Aaaaand there goes Will

If they kill off Will Horton in this way I believe the show is going to have huge backlash and neg press. Not only is he a legacy character, but he’s a historic character on Days (with his coming out etc.). While Tomsell writing regime mishandled the entire show this year, it wasn’t the actor’s fault. Both Guy and Freddie were given way too much material which imbalanced the show. To violently murder a gay character, on a soap with such a conservative history, sends a validating signal to all those homophobic fans that their twisted, angry, bigoted feedback was heard by Corday. Hugely disappointing if it happens! I hope not.

It’s Will! – It will be either Abigail or Gabi that’s discovers Will’s body!

I was more than just creeped out by Ben. The scene where he’s about to strangle his latest victim, I found it very disturbing, because the look on Ben’s face (when he has the necktie in his hand) was a cool and clam expression about strangling someone to death (a person who is his friend). Then the next expression on his face (while he’s doing it) is “I have to do this, because you made me do this”! Then after the murder, Ben’s now in panic mode to get rid of the body (before Abigail get home) and clean up.

It will rock Salem to it’s core, because I believe the murder will happen on Thursday or Friday, but then on Monday – Sami returns!

with relief… I posted.. as long as it’s not Justin

the firing of Eve
the letting go… finally… of Dr. Jonas (Daniel)

the splitting up… of Sonny and Will.. with the audience

i’ts all cyclical.. endearment followed

pulls at the same heart

my show is on and gangbusters!

DAYS reigns!

YES!

It certainly seems like Will is going to be the next victim (unless it’s a red herring and Sonny does pop back into town at the last minute just to get bumped off – but so far, this storyline seems to be going just as all the spoilers and guesses suggested it would). And I have two major problems with this move.

First, Will is why I’m watching Days of Our Lives everyday. For well over two decades, I was an occasional Days watcher – coming on for certain characters or story lines, but eventually getting bored within a couple of months or just feeling like the show was too much (I was never a super couple concept fan – and for a while, Days was nothing but super couples). But Will – Will’s coming out brought me back to Days and Will is what kept me around. The way the show has handled the gay characters has been far and away the most consistently enjoyable and responsible handling of characters on daytime (and the awards they show has earned during that time supper that). They have been more than bit players or supporting characters, more than just ‘issue’ stock characters, and they have been allowed to be imperfect. And even though I wasn’t fond of Guy’s portrayal of Will, I was still invested in the character because the character HAS so much potential. He’s connected to so many people, and he had years and years of story left to tell. And it was through Will, that I became invested in Paul and Sonny and several other characters. So to lose him to murder is extremely short sighted.

And it’s more. It was made very clear by tptb that Days was no longer Days to them and changes needed to happen. And the mention of the show winning awards during this Days-no-longer-Days period by the same executive naturally led to the supposition that beyond many new characters, that the gay storyline on Days was part of that new identity that apparently needed to change. For some reason, the audience that came with the last few years, the audience that tuned in and enjoyed Will, Sonny, Paul oould not co-exist with the attempt to re-capture ‘classic’ Days viewers. For some reason, the ‘new’ audience was no longer wanted, no longer desirable and was clearly expendable. And the first day of the new writing team’s stories clearly proved that as the front burner story featuring Sonny/Will/Paul was dropped like a cold stone and the remaining characters on the canvas (Will/Paul) went from three days play to maybe once a week.

And now this. Will’s death. Will’s savage murder. I don’t care how the show is going to try and sell this but every fiber of my being says, if Will Horton had actually been straight female Willow Horton, then this would not be happening. We’ve had two newcomers killed, and now Day’s first gay core character that drove story (Sonny for the first couple of years was kind of supporting to Will) is getting offed. The message – as implied by tptb before all these changes started to happen, as the writing evidenced over 24 hour period from old regime’s writing to new, couldn’t be more clear. What better way to show to their ‘classic’ audience that ‘we’re done with this not-classic Days’ than to murder the gay character from which all the gay-related stories sprung.

I’ve never quite felt like this about a show and it’s disconcerting to me. This is, after all, just a tv show. It isn’t a public message show, I in fact, never wanted to gay characters to be those pristine unmuddied perfect characters who stand in for the gay community but don’t actually reflect anything about the gay community. But I did want their stories to continue to be told. I didn’t want the main guy to be bumped off. And the feeling the show is telling me, as a gay viewer, that the period of the show that brought me to them on a daily basis was in fact, in their eyes, a wrong move and they are doing their damnedest to correct that course – by killing Will – it feels insulting to me. It saddens me. It angers me.

Jennifer. Abigail. JJ. Nope. Will. Some characters that never really worked and Will. That’s who gets bumped off.

Message received Days. Message received.

Because this ONE character is leaving? So you only saw Days for just Will?

Oh please. C’mon, people. I’m gay, too, but everything isn’t political or about being gay or a color or a religion. Why does everyone have to look for a reason to be offended. It’s a TV show, for Pete’s sake, and the classic DAYS serial killer stories from the early 80’s did not spare frontburner characters from meeting their demises. If anyone should gripe, they were all women who were killed because they were women. Only Marlena received that reprieve, and Will’s portrayer does not have an ounce of the star power of Deidre Hall. Did anyone complain about how violently Serena and Paige were killed or how brutally Marlena was attacked?

If it is Will, it’s shocking, and it will have greater story impact as the killer will affect the lives of both of Salem’s two core families, the Horton’s and the Brady’s. It’ll have far-reaching impact, and if you ask me, the characters will be honoring and grieving the loss of a gay character. How could that be offensive and make someone stop watching? I stop watching when Deidre goes. That makes sense. It’s like AMC without Erica or OLTL without Viki. Stop watching over this? No way.

And finally, if Ben is really the killer, then DAYS has lost its sense of history. That’d be sad since Corday is still the name on the show. For those of us who understand what I’m talking about, recall Eugene had visions and thought HE was the killer, so much he confessed and was placed in an institution. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ve only seen “visions” that appear Ben is “seeing” the murders or thinks he is the murderer. This is DAYS Big 50 story. Don’t think it’s so simple. If it is, then I’ll stop watching, because it’ll prove to me the genre is a shell of its former self, not even deserving of Deidre’s talents. I don’t think I’m wrong. If I am, I’ll admit it on this forum.

Question for those above 40 and for Michael about John Black and Don Craig: I’ve been re-watching the original strangler story on youtube. I can’t help but be affected by Don and Marlena’s love story that gave way to Roman and Marlena’s, who became DAYS’ premier 80’s supercouple (Doug and Julie ruled the 70’s). Don and Marlena had such a beautiful love story that became tortured and interfered with, and it seems so similar to John and Marlena’s connection. I then read up on Don Craig because I forgot what happened to him. He went to the freakin’ mailbox in 1985 and was never seen again. The the same year, didn’t the Pawn/John Black appear? I’d have to review the chronology to make sure it makes sense, but has anyone ever considered that John Black is Don Craig? Has it been mentioned as a possibility anywhere or on the show itself? I would think this would be such an awesome development to finally wrap up the John Black mystery. If anyone already knows the chronology, would you correct me if I’m wrong? I just think that would be so awesome and yet another nod to DAYS golden era. p.s. I know Jed Allan is 16 years older than Drake Hogestyn, but it’s a soap, and plastic surgery makes people look younger, right? Anyone else think that’d be a great resolution to the mystery of the Pawn?

Ben is coming unhinged. This is not love he feels for Abigail but obsession. Poor Abigail has now become Ben’s possession. So what will happen to her if she Ben wakes up and finds her lacking somehow.