Days of Our Lives Review Week of 4-05-21: Twisted Up Inside

Days of Our Lives promised a Lumi kiss, and it did not disappoint!

I know, I know. Most likely, this is just a bump in the road to an EJami reunion.

But Sami and Lucas’ scenes were among the best on Days of Our Lives during the week of 4-05-21 anyway!

I never bought EJ and Sami’s great love story. It was a rapist continuing to abuse his target, as far as I’m concerned.

And Lucas and Sami’s scenes had everything that made me love this couple.

They have an easy rapport with each other and can go from laughing to vulnerable in seconds. They call each other on their BS and listen to each other. They know how to talk to each other in a way that the other one can actually hear.

And they find each other’s flaws amusing. What else could you ask for?

As Sami said, Lucas is her exception to the rule. He’s not “people.” He’s Lucas.

Despite how strongly I ship Lumi and how unbelievable I find EJami as a couple, Allison Sweeney made me feel Sami’s torment.

Sami: And now Sydney’s gone off to school and it’s just the two of us [her and EJ]… I shouldn’t be telling you this.
Lucas: Of course you should. You gotta tell somebody. And I’m 100% on your side.
Sami: Are you on my side? About this though?
Lucas: Of course I am.
Sami: You’ve gotta understand, it’s been hard for EJ. You have to understand how much pain he’s in and he is so proud and he pretends he’s not and sometimes he can’t help it. He needs my help when he has no other choice and he hates that. He’s mad all the time. He’s mad at the pain and at being so helpless and he’s mad at the world. And I can understand that. I can. In my head, I understand it. But sometimes in my heart it feels like he’s mad at me. I keep telling myself it’ll get better but that’s not what happened. It’s not just the pain. It’s like something got twisted up inside of him and now he pushes me away.
Lucas: Objectively speaking, that sounds like hell.
Sami: It is and all I can do is sit and watch.
Lucas: You’re not just sitting and watching it. You’re living it. You’ve done everything you can for that man. Look, if someone’s drowning and they try to take you down with them and you push them away, that’s not giving up. That’s survival.

Regardless of viewers’ opinions, Sami feels she is in love with EJ — or was — and is heartbroken that his physical condition is interfering with their intimacy — and not just sexually.

Lucas handled Sami’s confession just right. He was empathetic and understood that this was hard for Sami and had the courage to point out to her that she had to take care of herself first and that she couldn’t continue to sacrifice her whole life to take care of EJ’s failing health.

EJ’s health issues are an interesting complication. It isn’t as simple as Sami deciding which man, if any, she loves more, as has often been the case with her past triangles.

There’s also the issue of Sami being EJ’s caretaker and feeling obligated to remain that way. It sounds like he’s infirm and in a lot of pain, and Sami has to consider whether she wants to put her needs first to the point that she walks away from him at this difficult time.

Of course, I don’t expect Days of Our Lives to treat this with the seriousness it deserves. Since EJ has been recast, I won’t be surprised if he returns miraculously healed.

But that kiss!

It’s been a long time coming, and I don’t want to dwell too much on what comes next. Apparently, neither do Lucas and Sami, since they threw caution to the wind and most likely will end up in bed together before this is over!

I wish we had some explanation of what happened to Sami’s other kids other than that Sydney is in school somewhere.

It seemed weird when she said that there was nothing for her in Italy — aren’t her children there? And okay, Sydney’s off to school, but what happened to Johnny? And is there a way we can get them all in Salem instead of Sami bouncing back and forth between Allie and her other kids?

(And yes, I know Italy is a convenient excuse for Sami’s absences when Allison Sweeney is unavailable, but still.)

Anyway, Sami’s heartfelt defense of her relationship with EJ made me wish that she could pop over to the hospital and talk some sense into Ciara.

I get that Ciara is horrified by the idea that she once loved a serial killer, but all the screeching she’s doing about it is annoying.

She has a ton of physical evidence that she did love Ben, everyone is telling her this, and her response is to hope she continues to have amnesia so that she doesn’t remember it.

That whole scene in the hospital was so over-the-top, too.

It didn’t make sense that Marlena’s hypnosis took Ciara back to the fire and not to the beginning of her time in the cabin with Ben, and Marlena should have been skilled enough to navigate through that without ending the session.

She also should have been concerned about how Ciara might react to the news that Claire tried to set her on fire.

Instead, we rehashed that whole annoying storyline by having Ciara suddenly be physically capable of running out into the waiting area so that she could scream at Claire about the past and then run back into her hospital room.

This was all bad enough the first time it aired. We don’t need a rerun now.

Also — and I know this is beating a dead horse at this point, but I have to say it anyway — this is not a realistic mental health storyline, and it would be nice if we had one of those once in a while instead of Marlena always being used for this kind of nonsense.

Even if we’re going to keep amnesia stories (they are a soap staple, after all!), it could still be done in a way that takes mental health seriously.

Marlena could make sure she doesn’t trigger her patients’ trauma responses when she hypnotizes someone.

She could also use hypnotherapy as a valid means of helping them overcome trauma instead of as a tool to find out what really happened when someone doesn’t want to remember it.

