new February 17, 2011
It turned out that even kissing babies wasn't enough to get Elvis elected. Abraham was crowned the mayor of Salem once again, but the glory was short-lived. While Stefano was crowing to his son that he should have let him fix the election and calling him a 'lapdog for the Brady's and, whatever they're called, the Hortons', news was spreading that Abe's victory lap wouldn't last. It turned out that there was some mysterious vote tampering and this alerted the authorities to spring into a recount. Since the elementary school students they use to do all the counting had all gone home for the day, it will have to wait until next week.

In the midst of all of the bustle around town, Babs distracted himself from his wife spinning into the fog of memory by actually showing up at the station to do some random police work. This basically consisted of threatening some dude when they had no evidence on him. Roman wasn't paying much attention to baby brother Babs because he was busy telling young William that Salem is full of gay-bashing bigots. Will stumbled home to pack the last of his things before he can begin his life as a swinging bachelor in the bustling hub of Horton Square. His first act as a free man was to listen to Rafe bellyache about how much he hurt Sami. There's only so much male to male blubbering Will can handle though.

There was plenty more blubbering elsewhere. Sami showed how fit she was keeping by pounding on her sister's face and then pummelling her eardrums with yelps of displeasure. The sisters started airing so much dirty laundry that it blacked out the sun. As the darkness spread over the city, Abby moaned to Mel about the man she loves, finally explaining it was Austin. Then she moaned to clueless Carrie about it when she ran into her on the street. Austin stood by and nervously listened, doing up all twenty of the zippers on his leather jacket so that Abby wouldn't get the wrong idea. And speaking of giving people ideas, Ian paid Kate a visit and gave her some not too subtle reminders of the trysts they used to share. She tried to resist him, the power exuded by muscles aggressively wrinkly his brow was overwhelming. The blue streak snuck away from her husband to meet Ian and suck on his lip.

Ian was having a busy week all around. After Brady left Madison alone with her husband, Ian took the time to really creep her out. All he had to do was furrow his brow and whisper and she was cringing like someone watching a Jarlena whip cream sex tape. Don't think I'm pulling that out of thin air either. My cousin, Melvin Orangulip, who works for a company whose name I cannot mention, told me that there are already orders for them floating around. Apparently, one of the old warehouses down by the pier in Salem is full of these tapes that they've been making. Like many legitimate businesses that go belly up, Basic Black has decided to start producing porn. And why not? It worked for Victor. Showing his usual insight and acumen, John's business plan argued that there is a really hunger among the starving people of Salem to see this kind of niche material. Babs and Hope actually think this is a good plan and wanted in on it. That's why they all planned to run off to Alamainia together under the smoke screen of getting a divorce. This was consistent with Babs and Hope's usual plans to paw their way out of the poor house. The latest of these, we learned this week, involved getting Ciara to start her own earthworm plantation. But back to Ian... Not only did he manage to woo Kate, he also managed to snatch up the CEO position at Titan. Brady was really miffed that the man whose wife he'd been sleeping with just picked up the job he'd left. Maybe it was the irony. Not that anyone had time to laugh about it. Brady attempted to lash out at the guy, only to be kicked to the floor and, in a further irony, threatened with a tippling stick.

Lines of the week:
Hope: I don't know if I can leave Ciara alone with all the earthworms.

Victor: When I saw that walking stick I knew that something was off.

Carrie: (to Abby) Tell me about this idiot.

Ian: I never thought you'd ever need a sugar daddy.

Brady: I don't know anything anymore!

Lexi: I don't know who you are anymore!


