Family meetings, take two

After Nick played Extreme Knockout with Jett last week, he basically told Chelsea that their relationship was over...which lasted all of ten minutes.

Okay guys, the reason for the take two in the title is because my computer seemed to like my first version of this column so much that it decided to make a little snack out of it and eat it. Seriously, I went to check it over one last time for typos and such before sending it off to my very kind and understanding (not to mention patient, and did I say handsome?) editor and it was just gone. The file was there, but the screen was blank. So after I got really, really, REALLY mad, and took a little break so I didn't break this stupid machine, I gave it another shot. So, my bad, two scoops: take two.

Good Lord, this show has gotten so much better! I don't know exactly what is going on behind the scenes, if they are finally just letting Hogan Sheffer write or not, but whatever it is, KEEP DOING IT! I can honestly say with no reservation that Thursday and Friday's shows were two of the best, if not the very best, episodes of Days I have ever seen. I just came up on my 15th anniversary of watching, which is something in the neighborhood of 3,800 shows (give or take), so I mean that as a sincere, heartfelt compliment.

At the beginning of the week, EJ was desperate to speak to Sami, but with the lovely officer posted outside her apartment door, that was not working out too well for him. Lucas came out and punched EJ in the stomach. What is it with all these people punching EJ lately? I know he's a bad dude, but it drives me nuts when Lucas hits him and EJ just takes it. In a fair fight, EJ would kill Lucas. All he would have to do is put one palm on Lucas's forehead and wear him out with the other hand. But I digress. EJ sent Will a text message that he needed to speak with Sami, since Sami and Lucas have changed all their phone numbers. Sami decided to take the mysterious bag of garbage (more on that in a minute) out as an excuse and she and EJ spoke about ending the feud. Of course, Lucas shows up and has a complete hissy fit. I hate to say it since I have always liked Lucas, and am a big Lucas and Sami supporter, but I HATE they way they are writing Lucas right now. I don't blame him for being concerned, but there is a pretty big valley between being concerned and acting like he is Sami's dad. If he tells her he "forbids" her to do something one more time, I'm going to put a shoe through my TV screen.

So after the smackdown in the hallway, Sami decided that she was going to take that mysterious bag of garbage down to the trash chute. Lucas, of course, decided to follow her and that's when they figured out that this bag did not belong to anyone in the Roberts household. And then it began to tick. Sami and Lucas ducked for cover, but nothing went boom. They dug through the bag and found out the source of the ticking was an alarm clock, which had begun to ring, which for some reason made Lucas throw it against the wall. Well, good thing he did, otherwise they never would have found the CD with Gollum telling them to pick up a package on the docks at 9:00. Sami and Lucas then ran into a snag as the officer at the door wasn't planning on letting them leave the apartment. After some fast talking, Mr. Police Officer ended up coming with them. They arrived at the docks in time to see a veiled figure, with great shoes on by the way, leave a package and try to slink off. The mysterious figure with the fabulous shoes had left a package containing letters that Colleen Brady had written to Santo DiMera. Lucas and the officer caught her and Sami lifted her veil. Hi Anna!

I'm going to get back to Anna and the other good stuff, but I have got to get our teenage Touch the Sky crew out of the way, or I'll forget. Jeremy the Jerk decided that he needed to get Max in on another business deal, in addition to the 25 grand clunker he already has him involved in. Jerk-emy proposed to Max that he invest yet another 10 grand in a scheme in which they will be transporting "designer knockoffs" on their plane and promised Max a four fold return on his investment. For some ungodly reason, Max agreed to this although he doesn't seem to like Jerk-emy, and I really didn't expect him to after the way the Horton demon-spawn talked to Stephanie like she was some piece of trash (I know). How much do you want to bet that that wrapped inside those "designer knockoffs" there are going to be neatly bundled bricks of crack or something? Max is an idiot to go along with anything illegal, especially anything that Mr. Universe cooked up.

After Nick played Extreme Knockout with Jett last week, he basically told Chelsea that he was tired of the back and forth as far and her feelings were concerned and told her it was over. Which lasted all of ten minutes, because Nick decided to follow Chelsea to the Touch the Sky crew's clambake or whatever they were doing on the brand-new Salem beach at night. Nick showed up just in time to hear Jett badmouthing him, calling him a loser. Nick (rightly) confronted him, Jett offered some lame apology and offered to be friends, which Nick (rightly) refused, saying that his friends wouldn't talk about him behind his back. Stephanie had to chirp in her two cents that Jett didn't mean it that way. Wow, that reminded me of high school, you know when you walk into the restroom and someone is talking about you and they try to tell you that you didn't really hear what you heard. I know I've said it before, but Nu-Steph needs another personality transplant, stat. Old-Stephanie would never have been talking about someone like that, someone she really even barely knows. I don't enjoy the direction they have taken this character in. But once again, I digress. Nick and Jett got into another scuffle (when is Nick going to realize that Jett could probably kill him in 2.5 seconds if he really wanted to?) and a very ticked off Chelsea broke it up. Nick asked to speak with her and they went back to Bo and Hope's to continue their fight. Here is where I must have missed something, because one minute they are having a fight and the next minute Chelsea is leading Nick upstairs for some lovin'. I have no idea what happened. I'm just lost.

