Michael

I think only in the context of "We share a son." It was SUPER weird to bring her back (and have her fixated on Justin) without explaining much about her relationship with Alex or what their lives had been like. I know they cancelled a casting call for Alex around the time MF came in, so who knows what the plan was?

Alex is Justin's son with Anjelica Deveraux. He and Adrienne primarily raised Alex, though. (We've never really gotten clarity on how much contact he had with Anjelica over the years, which was a weird missing piece from when she showed up fixated on getting Justin back.) And yeah, he's being played by Robert Scott Wilson, who's about to exit as Ben.

Sometimes they actually force it a little TOO much. They had Abigail talking about needing to save "my cousin Sarah" even though we'd hardly ever seen the two interact. At this point, it's more that there are several different branches of the family, all grown out from Tom and Alice. I'm not super-close with my third cousins, but they're still family. And they still feature the Horton house prominently, with Julie and Doug living there now that Jennifer and Jack are only around part-time (which is an actor issue for Jennifer, not the show's choice). There were significant scenes in that living room on Tuesday's episode in which Julie learned about the history of Juneteenth, which is important because she has a Black grandson and Black great-grandchildren. It's more an evolved version of the family, but I really do not feel like the Hortons have been purposely minimized in the last few decades.

Yeah, I'm not sure why this is becoming a narrative. Obviously they've made some mistakes, but we have Lucas, Allie, and Sarah all with the last name Horton onscreen and in story right now. Will is recurring. Ciara's around for the time being. Shawn is in the middle of a story. Abigail just died, but you know they'll undo that at some point (which is a whole other issue). Eli has been minimized because of the actor's availability, but he's in story, as is Julie, an original character. The family tree is spread out more than it used to be, and there are branches missing that could be filled in, but it's not like the family has been wiped out.

You're thinking of Nicholas Alamain, son of Carly and Lawrence. Victor Webster played him at the end of the 90s when they over-SORASed him. The character came back briefly in 2011 for Carly's exit, with his age sort of reset to where it should've been.

Kate Mansi left in spring 2020, when Abigail went off to the treatment facility, and Marci Miller didn't return until Sept 2020. Marci wasn't on contract when she returned, and then they wrote her out for months during 2021 to accommodate her maternity leave. Abigail was "in Boston helping pack up Laura's [!@#$%^&*]" for all of summer 2021. She's only been back on-air (and on contract) since Sept 2021.

Now that we're pretty sure she doesn't get DECAPITATED, I don't really mind this. The issue with Will's death was that he was the first major gay character on the show and we watched him be brutally murdered. Abigail being found dead? Meh. I know they're trying to make it seem permanent, but they already had her "die" in a plane crash in 2016, so... whatever. They've been writing a part-time Abigail for like six years on and off. Ciara being part-time has held Ben hostage and resulted in a [!@#$%^&*]-ton of scenes where it's just the two of them in bed or "schmoopy"-ing each other. Sami's ins and outs are causing them to twist stories and characters into pretzels constantly. I have no idea how they're going to navigate Will being on recurring, but I'm sure it'll become exhausting at some point. So whatever. "Kill" her off for now, if they want to write for Chad. Frankly, I'd just have written him out, too, since J&J's family seems to be naturally receding from focus, but if they wanna write for him... whatever. Now, will the story be well written? Probably not. And will she be back? Of course she will. I long ago stopped taking any grief seriously on this show, which is part of a larger problem. But if they aren't chopping off the head of a legacy character, I'm just kind of meh on the whole thing.

I thought Jordan had been pretty upfront about what Clyde did to her. I remember being pissed that Kate stayed with Clyde after learning that, given her own history of abuse (and Billie's) at Curtis's hands. And I'm pretty sure they addressed that angle during one of Clyde's prison breaks after Jordan returned in the last few years. Maybe Ben never found out, or Jordan wanted to shield him, but other people did know at some point.

