Insane Soap Opera Plotline

[deird_lj]

Randomly, and for no reason, I'd like to talk about Days of our Lives.

Specifically, the episodes of DooL I watched in the summer between high school and uni - when I briefly became obsessed with it.


The problem with soap operas is, you sit down to watch one episode, and then stay to watch the next fifty. Or at least that's what happened to me.

I tuned in (randomly) because I was bored, and decided to watch it the next day... just so I could see the resolution of the storyline.

The resolution of the storyline took the next three months.


So, anyway...

The Epic Saga of "John"

(I don't actually have a clue what this guy's name was - despite watching his life every hour for three months - but he's always been "John" in my head. So that's what I'm calling him here.)

The characters involved in this particular plotline were:
- John. A handsome, rich, and generally wonderful human being. So much so that every woman within a fifty mile radius is in love with him.
- The Wife. A sexy blonde woman, who was married to John, and is about to renew her marriage vows. They are madly in love.
- The Doctor. Another sexy blonde woman, who is also madly in love with John. They are having an affair.
- Evil Elvis Fan. A third sexy blonde woman - this one with a very prominent southern accent, and an Elvis obsession. She is evil. And everyone knows it.
- The Nun. The twin sister of Evil Elvis Fan. (Yet another sexy blonde woman.)


And the storyline?

As far as I could tell (coming in after it had already started), it went something like this:

Evil Elvis Fan is in love with John. So she has an evil plan.

This plan involves
a) kidnapping The Wife and The Doctor
b) locking them up in "The Secret Room"
c) impersonating The Wife

"The Secret Room" is a room in John's mansion. He has no idea that it exists. It has enough food, water, and toilet facilities for two women to live in for several months, brilliant door locks, and a tv set linked to hidden cameras in every other room in the mansion.

Evil Elvis Fan locks the two women in the Secret Room. Where the two of them try to break out (and then give up in despair), bicker about who John loves the most (given that one of them's his wife and the other is his girlfriend, this conversation gets rather heated), and watch the tv.
The tv somehow knows where Evil Elvis Fan and John are in the mansion - and gives The Wife and The Doctor constant viewing of what's going on, so that they can look on the love of John and Evil Elvis Fan (disguised as The Wife) and despair. Which they do. At length.

Evil Elvis Fan, despite having a prominent southern accent and looking completely different from The Wife, is somehow managing to impersonate her perfectly. The only clue which might give her away is a tattoo of Elvis - on her ankle.

This leads to some very entertaining scenes, which go sort of like this:

Evil Elvis Fan: "Oh, John, my love. How I love you!"
John: "Oh, Wife! I love you too!"
(John turns despairingly aside, and murmurs "Oh Doctor - how I wish I could find you! Where are you, my love?" Somehow Evil Elvis Fan fails to notice this.)
Wife and Doctor (in T.S.R.): "Oh! John! He loves me!" (both taking separate portions of John's dialogue as proof that John loves only them)
Evil Elvis Fan: "Oh, John! My love!"
John: "Oh, Wife! My darling!"
Wife and Doctor (in T.S.R.): "John! Look at her ankle! LOOK AT HER ANKLE!!! It's Evil Elvis Fan! Look at the tattoo!"
John: "Oh, my dear one. Soon we will be married once more, and then all our dreams will come true."
Evil Elvis Fan: "Yes, my wondrous one!"
(Evil Elvis Fan turns towards the hidden camera, and smiles evilly at Wife and Doctor. Wife and Doctor promptly glare back at her - and then start an argument about who John loves the most.)
John: "Oh, Doctor... why are you missing, and how can I get you back?" *sighs*


After a few weeks of this, The Nun shows up.

And because the entire town knows that Evil Elvis Fan is evil, and because The Nun looks exactly like Evil Elvis Fan, everyone promptly decides that she's actually Evil Elvis Fan in disguise - and starts trying to kidnap her, so they can find out what her latest evil plans are and (somehow) thwart them.

Soon, The Nun is tied up in someone's basement, determinedly protesting her innocence, The Wife and The Doctor are trying to break out of the Secret Room (while keeping the other one locked in there somehow), and Evil Elvis Fan is happily planning her wedding and taking every opportunity to gloat over the hidden cameras.



It was hilarious. And SO FASCINATING.


...and that concludes my foray into daytime soap operas.


(There was really no point to this story. I just felt like discussing it.)

Comments

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

Someday, you should try some episodes of the late lamented Sunset Beach (which used to have an omnibus edition on my postgraduate Saturdays and I used to run while doing the ironing, cleaning etc. You really didn't miss a lot through running the vacuum for 10 minutes in the middle).

