Crossing the Picket Line—Shellip (2)

I still want to be a scab! But first, a lament.

Why, oh, why must we watch Belle torn between Phillip and Shawn once again, only with the roles reversed? I admit that Shellip is a heck of a lot more watchable now that St. Belle has come down from her pedestal. It’s incredibly refreshing to compare Belle now to Belle during part 1 of this triangle (or maybe part 2 or part five million, it feels like this has been going on for twenty lifetimes), when Belle was married to Phillip. Then, her longing for Shawn was presented as Rootable Twu Wuv, her staying with Phillip was presented as sympathetic concern for his well-being. And everyone else on the show smiled fondly at her as she sat there and acted like a limp dishrag.

I’m assuming here that as scab headwriter, I would NOT be able to do what I desperately want to do, which is fire Brandon Beemer and ship Shawn off the canvas for a few years. Fellow TWoPers, I posted parts of this as an idea for Belle several months ago on TWoP. But I still like the idea, so I’m adapting it here.

Shellip

John’s will is read. Marlena gets it all, except for Basic Black, which goes to Belle. Belle is ecstatic and runs home to tell Shawn their money worries are over. Shawn is happy for her until it becomes clear how much she hates living over the pub and having so little money, then he gets mad. Belle implies that if he were a better provider, she would be happier with him. Thinking of her deal with Phillip, Belle makes a snide remark about how without her help, he wouldn’t have it made with the police force right now. Shawn asks what the hell that means, and Belle nervously says “nothing, nothing.” Shawn points out that inheriting a business from your dad isn’t exactly earning your own way in the world either and they both walk away mad.

From this Belle gets the idea that she will run Basic Black. After all, she was a designer there once and there will be lots of people there who know what they’re doing. How hard could it be?

When Belle arrives at Basic Black, however, everything is in an uproar. John’s coma (and the fact that he never, ever went to work even when he was conscious) has allowed his second in command to abuse his power shamefully. All the designs planned for the new fall line turn out to have been stolen from another designer. Knowing the truth was coming out, this manager has just absconded—with all the available cash. So now Belle is left with no designs, and a bankrupt company.

His argument with Belle makes Shawn more eager than ever to prove himself as a police officer. After seeing how reluctant Roman is to believe Kate is guilty, Shawn decides to follow Kate around. Kate is suspicious of Phillip’s story about his car being broken into, so she tracks down the two thugs who Shawn saw with the gun, and bribes them into telling her who hired them—Phillip, of course. Shawn, overhearing all this, remembers Belle’s comment, and a neuron actually fires.

Meanwhile, Belle runs to Phillip and asks for a loan to cover the immediate cash flow problem. When he hears the state of things, he refuses. Titan is not in the charity business. He is irritated that Belle only comes to him when she needs help with something. He advises her to cut her losses: “Face it, Belle, you’re not executive material, you’re executive wife material.”

Kate arrives at Phillip’s office. She is about to go in when she hears Phillip talking. Shawn arrives too and they both press their ears to the door in time to hear:

Stung, but still desperate, Belle says that he never took her up on the one night she promised him in return for planting the gun for Shawn to find. She suggests that perhaps one night with her could still be a possibility if he would be willing to bail out Basic Black. Phillip says, “If you’re planning on being in business, Belle, let me tell you something about the free market. I could get a lot more, for a lot less.”

Belle runs out, straight into Shawn’s arms. Angry confrontations ensue. Shawn asks for his ring back, and Belle refuses. Shawn points out that he went into debt for that ring, and Belle says she doesn’t care, that was his boneheaded move.

Belle lies in wait outside Titan, and when Kate comes out she pitches the idea of her coming to help straighten things out at Basic Black. Belle will sell her engagement ring to get some immediate cash. Then she’ll take care of the designs, and Kate will take over the executive duties. Kate throws the idea back in her face, but then Belle points out that she and Kate are in similar positions. Neither of them has a lot of choices right now, Belle because everyone in town hates her for cheating on Shawn, and Kate because she’s out on bail and in trouble with the SEC.