People definitely looked older in the past -- I'm sure some of it is because we present-day viewers see them as 'old-timey' and as younger versions of people we know as 'old', but styling was very different. Think about the fact that Tamara Braun (Ava) just turned 51, and Frances Reid (Alice) was, I believe, 52 when Days premiered in 1965. Lauren Koslow (Kate) is 17 years older than Frances Reid was when Days premiered. Styling was very different, and it makes a huge difference. Mickey of the mid-60s doesn't read as being 33 (I think that's how old he was when the show premiered). He feels, I dunno, 45?!

Thanks for the tags, @victoria foxton! I can't wait to watch these and join the conversation.

It's even harder to watch these crappy corporate stories (Days is at least as bad as Y&R, but I'd say worse in that one regard) when we have stuff like Succession and The Dropout available elsewhere. It makes these goofy "CEO wars" with no detail or nuance seem even more cartoonish.

Interesting idea in theory, and certainly not impossible. I do see two potential issues: 1) It's confusing to cast, say, a Black woman as Alexis and then see her with any of Alexis's three very clearly white daughters. Obviously Black people have white children, and vice-versa, but it could create an entirely different context for those relationships. 2) A Black Monica Quartermaine would be a Black woman who became a doctor in the 1970s, which is a very different backstory than a white woman who had the privilege of being white, especially in the "old days" but even up until now. Not that soaps even write this context for 95% of their BIPOC characters, though they're getting better at it, but I do think it adds a layer to the characters that would be neither intended nor properly explored. I do think it's an idea worthy of some exploring, though!

My mental timeline is probably mixed up, but it felt like it stayed "decent" until fall 2014, for the most part. Abigail and EJ's affair wasn't really a great story, but it had a lot of great moments. Same with Sami, Kate, and Gabi "killing" Nick. In retrospect, there was a lot of stuff that I liked pieces of but had other elements dragging it down. JJ/Eve was juicy, but Paige was so insipid -- and it definitely felt like a retcon that Paige was Eve's daughter, probably as a means of breathing some life into that story, because they'd had Paige and Theresa cross paths without even a hint that they knew each other. Didn't they say that Eve, Paige, and Ben all recognized each other from Florida at one point, too? That got dropped. I think we knew that Kate was paying Jordan from the outset, because she hired a physical therapist for Rafe and then was pissed it was a female Jordan instead of a man, right? I don't know why anyone thought building a triangle off a pairing like Rafe/Kate made any sense, but they sort of cobbled together an interesting umbrella story by roping in Abigail, Chad, Ben, and Clyde as things went along. The big thing, of course, that was hanging over that era was Daniel. It truly felt like he had to be part of everything. Even when Kristen returned in disgrace after her rape of Eric was exposed, they made it about Daniel. What was with that weird scene of Daniel and Kristen starting to hook up, only to be caught by Brady? Awful.

I know you and I have gone back and forth a lot on this period elsewhere, but I find it so interesting to discuss. The intro of the Jordan storyline (and all its weird shifts) felt like the time when the TomSell era, which had been so strong from late 2012-fall 2013, started to fall apart. Something was up with the resolution of Sami's murder trial for shooting Bernardi -- that thing with the nurse was so random and unsatisfying. And I always wanted them to do more with Marge Bernardi. They could've involved Lucas with her, for instance. Stefano's involvement during that period felt like it changed over and over -- probably when Joe's health improved, they did more with him, and then they had to pull back when it waned. And I don't think they knew how they wanted to position Clyde, either. Setting up that he had raped Jordan and then trying to make him a viable love interest for Kate was insane. That whole Jordan/Rafe story was SO limp and without a real throughline, too. Just sloppy. I love the idea of Bernardi's son returning and being paired with either of Sami's daughters. At one point, I thought Charlie might turn out to be the child of Alan Harris, targeting Allie as vengeance for what Sami did to his father. This would be a similar vibe.

In my mind, she had, but I'm realizing she just set Jessica's gross DID backstory in motion, huh? I had conflated that with Mitch having been around. They've softened and un-softened him so much over the years that I have whiplash. He's never quite been the supervillain Stefano is, and I think there's a way to play him as this unscrupulous businessman without Maggie constantly having to give him a pass on stuff like putting hits on people and harming their own family members.

