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This week’s Days of our Lives was full of – well, I don’t want to be vulgar here. There just really wasn’t much to enjoy or to root for this week in Salem. Either everyone seemed to be going inexplicably crazier or having flashback after flashback over two undeserving men. Now it wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen as I didn’t find myself wanting to pull out my own hair, but I cannot wait until the new storylines begin. Literally, I cannot wait. I wish I had an hourglass from Hermione Granger to speed up time instead of the CGI spinning one in the opening credits to Days.
Never Buying It
Nicole Walker just does not fall for men like Daniel Jonas. Well, I take that back. Daniel is very much what you’d expect Nicole to find attractive. Is he borderline abusive? Yes. Is he completely mistrusting? Check, check! And is he just under her level? Of course! Nicole does not have a great romantic track record whatsoever. She never has, no matter how much she enjoys deluding herself into thinking that she’s found the right one who will finally take care of her. Either Nicole always finds a way to mess up a good thing so it eventually becomes a horrible thing or the man she’s involved with does it himself.
This last go around with Daniel has been plagued with a lot of awfulness from his end of the spectrum. For once, Nicole kept her scheming to a bare minimum but the man who claimed to love her did not seem able to trust her no matter what. To not upset Daniel with her snooping (ugh), Nicole went undercover and flirted with Xander Cook, trying to get the goods on him and Serena Mason’s plot. This of course backfired because when Nicole isn’t groveling to get Daniel’s attention and is instead off doing her own thing, he can’t comprehend and desperately wants her back. Which led to Daniel’s white knight syndrome kicking in and after rescuing her from a red hot crawl space last week, he pounces again after learning Xander’s gone free. He literally pounced and pummeled on the retconned Kiriakis in the middle of Salem University Hospital! If this had taken place anywhere but in Salem, USA and involved a doctor other than the holy Daniel Jonas, then that hospital employee would most likely be fired or at least put on suspension! But Daniel managed to squeak right by any consequences as usual.
After his big tantrum over protecting Nicole, the couple heads back to Daniel’s place but Nicole finds herself unable to enter. She’s stuck on Eric again after they confessed their love to each other while near death. To Daniel’s surprise, she feels unsure about moving in with him, especially if Xander is on the loose and might pose a threat. The almighty doctor asks Nicole for her paw (yes, her paw) and reminds her that through all their current mess, they finally learned to trust one another to which Nicole agrees, finally happy that she landed a good man once and for all. Blegh. One grand sweeping motion later and the two of them are making love in a scene that only made me want to fast forward. In a haze of post-coital bliss, Nicole finally decides that she will move in with Daniel after all. And no one in the audience cheers.
Load Daniel and Nicole up with as much grandiose background music and repetitive storyline conflicts than they can handle, and they’ll still never be a super couple. Not now, not ever. Nicole’s been through too much in her long time on screen, maturing slowly but surely, for her to fall for someone like Daniel Jonas. My distaste for the character aside, he just seems beneath her in so many ways. This is a woman who has survived so much yet we constantly see her panting after a man who always seems to just make it out scot-free. This is also one of the reasons why Dannifer just did not work either. Jennifer Horton is a legacy character with rich history, deep family ties and important milestones in Salem while Daniel was just painted as the ever-hero who magically had connections to anyone and everyone dating back decades. It just doesn’t work. It’s infuriating to now have to see Nicole’s character lowered for his one-dimensional one! They’re fun as friends and even friends with benefits, but I know I’m not the only viewer not subscribing to what the writers think is romance between these two. Give us more Rafe Hernandez and Nicole, a man who never used his doubts about her sometimes iffy ways to put her down but to protect her! Or give us someone new entirely, someone good without all the judgmental, borderline misogynistic tendencies that Daniel (and even Eric Brady) exhibit.
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