Kate and Belle work together. Shawn decides to stick to bartending. Phillip is bitter and swears off women, until …

 

Crossing the Picket Line—Sami and the DiMeras (1)

I am enjoying the show right now, so it’s troubling to me that it might all go to hell if the writing strike continues. I feel Hogan’s zigzagginess has been smoothed out considerably, and I only hope that his tendency to skip payoffs will also be remedied (if he is the problem, which I’m not sure about). My biggest beef with the show now is the balance of airtime, where being on the backburner doesn’t mean being on once or twice a week, but once or twice a month. Other than that I’m pretty happy.

But on the other hand, there’s always the hope that an infusion of fresh blood is what the show really needs. C’mon, how many of you are secretly dreaming about being a scab writer for Days during the writing strike? I know I am.

This isn’t my plan to revamp Days (which would involve more dramatic changes), but how I would move forward from here. And as headwriter I have no control over the cast, so unfortunately I can’t write out Shawn. Given my spoiler-free status, I am going to pretend that the last existing script was the last episode I watched (11/28), and go from there. I’ll start with—

Sami and the DiMeras

EJ’s recovery continues, and he is ready to leave the hospital (though he still can’t walk). Stefano wants him to move into the DiMera mansion, along with Sami and Johnny. EJ isn’t keen on the idea of living across the hall from Lucas, so he likes the idea. Naturally Sami doesn’t. EJ won’t press Sami directly, and Stefano is annoyed but stops short of an open confrontation.

Meanwhile Lucas is becoming more and more sure than Sami has feelings for EJ, and he keeps pressing for sole custody of little Ali. Sami confides her unhappiness in EJ, who gets an idea: Sami should aim for custody of both twins. EJ and Sami are a two parent household with lots of family money and extended family support. As for the “crime family” idea, well, has anything ever been proven? No. Lucas on the other hand is a unemployed single father. It’s perfect! EJ points out that Stefano will never, ever give up on the sole DiMera scion—perhaps some reference to how Stefano got Benjy and EJ from their mothers could be brought in here. If she stays with EJ, moves into the DiMera mansion, she’ll be able to counteract the DiMera influence. But Sami scoffs at the idea.

EJ then has a setback in his recovery, precipitated by seeing Sami with Lucas or some such thing. Stefano angrily confronts Sami, saying she’s not working hard enough to convince EJ she has feelings for him. How can she, when she’s running home to Lucas every night and everyone else in her family knows the truth? Sami, caught between Lucas on one side and Stefano on the other, has to make Sophie’s choice: she decides EJ is right about Johnny. Ali will be better off with Lucas.

Stefano, seeing how much influence Sami has over EJ, decides then it’s time for a backup plan. If EJ’s loyalties are starting to waver, and since Andre is dead and Benjy is dead, how about Tony? He approaches Tony about the idea of coming back into the DiMera fold. At first Tony scoffs at the idea, but then he thinks, maybe, he could get a piece of the DiMera empire. After everything Stefano has done to him, doesn’t he owe him that much? Anna points out that Stefano has gotten the better of him whenever they’ve gone head to head, but Tony says it’s different now, he will have the power.

So EJ, Sami, Johnny, Tony, and Anna all move into the DiMera mansion with Stefano. Sami has to convince everyone in town, not just EJ, that this is a true marriage, not just a way to end the vendetta. She is helped in this by Lucas, who is convinced it’s true.

So eventually I’d like to see Sami scheming to overthrow Stefano by slowly winning EJ more and more over to her side. Tony and EJ could jockey for power, with Stefano playing them against each other when he’s worried about one or the other’s loyalty. Tony’s sympathy for EJ would also get the better of him, because it was the position he was in twenty years ago. EJ would eventually find out that Sami is playing him, but keep that knowledge to himself while he tries to play her in return. And Anna could make snarky remarks all the while.