Griffith's tone worked (for me) for the first few months. It was perfect for the serial killer story, but the balance of the show was immediately off. The entire thing was the Necktie Killer and Hope/Aiden, with random interludes of stuff like Daniel and Nicole blowing the budget by dancing to John Legend's "All of Me" in the Pub. But yeah, the darkness worked, and then it was the entire show and so oppressive and miserable. I thought he'd turn Y&R into a bloodbath, and instead he turned it into... uh... whatever this boring-ass mess is. Mascolo came back pretty strong in 2007, but they were having all those weird contract issues in '07-'08 where they'd have to bench vets for months at a time, so he was there, then he was in a coma, then he was back, blah blah. Didn't Higley love Mitch Lawrence? You'd think she would've leaned into writing Stefano at least more like that than the riveting tale of a supervillain with diabetes.

I love Maggie Horton and absolutely believe Suzanne Rogers has a place on this show. I loathe Maggie Kiriakis. But I'm glad she continues to have a presence (and a job), and it's an easy course correction -- they had her with the Hortons more since Suzanne returned from leave, and she was great there. I know they're now in a tough spot tossing her into scenes as Victor's mouthpiece for Titan, likely because JA can't film, but it just underscores how much of being with Victor is not who Maggie is -- which would be interesting if they addressed it instead of ignored it! The scenes of Hope killing Stefano were very, very strong in isolation. But like so much of Days (and especially Griffith's Days), it was all predicated on some flimsily established premise that she thought Stefano was responsible for Bo's death, even as we were seeing that Deimos had something to do with it. I don't think it helped that we could all see how feeble Joe Mascolo was. That wasn't the show's fault, per se, but it affected how the scenes read. The bigger problem was the fallout and the cover-up, as mentioned upthread. There was probably a way to pin it on that disgusting André without Hope and Rafe coming off so hypocritical and awful, but that would've required nuanced writing, which was in short supply. I think we were all just so tired of the nonstop darkness by that point, too. We went from watching Will Horton be strangled onscreen to Bo dying of a brain tumor to Eric killing Daniel in a DUI to Hope shooting Stefano to Ciara's rape in like three months. (And yeah, I agree that the rape was THE THING that should have sealed Griffith's fate. It was disgusting, distasteful, and worst of all, pointless!) Hope felt like a random choice to kill Stefano, too. I guess Marlena got to do it with the 1985 shooting *and* injecting his IV in 2008, so she got her shot. Lol. Roman as an idea is interesting!

I think they have chemistry, too. I found it interesting initially to have Hope completely lose her [!@#$%^&*] after the trauma of Bo's death/Aiden's betrayal. The story of her being the one to shoot Stefano dead was interesting, but the execution was so, so bad (and such an obvious way to push her and Rafe inorganically) -- so instead of playing into the interesting darkness that KA has, it played up that awful, brittle side of her that Hope has yet to return from.

It was dumb! He couldn't have... been scared and run out of the building and been trapped under a tree or something? I dunno. It was so ridiculous. Yeah, I canNOT remember why they were in the safehouse. I'm sure it was dumb! That was pretty shortly after John and Hope returned from Alamainia, which was a whole other ball of nothing. But I don't think those threads were connected.

I liked the beginning, too. There just wasn't much to it after that. And I have no doubt Corday was sticking his hands in the pot pretty early on. It just felt to me like the appearance of a sophisticated story without the actual storytelling. Something definitely shifted around January of MarDar's run, too. A lot of those initial "stories" wrapped up quickly, and we moved into other phases. But their first month or two definitely felt like a Days I wanted to watch, and then I almost felt guilty admitting I was bored as hell by the time the Pub got shot up and everyone thought Johnny was dead and it turned out he had just been... under a table for days?