Certainly the usual amnesia, wives back from the dead, endless replays of the tape of a devoted priest having sex with his sister in law during an earthquake (they thought they were going to die, but the CCTV was still running), the joy of one actress being replaced mid-season (Voiceover: "The part of Meg is being played by Anna Substitute in this Episode"), and finally some cursed jewels that aged everyone who touched them with a series of frankly poor make up effects. The curse was cured, if I recall, by miraculous snow in California. (Sound familiar?) It only ran for 3 years, and ended with one of the best 'It was all a dream, or was it?' episodes I've ever seen.

God, I miss it.

[diebirchen.livejournal.com]

O.K. This is a real question, since I don't watch soap operas. Are you making this up? I mean really! My only real contact with soaps was my grandmother in days of old and my children. Yup, the kids. I came home from work one day and found the kids, something like 10 and 13, in front of the TV. It was their spring vacation; their chores were done, and they were watching TV -- raptly. My son raised his little bugged-out eyes and said, "Mom did you know this kind of stuff was on TV and in the daytime?" It was a "love" scene, of course, but the above is really over the top. Evil Elvis fan? Nun twin? Really, really? And folks get paid to write that stuff?

[me-llamo-nic.livejournal.com]

I remember that storyline! Susan, and Marlena, and the wine cellar, and the tattoo! Great memories! There's a character now named Elvis. He's Susan and Stefano's son. John and Marlena are off the show, living happily ever after in Switzerland or something. I miss John. *waxes nostalgic*

I'm off Days right now (their latest writers got a bit predictable and boring), but I totally know what you mean about one episode hooking you in for the next fifty. It took me like a month to stop after I decided I was going to. Even this post has me half-tempted to check in again and see if it's improved.

[snowpuppies]

Oh, me too! I was watching Days avidly during that period - totally rooting for John and Marlena. :)

Susan was such a hoot - sometimes I still quote her saying she would "never, never, never eat a peanut butter and 'nanner sandwich again" (I think she'd been drugged or some such).

But yeah, that was all CRAZY. Oh! and there was a brother, too. His name was Thomas, and he was yet another character played by the same actress.

Good times.


Nah. They're so hard to get un-hooked from, I'm glad I finally stopped!

[me-llamo-nic.livejournal.com]

That was actually one of the first storylines I ever saw on Days and I was intermittently hooked from then to just a few months ago.

It really is hard to get un-hooked. But especially in the summer with extra free time and everything else in the off-season, it becomes very tempting...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I don't actually have a clue what this guy's name was - despite watching his life every hour for three months - but he's always been "John" in my head. So that's what I'm calling him here.)

That's okay. Neither did the show. They changed his parentage at least three times. "John Black" was basically a moniker he made up back during his amnesia period when he was introduced on the show (which I warn, I know far, far too much about. :)

The Wife. Except whe's incapable of telling the difference between him and her other husband (heh). Seriously Hubby #2 dies (Roman). (We really weren't to remember that there was a Hubby #1) John shows up with amnesia a few years later and despite the fact that John is a head taller, has a furry chest, and...well... I assume other parts, she thinks John is Roman. Hence John becomes Roman for, oh, six years or so (and his family buys it too!). Then wife dies. John gets involved with a few other women (all of whose names ended in vowels. Why? Dunno. It was a thing). Wife comes back from the dead but girlfriend is pregnant! Whoa! But that's okay because Roman (really, reall Roman) came back from the dead too! Played by the same actor as before! And no one went, "Boy, were we stupid! These two guys look nothing alike and Roman is at least 8 inches shorter!" Hee! So Marlena (the wife) went back to Roman. John married his pregnant girlfriend, Isabella. Isabella has baby then promptly and politely got pancreatic cancer and died thus levaing John free again so that John can return to Marlena (wife) to have sex on the conference table only to then be caught by Roman and Marlena's 15 year old daughter that John had raised (and promptly sending her off the rails for oh, ten years or so).

After Marlena blew up her marriage with the illegitimate kid (that she named after John's dead wife) she wanted John back but he was by then involved with one of the multiple characters played by the actress who played the evil Elvis fan. That was when Marlena got possessed by SATAN! (I'm not kidding!!!).

BTW, Evil Elvis Fan's child that she tried to pass off as John's is now the evil centerpiece of the show ("Elvis John" is now a thirty-something going by the name "EJ", and pretty much the centerpiece of the show. Who wouldda thunk it?) And the 15 year old whose eyes were sporked by having seen John/Marlena conference room sex is the object of Evil Elvis Fan's Evil Child's obsession (raped her and she got twins... one of which named John! See, it makes a perfect circle... somehow.)

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I was an ABC girl in my youth, so I'm afraid I missed DOOL. *sighs*


Gabrielle

[spiralleds.livejournal.com]

But that's okay because Roman (really, reall Roman) came back from the dead too! Played by the same actor as before!