February 10
With some additional prodding from Babs and some additional plodding of the plot, Hope finally opened the letter of doom to discover that she and beardo were not legally married. This was slightly confusing since it was one of her alternative personalities who was actually married to someone else. Not only that, but the other personality was married to one of John's other personalities. Even for fictional characters, being married to people who don't exist is hard to handle. Being bigamists didn't bother the cops much. What really bothered them was that Stefano must be up to something big. However, he seemed so bored by the whole thing that it was hard to believe. But considering how repetitive this plot has been, it's easy to imagine it's all been intended to put someone in a trance, or at least asleep. The foursome bundled themselves up and went over to Casa DiMera where Stefano and Kate treated them to all the sarcasm they could muster on empty stomachs. John squinted like he was standing in the desert, but it was just the glare from Kate's jewels. After he swiped a cigar from his old stash, he left with everyone else. Stefano was left alone to gag about the whole thing and pluck hairs from his beard while the other were condemned to take a trip to Alamania. It seemed that only a marriage between alternative personalities could actually count for more than the paper it was printed on. They might have to spend two weeks of one their anti-marital vacation, which could last who knows how long on-screen. By the time Babs and Hope return to Salem, Ciara could be getting her first quickie annulment from Theo.

This was hardly the only mess in town. The hullabaloo spilled out from the Cafe scandal. Sami and Austin caught their spouses tying tongues but were far from tongue tied about giving them a lashing for it. Following a verbal brawl with his beloved, Austin got as plastered as a pirate on payday while Samanther's eyelashes turned to tongs she used to whip Rafe until he whimpered out a million apologies. Even more difficult for him was discovering that Hallmark doesn't make an apology card for making out with your wife's sister. He was forced to write it himself with one of Johnny's crayons after his wife gave him the boot for gagging after her bootiful sister. He returned the following days to get his batteries – the last memento of RoboRafe – before Will nearly spilled the beans to him. Sami did her best to cover and bickered with her son. Rafe slouched away and young William continued to issue insults at his mother with a speed usually reserved for the divorces issued in Salem.

Meanwhile, Austin got so angry about his wife's canoodling that he ran to the nearest potato farm, dug some out of the frozen ground and squeezed them so hard that they distilled into moonshine. He drank this and stumbled over to his office. Abby tried to be there for him but he didn't know where he was. She kissed him. He kissed her back and fell over. Demonstrating just how much he really lusts after her, he fell asleep before she could even unbuckle her bra. The abster was totally clueless that this was not a good sign. No wonder her dad thinks she'd make such a great journalist. The next day, he woke up assuming they'd done the deed. He let him keep thinking that, but he rapidly tried to forget it by running off to his wife and promising to make things work.

And Brady decided to take things to the next level with the lady in his life. Or up a few levels I guess. Madison had all the qualities he looks for in a woman: she can wear more sequins than will fit on a grandmother's Christmas sweater, ride a segue without killing anyone, likes sex in the office, makes a sound like a wheezing condiment dispenser when she kisses, enjoys cleaning his nipples and has discovered that she cares about him a little more than money. Unfortunately for him, he also discovered she had a slightly less desirable quality... she's already married.

Lines of the week:
Sami: Were you playing princess again?

Sami: Carrie is a slut and you are a traitor!

John: Our marriage is good and strong... it's just not legal.

Austin: You were here for me?

Austin: I just want us to be us again.


February 3
It was a big week in Salem. So big that half the week seemed like it was being played on delay just to let things end right. Babs and Hope returned to the bank with Stefano to open the mystery box. Hope had to think about it some more. Stefano left to get a manicure. When he came back, she still needed to think about it. He left to see a man about a boat. He came back and she still had to think about it some more. He went to see a man about a dog and taught the dog how to sing. He came back and she'd made up her mind. He told her she better be sure. She said she was and then needed more time to think about that. He left to have a nap. He napped for so long he could use his beard as a blanket. After he woke up and had a trim and then went back. Babs was sparking the hairs on her head together to get the fire back behind her eyes. She changed her mind again. Stefano left to have all the grey hairs this has given him a little dye. When he got back, she was still thinking. By the time the hairs had turned grey again, she finally agreed to open the box. They put their keys in. The envelopes came out. He said they could still go back. She had to think about that for awhile.