Next time: how do you solve a problem like Shellip?

 

Kill Belle

TWoP, how I miss you. The “Kill Belle” table must be hopping tonight!

I was tickled that EJ went to the trouble of going home and changing into his all black “assassin” ensemble:

screencap courtesy Days 2

See, this is yet another example of the DiMeras targeting the Brady spouses/love interests rather than the Bradys themselves. Why doesn’t the show explicitly make the connection that the DiMeras are ruining the Brady’s love lives in revenge for the love that Santo lost? It would be perfect, and would explain the inexplicable interest the DiMeras have shown in the Bradys love lives all these years. (I can’t claim credit for noticing this connection. That glory belongs to esp13.)

I was happy to see the show remember today (10/11) that Mrs. DiMera is an important player in the beginning of the feud, and that Stefano’s loyalty would naturally lie with her and not Colleen. Of course, her role should have been shown in the Santeen flashbacks, not just in dialogue references after the fact. An older, plain woman, desperately in love with Santo, was just how I envisioned her. And I still say she had the best motive to kill Colleen.

I am disappointed that there wasn’t more mystery in the Santeen flashbacks. I liked the love story—for one thing it proved to me that Days can do a slow burn love story if they choose to do it—but I wanted an old fashioned murder mystery in the past, where the present day Bradys would have to dig up old clues and piece together what happened. (Perhaps they wanted to limit the new characters and actors introduced, and I suppose I should be grateful that Dee Hall and Josh Taylor weren’t cast as Colleen’s concerned Ma and Da, with Bryan Datillo as the loyal goatherd who worshipped Colleen from afar.)

Of course, on Days, where no one stays dead even when there is a body, Colleen’s body never being found is the weightiest of all anvils. So perhaps I can still hold out hope for further twists and turns. Stefano’s cryptic comments to Shawn today certainly indicated that there is more to the story.

A few posts back, I admitted that I am intrigued by the the Sami/EJ wedding and the notion of what Lucas might do away from Sami. But at the moment we’re stuck in repetitive conversation mode, and it’s getting old fast.

Because I’m always full of helpful suggestions for the Days’ writing staff, I propose a different scenario for this potential wedding. What if, instead of openly talking about a “marriage of convenience” and asking Lucas to wait for her, Sami were forced to pretend to all her family that she really had fallen for EJ? It would have to be gradually, convincingly done, of course. She might have to pretend she’d gone over to the dark side once again. The babies would be EJ’s (which for storyline purposes, they really need to be anyway), and the babies themselves could raise the stakes, not only being “two tiny hostages” but true DiMera heirs. If Stefano were determined to raise the babies, Sami might feel forced to join the DiMera organization à la Rosemary in Rosemary’s Baby. Imagine Sami trying to play both sides, insisting on separate beds to EJ and then having to turn around and make kissy face with him for the benefit of all her relatives? Imagine Lucas’s reaction once he finally accepted the “truth.” Imagine Sami trying to pretend to Stefano she could be the next DiMera doyenne. EJ, being the only one who knows this is all an act, would be at once her worst enemy and her only confidante. That’s soap gold as far as I’m concerned, and you don’t have to be an EJami fan to think so.

 

Free Phillip!

I never hated Shelle, but I’m starting to.

Why is Phillip stranded in this wretched triangle?

To wrap it up, I’d like it to be revealed that Phillip was only wooing Belle for revenge. He lures her into some compromising situation, forcing her to burn her bridges with Shawn, and then dumps her heartlessly (I think this would be interesting for Belle’s character also, if she lost both Phillip and Shawn and was thrown back onto her own resources).

