Marlena walked in on Sami kissing Lucas, EJ returned claiming to want to work on his marriage, Belle pulled the plug on Jan Spears, while Chloe chose between Philip and Brady this week in Salem.
Our TV Fanatics Jack and Christine are joined by DoolFan4Life from MyHourglass, a Days of Our Lives fan forum to debate whether Sami loves EJ or Lucas, if Chloe made the right decision, should Steve have gone off on Bonnie, if Belle would have let Jan die, and more!
Who does Sami love? EJ or Lucas?
DoolFan4Life: In actuality, EJ, but this hack writing job to butcher EJ is clearly trying to force it otherwise. Sami and Lucas are better as friends and all the dreams written for her won’t change my mind about that.
Jack: There’s no doubt in my mind that she loves Lucas. She not only seems scared of EJ, but she seems miserable every time she’s around him.
She’s dreaming that she’s in bed with Lucas and making every excuse she can to not have sex with EJ. She literally ran away from the bedroom to get away from him. And she’s desperate to leave town because she’s afraid she won’t be able to stay away from Lucas.
It’s obvious… except to her. She keeps insisting that EJ is her husband that she loves, but it seems more like she feels obligated or afraid of him than anything else.
Christine: She loves them both, but EJ is her husband. Now that he’s back, admitting he knows he hurt her and wanting to work on their marriage, I can understand why she’s choosing EJ.
Plus, she feels horribly guilty for cheating on him, which also fuels the fear that he’ll find that out and react badly. When Dimeras react badly, no one is safe.
Did Chloe make the right decision? Should she be staying with Philip over Brady?
DoolFan4Life: She made the right choice to avoid Brady, especially with Kristen on the loose. I’m also glad she’ll be spending time with Philip. I just hope Brady backs off for once.
Jack: Absolutely. Brady tends to get just as bad with other women as Kristen got with him. Has he already forgotten when she wanted Stefan to protect her and he interfered? He is doing the same controlling thing again.
Chloe needs to kick him to the curb until he can learn to treat her with respect.
Christine: Thank goodness she went with Philip! Was Brady joking when he claimed John and Marlena’s penthouse is secure? Everyone breaks in over there.
Brady doesn’t know how to be alone and he gets very controlling with the women in his life. And it’s not as though Kristen is dead; she’s still out there and she’ll go ballistic if she learns that Chloe is living with Brady.
For all of Brady’s pronouncements about protecting Chloe and taking care of her, he’s actually just putting her in more danger. And as a bonus, I’d really like to see Philip and Chloe given a real chance as a couple, so I’m hoping that’s where this is heading.
Steve told off Bonnie during their double date. React!
DoolFan4Life: He was so right to do so. I know they’re trying to make Bonnie more likable but she’s just not, and Steve was obviously offended, so why should he be nice to someone he dislikes in the first place.
Jack: I was 100% behind Steve on this. Bonnie changed into a dress like Adrienne wore, tamped down her accent to sound like Adrienne, put her hair in the same style as Adrienne’s, and chose the drink Adrienne would have chosen instead of the one she wanted.
Why should Steve have to put up with that just because she’s dating Justin?
Steve wasn’t rude or nasty. He was just honest. The only mistake he made was agreeing to the dinner in the first place. He should have told Kayla that if she wanted to go, that was fine, but he didn’t and was staying home.
Christine: I hate this entire storyline. Steve shouldn’t feel forced to spend time with someone he has reason to sincerely dislike and Justin and Kayla shouldn’t force him to.
By the same token, Steve is more than capable of saying he doesn’t want to interact with Bonnie but he caved to this double date anyway.
I did have sympathy for Bonnie. She knows Steve doesn’t like her and tried to change to win him over. I don’t think there was any malice in it on her part.
Overall, it’s just a sad, pathetic excuse to try and keep Judi Evans (whom I love) around after they killed off Adrienne and it’s not working.
Is Belle right? Should Claire concentrate on her own life and leave Ben to figure out his relationship with Ciara on his own, or is Claire just trying to be a good friend?
DoolFan4Life: A bit of both. I think Claire is trying to be a good friend but she tends to fixate and Ben needs space to figure this out.
If I were Belle, I wouldn’t be thrilled about my daughter who was recently released from Bayview for trying to set a cabin on fire with people in it hanging out with an ex-serial killer who also tried to burn people alive in said cabin. Just sayin’.
Jack: I think they’re both right. Claire IS trying to be a good friend but Belle is right that Claire can’t fix Ben and needs to concentrate on her own life. Ben is not in the mood for listening to anyone (except maybe Clyde who is in agreement with his bad decisions re: Ciara.)
Rafe wasted a lot of time and energy telling him to accept that Ciara wants a divorce, only for Ben to burn the divorce papers.
Ben is also making every excuse in the book for not talking to Marlena when he’s having hallucinations. This is not someone open to help no matter how much Claire wants to be there for him.
Christine: Claire is lonely. Her only friends were Ciara, who now hates her, and Jan, who tried to kill her.
I do think Claire is trying to be a friend to Ben but there’s an obvious attraction between them and she should give Ben more space.
