The Idiodyssey

It's been a while, hasn't it?  I gave up masochism for Lent which meant going Days-free and, as you can imagine, found that while I was gone I hadn't missed much.  Surprise, surprise.

I'm a little rusty, but without further ado, I present to you...yeah.

Rafe is surrounded

By an unidentified highschool gym teacher and Henry Kent from Write On.

 

 

A seamless transition

The role of Nicole’s little sister is now being played by a malnourished, middle-aged woman.

Putting the "me" in Melanie 

Over and over...and over again.

For whatever mystifying reason, Melanie jumps on Chloe like me on a bottle of Lorazepams after we were led to believe just a little over a month ago that they'd made peace.  She's also reverted back to acting like a petulant twelve-year-old girl (not a long trip), actually throwing a temper tantrum over Chloe "stealing" Maggie from her.

Melanie is hurt that Maggie is “taking Chloe’s side” after “everything she’s done to me”.  No, really.  Didn’t we resolve all this already?  Has Days decided to save money by stringing scenes together from the cutting room floor?  Because this honestly looks like a scene that should have already screened.

Melanie goes on to declare that Chloe has wrecked so many lives, but that there are still so many people out there who want to defend her.  Um…who?

After a few sips of cheap vintage whine from Little Red, Big Red rains down the pain by telling Melanie that for just a second she couldn’t tell the difference between Melanie and Mr. Victor Kiriakis.

Nicole makes sure we're up to speed

“What a week, huh? We’ve had…a death…a funeral…and a car wreck.”

On paper it sounds almost emotionally engaging.

Oh, hey.  Look.  EJ must have just received my text telling him so.

 

The Salem Militia is waiting to pick Rafe off like the head of a daisy

“There are about fifteen trained marksmen moving slowly towards you. They’ll shoot if I tell them to.”

It’s a bluff, Rafe.  They told me the exact same thing that one time I tried to leave the premises before my request for a day pass had been properly processed.

The two men slowly advance on him as he balances precariously on the ledge of the Salem ravine as – presumedly - the fifteen trained marksmen/rocketeers hover over the dangerous rocks below on autopilot, waiting for the all-clear to take Rafe out.  Then Rafe trips and tumbles over the edge and - finally - it's one scene I don't mind watching more than once.

Okay.  Come on, Days.  If a big Hollywood picture with a huge budget and a fairly stellar cast can't pull off a scene like this, there's no chance in hell Days can be expected to be able to do the same with less than the amount of money spent on sandwiches for production crew.  The ego, Days.  The ego.

Vivian and Gus are ahead of the game

Vivian and Gus have DNA samples of the unidentified prisoner who was being held in the DiMera basement.  Much like the writers, Gus and Vivian have no fucking clue what to do with what they’ve got.

“The authorities could run that information through their database and maybe get a match,” Gus suggests.

“Wonderful.  Is there an app for that?”

 

Taylor says she’s going to leave town for the hundredth time

And doesn’t.

Taylor is about to confess her numerous near-pelvic affiliations with EJ for the hundredth time

And doesn’t.

Efar and a screwdriver

 

There are so many metaphors in this single image that my head is swimming.

Bo and Hope ask a perp some hard questions

The cops bring in the homeless waif Ciara gave her precious necklace to as payment for her good deed.  Wafe refuses to give up Ciara's whereabouts, concerned about the littlest hobo's safety after recognizing Hope as the woman who beat up "all those dudes" and set her own husband on fire.

 

Well, what do you know.  Yawning really is contagious.

Chloe's in a bar again

Really, guys?

Lexie is always up for some girl talk

Despite the fact that her son is missing, despite the fact that her brother could have been killed in a car crash, and despite the fact that it means EJ is still mucking around behind his wife’s back, Lexie is tickled pink at the prospect that Taylor might have been making out with her little brother in the back of a limo on their way home from her mother’s funeral.

It's official - this is the hardest sell of the episode.  Also - ew.

Efar engages in a battle of wits with Theo

I’m not taking any bets on who will win, so don’t ask.

Black Brady

Bo threatens to lie to a known violent criminal that our little runaway has been “working his territory and keeping the profits for herself.”

Her eyes grow wide with fear.  “But I didn’t!  I swear I didn’t!”

“Who do you think he’s going to believe?”

I'd buy this whole "desperate dad pushed to the edge" thing if the girl he was trying to scare shitless wasn’t keeping her lip zipped because she was fearing for a child's safety.  Oh - and the fact that she's a frail, physically abused, sixteen-year-old runaway.

Evidently there is an app for that

Gus checks back in with Dial-A-DNA-Database and relates to Vivian that a DNA match hasn’t yet been found.

“Gus, you haven’t exactly blinded me with science.”

Vivian tells her faithful manservant that she’s going to have to do things the old fashioned way and make use of her “feminine wiles”.

“We’re screwed.”

I miss the old Nicole

Nicole tells EJ that she had called Rafe to ask about Sami and the kids and was informed by Dario that he’d skipped town.  EJ isn’t entirely sure why he should care.  Nicole asks why he isn’t surprised.

“He’s living with Samantha.  Why should I be surprised?”

The old Nicole would have laughed along with me.

"The bad news is the patient escaped.  The good news is he's dead."

The asylum folk aren’t going to bother to look for Rafe, assuming the fall into the ravine killed him.  They call Stefano to inform him of our hero's demise.

 

So this is not so much the story of one man’s journey to reunite with his soulmate, battling physical, mental and emotional hardships along the way, than it is The Idiodyssey:  The story of a plaid-wearing knob who finds his one true love after repeatedly stumbling ass-backwards over people who are even stupider than he is.

The icing on a cake you just found a hair in

Nicole discovers that Rafe may have been locked in the DiMera basement after finding a piece of paper that contains all of Vivian's notes crumpled up and tossed into a garbage can on the pier.

Oh, fer chrissakes.

Would I watch this episode? 

Lord, no.  

I actually expected, like most people going into their favourite soap with a cup of tea and a desire to be entertained, that I'd come out of it smiling, even if it's because the episode is so bad it 's good (which, let's face it, is normally the case).  But, as Enid from Ghost World said, "this is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again".  I actually felt like I'd passed through someone's colon by the end of the show.  Okay, maybe not that bad.  

No, wait.  That bad.