Actually the actor (Josh Taylor) that played (still plays?) Roman after it turned out that John wasn't Roman wasn't the original Roman (Wayne Northrupt), but he had been on the show previously as Chris Somethingchek. He owned a bar? restaurant?

However, Wayne Northrupt did come back for a brief stint to play the ev0l Dr. North, so there was this moment when the three actors who had/were playing Roman were clustered at the foot of Marlena's bed, all vying for her love.

:: rolls eyes and I've been annoyed with Marlena since 1991 when she came back from the dead in that horrid one piece jump suit.::

[me-llamo-nic.livejournal.com]

Best summary of John's character ever!

(Except where's the bit about he came out to be Colleen and Santo's kid, and thus Stefano's half-brother and EJ's uncle?)

[spiralleds.livejournal.com]

Well before Kristen and Marlena got locked up together, the mastermind was not Susan, the EvilElivsFan.

It started because Johna and Kristen were to be married. And though Kristen was the adopted daughter of Stefano, was really good. But then she had a miscarriage, and felt threatened by Marlena, and was convinced if she told John she had miscarried, then John would leave her for Marlena.

So Stefano convinced Kristen to fake her pregnancy, and Stefano found a woman who looked exactly like Kristen, except for bad teeth, pop bottle glasses, and an Elvis obsession. Stefano apparently seduced Susan by dressing up as Elvis, so Susan was convinced that Elvis was the father of her child. Stefano/Kristen's plan was to pass off Susan as Kristen at doctor's appointments, etc., and when Susan gave birth, then John and Kristen would raise her child (and John would never know the difference).

I don't quite remember the details of how the plan went off the rails and how Susan got the upper hand, locking both Kristen and Marlena in the basement. (They were living in the Dimera Mansion, which was why John didn't know about the secret passages.)

Susan eventually fell in love with this sweet-but-dorky guy. Eventually Susan confessed to the Brady's, etc., who she was. And they thwarted Stefano/Kristen's plan to ship Susan off to harem with no way of communicating with the outside world, and instead unbeknownst to Stefano, Kristen was the one shipped off and Susan, dorky guy, and baby Elvis secretly ran off to Europe to live happily ever after, never to be heard from again.

Except somewhere a long the way, Stefano did find out, took baby Elvis from Susan and raised him as his own son, which technically Elvis is. Now, the only one who calls him Elvis is Stefano, and everyone else calls him EJ. (Which means when he first came back to the show as a hot race car driver, no one realize he was baby Elvis and up to no good.)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That happened later. It was Wayne Northrup that came back the first time. Stephano had kept him in some secret island off of Chchenitza (though he'd kept Marlena comatose for 6 years on some other island... and even though it was Orpheus who had kidnapped her not Stephano. But that's okay, it makes about as much sense as Hope having washed up on the banks of the Mississippi having been Stephano's prisoner after having 'died' a prisoner of Ernesto while on an island in the Mediterreanean. Water currets in Daysland are mixy).

Wayne Northrup was Roman. Then Drake was Roman. Then Wayne was Roman again until Roman discovered that Belle was John's kid and not his. Then... I kinda think that Roman died again, but I cannot honestly say. Then Sammy found him not dead but suddenly Chris Kosicheked (and no one noticed!) who because Roman. Sammy dragged Chris-Ro to try to stop John and Marlena's wedding. Then Northrup came back as a previous husband of Marlena's (I'm going to call him Husband 0.5 because he's before the 'first' husband she had on the show, whose name is totally escaping me).

Oh Days, never make sense!

And I always loathed Marlena. I think it was the gasping. I remember when she was inprisoned in a basement in a white suit for months and that suit never changed from pristine white. Well, until the psychotic woman holding her prisoner dumped a turkey on her on Thanksgiving. My mom and I still joke about that white suit and the turkey dumped all over it. Boy, Marlena was annoying. And that was even before she was possessed by Satan or became the brainwashed serial killer that murdered Alice Horton by shoving donuts down the woman's throat...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh. What amused me during the retelling of this plot is when all of this was taking place, when EJ was being born, Sammy was Fifteen - seventeen years old. And now... they're the same age and he's father of 2 of her 4 kids! (She's 30-ish and has FOUR KIDS! One of which is about 19!) Eek!

[deird1]

*points down*

Given all the comments from people remembering the storyline (and going into way more detail about how weird it was), I think I can safely say I'm not making it up.

[spiralleds.livejournal.com]

I think it was the gasping.

Yis. This Always when kidnapped/imprisoned and then it was some variation of :: gasp:: "My babies! I must get free for my babies!" :: clasp heart::

Uh, you mean the babies that are always off with nannies, relatives, upstairs sleeping, etc., when you aren't imprisoned? I can understand why you miss then so.