He needs be be shown as a ruthless businessman, Victor’s true heir. I know Days has absolutely no interest in business-related storylines, but a storyline that involved Phillip and Lucas wresting control of Titan from Victor would be a nice use of all three characters. Scenes with Billie and Lucas would establish Phillip’s softer side, but his experience with Belle should leave him cynical about women. I’d like to see Phillip get involved in a short-term no-strings-attached relationship with someone who is the opposite of Belle. How about, after playing cat-and-mouse across the country, Phillip finally finds Lauren once again. She taunts him about his son, he contemptuously points out that she’s running around the country staying at women’s shelters. Tempers escalate, and an angry, impulsive hookup ensues.

Back in Salem, I’d like to see Phillip and Stephanie interact. Days used to do the chemistry test storyline, when two characters would be paired, but not in a no-going-back romantic way. For Steve and Kayla, this was the Andrew kidnapping story. For Jack and Jennifer, it was the baby Hannah story. I’d like to see one for Phillip and Stephanie, so if the chemistry isn’t there, there’s no loss.

Stephanie has her plate full right now with Jeremy and Max and going to college (and dealing with her back-from-the-dead father). She also has some growing up to do before she could be paired with Phillip. But a small chemistry test storyline could go something like this:

Jeremy skips town and is staying at a homeless shelter under an assumed name. Increasingly desperate for money, he attacks a prosperous looking gentleman with a limp (Phillip), intending to rob him. (Phillip is at the shelter on Lauren’s trail—though this might complicate the timeline for the Lauren hookup). Phillip turns the tables on Jeremy and pins him and prepares to call the police just as Stephanie approaches and beans him on the back of the head. She is horrified to discover that this is Phillip Kiriakis, and even more horrified when she realizes that Jeremy was the process of robbing him.

Jeremy naturally has to take off again now, and when Phillip regains consciousness Stephanie asks if she can make it up to him. Semi-hostile banter ensues, until she agrees to pose as a homeless woman and pump Lauren for information. She does so, and passes on to Phillip the clue that the baby is “right under his nose.”

Back in Salem, Stephanie goes to visit her parents, who are cooing happily over Pocket. Steve makes a comment that the mother who abandoned the baby “doesn’t know what she’s missing.” Close-up on Stephanie with an expression of realization and dismay.

 

Clue

Who killed Colleen Brady?

I love the flashbacks. I love the old-fashioned romance, and the intrigue of knowing Colleen dies tragically but not yet knowing the details. (And I love Ali Sweeney in that habit! Those freckles! That one escaping lock of hair!) On TWoP we’ve been having fun speculating about what happened and how it all ties into the vendetta against the Bradys.

So, borrowing some ideas from my fellow TWoPers, here’s my proposed scenario for Who Killed Colleen:

Colleen and Santo fall deeply in love and begin having an affair, which consists of stolen moments whenever he can get to Ireland. After a year or two of this, Santo says he wants to leave his wife and marry Colleen. She tells him he can’t, he has obligations to his wife and child (children?). He gets upset and accuses her of not loving him enough. “I love you more than my life, but a child has to come first,” Colleen tells him. They fight and leave on bad terms. He goes on an extended trip to America.

Sometime later Colleen discovers she is pregnant. She hides the fact as long as she can (that voluminous habit) and then seeks out sister Rose’s help. Rose says she will help deliver the child and place it with a family (keeping the secret from the rest of the Brady’s), but on the condition that Colleen give up Santo and not tell him about the child. Colleen hears the echo of her own words (“a child comes first”), and reluctantly agrees. She writes to Santo, breaking it off, and goes into a cloister to await the birth of her child.

In the meantime, the character of Mrs. DiMera, Santo’s wife, is introduced. She is a handsome, sensible, slightly older woman, who nevertheless loves her husband passionately and obsessively. She is constantly jealous and paranoid about Santo having love affairs, and is always searching for evidence. However, knowing he views her only with affectionate respect, she hides her feelings and shows him only the same. The strain of all this leaves her vulnerable to illness.

The priest, having sold the handkerchief for a goodly sum, writes to thank Mrs. DiMera, casually mentioning Santo’s bump on the head and the way the novice Colleen took care of him. Mrs. D puts this together with a comment or two from Stefano, and decides that Colleen is a serious threat. Soon after the letter arrives from Colleen, the one that breaks off the affair. Mrs. D notes the address, but before she can open it, a servant forwards the letter on to Santo in America.