Anyway, it’s obvious what’s going to happen here. Ciara and Theo are getting closer, and so are Claire and Ben, so all we need is for Ben and Claire to cross the line from friendship to coupledom just in time for Ciara to get her memories back.

That’s disappointing, not only because it’s utterly predictable but also because Claire and Ben have a ton of more natural chemistry than Ciara and Ben do.

Ciara and Ben’s relationship was based on only two things: how much sex they were able to have and how willing they were to stand up to the latest person who wanted to kill one of them to tear them apart.

But Claire and Ben have a genuine friendship and chemistry that would make them a more compelling couple than Ciara and Ben ever were.

Belle might not be too happy about Claire dating Ben, either, especially given her history with 1) Ciara’s boyfriends and 2) being incredibly naive and thinking people like Jan or Chanel are her friends.

Belle: I’m not going to let Jan Spears send my dad to prison.
John: And I’m not going to let Jan go free!
Belle: It’s not up to you. It’s up to me.
John: If you don’t call Shawn to arrest her, I’m going to go to the police station and file charges myself.
Belle: You can’t do that. She didn’t do anything to you.
John: So I’ll lie.

Speaking of which, what a disappointing deal Belle made!

Days of Our Lives ALWAYS does this. Bad guys escape justice by blackmailing someone out of pressing charges.

Kristen did it. Ava did it. And now Jan is doing it.

John was right, full stop. Let the chips fall where they may and arrest Jan.

I don’t understand Belle’s hesitancy. She assumed John going to prison was a done deal, although she argued otherwise when convincing Jan to drop the whole thing.

But Belle was expecting a case against John before any of this happened. She’s been preparing one for months.

So why act like Jan’s threat to press charges against John is such a shock and such a game-changer that she has to drop her case against Jan to prevent it?

Just… present the case you’ve been working on, Belle!

There’s an easy defense here, too: John’s aneurysm led to his loss of control, and it’s not something he can help. At the very most, he’ll get Claire’s old room at Bayview.

And if that doesn’t work, there’s always jury nullification. After all, as Belle pointed out, most of Salem wants to strangle Jan anyway.

Of course, this was all set up to make Belle the latest suspect in Charlie’s murder.

Jan noticed Belle’s missing coat button, which is now in the bag of evidence Rafe is going to study (even though he never noticed it or mentioned it before.)

Now that all the liars have been eliminated as suspects, Rafe’s focusing hard on the evidence, so he’s sure to connect that coat button to Belle.

I had to feel bad for him, though. One suspect after another keeps lying to him, though he’s more a victim of everyone jumping to conclusions than anything else.

Sami and Allie assumed the other one did it, and now Ava and Tripp had the same problem.

Let’s hope that Claire and Belle don’t try to protect each other next!

I knew it wasn’t Tripp — all those guilty looks were too obvious. And I don’t think it’s Belle, either.

Nor do I think it’s John.

My money is still on a resurrected EJ coming to town earlier than anyone knew and deciding to kill Charlie for reasons of his own.

Another dark horse suspect is Philip, who asked an awful lot of questions about whether Allie was upset about Charlie’s death for no good reason.

Or Gabi, though she has no motive. But her incessant gloating and insistence that Ava is guilty have been annoying enough that I’d like to see her locked up again.

Abigail is unstable enough to have done it, too, though there’s no evidence she had anything to do with Charlie.

This whole Gwen vs. Abigail storyline was never interesting to begin with, and it went to a new low when Abigail insisted Gwen puked on her as a “stalling tactic.”

That pukefest was gross, and I hope endless flashbacks of it don’t torture us.

But if Abby thinks Gwen puked just to humiliate her, then she’s even more delusional than I thought.

Puking is not fun, and Gwen is not a masochist.

Of course, the idea that Gwen is pregnant isn’t much better. I don’t want her trying to pass this off as Chad’s baby or otherwise using her potential pregnancy to cause trouble.

Anyway, poor Jack had his hands full between Abigail and Xander. Can we find this man a real storyline, please?

And the less said about that Xander/Chanel nonsense, the better.

The best part of that story is the part that didn’t happen. I can imagine Paulina’s response if Chanel tried to take some of her expensive food to give to a drunk stranger she’d met in the park.

The worst part is a tie between the mild transphobia in Chanel’s remarks about Xander’s “skirt” and the whole idea of Chanel getting drunk with a stranger in his hotel room.

Days of Our LIves keeps doing this thing where they pretend to be liberal but are really making fun of important issues like racism, respect for mental health issues, and now transgender issues.

Chanel’s off-hand comment made a mockery out of the idea of respecting people’s pronouns, and the joke was entirely unfunny.

And to add insult to injury, this nonsense looked like a setup for Chanel to cry rape when none occurred.

At the best of times, Days of Our Lives is insensitive to issues related to sexual assault. Let’s hope they had the sense not to begin a false rape accusation story in the middle of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics. What did you think about Days of Our Lives during the week of 4-05-21? Hit the big, blue, SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know your thoughts!

Eager for more Days of Our Lives chat? Be sure to check back on Sunday for our latest Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

Days of Our Lives continues to air on NBC on weekday afternoons. Check your local listings for airtimes.

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Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.

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