Pearson80

I don't want to go too off-topic but when John came on the show as the pawn, it was heavily implied that Victor knew that John was really an amnesiac Roman and he was playing psychological games with him.. John and Marlena had to go on the run because of him. I don't want the mods or posters on here to get mad so I will refrain from diving in too deep into that story... John and Victor had bad history independent of Kim..

Doug was also wonderfully complex back in the day when we had real writers who loved to give characters journeys as they become better human beings.. I even appreciated Victor's growth when Isabella died and his tentative friendship with John who he loathed when he was Roman.. Sherry was just so damn awesome in her characterizations..

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The pit was just an ingenious story by Sherry Anderson and the birth of Jarlena. Marlena's empathy once again got her in trouble with another deranged person by the name of Stella Lombard. Stella was a sympathetic villainess, the loss of her son drove her mad. I think that her earlier stories before she "died" were just as awesome. Her work as a psychiatrist drove so many stories for her and it was her coming to town to help Mickey Horton and the empathy that she showed him made her so popular. I loved her stories with her twin Samantha. Her romance with Don and the loss of their son DJ and the deterioration of their marriage was painful and so realistic. I adored her romance with Roman, just divine and it was really Marlena at her best. Their push/pull dynamic, her liberalism versus his conservatism that was so well done. It was vintage Sherry Anderson. Samantha's murder and the fallout. Marlena in therapy talking about what it is like to now live without her twin sister was heartbreaking because Marlena is always so calm and stoic. Roman's death and Stefano's burgeoning malevolence towards her and her family. Her romance with that police chief who was so much like Roman but who turned out to be an evil criminal. He was her rebound romance before an amnesiac calling himself John who was really Roman came into her life, however, that was retcon when she came back in 1991. Her bond with Carrie and her foster son Johnny. Her rivalry with Anna, her friendships with everybody in town, I absolutely loved her close relationships with Shawn and Caroline Brady, she used to call them mom and Pop. Her friendships with Bo, Eugene and Kim were always endearing. Marlena was a fantastic heroine and beloved by the audience. It is just too bad that she got awful stories over the years that detracted from her awesomeness.

If Sherry Anderson was writing the Brady/Chloe/Philip storyline it would have been dynamite.. However, we have Ron and that explains it all..

I was hoping that Jeannie would have been there..

So another woman is going to lose her mind, give it a rest Ron..

Ron is making it easier for me not to watch this and he is also bringing the insipid Billie back.

True but he is not looking at the situation objectively because Eric is his son.. He is acting on instinct, protecting and defending his child, full stop.. He does not have to be considerate to her feelings since she obviously did not care about Eric's when she slept with Xander.. A man who caused Eric nothing but heartache..

She did hurt his son. I don't know any parent that would be nice to somebody that hurt their child.. I am team Roman here.. Plus, Roman got cheated on and made to look like a fool so he knows exactly what his son is going through. I remember Papa Shawn lambasting John for hurting Roman.. What Roman said to Nicole was nothing compared to that tongue lashing that John got..

I always wanted Steve and Kayla to have named Joey after Marcus and Bo. Johnny is awesome but I expect Ron to ruin him..

Jack being an idiot is just another plot driven mess that Ron has written in order to put his precious Gwen on a pedestal. Over the years, Jack has been written as a buffoon, weak, a coward a deadbeat and now he is an idiot. Thanks Ron for joining the brigade of past mediocre writers like you who just don't have the talent to write for a character like Jack.. I can't even look at Jack anymore and it is all because of that degenerate Gwen. All of my favorite men on the show always get saddled with a character that makes them unlikeable. Bo was saddled for years with that pathetic drip Billie.

I actually think EJ accepted Sami as she was even more so than Lucas and Brandon. The EJ/Sami dynamic was very interesting with lots of potential to be a dark supercouple before he raped her.. Once he violated her that way, I was off the Ejamie train and never looked back..

You are so right and the problem is that the writers of today no longer know how to write for good guys anymore. Look at how boring and weak Shawn-Douglas is and it is why Belle is always looking for action elsewhere...