Abby continued to pine for Austin. She finally filled her parents in on her new job modeling for MadWorld. Jenn didn't like this one bit. She must have seen the modeling that Gabi had been doing and realized it was a slippery slope from that to the kind of modeling that Nicole used to do. At least that's how it works in Salem. She was on a slippery slope herself since she and Abe had stolen the debate questions and planted false ones for EJ. This let them win the debate by a landslide. Elvis and Nicole were shocked. After all, it's not like he doesn't know how to lie when he's put on the spot. He was doing that all week. Over at MadWorld, deceits started to unravel. After a chat with Brady, Madison decided to pull the plug on their plan to sabotage Kate. Madi was wearing some curtains and Sami was wearing a rug. Apparently they were taking the whole undercover thing too literally and assumed they needed to look like office furnishings. The thought of dumping this ruse was too much for Sami. She decided to dump Madi instead and quit her job, vowing to stay with Kate and get her revenge on MadWorld.

The rest of Sami's week wasn't going swimmingly either. Austin and Sami walked in on Rafe and Carrie having what appeared to be some kind of extremely kinky date. They were dressed up in princess gear, surrounded by pink balloons and dancing all over the pub. "This kind of thing puts EJ's scarf fetish to shame," she must have been thinking to herself. Austin was deeply hurt. She never agreed to play princess with him when he asked, or dress up in any of the other outfits he'd brought home. Her refusal to let them bump uglies while dressed as SpongeBob and Patrick was the real unspoken source of most of their marital friction. While the spouses attempted to explain themselves, Samanther really started erupting when William called to tell her that Syd was having a tea party with daddy-mommy EJole. The week proceeded with scene after scene after scene of Will tensing up and getting ready to blow his mom apart. After having a few moments bordering on Hallmark movies with Sonny and getting a new apartment from EJ so he could live 'a cosmopolitan lifestyle' full of 'adult activities' and 'a very busy social card', young William could finally get out of the clutches of his mother. He angrily confronted her for being a 'whore' who was even worse than Marlena. You could actually see Sami's head imploding as she realized that she had become everything she hates. She tried making excuses. The Casa DiMera couch obviously has some kind of sex hex on it. That's why whoever sits there winds up underneath EJ and that's also why most guests opt for a chair instead. This is why Celeste is coming back, by the way: to finally end the curse that no amount of Febreeze can lift. But Sami's week was about to get even worse...

Carrie and Rafe started to realize that their business was in jeopardy. He wanted to keep trying, reminding her that the Salem PD already assigned them most of their workload. They both knew that it could take months or years before the cops gave them any resources or information to actually follow up and do something. He couldn't bear the thought of not coming to the office to play tiddlywinks with her all day. Between that and the wet blouse she was always sporting thanks to their faulty coffee maker, that was the highlight of his day. Besides, it has been years since he spent much time with a woman who didn't cry and throw tantrums on a daily basis and he was getting used to it. Eventually, they started to kiss like a pair of hungry cockatoos fighting over a nut and Sami, of course, walked in on them.

Lines of the week:
EJ: (of Will) I can see myself in him.

Carrie: You're hurting my feelings.

Austin: I just feel so embarrassed.
John: It's called 'marriage'.

Nicole: (to Rafe) Did Sami let you dress yourself this morning?

Hope: Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.

Bo: We need to get this over with today and then you can go back to playing chess with yourself, or whatever you call it.

Jack: (to Abby) I forbid anyone to see you as a grown woman.

Will: You're a whore Mom.

Will: (to Sami) Why do I always feel like I'm the adult in this relationship?


January 27
Everyone continued to grieve over the end of Dr. Daniel's organ fondling. He opted to leave town and recover the sense he'd lost by living there for so long. His loved ones gathered to say so long to him. His goatee was already sprouting, pointing him to the waves. His daughter lamented so much she thought of throwing herself on a pyre. The closest thing Salem had was the random flame at the centre of the square. Children were roasting clams and marshmallows at it when she moped by so she went to work instead. It was there that she was coerced by Quinn and Madison to make up with Abigail. MadWorld wanted them to be friends again so they could exploit it in an ad campaign. Madison's weird business ideas were taking the whole town off guard. Victor was having a perfectly nice morning eating Maggie's muffins when she showed up to declare that she would not be taking the CEO position at Titan. This confused the Kiriakis men, who assumed that something else must be up. Brady then plowed off to work with his pop and soon got his dander up. The Blacks attempted to prove which of them was the bigger jackass. It was stiff competition but ended up as limp as Philip when he could remember that he only had one leg.

