On paper, Ben and Ciara should have never happened. A serial killer being paired with the ingenue who is on the family tree of three prominent Days of Our Lives families was a risky choice. Yet ever since the moment Ben picked her up like a romance novel hero following her Tripp-nudging-Claire’s-cooter induced motorcycle accident, Cin has been the It couple of Days. I was on board with the pairing from the start because of Rob Scott Wilson and Victoria Konefal’s chemistry and the “Us versus the World” conflict. Yet, three years later, I find the writing for the pairing to be lacking.
Saying anything critical about a popular pairing on Twitter will likely result in some people acting like you murdered their grandma and then did a spectacular musical number at her funeral bragging about how you killed her. They are so attached to the pairing that any criticism, even from acknowledged fans, is perceived as an attack. So it wasn’t really a surprise when a Cin stan accused me of being a hater when I made two fair criticisms in my Best and Worst of 2021 thread. It made me think I should write this column about my problems with the writing for Cin for the sake of clarity so people know exactly what I think and also for petty reasons because if you get mad at me for fair criticisms, you’ll get even more fair criticisms.
Ben and Ciara Have No Lives Outside of Each Other
I think it is great that Ben and Ciara are so horny for each other. Soaps have been lacking love in the afternoon and they are bringing it. Yet I do wish they were less codependent. Ciara doesn’t have a job. Her only friend is Theo, and that’s awkward since she almost married him when she had amnesia. Her maid of honor at her wedding was a family member she wasn’t that close with. Her world revolves around Ben and his dong. I get it. He’s not a snack, he’s a whole meal. But I want more for her than just singing Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” to Ben’s crotch. What is Ciara’s passion besides Ben and his penis?
This isn’t a new problem in the writing. Ciara’s life has revolved around Ben’s since they met in 2018. It is going to be 2022 in a month. It is beyond time that Ciara had a life outside her pairing. They’ve made noises about her working at Titan again, but any Days fan will tell you that working at one of the former mob front companies is just so they can say that character has a job while rarely showing them doing it. She’d be more likely to be shown working if she became a cop or started working at P.I. agency Black Patch. Either one would be fitting for the woman who is supposed to be like her late father Bo.
Ben isn’t much better in the life department. He has a job as a mechanic, but that’s a terrible soap job since changing someone’s oil isn’t going to generate any story. His only friends currently in Salem are the walking sitcom husband trope Jake and his therapist Marlena, who is possessed by Satan and encouraged him to go bareback with Ciara to make a baby. So, two friends, and they are an Al Bundy wannabe and Granny Satan. Everyone else he interacts with is related to Ciara and basically accepts him as the pound dog she found and refuses to let go.
I don’t see Ben making any new friends in the current canvas, but they could try to give him a soapier job. Being a cop is out of the question given that there must be multiple episodes of Dateline about him in the Days universe. He could join Black Patch with Ciara or join the spy agency ISA since both need people who aren’t yearly-colonoscopy old. Besides, they have to get out of that garage. Where is that baby going to sleep? In a drawer? Baby sleeping in a drawer while mommy is getting wheelbarrowed by daddy three feet away. Get these two horny MFers into an apartment with more than one room, please.
They’ve Ran Through So Much Story
Think about how much story Ben and Ciara have had in three years. She’s been almost barbecued multiple times, he was framed for murder and was on death row, the wedding was bombed, he was brainwashed to try to kill Ciara, she was presumed dead, she was alive in a glass cage, he saved her, she got amnesia and almost married Theo to avoid a serial killer making her horny, and now they are back together, and Satan is after the Cin baby. That’s a lot for a couple. They’ve already hit almost every soap story bingo I can think of except baby switches and cheating.
Running through too much story for an It-couple isn’t a new problem for Days. They did the same thing with Chad and Abigail when they were the It-couple. They had a serial killer after them (hi Ben), multiple weddings, brainwashing, a fake death, murder, multiple personalities, rape, a paternity switch, and two actresses sharing the role of Abigail like it is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Chabby has gone through an exhausting amount of stuff, and I can’t even root for them to be together anymore. Chad would cheat on Abigail with a rodeo clown if he told him that he saw her smiling at one of his brothers.
I don’t want to get to that point with Cin where I just want them to be done or written off the canvas like Shawn and Belle were in 2008 after they exhausted them for years. Slow down before you have to start repeating the process of making a new It-couple and burning them out.
OverproppingÂ
Ben killed three women. Sure, two of them were characters that fans rejoiced at dying and the third was a sympathetic day player Wendy, but he’s still a serial killer. I get that Ben’s presence on the canvas had to be normalized since he’s a lead now, but more characters should dislike him. The only regular characters that get to be shady towards Ben now are Victor, who is like if Statler and Waldorf mutated together, and Chad who Ron writes like such a jerk that I’m pretty sure we’re meant to be booing him when he’s mean to Ben.
One of Ben’s victims, Will, came back to life and actually became friends with him before moving to Arizona. That was too much. Will would be dead right now if it wasn’t for Susan Banks, but he wants to be in a group chat with the man who strangled him? Will spent two years in Tennessee with amnesia because of that moment. Will had to watch Smokey and the Bandit with Susan multiple times because Ben was in feelings because Abigail got back shots from Chad in the DiMera backyard. That’s almost worse than getting strangled.
Making Ben less accepted by a few more characters wouldn’t have to be a big thing. Have Rafe always be dismissive of Ben because he killed his half-sister. Let Allie hate him. She thought her brother was dead for two years and she wanted to be in his attempted murderer’s wedding? That’s propping.