It was exhausting watching them constantly fight over their children. They did some pretty nasty things to each other. That type of dysfunction is not appealing to watch.

Ejami is so gross on so many levels and I never understood why Sami even had another child for EJ.

I always wanted Roman to end Stefano. Since it was Roman's determination to expose Stefano as a criminal put him and his family in mortal danger. Not to mention, Roman lost everything dear to him because of him. My only issue with Hope killing Stefano was the aftermath. Hope in character would have taken responsibility for it, full stop. I have always said that Hope was never the same after she came back from the dead. JER hated Hope and did everything to destroy her. Bo treating her like crap for that insipid Billie was so disappointing.

They were testing Kim with Chris, Tony, Don and Neil. A producer saw the chemistry between the actors that play Kim and Shane and the writers went with it.. Jack was being tested hard with Diana who was with Rojohn in case Deidre agreed to come back as Marlena... Jennifer was supposed to get back together with Frankie but sparks flew between Jack and Jennifer and the rest is history. Frankie and Jennifer were the Shelle of the 80's, sweet first love.. Thank God the writers were not as rigid in putting Jennifer back with him as the writers were with Shelle.

I agree with your post. I too hated Kyle as Philip..

I preferred Shawn with Mimi and Belle with Philip..

I have always said that Shelle kept both characters from being great. The show was trying too hard to make them a supercouple because of their parents and it did not work. The supercouples back in the day were organic and never forced down the audience's throat. The show gauged the audience's response to the couples and went from there. They also used to test different characters to see if they sparkled together. After Roman died, Marlena was tested with Mike and Chris. She did not spark with them. The actor who played Chris now plays Roman.

Kristen is played out just like Stefano was for years but this show is just obsessed with the Dimera family. Once Stefano became a regular citizen living comfortably in Salem with his many victims, he was done in my opinion.. I remember people on here going after Hope for killing that evil bastard. Hope did Salem a favor for taking out the trash..

I too loved her because the show was making an effort to make her a distinct heroine. She was so much like Steve, she had an adventurous spirit, drove a race car and was a fighter like Kayla. She also had an interesting vibe with EJ. I loved Stefanie# 2 while she was very beautiful but she was a generic heroine and lacked the distinctness that Stefanie#1 had.. The last time that the show really wrote for heroines was in the 80's where they had different personalities and flaws.. Hope, Marlena, Kim, Melissa, Jennifer, Kayla, Adrienne, Liz etc. were all heroines but they were not clones of each other. Each lady brought something different to the table and were very popular with the viewers. They were not saccharine, boring hypocritical and self-righteous like they have been written for the past 20 years.

Beautiful post regarding the serial killer with the abs. Will's murder was terrifying as well and the callous way that Ben put him in a garbage bag and dumped him at his apartment like he was nothing knowing that his young daughter could find her beloved daddy says who Ben really was. Then, he went home and had passionate sex with Abigail after killing Will.. Even Abigail commented on how awesome he was in their afterglow. So murder was a turn on for Ben, if that is not sick then I don't know what is..

Narcissistic mothers will single out one child to abuse with their pathology, I have yet to see Sami do that with any or her kids. I think that she is selfish, impulsive and that may harm her kids. I just wanted Sami to have grown from her experience with Will to have given her other children what she could not give Will. The show is obsessed with keeping her in hurricane Sami mode that she was in the 90's. I remember after JER left the first time, she started to mature while keeping her edge. She made a tentative peace with Carrie, she got along with Jarlena , stopped obsessing over Austin and had other relationships with other men. As soon as JER came back, she went right back to hating Jarlena, obsessing over Austin, being jealous and hating Carrie.

Tripp should have never existed in the first place just like swamp fetus. He is a Dena creation and the spawn of Ava so that is enough for me to dislike him. Anybody who messes with Kayla is trash in my book. I will concede that the actor is pretty good though and he should have been Joey Johnson or Joey Kiriakis who are real legacy children with ties to the show via their families..