Babs and Hope used more underhanded tricks to force Stefano to expose himself. Although they usually just do that to arrest the town's perverts, Daniel had already left so they decided to use it for something more lucrative. Stefano was so bored he didn't put up a fight and offered to open the secret box of mystery. However, even Stefano's shrug proved overwhelming to the police and they backed out at the last minute. The next day, they changed their mind again. Stefano continued to groan and complain about how bored he was with this. But he did admit that there were two secrets in the box and distanced himself from taking any blame for the fallout.

Kate and Sami teamed up to guilt Chadsworth into going along with the whole modeling thing. Gabi was thrilled, especially since this would mean she could stand around with her bottom lip on his nipple again. Chad had some pants painted on and Gabi's face was dressed up to look like the Halloween mask version of Chloe before they were paraded before the cameras. Sami was stunned that they looked so good. She called Madi to worry, but she had more to worry about. Samantha confessed to Rafe that she and Madison were in cahoots to take Countess W down from the inside, a trick she'd learned from Grandma Caroline's cooking. Rafe hated it and fixated on her betrayal of his trust. In all fairness, he may have only been doing this to avoid looking at the coiffure that Samantha was sporting. He moped off to work. His partner, Carrie, just narrowly avoided sex with Austin. In spite of the fact that her inflating ass could barely let her through the doorway, Carrie still escaped from Austin's panting to gets pantsless so she could go and make goo goo eyes at Rafael. Their fairytale romance accelerated when the performers who were supposed to be at Syd's birthday called to cancel. This left Carrie and Rafe donning a lot of blue, frilly duds and learning how to waltz. Kayla, who has been making ends meet by working as an Ellen Degeneres impersonator, dropped by to laugh at them. Meanwhile, Austin pulled himself to work where Abby arrived to fantasize about him. The spell was momentarily broken when he began reminiscing about changing her diapers.

As the week ran down, the parties heated up. Elvis decided to throw a special shindig for Syd. He recruited young William to smuggle her over while Sami was out of town. The event was so momentous that EJ changed into a blue shirt and decorated the sex den with pink balloons. Although he was already making plans for how to recycle those later, he still found time to lewdly hold a cigar between his lips for Will, annoy his sister and then catch Abraham when he tried to switch out the debate questions.

Lines of the week:

Daniel: Ai ai ai... I've got too many painful memories here.

Stefano: Let's get this over with.


January  20
This week, we learned the true meaning of the town's slogan, "Salem: where our dream is your nightmare, but you're sure to sleep through it all." Proving that he really hasn't been around long, Quinn offered to listen to moaning Mel. He acted as her emotional snotrag, which is a step up from being the Salem douchebag. Pretty soon, she had plenty more emotion to blow. Daniel decided that he was going back to the beach to resume his career as a surfer for the sake of his sanity. Nothing could be better for a middle-aged man who has strokes in his sleep than a death defying sport. Besides, he heard Annette was available again since Frankie ran off with Hasselhoff. As loud as she cried, Mel could still not understand why everyone kept walking away from her. When Chad offered to stand by her side, she wiped her nose on his jacket and pushed him away.