Head writer Ron Carlivati also had people who had a good reason to hate Ben acting like psychopaths. Eve’s daughter Paige was murdered by Ben. So Ron had her blow up the Cin wedding, torture Ben in a way that made it look like a porn scene, and brainwashed him to try to get him to murder Ciara. Eve could have gotten revenge in a way that was less unhinged, so why go this far? It is simple: To make Ben the victim and make Eve’s hate seem unreasonable. If Eve had just sued Ben for wrongful death, it would be hard to make Ben look sympathetic. Blowing up a church and beating up Ben like that makes Eve the villain and Ben the woobie.
I can’t mention that story without bringing up the fact that Ron was criticized for not having Eve go after Ben before that. Other than trying to lightly kill him once in 2018, Eve was more focused on amnesiac Jack’s MAGA run for mayor. When Ron is criticized, he tends to swing so hard in the other direction that you almost feel like you are being punished for it. So Eve went from ignoring Ben to Bond villain in a Kink Dot Com scene.
Another character who was used to prop Ben was Theo, who should be a big character on this show, but is an afterthought. So Theo got to be used in Ciara’s amnesia story and then was sent packing back to South Africa. Theo is the son of Abe and Lexie. Maybe the show could give him an actual story and not just have him show up for weddings and to get pushed under a bus for Cin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugftg9Esnpg
Excessive Recaps
Every soap couple occasionally reminisces about the journey they’ve been on, but Ben and Ciara can’t so much as scratch their butts without recapping their epic love. I wish I were exaggerating, but they recap so much that it is comical at this point. It made sense to do it when Ciara had amnesia, but they did it many times before that, and last week they recapped again for an entire episode. It is tedious.
Why do this? You could be creating new scenes for stans to swoon over. Instead, we get the Days version of a YouTube reaction video of Cin just reacting to themselves, and it is just filler. “Oh, remember when we ate Chinese food? Remember when we first made love? I’m saying ‘make love’ like a normal 25-year-old woman!” “I sure do, baby. Now let’s do reverse cowgirl!”
Honoring the past is important, but if the past is 2018, maybe don’t revisit it every five minutes. We remember it, Ron! I get that Cin was your first big pairing at Days that you put together, but this is excessive. If the options are Ben and Ciara recapping again or doing anything else, pick anything else. Have Ben and Ciara in a thumb war if you have to. Though that would probably end up in the next recap. “Remember when I beat you at thumb war, Ben?” “I sure do, baby. Guess where I want to put this thumb?”
Dispatches From Soap Land:
*To all the people who called me and the others who were telling you Steve Burton was out on the account of him preferring to be unemployed rather than getting vaccinated, my response is: Hahaha. We told you so! And I seriously doubt he’s going to get hired by another soap. He’s too expensive and he’s not worth it.
*I’m several episodes behind on Y&R. I just have no interest in seeing a show centered around Abby. Not even hot new Chance who thankfully doesn’t look like Droopy Dog is a draw for me.
*I hope Brooke and Deacon on B&B bang soon. Brooke and Ridge need to be over and Brooke needs to have her Slut From The Valley moment. Let a penis she hasn’t had in almost 20 years replenish her hoedom.
*Since I just spent an entire column criticizing Days, let me say something nice now: Stacy Haiduk and Dan Feurriegel were terrific last week. You really felt like Susan and EJ loved each other. When James Scott was in the role of EJ, it just felt like Eileen Davidson’s Susan was an annoyance to him. He was embarrassed by her. Dan’s EJ is a jerk to his son Johnny, but he loves his mama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwbm_hE2HUw
thank you… You have stated my problem with this couple perfectly…. their only story is sex.
Yup, horny + trauma is their entire existence (yes, I tweeted this to you the other day, lol)
Thank you! This is what I keep telling my friend; all Ben and Ciara have done their entire relationship is have sex and talk about each other in a hyperbolic way. It’s exhausting.
I also didn’t like how they made Eve look unhinged when she has every right to be angry. I did love Chad throwing shade at Ben when Ciara and Theo were engaged. But that was a rare and all too brief moment when someone on canvas (besides Victor) didn’t forget what Ben did.
Well, I can actually post a contrary opinion about them. Here’s the thing, love the story, love them, but they only make out. This is a drama not soft porn and I think Days is overcompensating. No I don’t want to see them climbing on top of each other all the time. It gets annoying and off putting after a while.
Ok I can actually post a contrary opinion about them. Here’s the thing, love the story, love them, but they only make out. This is a drama not soft porn and I think Days is overcompensating. No I don’t want to see them climbing on top of each other all the time. It gets annoying and off putting after a while.
Thank you for writing this article. It’s obvious head writer Ron Carlivati plays favorites and is horny for Ben’s actor. The pairing of Cin isn’t as popular soap media claims to be. They only popular to a small portion of fans who are considered a vocal minority and most active on social media. You can tell who they are as their avatar social media accounts are dedicated to Cin and RSW. As you said yourself Alan any criticism of Ben or anyone interested in Ciara you or the character will get attacked. They viciously cyber bullied Cameron Johnson who plays Theo. The whole Cin fandom has racist, sexist, hypocritical overtones. I also think Ron Carlivati is low key racist himself. He don’t want a healthy interracial supercouple between two legacy characters who grew up together. Especially between a black male character like Theo and white female character Ciara I know he introduced Paulina and her family but look how he writes her and Channel sometimes plus rewriting Lani not being Abe’s daugter sidelining the Carvers and throwing Theo under the bus like you said.