It’s not often that we get to see our favorite soap opera characters going through the long laundry lists of people with whom they have shared relations in the past, so it’s fun when it happens and we can see the characters themselves cringe (even if it’s just a little bit) when confronted by the magnitude of their amorous endeavors. We had one such moment in the May 28 episode of Days of Our Lives in a conversation between EJ (Dan Feuerriegel) and Kristen (Stacy Haiduk).
After learning that John Black (Drake Hogestyn) had been in a terrible accident and wasn’t expected to survive, Kristen was left speechless, and EJ tried, awkwardly, to console her.
When Kristen admits that John was the first man she ever loved, EJ points out that she was willing to do anything — including passing him off as her child. Kristen sighs, reminding him, “I wasn’t in my right mind, obviously.”
Kristen goes on to say that she was blinded by her feelings for John. “Feelings that you subsequently transferred onto his son, which isn’t creepy at all, Kristen,” EJ replies drily.
Their conversation continued thusly:
“Oh come on, are you calling me creepy right now?” the exasperated sibling retorts. “I mean, look who’s talking. I mean, you what, are sleeping with your ex-wife’s sister?”
“Again,” EJ agrees.
“Again, yes,” Kristen says. “And as I recall, you were with Kate Roberts at some point, and later with her daughter, Billie.”
“All right, point taken,” EJ admits.
Kristen sighs again. “I guess us DiMeras are a bit twisted in our own way.”
As a relative newcomer to soaps (I’ve been knee-deep in soaps for two years now), hearing how many characters have been romantically involved with each other at one time or another never ceases to amaze me.
This is one of the rare moments when the characters themselves try to piece together their own romantic interludes and have to reckon with their life choices.
For EJ, who is trying (to the best of his morally grey ability) to be a new man, he’s not ashamed of his choices, but he’s clearly looking at the world through a new lens. That said, we don’t get the sense that patterns won’t repeat with him in the future, because they always do. Kristen freely admits she’d do anything for love, and we’re not entirely sure she wouldn’t do it again if the opportunity presented itself.
You’d be hard pressed to find characters on a long-running soap opera like Days of Our Lives who haven’t had their fair share of relationships and entanglements over the years. That said, I hope EJ and Kristen keep up their “twisted” DiMera way because that’s what makes watching them so much fun!
Days of Our Lives streams weekdays on Peacock.