When Santo finally gets the letter he hightails it to Ireland, and Mrs. D decides to go there as well. She travels there secretly, bringing Stefano along (she thinks she can use him to remind Santo of his family obligations). In Ireland she leaves Stefano at a hotel and surreptitiously finds Santo and trails him.

An agitated Santo finds Pete Brady and asks to see Colleen. Pete has been suspicious of their relationship, and Santo’s manner confirms that something inappropriate has been going on. The two men fight, culminating in Pete saying Santo is a lecherous bastard and he’ll kill Colleen himself before he lets her shame the family any further.

Santo is now desperate to find her, both because he loves her and he is now afraid Pete will kill her. He finds Shawn, who has known about their affair and kept it secret. Being an inquisitive child concerned about his sister, he knows where Colleen is staying. Pressured by Santo, Shawn tells Santo where she is.

On his way to go see her, Santo is delayed by seeing Stefano, who has sneaked out to find his childhood pal. Santo had no idea Stefano was even in Ireland. Upon hearing he came with Mrs. DiMera and Mrs. D is even now staying at a nearby hotel, Santo is shocked, but he doesn’t let go of his purpose. He says he’ll deal with them later and dashes off.

When he gets to the cloister, he creeps in and sees his beautiful Colleen sleeping in a massive four poster bed (with white drapes fluttering in the breeze from an open window). Quietly, quietly, so as not to startle her, he gently touches her cheek. He turns her face toward him only to see blood on her cheek. He pulls back the covers and sees the bedclothes soaked in blood. She is dead. He clutches her lifeless body to him and cradles and caresses her. He vows vengeance against Pete Brady, against all the Bradys.

Shawn has followed Santo and sees him tearing out of the cloister covered with blood. He runs back to his family’s house for help. When they get back there they find Colleen dead, and one and all believe Santo killed her.

Santo is intercepted by none other than Mrs. DiMera and Stefano. She tells him she knows all about the affair and pleads with him not to do anything else to hurt their family. If he kills a man, if he goes to jail, what will become of them? Think of her, or if not her, Stefano. Think. Think.

Confused and distraught, Santo allows himself to be convinced. He goes back to Italy with his wife and son. But he is never the same. He slips further and further into a dreamworld, brooding over his lost love and his lost vengeance. His relationship with his son is never the same, because he can’t help blaming him for delaying him when he possibly could have saved Colleen’s life, and being the reason that he couldn’t wreak vengeance on Pete Brady.

Mrs. DiMera too is never the same. Her health deteriorates further. She becomes a bedridden invalid, obsessed with how Colleen ruined Santo’s life, ruined her life.

This is the household Stefano grows up in, tinged with melancholy, sickness, obsession, and madness.

The present day Salemites finally dig up most of this story. Stefano says Pete Brady killed Colleen, Shawn says Santo did it. Our heroes travel to Ireland to uncover the truth. There they discover the priest, now old, who tells them that he suspects that Colleen was perhaps pregnant. Then at last they find an old, wizened woman who tells them she knows the truth of what happened.

This is sister Rose, and we see the last flashbacks with some details added. The same night Santo arrived in Ireland Colleen went into labor. She gave birth to a boy, and she and Rose were discussing the child’s future when there is a knock at the door. Rose takes the sleeping child and hides in the closet. She sees Mrs. D, who confronts Colleen about the affair. Colleen apologizes and says it’s all over, but Mrs. D doesn’t believe her. Rose watches helplessly, child in her arms, as they begin arguing, culminating in Mrs. D pulling a knife, stabbing Colleen, and beating a hasty retreat through the window when she hears her husband at the door.

Final shot: a weeping Rose looking down at the sleeping child, and whispering, “I couldn’t save your mother, but I can save you.”