Written by Alan Sarapa
Days of Our Lives had four weddings this month. It was a bold move for a soap that has the budget of your cousin Kevin’s wedding. The one that had a cash bar and a DJ you were certain was also the best man’s drug dealer. And just like cousin Kevin’s wedding, you overall enjoyed it despite some bad decisions. Let’s break down each wedding.
Eli and Lani: This was the first Black wedding in Days history. You might be thinking “Alan, Abe and Lexie were married! I remember because she used to cheat on him with all those light skinned Black men!” They got married off-screen when James Reynolds returned after Generations was canceled. And I’m pretty certain the show didn’t know this fact when they shot Eli and Lani getting married.
Overall, it was nice if sparsely attended. The most dramatic moment was Vivian showing up with a gun because she was still butt hurt over Stefan dying from taking a bullet for her last year. That death was more on Stefan being a dummy and Vivian holding a gun on a cop, but narcissists never take responsibility for their actions.
However, the most culturally significant moment was Eli and Lani jumping the broom. If you don’t know the tradition, slaves weren’t allowed to actually get married because they were considered property to be used and abused by white people. So when they got married, they jumped the broom. It was a beautiful moment that actually warmed my cold heart by a few degrees.
My biggest complaint about the wedding was Eli’s mom Valerie dating an 80 year old. Vanessa Williams (Candyman Vanessa, not Ugly Betty Vanessa) is beautiful and it is frankly insulting that the show keeps putting her with all soon-to-be hospice patients. The next time she makes a guest appearance I want her with a man that doesn’t look likely to die on top of her during sex.
Kayla and Justin: This wedding had zero stakes. That pairing has no fans and the whole drama was “Oh my God. No one told Kayla that Steve still loves her!” Which is the dumbest conflict. The man has two kids with her and it is clear he only has an eye for her. It felt like middle school drama and not the drama of people who are old enough to have watched Bewitched when it first aired.
Though I will say Kayla and Justin did feel realistic as a couple. Widowers often move on very quickly. I’m sure most of us know a man who had a new special lady friend within a year of his wife’s death. And Kayla has been alone for the better part of the past 30 years. It makes sense that two lonely people would settle for each other. Sometimes relationships aren’t an epic love.
Sometimes they are just about comfort and convenience. Justin and Kayla were just an interlude that will be forgotten.
I do wonder where Justin goes from here. His wife is dead. The only son Days will acknowledge is leaving in September. It will be a bit sad if Wally Kurth just shows up to play the town’s most incompetent lawyer with nothing else going on.
Eric and Nicole: This was Eric’s first wedding ever and he got married at the Brady Pub with a few actual guests and a few extras. Yes, it is a bit odd to give the serial killer a wedding in a Catholic church and the former priest gets married where the citizens eat clam chowder. I understand it for story reasons, but I understand why some fans were bitter about this.
They did a nice job with the vows. Ericole fans have been waiting for this since Jensen Ackles was a twink, so I think the show delivered. I just wish the montage had a song that didn’t sound like a replacement song for a scene on Dawson’s Creek when they don’t want to pay for the music rights on Hulu.
The main event though was Sami storming into her twin brother’s wedding. Sami and Nicole have always had a contentious relationship to put it mildly. Nicole stole Sami’s daughter Sydney at birth! Naturally, finding out her pregnant daughter Allie liked the baby thief more led to Sami tackling Nicole into the wedding cake and a food fight.
It isn’t lost on me that Eric married a woman that is in the same wheelhouse personality wise as his twin sister. Sami and Nicole are both habitual liars and schemers. Sami once tried to sell baby Belle on the black market. They’ve both tried to murder people. Nicole tried to kill Victor by having Jan electrocute him in a bathtub Bride of Chucky style. Sami shot the love of her life EJ in the head. Eric clearly likes being the support system for difficult women and should maybe seek therapy for his sister basically being his type.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maurBdjongE
Ciara and Ben: In most weddings, the officiant comparing the groom to a feral cat would be epically rude. In this case, it was an apt comparison. Ben is a serial killer and 90% of the guests at that wedding aren’t huge fans of him. Ciara did work to bring him back into society to the point that he’s now begrudgingly accepted by her family. This pairing was pretty much the show’s version of Beauty and the Beast without the kidnapping. The tortured (hot) beast who killed two characters fans hated and a dayplayer and the fiery ingenue who believed in him. Cin could have been a disaster, but Rob Scott Wilson and Victoria Konefal’s chemistry is electric.
Some fans resent the fact that this was clearly the wedding Days spent the most money on. I understand why they did it. Cin has been the hot couple since 2018. They replaced Chad and Abigail in that regard who were the hot couple in 2015, which is ironic since if Ben hadn’t gone bonkers and tried to barbecue those two, I doubt he’d be on the show today. Ben would be a footnote in Days history that you vaguely remember like Abigail’s doctor/stripper boyfriend Cameron.
And story-wise, it justified extending that Dollar General budget for a church wedding and “explosion” since it is the most epic thing Days has done in a while. The explosion itself was a bit hokey. They showed a visible stunt double reaching out his hand before it happened. We’re not supposed to see the stunt double’s face, Days! The aftermath looked much better than the blast. It really looked like a bomb went off. You could see the dollars spent on screen with the fire, smoke and the show’s only church set looking wrecked. I do applaud the effort.
It was the best of the four weddings by far. The romance of the actual ceremony and the drama of Ben being abducted after someone blew up a church was off the charts. And Victoria Konefal is going to win a Daytime Emmy for the scenes of her confronting Claire. You could feel the pain and rage radiating off her. Ben has been Ciara’s entire world for the last few years. She held a man at gunpoint to get him to confess to murder at Ben’s execution. It would be devastating for her to lose him after working so hard for them to be together. Victoria conveyed all that beautifully.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDXywTrFicM
I do think the four weddings was a nice idea, but hopefully they never do it again. I’d prefer just one wedding at a time so that the couple can be really celebrated. And when important characters like Eric and Nicole have more randos than guests who should be there, that’s a problem. Quality, not quantity!
Dispatches from Soap Land:
*Maybe B&B should just shoot kisses from the back if they are going to use real life spouses as kissing doubles. “Wyatt” suddenly had longer sideburns when he kissed Flo. Maybe it will look better next time?
*Y&R is back filming and apparently they are doing it outdoors. I expect the show to be just as boring on a park bench as it was with sets. That show desperately needs change.
*GH is back in production as well. I just hope there’s no more scenes of beating up trees. Leave the trees alone! If I see anyone whacking a tree or Sonny throwing barware at a tree, I’m going to start a campaign to stop the tree violence.
