All along, I was plaid.

(+2) Oh, Hope. Let's talk out loud to yourself about how Bo needs to die some more. I love people rehashing their plans or secrets in general while talking to themselves out loud. If I lived in soap world, I'd spend most of my time trying to creep on people's not-so-inner monologues, because THAT'S where you find out who they're planning to kill or something.

(-5) Chloe is such a terrible liar. (Not that this is a new development.) Girl needs to figure out a cover story and stick to it, because trying to come up with something on the spot is JUST. NOT. WORKING. for her. Plus, she gets caught in EVERY lie she's told so far, so come on. If they're going to let her get away with it for so long, she could at the very least be believable. Daniel gets negative points for apparently having her on such a high pedestal that he cannot see why people don't think she's the most shining example of a human being these days, even though he argues with her every day over the same thing. THIS STORY FRUSTRATES ME, OKAY.

(-5) Charles still only looks mildly annoyed that his wife is DEAD. His grief face looks like he's confused or something. "Stay the hell away from me, you son of a bitch!" THAT'S NO WAY TO TALK ABOUT YOUR DEAD WIFE AND YOUR SON. How rude. God, the part that makes me sad about it is that if it was Charles who died, Chad would still be sort-of crying and probably blaming himself. He actually loves his parents and shit.

(+7) OMG she called him Beauregard. At least Nighttime Hope is funny sometimes.

(+5)"Where's Hope and what have you done with her?" I'm not sure how I'd judge Bo's detective skills right now. I think I'm going to give him the thumbs up here. I mean, if she had a bleached streak in her hair, I'd shake my head at him if he wasn't like "OMFG PRINCESS GINA?" OMG bring back Princess Gina. She was fun times. She had a submarine. I wish Nighttime Hope were actually Princess G with a submarine. ANYWAY, at least Bo didn't pull the same thing Justin did when confronting Hope. Confronting her about her behavior? I understand that. And like, he manages to snap her out of Nighttime Hope for two minutes. Justin was like, "OOH. I confront Hope about possibly being my MUGGER, and she makes out with me. I think she digs me, bros." At least Bo has the sense to think, "OMG WTF ARE YOU DOING YOU WEIRD, WEIRD WOMAN."

(+9) NATHAN IS WEARING PLAID! I don't know what's going on with his hair, he looks 12. But obligatory Kris gif.

(+4) Once again calling upon her pageant girl days, Stephanie is very focused on shiny sparkly things. Nathan should have gotten her a tiara.

(-2)"We need to have a serious talk." IS Nathan already rethinking it?! Noooooo... Of course HE, of all people, would say "we need to talk" and mean it in a good way, and not a "let's break up" way. Nathan. Why can't you be normal?

(+10) HERSHEY'S BLISS PRODUCT PLACEMENT. A+ EXECUTION. I loved Passions product placement the most, but Days is sufficient enough.

(-3) And then she is...talking about Chloe again. Melanie's job these days was is to make Philly as uncomfortable as possible. Remiember when they got together for reals, and it was kind of oddly sweet because they both like completely accepted each other for the screw ups they are, so they weren't all secretive.

(0.00) Hope should call him Fancy Face. No score. Let's just call my wishful thinking a transitional element...

(+4) OMG YOU DID NOT INSULT STEFANO'S DAUGHTER AND ABE CARVER'S WIFE (which makes her, like, the First Lady, the MICHELLE OBAMA of Salem.) RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. Stefano gets his badass points for almost cutting a bitch.

(-2) I really hope Charles isn't actually Chad's father. To be honest, this is not convincing at all to me. He's always been so cold, unfeeling, and sleazy to me, so excuse me if I don't believe that he's actually THIS torn up over his wife. He's acting like Chad just crashed his car or something.

(+3) Oh, yay. I love gross, creepy father-daughter parallels. The Jonases are grilling the spouse/almost-spouse about "what could possibly ruin our marriage?" I feel like now would be a great time to remind ourselves that Melanie's husband cheated on her with her soon-to-be stepmommy.

(-2) Jilted, Hope? Whatever, they both left/abandoned each other somehow. I don't see a victim here, except for you know, THE CHILD WHO WAS KIDNAPPED AND THEN WAS TAKEN AWAY FROM HER HOME AGAIN AFTER THAT. I do feel kind of bad, still, that during the kidnapping, Hope made Bo out to be some incompetent idiot. (Come on, Hope. The only people in Salem who are semi-competent are Rafe and Nighttime Hope. And you are not Nighttime Hope.) I don't remember if this actually happened, or if it's just commentary I read online, but holding Zac against Bo is pretty shitty.

(+1) Oh, thank god, Adrienne. Do something useful, like expose Stephanie. The whole Justin thing is useless anyway, you might as well give her something to do elsewhere.

