With a little help from my friends

From Gabi and Kate to E.J. and Sami, the group work was splendid in Salem! But Daniel and Jennifer should probably take a break from pairing off with anyone for a long while. Find out more in this week's Two Scoops.

2013: THE YEAR-IN-REVIEW: • Read Tony and Laurisa's Best of DAYS 2013 column. • Read Tony and Laurisa's Worst of DAYS 2013 column. • Listen to our special two-part year-end podcasts: The Best of 2013 and The Worst of 2013

If you stop to think about it, many soap characters are quite lonely. Usually, if we want more than three main characters to share a scene, someone else has to be either getting married or buried. But not now! This is the new and improved Days of our Lives. The group scenes last week were wonderful!

In one corner of Salem, we had Brady, Daniel, Eric, and Nicole -- or as I like to call them, Eric Martsolf and the Pips. Man, that guy was great. Watching him play Brady from raunchy to cruel to resentful to deceitful all in the span of a few minutes was fantastic. When Brady got to the part where he tore into Eric for sleeping with Kristin on purpose, things got downright ugly. I mean that in the best possible way.

And as controversial as this may sound, I'm sorta, kinda glad that Brady gave Eric the slip and didn't go to that meeting. As beautiful as that scene was, Brady's addiction would have wrapped up a bit too easy. Brady's newly vacant seat on the wagon makes for some gritty TV. I wouldn't mind seeing it play out a bit more, especially now that Maggie and Victor are involved.

I'm also wondering if Brady and Theresa can start their own type of special meetings for people who are big fat liars who lie about going to meetings. Never mind. Probably no one would show up.

In another even more nefarious corner of Salem, we had Sonny, Will, Gabi, E.J., Sami, and Kate. The combination of all these big personalities and Gabi made for some surprisingly delightful combinations!

Gabi gave me a genuine laugh when she so eagerly looked up at E.J. from her paper when Kate told her to take notes on how to get away with murder. Sonny and E.J. made a calm, united front whilst trying to wrangle the gaggle of rapidly unraveling ladies. And I always appreciate that Alison Sweeney puts an extra bit of joy into Sami each time Will hugs her.

But the fallout is really about couples keeping secrets from each other.

As ghost Nick (who has now officially gotten more screen time than regular Nick) reminded Sonny, young Master Kiriakis is still keeping a rather large secret from Will. I have no doubt that Will can forgive Sonny, especially since Chad can back up Sonny's reason for keeping quiet. But, this is a long-looming secret that needs to see the light of day.

The other thing that needed to rear its head was E.J. reaching his breaking point with Sami. Sure, it seemed to come out of left field, since they were adorably working side-by-side at Club TBD. And, yes, Sami is right-o that E.J. is still lying to her. But, Brady and Kristen's wedding was over a month ago -- eons in soap time. It's been long enough for Sami to know what she wants by now.

The real problem here is that Eric's life is still up in the air. When Eric is cleared, I have no doubt that she'll forgive E.J., especially since she's forgiven him for much bigger things in the past. But I don't know how long the process with Eric will take. And that brings me to my very own Sophie's Choice.

As long as Eric's not exonerated, the longer Ejami will be on the outs. I don't like that. But the longer he's not exonerated, the longer he's not an active priest, and the longer he can keep developing his feelings for Nicole. And I've been waiting for a Nicole/Eric reunion for decades. I really feel that I deserve it, for I sat through every stinking one of those Dannifer scenes last year!

LOOSE ENDS In case you missed Kate this week, she was the one who somehow managed to make every other word "Stefano." Hmm...methinks the dude is not as out of her system as she'd like us all to believe.

Abigail got a text from Cameron and immediately decided to stay in and be boring in his honor. I can't believe this pair didn't make it!

Putting Liam in Jennifer's orbit makes me hella nervous that he's the best-looking roadkill in Salem right now. I'm pretty sure the show still thinks that all roads lead back to Dannifer.

Will needs to stop getting so hung up on whether or not Nick deserved to die. One, it's not like the trio of trouble plotted to intentionally kill him. Two, it's not like Nick's not actually washed up at the Horton Cabin on Smith Island waiting to exact his revenge when Will and Sonny go to open up the cabin for Maggie this spring. At least, that's my working theory at the moment.

