as a pornstar pretty damn offensive.  She was forced into it by her father, making it abuse.  Why is it alright for other characters to continue rubbing it in her face?  It's on par with someone ridiculing any other victim of child abuse.  I'm also of the mind that it wouldn't even matter whether Nicole was forced into it or went into it of her own free will.  It's her past.  Why isn't she allowed to crawl out from under its shadow after so many years? 

The powers that be seem determined to make us forget stuff that happened just last week, so why can't they ease up on the whore jokes?

I'm starting to think Dena Higley just hates women, and I make no apologies for saying that.  The women on Days are treated so badly.  Nicole seems to be getting the brunt of it with pitchforks and torches following her everywhere she goes.

I can't tell you how prematurely excited I was (will I never learn?) when she and Brady finally got together. Brady took some time to come around, but he loves Nicole in much the same way that EJ loves Sami (I use the present tense in an attempt to stick it to the man...or woman).  He doesn't want to change the core of who Nicole is and what makes her tick. My shrivelled heart grew three sizes the day she got all teary-eyed telling Brady EJ was forcing her to drop him and his grief beard like a sack of dirt in exchange for seeing Sydney, and Brady firmly told her there was no way he was going to let her go.  Not two months later Nicole is once again sleeping with EJ and it makes. no. fucking. sense.

Surprise, surprise.

I'm starting to think Dena Higley doesn't write at all.  She just whips darts at a calendar that have little slips of paper attached to them with things like "sex", "wedding", and "pregnancy" printed on them.

"Monday?  Sex. Who's on set that day?  James and Ari, huh?  Sure. Why the hell not."

I was rather bemused that the "love" scenes between EJ and Nicole were interspersed with scenes of Efar blipping all over Sami's radar, rather than with scenes of Brady thinking about Nicole.  Perhaps he could have come across something that reminds him of her.  Aren't there always framed pictures and stuffed animals popping up all over the damn place to remind us that A loves B?  

If we couldn't have any Brady cutting into the pelvic affiliating (Days is on a strict budget, after all), perhaps we could at least have had Nicole flash back to her last conversation with Brady during which he said, "Not everyone jumps from one warm body to the next, Nicole."

But of course if EJ and Nicole don't go for another nauseating spin on the Higley merry-go-round, then there will be no Taylor angst.  So Nicole's been relegated once again to riding in the backseat of another EJ/Sami storyline, plus now she'll also be playing second fiddle to her new baby sis, who's only been on the show for two bloody weeks.  So it's 2009 again, guys.  Nicole is a big, soggy, emotional mess still obsessed with someone else's daughter while her soon-to-be husband lusts after another woman.

If plans have been stalled yet again to give Nicole a steadfast, legitimate, look-at-us-we're-crazy-in-love relationship (I say stalled as though there's any chance some semblance of sense will be had by the current writing staff), I'd at least like to see Nicole being the one pursued in one of these stupid triangles for a change.  Brady gave up so damn easily after puffing his chest out so many times over the past few weeks and proclaiming that Nicole was the only one for him.  Where did that guy go, fer chrissakes?

Nicole deserves much, much better than this.  Hell, we all deserve much, much better than this.