Young Chadsworth got it from all sides this week. His papa wanted into his life and offered him all the coffee beans he could handle. Chad still refused. It didn't help that the great room in Casa DiMera smells like the kind of grinding that isn't done with coffee beans. Kate offered to make him into a modeling star. She and Sami tricked him into doing some free modeling with Gabi at the spa. Sami pointed out that they were oozing sex. "I think CW has a cream for that," Kate said. Of course it does. That's the same cream Mary uses to disinfect the infamous Casa DiMera coochie couch. Elvis kept pulling Nicole onto it to distract her from her suspicions about Will. There's only so much of him to keep her mouth and googling fingers busy for so long, however, and she soon dug up some info on young William. The poor boy had spent most of the week being treated to Marlena's compassion. Since her mouth can no longer open as wide as Sami's, it all comes out like groaning instead of screaming. Her heartfelt wheezing was driving him around the bend. Lucky for him that EJ gave him a sports car. But he didn't move fast enough to stop Nicole from cornering him. Misty Circle told him there was something she needed him to do for her. Her gaydar must have gone off when he didn't react like Chad did a year or so ago when he assumed that very statement was intended to be a challenge to his manual dexterity and saliva production.

The Carver campaign continued to feel the burn of DiMera sabotage. Jenn was so furious that she got into a street brawl with Nicole. Before they could re-enact the infamous gelato wrestling scene from "Misty Circle's Battle Asses: Tender Tushes Edition," some men pulled them apart. Abe plotted how to get ahead. Since he couldn't convince Vince Offer to be his spokesman, he had to ask Babs and Hope to arrest some criminals for once so that at least he could look tough on crime. Lucky for them, Roman had just given the cops a big dossier and some cash to do just that. Bope decided to instantly go out and buy some people to do their work for them. After all, they couldn't rely on anyone at the Salem PD for help and they were too busy sitting around contemplating the mystery key and debating about Alice to actually do what they are paid for. Rafe and Carrie were the lucky recipients of their generosity, leaving Hope time to keep obsessing, contemplate a random job offer from Madison and Bab to convince her that leading a criminal task force, doesn't mean they can commit crimes themselves.

John was so excited by his new business with Brady -- which sounds identical to the old business -- that he couldn't even bring himself to pour his Hollandaise sauce all over Marlena's eggs. Instead, he gave her an anonymous box of cereal to munch on and some milk with a picture of Ciara on the carton. Yet again there was no product placement. My cousin Marvin offered to let them use his pickled goat tongue marmalade and a slice of vinegar pie but the producers turned their noses up. Could it be that all of the other advertisers got an advanced glimpse of Gargamel tongue boxing with the Abster and were scared off? I was so terrified that I actually hid under my desk. But while Abs dreamed of Austin, one of Sami's dreams was coming true. It was finally revealed that she and Madison have been in cahoots to bring CW down from the inside with a string of terrible marketing ideas which were inspired by something they saw on Daytime TV.

Lines of the week:
Nicole: For a brilliant surgeon, you sure are an idiot.

Will: You had two kids with him. I just get him his coffee.

Lexi: You really are just a man in an expensive empty suit.

Sami: You've been telling me to get a job since I was 16 and now I have one.

Nicole: I didn't start this. Little Miss Muffet did.

Abe: This will be the end of chuckling.



January 13
Friends are hard to find in Salem, unlike relatives or people to take to chowderfest. This week was mostly about what happens when you lose the best friend you were supposed to have forever, or at least what feels like forever. And unlike spouses or lovers, actually breaking up or betraying a friend in Salem means something other than the fact that it will just repeat itself over and over again.

Chadsworth and Mel continued to control their throbbing desires for the sake of Abigail. This meant no PDAs. Considering that Mel's most famous PDA was her sex tape with Philly K., this left Chaddington totally boned. His hair drooped. Abby still rained insults on their parade and told Mel that she could never come and play with her anymore. Mel frowned so hard it spread to her forehead. Abby ran off to fill a snot rag with grief. Marlena was crawling the halls looking for people to counsel and cornered her. She got her to open up on her shrink's special kleenexes. If she keeps treating people for free like this, she'll never be able to afford real whipped cream for John again. Once she'd dropped a few pounds through her nose, she sniffed around Austin, carried his books to school, taught him how to use the Interwebs and then bought them two grocery bags full of grilled cheese. Meanwhile, after hearing of Daniel's infirmity, Jack nearly gave Jenn a stroke when he decided to drop out of the competition for her affections. Since both men had dropped out, this left her to argue with herself about who deserved her more. She tried talking to Hope about it. The detective made her eat a plate of cookies as therapy.