I think you're right that it was Stefano-related. That pension story was terrible. I can see how it SOUNDED good, which was my thing with MarDar. John and Marlena return! Stefano has a plot against them but it isn't some crazy sci-fi thing! Carrie and Austin are pitted against each other professionally, which pushes Carrie toward Rafe and reignites the Carrie/Sami tension! The basic ideas sound good, but it was pedestrian as hell in execution.

That resolution was embarrassing, even for Days. I believe they were in a safehouse, though -- they wanted everyone to think they were dead (I cannot remember why), so they got stashed in some safehouse and spent the whole time canoodling and [!@#$%^&*]. So for a while, they were just hanging around doing nothing. It was only toward the end, when the bomb became known, that the situation was dire. I'm not sure MarDar's stories were as interfered with as is rumored. It was, as stated above, all setup. They came in with that story of Stefano framing John for stealing employee pensions or something, and it went on for MONTHS and then just ended with, like, Stefano telling the truth and it was over between commercial breaks. Every single thing they wrote wound up like that. It's tough for me to believe there was absolute brilliance planned and then it all wound up so flat and pointless -- we all know Corday gets nervous, but I'd kill to see what these "incredible stories" were supposed to be. We were still operating within the parameters of American daytime drama in 2011-12, after all. I really liked the start of their tenure, and I do think they helped restore the core of the show after the messiness of Higley's final year or so, but it was a sloppy, sloppy show with poor balance and weird callbacks to the past that meant nothing.

That story meandered for like the entirety of the McPherson/Thomas run. I've never been able to tell what was planned and what was, "Oh sh*t, we have to wrap up all these different threads really fast." Ian didn't appear to have much to do with the DiMeras for the bulk of his time, aside from bedding Kate because, well, she's Kate, and he was involved with some power struggle at Titan (maybe as a way to mess with Brady, who was with Ian's ex, Madison?). At the same time, they'd also set up this whole secret truce between Alice and Stefano where she was keeping the secret that EJ wasn't his son or something. Brynn Thayer played the back of Susan's head one day on a phone call and told Hope about this. Then, that spring, there was a Who Killed Stefano? story, which started out pretty fun and epic. I think EJ wound up the main suspect but it turned out -- VERY RANDOMLY and quickly -- that Ian had framed him, and they tossed in some flashback of Santo DiMera to explain that Ian thought Santo was his father and he was the rightful heir to the DiMera fortune, and something something EJ was really Stefano's son and Ian had just kidnapped Stefano and it was over very fast, and then Joe was back on as Stefano, but not in Salem and always seated, for a good year afterward. I do think the intention was to build up Ian as the new big bad, but none of this felt unified.

Okay, I actually gasped.

McPherson and Thomas completely axed the hospital, which I always found to be such a weird move. We occasionally saw some weird hospital room set -- I know Bo had some health crisis while Hope was in "Alamainia" (smh) with John -- but we didn't see that main nurses' station area for a whole year. Melanie, who was a nurse, started doing Botox at the spa, and Kayla was working behind the bar at the Pub. Maxine didn't appear for the entire year. We got the main hospital set back, like, the first week of Tomlin and Whitesell's return, as well as Melanie greeting Maxine. (Also, hi!) McPherson & Thomas's stint really should have worked. I don't know what level of interference there was, but there were no stories being told. It was just a lot of setup. Everyone was getting new, random job offers, many of which went nowhere. It felt to me like a lot of well intentioned and poorly executed fan service. And I wound up liking a lot of what McPherson did with the AMC reboot a year later! Justin/Adrienne seemed to get the big supercouple push, though I've always regarded them as a secondary supercouple, and then Jack/Jennifer were there, so that era kind of stretched itself into 1990-91. But you're right -- by the time Tanner and Molly were being pushed as the Next Big Thing (or a Thing at all!), things had really nosedived. This was also an era where, for the first time in over a decade, Days was telling love stories with characters who had a lot of onscreen history, often in a second or third "big love" -- you had Marlena returning and being torn between Roman and John, Bo moving on after Hope's death with Carly, and even Kayla and Shane turning to one another. Totally different sort of storytelling than they'd done in the 80s.