Days of Our Lives: December 2021 Discussion Thread

[KLN]

Please register in order to view this content

I can't argue with any of your points except to say my perspective is (obviously) skewed a bit.

Everything that's ever happened on this show since November 1965 has been a mess from one perspective or another.

[carolineg]

Before REALRoman appeared Marlena and Isabella were caught in a no win situation with Ro John.  In fact all four of them were basically good people in a bad scenario.  Same with Roman/Marlena/John.  I think you almost had to change it up with Kristen because it had been done to death with Marlena/John/Roman only a short time before.  Just my opinion, I don't doubt your scenario could work, but I do think John/Marlena needed some evil machinations to keep them apart because it barely, barely makes sense in the way it played out.

[j swift]

Wasn't Kristen a social worker at one point, or did she just work with under privileged youth?  Because I wonder how she supports herself?  One imagines that Tony has investment dividends and other forms of passive income.  I guess Tony and Kristen would have been the only benefactors of Stefano's will.  But, she lives awfully high on the hog with no viable means of support, and masks, private jets to fly your enemies in trunks out of town, and hair coloring don't come cheap for a woman who doesn't even own a home!

I know we're not meant to ask how people in Salem afford their lifestyles (I mean Ben's having a baby, while he and his wife seem to not be bothered by need for jobs), but Kristen's source of wealth is a question that I have every time she's in town.

[victoria foxton]

I'm loving reading a dissection of JER's first run. After watching for 8 yrs. I started dipping in and out starting with the possession. So these  post are awesome reads.

 

Please register in order to view this content

Edited January 2, 2022 by victoria foxton

[carolineg]

Kristen was a social worker.  She worked at the Horton Center.  I assume she just inherited money from Stefano or Tony.  I don't know.  Maybe rich John paid her off.  I do think she has some Dimera money.  Also, I am pretty sure Isabella was low key rich and Brady has money just from her alone, so he could be funding stuff as well.   Not on purpose, but Brady is pretty dumb and Kristen probably could of stolen money from him and he wouldn't notice.

She's definitely less questionable than Ben/Ciara and their 'wealth' in a studio apartment.

Edited January 2, 2022 by carolineg

[KLN]

That's how I feel too. Kristen was sort of the next evolution of obstacles in the saga of John and Marlena's love story. Half a box of fries short and a tortured bitch in the end but she continues to pay dividends as a character.

[Khan]

Don't get me wrong, I understand your perspective on Kristen completely.  You love Kristen and you want her behavior ascribed to a genuine pathology.  As someone who grew up watching Douglas Marland's work on GL and ATWT, I think it's only natural to want to understand why someone like Kristen behaves the way she does.  It's just that I don't think Kristen has ever been a strong enough character, either as a "saint" or as a "sinner," to support the deep-dish thinking.  She was very thinly drawn in the beginning, which made it easy for a hack like JER to turn her into a wacko later over John's penis.

[carolineg]

Not a lot of time had passed since Steve's death, but enough for a soap I think.   I want to say Marcus was up in Kayla's grill before Shane, but that didn't pan out.

[KLN]

I assume dirty money from the family henchmen cracking heads on the murder for hire circuit.

Please register in order to view this content

Edited January 2, 2022 by KLN

[carolineg]

There had to be something more than a boring good girl to keep J/M apart.  I mean aside from the devil and a giant gold birdcage lol.

I think Kristen's trajectory sort of worked?  One of my fave Kristen scenes is when she finds a picture of John/Marlena/and Belle?  And throws it to the ground and stomps on it and says 'this is what's left of John and Marlena" lol.  Good psycho stuff.  I liked it.  It fit the era and story fine.  I mean, in the 90's a lot of women were fighting over John's penis....

[Khan]

Which is ironic, because the premise surrounding THAT triangle was so ridiculous and so only-on-DAYS that it dictated that someone, either John or Roman, become less-than-good in order for it to work.  To put it another way: for years, John (and everyone else) thought he was Roman; now, he's not.  Marlena, who was once presumed dead, is back, and she's torn between her husband, who's also back from the dead (...I guess...), and the man everyone THOUGHT was her husband, including himself; and who's really more like her husband than he isn't.  Now, try spinning something real and nuanced out of that, lol.

It barely made sense, because DAYS hasn't been written intelligently since the Carter administration.  And I say that as someone who loved this show back in the '80's.

[KLN]

You're not wrong about that either.

Good Kristen was a bore. Poorly conceived and kind of severe with male leads. Her dark turn happened at a personally important time in my life and I gravitated to her.

It's been hard marrying the extremes of the character and find stable footing, I know. But I actually think that lends itself to reimagining the character when you factor in her childhood background and whatnot.

She could be a tragic anti-heroine if they wrote her as one. Or she can be a Darth Maul daughter from hell and fall into a woodchipper next week. I won't lose sleep either way but I DO see value in her, personally. Primarily as a rotated character though.

You don't seem to like any iteration of the character that's ever existed so there's pretty much nothing in this mess for you lol. 

Agree, it mostly worked for what it was.

Please register in order to view this content

I don't see eye to eye with you on everything but I love your posts!

Edited January 2, 2022 by KLN

[carolineg]

OMG I can barely decipher that first paragraph even though I know it makes actual sense lol.  I think you forgot about lame ass Isabella constantly bothering RoJohn about the fact she was pregnant and they could make their own new family.  The way to go was probably to make John the villian, but I think the show had invested so much in Drake they didn't want to pull the trigger on that.  So somewhere along the way RealRoman became the bad guy.  Not in a villainous way, but so annoying you wanted Marlena to cheat on him.   You know Marlena, she always drives defensively straight to John's penis lol.

Listen 90's Days made vague sense to me at the time, but re-watching I am like tf is wrong with everyone?  None of it makes logical sense.  JER is freakin weird.  The absurd notion that a child will make someone love you and stay with you forever.  It's not the 50's.  And like Kristen/John's child would keep them together but John/Marlena's child wouldn't?  So weird.  Every female villian was having kids at the time.  

 

[KLN]

You're always on the nose.

JER was a weird dude with a skewed perspective to say the least.

Edited January 2, 2022 by KLN

[carolineg]

I remember wanting John/Marlena to sleep together so bad because Roman didn't seem to respect her at all.  And John, as usual, was fawning all over her.  In retrospect, Roman was a decent guy and John was WAY out of line, but it worked for me.  Re-watching I still really enjoy it, but John is just super overbearing with Marlena and it almost makes me uncomfortable.  And then he starts flaunting Rebecca in front of her and Rebecca asks Marlena how to attract John.  Everything is so, so awkward including Kim and Victor being in on the affair.  Anyhow, I appreciated that story started in 1991 and continued for years.   Unfortunately, Roman's character never recovered.