Wednesday, February 18, 2015

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: BEWARE FALLING IN LOVE WITH A SOAP OPERA WIDOWER!

Days of Our Lives’ Hope isn’t the first character in history to come face to face (to axe to knife) with the pitfalls of falling in love with a mysterious, grieving widower.

Back in 1847, Jane Eyre taught aspiring young governesses to always check the attic, in case your beloved’s insane “dead” first wife just might be living there. And in 1938, Rebecca added to the cannon the reminder that when your aloof, aristocratic new husband looks like he is desperately missing his first wife, it could very well be that his, rather, feeling guilty over killing her. (This revelation brings great joy to the narrator, who clearly hasn’t taken a moment to ponder what might happen to her should she displease the man in similar fashion.)

But lets assume Hope never read either novel. In the early 1980s, she went from 10 year old to high-schooler in the space of a few months, so obviously key English literature classes were skipped.

That’s probably how she found herself in her current predicament. Is dreamy Aiden:

·    A sad, single dad whose wife tragically died?
·    A sad, single dad being framed for his wife’s murder?
·    An evil, single dad who killed his wife?
·    An evil, single dad who killed his wife and now wants to do the same to Hope?

Days of Our Lives is promising answers this week, but it’s a soap so, you know, don’t write anything down in stone.

But even if Hope hadn’t read Jane Eyre and Rebecca, what about Gone Girl? And if books aren’t her thing, couldn’t she have at least bought a clue from the following soap-opera stories?

What other shows went down the moody widower with the mysteriously dead wife road - and how did it end for our intrepid heroine? Find out at Entertainment Weekly with examples from All My Children, Guiding Light and more: http://community.ew.com/2015/02/17/soap-opera-widowers/

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