Just a Simple Girl with a Dream

In honor of Mother’s Day, SoapNet teamed up with Allison Sweeney to bring us three “classic” episodes of Days showcasing Sami, her babydaddy, Lucas, and their son, Will (aka poor man’s Shia LeBeouf).  When I heard about this, I immediately set my DVR to record this marathon because I am a sucker for vintage Days.  (And when I say “vintage” I obviously mean it in that haute couture sense.  You know, like when Chanel straps a tea-length, sequin bodice gown on Reese Witherspoon and calls it vintage even though it’s only two years old and was previously worn by Kirsten Dunst.) 

Anyway, I quickly realized that only the first episode was going to be any good (it was from 1995) so I decided to savor the memories.  Let me set the scene for you: Marlena is in the early stages of being possessed by the devil.

…Still with me? I repeat, Marlena is in the early stages of being possessed by the devil.    If I remember this story correctly, the devil went down to Georgia and then played dueling banjos with Marlena.  Charlie Daniels was there too.  Now I must confess that I hated this plotline when it first aired.  Since then, however, I’ve endured Carrie and Mike’s floating bed of lovemaking, Marlena as a pretend serial killer, Princess Greta and Austin in a virtual reality “Garden of Eden” (there are no words) and some sort of bizarre, Iraq War tie-in, involving a cross-dressing Sami.  As soon as the episode started and I saw Marlena in a coma, I was like “Game on! Bring it!” One quick sidenote: are there two other people out there more bound to falling in comas than John and Marlena? (Well maybe Liz Spencer on General Hospital.)

So Marlena’s possessed, Sami has just extracted much needed vengeance on her rapist Alan (which ties in nicely since Lucas just discovered that Sami was raped by EJ), Lucas looks like Joel Goodson, Austin is played by Patrick Muldoon, Kate is played by Deborah Adair, and Vivian and Ivan are in the house!  While I was initially disappointed that we didn’t get to see Lisa Rinna as Billie or Eileen Davidson as Kristen, the appearance of John and his signature “mid-eighties to late-nineties” mullet made up for it. Speaking of John, this is around the time that he believes that he was a priest before becoming “The Pawn” and therefore must fight the devil for Marlena’s soul.  John will actually walk around Salem wearing priest garb, break up with Kristen, and I believe—but don’t quote me—listen to people’s confessions, all while being addressed as “Father John”.  Of course, this turns out to be all for naught since it’s later revealed that John only pretended to be a priest—he was really just a Eurotrash art thief.  I mean, I myself have made that mistake countless times.

Anyway, so everyone is really upset that Marlena won’t wake up and John is afraid that she’s a goner.  Obviously John doesn’t understand that Marlena can’t die–Deidre Hall isn’t successful enough in prime-time for that.  When he goes to leave the room to call relatives, Marlena suddenly whispers “help me” over and over.  I then wonder if she’s really possessed by the devil and not Jacob from Lost.  John comes back with Shawn and Caroline and since they’re the show’s resident Irish Catholics, they pray for Marlena’s soul.  Marlena sits up in bed with horrible lime-green contacts and starts speaking like the ghostfaced killer from Scream.  Never underestimate the power of Brady prayer, because the devil is temporarily cast out (into Marlena’s heart rate monitor of all places!) and our girl regains consciousness.  Voila! 

Back on track-this episode is important because Sami and Lucas consummate their relationship/twisted friendship.  While they are clearly good together (and this is back when I genuinely liked them together), they only have eyes for their siblings.  (I don’t mean that literally, its not incest or anything.  It’s Days not Guiding Light.  Lucas likes Sami’s half-sister, Carrie, and Sami likes Lucas’s half-brother, Austin, which is problematic since Austin and Carrie were a couple up until like the day before.  By the way, can anyone in this town under 35 have full blood siblings?) Therefore when Austin walks in on Sami and Lucas, he mistakenly believes that Lucas is with Carrie.  (Even as played by Patrick Muldoon, Austin wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.  He was, however, less of a giant tool.)   Lucas and Sami figure this out and decide to use it to their advantage so that they can be with Carrie and Austin.  Of course, Sami will go on to drug Austin, skip town, and come back pregnant, thereby ruining Carrie’s wedding to Austin. Lucas, meanwhile, will continue cutting his hair like Tom Cruise in various stages of his career for the next twelve years.

Meanwhile, Vivian is still crazy.  If SoapNet really wanted to strike ratings gold they should show a “Best of Vivian” marathon.  That bitch was insane! What with the murders, the burying alive of faux-European royalty, the East Asian herbs, and the sanitarium fires, I could seriously be here all week.  Currently she is pregnant with Victor and Kate’s soon to be born son Philip.  Yes, the very same Philip who is now clearly in his mid-to-late twenties running around some South Pacific island trying to kidnap his adoptive, bow-wearing, cookie-eating, Belle-hitting, daughter Claire.  And he’s doing all of this while rocking one leg! 

So in an attempt to win over Victor (and let’s remember this is back when John Aniston was the most famous member of his family), old Viv goes down to the fertility clinic and oops!-has herself implanted with Kate’s egg.  Hilarity ensues.  And by hilarity, I mean Vivian’s rocking pig tails.  This storyline would only be better if she somehow manages to work in “But you are in the chair, Kate!” into her dialogue. She somehow thinks that she can get Victor to marry her and when she hears that he is to wed Kate the next day, she fakes labor pains.  Laugh now, but I can’t tell you how many times faking labor pains has gotten me out of some hairy situations.

Then SoapNet dropped the ball and aired an episode from 2002, featuring Sami in some sort of barbeque at Tara meets Queen of Hearts getup.  Apparently this was one of her many abortive wedding attempts.  Does it even matter which one it was?  I guess it was supposed to take place in Vegas but I didn’t much care.  I mean, you can’t even compare the two episodes.  It’s like chasing Goodfellas with Weekend at Bernie’s or something.  The last episode was from a few months ago so I didn’t even bother to watch.  While Days is good again, it can’t be what it once was.  Unless John grows the mullet back.  Then it’ll be close.