I liked that Jordan was the one who asked Rafe out. As long as she keeps the upper hand in this relationship, I'm still on board.

Seeing as last week was Chandler Massey's last day on DAYS, I'm glad that he got to play the scene where Will finds out about Nick. This is a total "me problem," but I have a hard time when recasts get to play a payoff scene. So, I'm thankful that I got to see Chandler in those scenes. Well, those and about a zillion others that he gave to DAYS. I can't wait to see what this talented young lad does next!

HOT They just have to be heading towards an Ericole reunion, right? I mean, they can't go back now. Not after Father Matt told Eric that the church would understand if he assumed a different role. Not after Eric went full-on Maria Von Trapp and is ready to run back to the church to escape his feelings. Not after the show granted me a belated Christmas wish and had Eric photograph Nicole just like he did when they first met! Not after they went so far as to show that Eric still keeps a copy of a picture from that shoot on his camera!

You guys, they didn't even have digital cameras in the late 90's! Eric had to scan that business to his computer and save it to the memory card in his camera! We all know how virtually impossible it is just to locate the stupid port where you can plug in the cord to hook the camera up to computer, not to mention get your computer to recognize that stinking card; and Eric did all that for Nicole!!! Come on, people! That's true, first-choice love!

NOT Jennifer and Daniel both need to be single for a while.

Yup, that means that Daniel -- who's neck deep in sacrificing himself for Jennifer -- shouldn't be finding comfort with his second-choice gal Nicole, no matter how inappropriately short the dresses she wears around him are. (That purple number over Christmas did not pass the fingertip test. You ladies know what I mean!)

And Jennifer clearly does not need to be dating anyone right now because she totally sucks at it. Before their first drink, Liam met both of her children, witnessed a fake emergency, and heard her confess that she really, really loved her ex. Good move, Jen. Say more things like that. Guys love it.

In the end, Daniel and Jennifer are just better when they're away from each other. Daniel's already on the right path with proving Eric's innocence and calling out Brady's drug use. I like seeing Daniel put some action behind all that hero rhetoric.

And I'd rather see Jennifer help Lucas out with the Jordan investigation. The spark between Lucas and Jordan was promising. And since Lucas knows that Jordan is potentially hiding something, who better to help him investigate her than his sister who has access to everything at the hospital and who also used to make a living as an investigative reporter?

LINE OF THE WEEK Kate (via text): "Everything is going swimmingly. -Nick" Get it? Because he's in the river? Ha! Kate kills...umm...makes me laugh.

RANDOM THOUGHTS Really, Gabi? You've never seen Will that upset? I guess that was someone else with him when he trashed Maggie's kitchen in a fit of rage.

E.J. knows how a car corners because he used to be a racecar driver. Remember when he and Stephanie were old friends?

Sonny's closet is the new DiMera living room. Hide in there long enough and you can hear everyone's secrets.

I want a pretty salmon shirt like Sami's. If I could have Alison Sweeney's shoulders to go with it, I'd be set!

How Gabi and Will ever thought that they could keep Arianna's paternity a secret is beyond me. Those two have the worst poker faces ever.

Yes, Anne, it must be so bad when someone walks into your job and starts throwing baseless accusations in your face.

Considering that the cameraman works for Titan TV, he probably shouldn't have been yelling at Brady -- the Titan CEO -- about breaking the camera.

Props to Sonny for acknowledging that his family gets knee-deep in mud too.

Couldn't Nick's DNA on Gabi's coat be explainable, since they were married and all? I hate to see good coats go to waste.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't blackmail that made Kate take care of Stefano when his diabetes got out of control, break into a judge's security box to prove Stefano had a son, or cry to him to take her back.

Look at my boy T holding it together at the bar!

I'm going out on a limb and saying that if the cops were to put the birdman of annoyance on the witness stand, the jury would think he was plain ol' nuts.

My husband doesn't think there's anything in that envelope that the "cleaner" gave to E.J. An interesting idea...

For the record, the Brady Black breakdown in the middle was the point where this ludicrous rap video looped back around into awesome.

And now it's time for me to turn things back over to Tony. He'll be back next week to welcome Guy Wilson to Salem. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are as excited about the new year as I am! Cheers!

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