On their own, Bope got so sappy that you could have boiled them and made them into a topping for the fish pancakes at the pub. "Fancy Face, you are my destiny," Babs cooed, but the cuddling hit a sour note when they began bickering again. Although he was willing to spend fifty minutes a week working on their marriage (it meant just that much to him), he was still reluctant to support her obsession with Alice's secret. Obviously if her Gran had hidden a clue that they were never supposed to find and they found it, she must have wanted them to find it, the detective reasoned. Babs couldn't argue with that or with the "Remember I'm only a couple of pills away from a psychopath" look that kept filling her face when she insisted on plowing ahead.

Rafe and Carrie decided to call their new firm "Cafe Whodunit" in the hopes that it would confuse Salem's donut crowd enough to come through their doors. Their operation as a lost and found continued this week as they took on such scintillating cases as investigating mysterious smells at the Salem hotel, tracking down where I left my toothbrush, looking for lost buttons, looking into claims by students who said that their dog ate their homework and so on. However, after briefly puzzling over why Samantha wasn't having a conniption about them working together, they spent even less time thinking about how to cool down in their E-Z Bake office. Rather than open a window or door, they started stripping off their clothes. Rafe sucked on his pen, recalling that this was all eerily like that fantasy letter he wrote to Penthouse Forum when he was a teenager. He gorped as she continued fondling her breasts, contemplating if she should just dump them onto the photocopier so he could take a copy home to frame by his bed. Too impoverished to go to the spa, they spent most of the afternoon sweatily bending over in awkward positions and melting ice all over their bodies. Her cleavage heaved so much that the wind it exhaled ruffled his eyebrows.

Across town, Sami demonstrated her icy intelligence to Kate with her latest business ideas. Katherina was so impressed she thought Samanther was the genius in the company. Considering Sami's only competition is Chris, that's not much of an achievement. Slightly higher on the achievement scale, Nicole admitted to Brady and Madison that she was okay with them being together. Victor had just asked Madi to be the new CEO of Titan since Brady had jumped ship. Apparently being married to Maggie has turned his brain into the cheese curds she sells at Chez Rouge. The redhead has been giving him all sorts of brilliant business advice, like suggesting that he appoint Babs as CEO. Madison was conflicted about taking Brady's job but that didn't stop her from trying to goose him at the spa.

And Elvis revealed that his first act as mayor would be to legalize slavery. To show that he's paving the way for the city's bright future, he got his own slave: young William. Strangely, within a few hours of his enslavement, Will actually seemed to have perked up more than he has in months. Anything beats the kind of freedom he received from his mother. After getting Will to steal Abe's big jobs proposal, he managed to fondle his neck whenever possible and buy him a car. Sami showed up and caught them together as they were discussing whose garage it would be parked in.

Lines of the week:
EJ: That hurts my feelings.

Abby: How did you two keep your hands off each other long enough to stab me in the back?

Victor: I'm keeping it real.

Bo: (to Hope) You're a dog with a bone.

Mel: I'm not a selfish bitch, Abigail.
Abby: Then you're a lying slut!


January 6
Since seeking pill therapy didn't work out so well for Hope last time, she and Babs went in for talk therapy this time. Babs broke down and let out all of the emotions he'd been bottling up for five years like he was a dinghy with a leak. In a couple of seconds, he was empty again. Marlena ended the hour right on the dot, thankful that her Botox had made it impossible for her to register anything remotely approximating an unprofessional emotion. Meanwhile, John, Salem's unwilling organ donor, was bankrupting himself to pay back the people his nephew ripped off. Brady offered to go into business with him. Madison didn't like it. A few minutes later she did. Across town, Stefano complained about Harold's dress sense. John squinted. Marlena was horny. Rafe and Carrie were hired to find a cat but it beat him up so he went home to cook dinner and make out with Sami who was acting happy as a clam at high tide. Will nearly puked at the sight of the spectacle and went back to his grandma for more therapy.