But on to more important things. After the explosion in the tunnels (just a warning shot I guess), the Brady's (along with John and Marlena) met up at the pub to have a family meeting regarding the DiMera/Brady feud, while the DiMeras did the same thing at the mansion. Marlena took Sami aside and showed her the picture of Colleen Brady, which of course freaked Sami out just a little bit. Grandpa Shawn was out fishing while everyone else was talking about the best way to defend the family, but when he returned Sami asked him why he never mentioned how much she looked like Colleen. In typical Shawn Sr. fashion, he didn't really answer her. I have no idea why he just won't come out with the truth, especially since his family has been kidnapped, brain-washed and tortured for so many years, and he knows why. That is really irking me, but oh well. I loved how Roman reacted to seeing Anna, and how Marlena and Sami both looked like they were not liking it too much. Basically, the Brady's came up with a plan to somehow get into the DiMera mansion and find the other letters, the ones that Santo had written to Colleen. My logical question is this (but trust me, I don't care too much because the story is great ) how did the DiMera's end up with both set of letters? Wouldn't it stand to reason that the Brady's would have the letters that Santo sent Colleen, since she would have been the one to receive them? Anyway, Steve showed up at the meeting and the Brady's basically froze him out as they don't think he is far enough away from being brainwashed to be trusted. I'm still not completely sure about Steve, because he sure did make a beeline right for the DiMera's to rat out Anna and let them know what the Bradys were up to.

I enjoyed the meeting of the DiMera's much more than the Brady's even though that whole show was top notch. Celeste barged into the mansion and let Stefano know that Alexandra would not be attending the meeting, since she was just saved from the DiMera tunnels. Then Celeste proceeded to threaten the lives of Stefano, Tony and EJ if they ever did anything like that to Lexie again. Stefano assured Celeste that he would never harm any of his children, which caused Tony to pipe up "Tell that to Renee." Stefano promptly slapped the snot out of Tony, which was grand. Stefano spoke for a while about how they needed to unite as a family, while Tony mostly took shots at EJ, calling Sami a blonde bimbo among other things. EJ calmly wiped his mouth with his napkin (they were all sitting at the table, and I'm pretty sure they were eating) and then tried to dive over Stefano to choke Tony. Stefano gave them the speech about being brothers and they have to be united, and then he made them perform the fakest hug I have ever seen on TV. I couldn't help but laugh. It reminded me of being little and my mom making me and my brother hug after a fight (always his fault). I know that there are some people that are not entirely pleased with the writing on this show, but in my ever so humble opinion, that show was genius.

After Stefano sent Tony on some lowly errand, Stefano decided to show EJ why he favored him. He then pulls out a picture of Santo DiMera, who lo and behold looks exactly like EJ if you look past the handlebar mustache. Bart came in and told them that the Bradys were having a meeting and Anna was in their midst. Stefano sent EJ to see what it was all about, and in the meantime is when Steve came over to spill the beans. EJ decided to side with the Brady's and tell Stefano that Anna was just in town on a social call. Friday's show closed out with Stefano telling Tony that he was very disappointed in EJ, more disappointed than he had ever been in Tony. Uh-oh.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

It has been delightfully Kate-free for a little while now. Too bad that's going to get ruined next week.

I really hope now that Chelsea and Nick have done the deed that she doesn't pop up pregnant. That would be really, really bad.

What is up with Max? He was supposedly so in love with Abby, but now he is just playing follow the blonde in the bikini. I guess out of sight, out of mind.

Why is Stephanie trying SO HARD to pimp Chelsea onto Jett? It is really annoying, not to mention disrespectful of Chelsea's current relationship, as it stands.

So what will happen next week? What will Sami's amnio (which Lucas insisted on) reveal? What will Stefano do now that his golden child has "disappointed" him? What will Kate do now that she is going to force her way back onto the scene next week? What more will be revealed about the feud, and will Shawn Sr. ever open his mouth and give up the info? And who really killed Colleen? Shawn says it was a DiMera and Stefano says it was a Brady, so who's telling the truth? Tune in next week and find out!

Until Next Time!

Melissa

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