I wish she’d be in Allie’s orbit a bit more or work on finding a career. Maybe she can help with the new bakery. Anything that gives her some sort of purpose other than being in the middle of Ben and Ciara’s drama.
Belle pulled the plug on Jan. Do you think she would have let her die?
DoolFan4Life: Probably not, but she has been pushed to the edge. She wanted to see if she was really in critical shape.
Jack: This seemed more like a Sami move than a Belle one. I was expecting Belle to do something similar to what they did on Monk once where Monk pulled the plug on his wife’s murderer then decided she wouldn’t want him to do that and re-plugged the ventilator.
But with Belle in this angry Sami-lite mode, who knows? She might have smirked and let her die anyway, minutes after being cleared of murder charges. And her defense would have been that she was the latest woman to snap because of strong emotion. Ugh.
I wish they would dump this misogynistic trope about how women can’t deal with heartbreak or anger without becoming violent.
Christine: This was so silly but I guess given how many times Jan has faked a coma, it made a little sense and I liked that Philip backed Belle when Shawn thought she was crazy.
The upside was that Shawn, Belle, Philip, and Chloe all got to share a scene. That doesn’t happen nearly enough.
Who was the biggest hypocrite in Salem this week?
DoolFan4Life: It’s hard to choose. There seems to be a lot of this going around, maybe it’s the water…
Jack: I actually didn’t notice as much hypocrisy this week. Paulina was literally hypocritical by telling Chanel not to mix business and pleasure and telling Abe that she liked doing that, but she owned it and she and Abe laughed about it so I’m not sure that counts.
However, in the serious hypocrisy department, John focused on Sami being married to EJ when he didn’t really care about Marlena being married to Roman during the infamous boardroom sex scene that Sami always whines about!
And Brady… Nicole only ended up blackmailed into marrying Xander because you blackmailed her into leaving town, so your hatred of Xander is a bit misplaced.
Christine: I hated Chad calling Jake and Gabi “dogs in heat” for kissing while Kate was in the hospital. It wasn’t all that long ago he was cheating on his wife with Gwen, so perhaps he shouldn’t be so quick to throw stones.
And EJ calling Jake a low-life mobster. Aren’t the Dimera’s nothing but high-end mobsters?
If Stefano were still alive, you know he’d want Jake to be a part of Dimera Enterprises and likely be proud he grabbed the CEO job when he could, so EJ’s reasoning that they’re ousting Jake because it’s what his father would want doesn’t ring true at all.
What was the most frustrating plot this week on Days of Our Lives?
DoolFan4Life: The kiss that everyone won’t shut up about, I wish they’d either do something with the story or move on entirely, I’m sick of hearing about it in every scene.
Jack: I’m over all things Gwen/Snyder. She’s had a billion opportunities to get herself out of this mess by telling someone what’s going on and keeps refusing to do it.
Runner up: this Nicole/Xander nonsense. There’s no reason for Nicole not to tell Rafe the truth, which would put an end to this. He’s not the one she cheated on. I guess I can understand her not wanting Brady to know, but there was no reason to suddenly give in to Xander’s demands as soon as Brady showed up.
Also, I wish EJ would go back to Italy by himself and get out of Sami and Lucas’ way but there wouldn’t be much of a story then so I guess we have to live with this.
Finally, it’s aggravating that Jake spent months telling Kate that she was the only woman for him and he had no interest in Gabi only to turn around and tell Gabi that she’s the only one he ever loved and he has no interest in Kate.
I wish Kate and Gabi would team up to get revenge on Jake instead of fighting over him.
Christine: Kate trying to get Jake to have sex with her when she knows he wants to be with Gabi was cringe-worthy.
And I hate how obnoxious they’re making this new EJ. At their best, EJ and Sami were partners in crime, but this version of EJ makes all of the decisions for both of them without even consulting Sami, and she kowtows to him because she feels guilty for cheating on him. It’s really depressing to watch.
What was your favorite quote, scene, or storyline this week in Salem?
DoolFan4Life: I liked seeing Roman as we don’t get a lot of him and I liked Chad and Kate together in scenes. I’m also really glad Xander will be working for Basic Black, regardless of how he got the job. I prefer this to having him drinking around town.
Jack: As usual, all things Lucas/Sami were great. I liked Lucas’ conversation with Roman, too.
Even better: Abe’s conversation with Roman! These two old friends don’t talk nearly enough and I liked Roman encouraging Abe to go for happiness. Now we need to get Roman back into the romance department too.
Christine: As much as I hope Kate pretending to be blind doesn’t last too long, I loved Chad calling her out on it. “Pretending to be blind makes you mean.” LOL.
And Marlena talking to Sami after walking in on her kissing Lucas made for an interesting moment. “You’re not done explaining me to me, are you?” Given that Sami once walked in on Marlena cheating with John, I’m not sure how much Marlena can say to her daughter.
Want to chat more about the happenings in Salem? Then check out Jack Ori’s Days of Our Lives review here at TV Fanatic.
And hit that big, blue, SHOW COMMENTS button down below to answer all of our round table questions.
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C. Orlando is a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
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