Sweet dreams are made of these

Sami and Kate have fooled a lot of people over the course of their run in Salem. But they added this scooper (and her mother!) to the list last week. Read on for a celebratory party for Salem's new best couple in this week's Two Scoops.

Old habits are hard to break. And I have to confess that my default setting is still to be skeptical of the DAYS writers. And until the final minutes of Wednesday's show, I had a draft of my column already forming in my head where I'd express my complete frustration with the fact that the show is trying to shove the Abigail and Sami friendship train down our throats, to the utterly stupid point where Sami would ask Abigail -- instead of Will or Sonny -- to stand up for her at the Wedding Ejami.

But then something wonderful happened. Alone in the DiMera living room, Sami reached into her briefcase and pulled out the pictures of E.J. and Abigail. She knows! She totally knows!!

I think we all need to pause for happy dancing.

With Alison Sweeney driving this bus, there's no telling what magical place it will end up. I think the Ejami marriage will indeed happen. He has too much to hold over her head crime-wise. But from a practical standpoint, she's much more powerful as Mrs. DiMera than as Ms. Brady. There's a reason she wants this wedding to happen before the board meeting.

Plus, with this all going down now, we've still got months for Sami and E.J. to make up before they leave. They've done it before, and I'm hoping that after some delicious sparring, they'll do it again. As for Abigail, well, I don't see Sami and her braiding each other's hair and playing light as a feather, stiff as a board anytime soon.

This probably makes me a terrible person, but I loved the lengths that Sami went to in order to be nice to/torture Abigail. Those art dates make so much more sense now. And Abigail deserves it. I'm not sure that Sami knows that Abigail sought out seconds and even had the gall to blame E.J. for it all. But either way, Abigail clearly needs to learn things the hard way.

She'll be fine and a juicier character for it too. The doe eyes and grasping for her pearls each time a situation is difficult are growing old.

In fact, the only thing distressing about this revelation that "Scami" Brady is alive and well is that we're painfully aware, now more than ever, of the giant hole she'll leave when she departs the show.

But just as the idea of a Salem without Sami seemed too much to bear, we got reintroduced to one Eve Donovan, played by the fantastically talented Kassie DePaiva. Thanks to some pretty smooth expository scenes (adding Victor or J.J. to scenes is never a bad idea), we're up to date. Eve is the anti-Jennifer with a track record of snagging both Frankie and Jack.

To make it better, Eve is Paige's mom! First, if True O'Brien is going to learn from someone, she couldn't do much better than the Lady DePaiva. Second, this means that Jennifer's son is head-over-heels for Eve's daughter! Third, something tells me that Paige's "absent father" is more of the "father who didn't know he had a daughter" type. Oh, the possibilities! Frankie? Jack? Peter? Lawrence?

Oh, yes, Daniel will be involved too. I don't know if it was because their scene came directly after the 1,728,430th Dannifer breakup, but I'm all sorts of ready for Daniel and Eve. The only problem is that means that Jennifer's probably still going to be on. A lot. And, well, ugh.

You know that inner corner of your eye that hurts after you cry a lot? That's the same part of my eye that hurts from rolling them so much over Jennifer. I'm 1000% in agreement with Daniel's assessment of the situation. Jennifer has had a pattern of feeling chosen to step in and "fix" Daniel's life when she deems it necessary. She's sooooo not one to be throwing shade on another woman's pattern of justifying actions when it comes to Daniel.

Jennifer seems to confidently be forgetting that it was Daniel who confronted Nicole with the truth about her baby in front of half of creation in the middle of the Horton living room. I'm baffled as to why Jennifer thinks that this time would suddenly be any different. Maybe she needs a session with Marlena. I'm just shooting in the shrink dark here, but Jack's pattern of not being totally honest with Jen might be making her a bit of a control freak with her subsequent fellas.

Speaking of Doc, I'm rarely one to turn down a scolding of Marlena. And maybe there's more gloating coming later and I'll change my mind. But when Nicole threatened to withhold information from the church, she got all shades of Kristen "Hurt Eric as a Way to Punish Marlena" DiMera. I actually thought Marlena showed a lot of restraint. I agree with Marlena that Nicole won't take responsibility. Yes, Daniel is a buttinski and Jennifer is a self-righteous blabbermouth. But that doesn't mean that Nicole wasn't wrong. If she wants any chance at getting Eric back, she needs to pick up a quick lesson in humility.

That brings me to Eric. Is there a nice way to say that I hope he doesn't go back to the church? Probably not. But that's where I am right now. I'd like someone to hold down the Brady fort for the next generation, and soon the options will be: Eric, Theresa, or Ciara. With Eric's skill as a talented photographer and Will talking about graduating and needing a writing job, I'd say it's time to reopen the Salem paper and give these two Brady generations a new gig.

