DEATH is coming to Salem. And I’m not just talking about the brain aneurysm that I risk suffering every time John Black is on my screen. No, I am talking about something far more sinister…
DEATH is in the air, as putrid as the farts that John sniffs and calls acting. How do I know this? All thanks too the efforts of our resident psychic, Celeste, and resident oldster, Alice. Both of these ladies have been seeing signs everywhere they look. And you know what they say? “Warning: DEATH ahead. Please drive slowly”.
Alice has been hearing voices of creepy children creepily singing songs about Lizzie Borden, notable axe murderer. She’s also been having visions of her dead husband. And misplacing photographs. Yes, that’s right. Alice Horton is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Oh come on. You know you were thinking it too. Jack and Jen certainly were because they called Lexie to examine their mad old grams’ demented noggin. Mad old grams sternly denied she was losing her mind. She really had seen Tom Horton’s floating head. Abe saw it himself later and though he’s hella older than Lexie, he’s quite a few years from complete decrepitness yet. Proof!
(Somewhere in a cemetery in America, Macdonald Carey is spinning in his grave over the show using a badly superimposed stock photo of him as a spirit in order to further this ridiculous plotline. Oh Tom, what have they done to your memory?)
Celeste too has been haunted by disturbing visions involving Abe. No, not visions of a naked Abe. Far worse. Visions of his death. Sorry, I mean DEATH.
She decided to read her Tarot cards and just when she thought she might be overreacting, what card did she turn over? No, really. Take a wild guess. The Tower card.
Just kidding. It was totally the DEATH card. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Why do Tarot readers even have that if it inevitably means a horrible mortal fate? You’d think they’d have replaced it with a puppies card by now.
Things look dire for dear old Abe. Tony, being the thoughtful chap that he is, decided to send Abe a wreath in anticipation. Abe took offence at this kind gift and accused Tony of threatening to kill him. Some people are just so ungrateful. Turns out it was a misunderstanding of Three’s Company proportions and that Tony was just sending a wreath in honour of Abe’s dead police informant.
That Tony. Gotta love him. There’s absolutely nothing evil about him. Nope, not a whit. He’s certainly not in contact with his supposedly dead father, cooking up new and increasingly outlandish evil schemes.
Other people who are not being set up as possible suspects in the impending DEATH that stalks Salem are Sami, Rex and Nicole. These three may be engaging in some murderous thoughts and ominous declarations, but that does not mean they are clumsily being set up as potential murder culprits. Perish the thought.
Rex has decided to keep an eye on Shawn by moving in with him. And wrestling with him a lot while shirtless. And giving him lots of long, lingering, intense glares. Shawn and Rex also find it necessary to talk about each other incessantly. Even when Shawn is with his girlfriend, he can’t stop mentioning how he’s going to make Rex go down.
Oh my, these boys sure are passionate in their hatred.
Just so I don’t get any ideas about Shawn’s fixation on Rex, there have been loads of cutesy Shawn and Belle moments, including one where he teased her about her anal bill-paying and another where they sang Aint No Mountain High Enough. Awww. I’d find them cute if I didn’t hate their living guts so much.
My newest reason to hate Belle is her gargantuan office. Now, you might wonder why I am hating someone for their office size. After all, there are more than enough perfectly valid reasons to hate her.
It’s when you compare her giant, sprawling office to that of Sami’s that the hate comes in. John was convinced by Marlena to hire Sami and has decided to make Sami’s new job as dreadful as possible under the guise of “teaching her a lesson about hard work” and learning to trust her before he gives her any bigger possibilities. So he’s stuffed her in a dusty, roach-infested basement and is working her like a dog.
Any claims he makes that this is for Sami’s own good and she must start at the bottom because he can’t be seen to show favouritism are rendered total *bleep!* by virtue of Belle’s massive office. And the existence of Belle in general for that matter. How long has Belle worked at Basic Black? Has it even been a year? And she’s got an office so big, Sami’s entire apartment could fit in there? Hell, the Vatican City could fit in there.
When Sami brought up the fact that Belle’s office was so large it could be seen from space, Belle defended herself by talking about the dues she had to pay.
Belle: When I started, I didn’t even have an office – I had to work from home [where I had flexible working hours and could do things on my own time]. It was only after my designs were accepted [about seven minutes after hiring me, a college student with no designs experience] that I got to share half a desk with the receptionist [for about three minutes before they gave me this office so large, I need GPRS just to find the desk].
Yeah, Belle. You sure did have it tough. Excuse me while I go find my violin. So I can knock it over your overprivileged head.
It’s hard to feel totally sorry for Sami though since she’s still possessed by the spirit of a thirteen year-old girl. She’s having silly fantasies about beheading Kate and John as Roman and Marlena mack on each other like horny teenagers. Even worse, she’s cutting up photos of Marlena and John so she can glue Marlena with Roman.
But I’ll support a somewhat pathetic Sami any day over a smug John and Kate, so I hope that her resolve to bring down the two of them comes to fruition.
Does Sami’s picture-cutting and –burning ways mean that she will be the disturbed individual to bring DEATH to Salem? The suspense…
Said impending DEATH has really gotten to Jen. Thankfully, she and Jack appear to have left behind that gawdawful television show of which I shall never speak again. But now every scene between Jack and Jen has her fretting over his possible horrible murder and how he should stop being an investigative reporter.
This is more than a little tiresome but I can see why Jen’s nerves are shot. It’s because young Abby has been
SORASed into a snotty tween whom I already hate. I didn’t even mind the precocious moppet version of Abby before she was shipped off to camp to be pumped full of growth hormones. Maybe the impending DEATH can start on tween terror Abby.
Tween terror Abby is not the only new face (sorta) to be seen in Salem. Mimi’s mother, Bonnie, also made an appearance for the first time. Well, the first time if you discount that other time a few years ago when she was a meek brunette named Maureen.
With this new name change comes an entirely new look and personality. The newest version of Mimi’s mother is pure white trash. She wears see-through tops with bras underneath. She wastes all her money on smokes, booze and gambling. She tries to guilt-trip her daughter into staying at home with her rather than moving out and taking her Love Is Blind cash flow with her. Every redneck stereotype you can think of makes up the personality of our Bonnie.
And yet, such is my distaste for Belle that I can’t understand why Mimi would want to live with her rather than her mother. This final gratuitous pot-shot at Belle was brought to you by DEATH. Killing things since the beginning of the universe.