(+1) See, I would have been convinced that the Father Matthew would be uncomfortable with Chloe marrying Daniel, since you know. SHE CHEATED ON LUCAS WITH HIM. Ugh, Chloe and Lucas. I hate whenever I remember that happened. But I'll give Chloe a point for the first lie I could have possibly believed if she didn't tell a million more before it.

(+3) Charles tries to blame Chad some more. Oblig "POOR CHAD. D:" LOL, of course Lexi can reveal something like "she was already dying, it's not Chad's fault!" Like out of nowhere. She gets points for revealing secret health conditions.

(+1) "WHO ARE YOU. TO JUDGE. ME." LOL, I would love too see Nighttime Hope at Idol auditions. She would have hit Randy over the head, mugged Simon and stolen Paula's Coke cup of "water."

(+4)Finally, Daniel stops yelling. I mean, the girl is pregnant. Geez, bro. Chloe has, like, a total of ONE default emotion. So Daniel is apparently the one with the mood swings.

(+6)Lexi is trying to explain that it wasn't necessarily the fall that made her have an aneurysm. Charles, stop TRYING to blame your son. Finally somebody is trying to comfort Chad. Can I saint Lexi now? Let's forget about those years when she was legit crazy.

(-5)Oh Adrienne, noooo. Stop encouraging it. Whatever. Philip and Stephanie were "real" too, but she decided she was too good for him. I thought it was ~real with Max too. She's just so desperate to be "ZOMG IN LOVE."

(+5)AWWW, NATHAN BROUGHT BACK HER BOWL. Grandma Maggie would be so proud. Stephanie would have a heart attack if she knew what he was doing. She'd probably start plotting how to get him on a plane to Vegas to marry her. Nathan's best in Melanie scenes because we can pretend he's not boring (don't get me wrong, I like Nathan and how boring/uncomplicated he is. And pretty). Or when he's fighting with Philip. They should do that again, that was fun.

(+5) Stefano is kind of cute trying to give his condolences to Chad. It warms my hearts. Yes, both of my hearts.

(-6) Hope is doing this weird thing where she's switching between crazy Hope and pathetic Hope. She's going to slip pills into his drink. Bo, didn't the pamphlets ever teach you not to leave your drink unattended. No matter how much you trust someone! And I mean, do you even trust Hope right now? She's CRAZY. Negative points for Bo's failure to watch after school specials.

(-3)OMG, sex always seems to end Daniel and Chloe fights. Get a new pattern, people. Learn to knit, IDK. No bonus points for you. NEGATIVE GOE, I DON'T CARE HOW NAKED THESE PEOPLE ARE.

(+4) Kate acts motherly towards Chad again. I wonder how Will would feel about this. I like the idea of them fighting over something other than a girl (Mia? Gaby? Who cares. BORING). Well, that and the idea of them being soul mates. Because I think they are.

(+2) LULZ. I love how Philip flaunts Melanie around, pretty much being a complete ass. He plays nice with Nathan, just enough to make him completely uncomfortable without being so overtly mean. It's what Stephanie tries to do to Melanie with Nathan, but he's so much better at it.

(+1) Daniel does his best diva storm out. And it was fine, I guess. I'll give it the positive score for effort. But I'm so bored. Chloe stop crying to yourself and doooo something. Kill the priest! Something! Make it interesting, because I do not foresee this story being put out of its misery any time soon. Remember when summer plots had like, secret islands and murder mysteries?! UGHHHH.

Deductions, bonus points, etc.

(-7) Philip's hair was so not exciting today. All I felt for it was the need to take a pair of scissors to it.
(-14) Where's Abe Carver?! I, once again, did not take away a full 20 points as Lexi's badassness today brought the Carver quotient back up a bit.
(+8) For no obligatory "beach" scenes. Thank you for the break, writers.

This gives us a grand total of 31. Oof, considering I give bonus points for simple things like plaid and product placement, I'm thinking this is low. Especially since yesterday was a 43. Or something like that, right? I'll figure out what's considered good eventually.

· Rating on a scale of Abes (thank you, zoppity, for the graphics! You are the Abe of My Life):
4 Unhappy Abes.

While he IS Mayor of Salem, and he has a wife who stays hot and is the only doctor in Salem, he is not happy with his wife being yelled at and her doctor skills being called into question. You just don't talk to Salem's Michelle that way, okay. When she's back to switching babies and bringing out the Dimera crazy, we can talk.

Tomorrow in Salem

Yay, Nicole is back tomorrow! I welcome the change of pace for the week. However, more with the Sami/Ej/Rafe triangle. I'm not sure how much more of that I can take.