LOOSE ENDS I've always appreciated Lucas, but until this week, I didn't realize how much airtime he'd been missing out on. I think that has something to do with Daniel. Anyway, I was confused as to why Lucas had to hear from Julie that Gabi was behind Mel's kidnapping. Wouldn't Lucas have been notified and given the exact same right to object to Gabi's plea deal as Julie had? You know, since Lucas and Julie are related to Nick in the exact same way -- cousins.

I like Abigail and Ben! I'd vote for them as Homecoming King and Queen. I want them to get their chance at a real date. And now that Abigail's much-deserved public humiliation is set to happen soon, she'll be in a forgiving mood when she finds out what secret Ben is keeping. There's nothing like a public reminder that you're not perfect to seal the deal with a fellow troubled hottie.

Finally! We got to see Maggie's reaction to finding out what Gabi did to Melanie! We got a nice scene with her remembering Nick a few weeks ago. It was time for the Mel tears. But I didn't like that the whole thing was some sort of backdrop metaphor for the great Dannifer.

It's not every day that his baby sister goes to jail for murder. So, I'm okay with Rafe getting super drunk/depressed enough to end up in bed with someone else. But by having it be Kate, the show whiffed on the opportunity to start something new. Theresa's never met a bad decision that she didn't like. Nicole is in prime emotional form right now to have distress sex. Or how about finally giving Anne more storyline development, not to mention a little hospital drama by having her bed Jordan's fella?

As for her part, it's hard for me to have sympathy for Jordan. Something about the girl who won't even tell Rafe her real name lamenting that he won't confide in her seems disingenuous to me.

I can't say that I stray too far from Team Sami when it comes to Nicole. Love Nic as I do, she's sided against Sami in a custody battle, moved in on Sami's fella, and stolen Sami's baby to pass off as her own. In return, Sami has....um...called Nicole a lot of mean names. Yes, Sami has been a terror to some innocent people. But Nicole's never been one of them. The writers need to stop going to that well anytime Nicole feels threatened.

I'm so glad that Hope is gala planning again. This gives her a chance to still be tough and in charge but not be a one-note bad cop. And, of course, that means she's around Aiden again. He sorta, kinda asked her to go to the gala with him. And I'm not mad at that at all!

Let me tell you, if we do not get to see this gala on-screen, I will be ticked! If there's an opportunity to put Kristian Alfonso in a ball gown, you do not pass it up!

HOT I so hope that we get to find out exactly when Sami found out, who told her, and how she hatched this plan with Kate. Oh, that's right, Kate is scheming with Sami!! And I'm calling it right now. Kate and Sami are aiming to take over the DiMera empire. To quote the Rev. Knowles, "Who run the world? Girls!"

NOT Nicole and Eric can back that noise about Sami being a "DiMera whore" right on out of here. As ridiculous as it is to blame Nicole for Kristen's crimes, it's even more ridiculous to blame Sami, who didn't push E.J. enough to push Kristen enough to confess. And now, knowing that Sami had to stand there and take that noise, knowing full well that E.J. slept with Abigail when Sami put their relationship on hold for the whole Kristen situation, it's even cruddier for Nicole and Eric to throw that in Sami's face.

LINE OF THE WEEK Victor: "So, you were sitting around in too good a mood and decided to look at your yearbook, huh?"

ZINGER OF THE WEEK Kate (to Sami, trying to prove a point about people who don't belong together): "Just look at you and my son." Sami: "Which one?" Ayyy-ooo! Sami Brady, ladies and gents! Tip your waitresses.

RANDOM THOUGHTS Exactly how many snow days did Salem High have to make up if their graduation isn't until the end of June?

Jordan could use some fashion advice in the earring department. Were those bows or scissors?

I'm pretty sure that Jennifer got the outfit aboard the Magic School Bus. Actually, I think she was wearing the cover for the entire Magic School Bus.

Abigail's shoes were fantastic. Jennifer should let Abigail make all fashion decisions for the household.

I like that Will and Sonny addressed how it's going to be harder to care for Arianna without Gabi.

I loved Brady explaining what "turn this mother out" means.

Also, apparently doing cocaine makes one a super-fast texter.

There's a lot of talk about Paige's cousin who doesn't have a record but wears fake eyelashes. Any guesses?

The music note necklace was kinda pimp on J.J.'s part.

At least Nicole took a beat to call Rafe. That showed she's not a total lost soul!

Was anyone else glad that Eric's "person he can trust" was Daniel and not Jennifer?

+10,000 cuteness points for the vintage Jen/Frankie picture

The idea of Victor and Parker playing video games together is spectacular.

I got a text from my mom after both Wednesday's and Thursday's shows, saying how happy she was that the real Sami was back! Mom didn't see the Kate twist coming either!

New Blog Series - Summer Lovin' Last year, the talented @Tony_S_Days and I teamed up to present the Summer of Sinners blog series that paid tribute to the bad guys in Salem. So this year, we flipped the doughnut over to celebrate something sweeter -- the lovers! We're kicking it off with list of those couples that should have been. Got some to add to the list? Be sure to let us know!

What are your thoughts on ? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.