At some point in the past few months, Daniel had a stroke in his sleep. It was so mild that he didn't notice. This storyline was apparently inspired by the new writing strategy of the show which aims to put us all in a state of sleep flirting with death. When the big news about Dr. Wandering Hands finally broke, it was played so undramatically that Daniel's tan actually seemed to pale. Somewhere, an organ player was so distressed by this lack of soap opera style drama that he wrote to me to complain about how the dulling down of the genre is putting people like him out of work.

Dear sir or madam,

I am but a lowly organ tinkler who once made a grand living from highlighting the emotions of Daytime's glitzy stars. But, oh, how the times have changed! It was bad enough when the synthesizer players took over and drowned everything with leftover tracks from Dr. Who  not that I could complain about this too much since we were in the same union -- but this scene with Dr. Dan was dull as a box of dirt. They didn't even let him grunt.

Yours regretfully,
Phineas Z. Barnsweller
Here's some more from my mailbag:

"My Shih Tsu Lady Fluffernutters lost her chain the other day and I noticed Marlena wearing it during Friday's episode. Could you please send it back to me or do I have to call the Salem PD?" wrote one concerned viewer who asked that her name not be included. Strangely, another email by a Mr. Yo Phat-Mama dealt with a similar issue. He claimed that Marlena had been copying his style and demanded that she stop. I've been informed that the article of clothing in question is actually part of MadWorld's GhettoFabulous collection and was inspired by a skater boyfriend that Madison had in the 80s. Another source informed me that all of the women in Marlena's family wear chains around their waists whenever possible. This is done to control the inflating ass syndrome that they suffer from but is usually hidden by distracting clothes.

The biggest mystery to appear this week was the figure who appeared on the Safe fridge. The kids painted pictures of the whole family. Will is clearly recognizable, but next to him was a mysterious multicolored bird. Even before Babs and Hope could assume this was yet another secret involving Alice, a viewer calling herself Mariah Hairey wrote in to suggest several meanings for the mysterious bird. She related it to a voodoo ritual and suggested that this could mean Celeste has been psychically communicating with her grand-nieces and nephews. This bird image would then supposedly have supernatural powers, like Stefano's phoenix, and could be used to ward off evil. She also suggested that Johnny may have seen the mythical phoenix at Casa DiMera but mistook it for a chicken and ate it, gaining magical powers. What's your theory?

And a psychic sent a letter in with information about the coming year. It was about fifty pages long and full of expletives and strange recipes involving plants I hope you don't have in your house so I'll just give you the gist of it. In the weeks to come, it will be revealed that EJ is not Stefano's son after all. He is actually one of the original Cabbage Patch kids. It turns out that Shawn Brady Senior and Alice had been trying to do some clam farming. Since neither of them knew much about biology or agriculture, they attempted to cross fertilize cauliflower with whatever bodily fluids they could get their hands on. This explains both EJ's inhuman fertilizing powers and the fact that Johnny looks like a giant cauliflower. Susan, believing that baby EJ was a talking vegetable, smuggled him out of the country after discovering that Stefano had learned of the operation and wanted to assimilate it to his bio-engineering business with Rolf.

Anyway, before any of that can happen, Will showed up at Casa DiMera, unable to cope with his mom pretending she isn't evil incarnate. Distraught and not firing on all cylinders, he immediately tried to blackmail Elvis for money to leave town. As Marvin always says, "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's too late to try figuring out how to drain the swamp."

Lines of the week:
EJ: Why would you hire Samanther? She only has one skill and you can't use it to sell clothes.


More Musings: 
Matt's Musings on Days of Our Lives from 2011
Matt's Musings on Days of Our Lives from 2010
Matt's Musings on Days of Our Lives from 2009
Matt's Musings on Days of Our Lives from 2008