Reflections by Jill - A Weekly Commentary for OLTL for October 29, 2007

WELL YIPPEE AND HALLELUJAH! Viki is back and I finally have something fun to write about! When was the last time that happened? It is so good to see Viki back that I wouldn’t care what she was doing, but this is a bonus because Viki is back AND I love what she’s up to. Now, for those of you who are familiar with my opinions about Viki’s life, you will not be surprised to hear me say that it is fun to watch Viki in her current situation because it so strongly parallels what I consider to be the best time she’s had in her life in the past 20 years.

That’s right; take a minute and remember back if you can (not too hard for me) to a time oh, about eight years ago when Viki Carpenter was at a ‘CROSSROADS’ in her life, was feeling lost, didn’t know what to do with the rest of her life and was simply at loose ends. She wanders around one night, winds up at a fork in the road and wanders into a roadside bar that changes her life forever. She meets a very handsome, wonderful, yet mysterious man who is definitely not someone she’d meet in her “real life” and also meets a crowd of local folks who warm her heart as well. Now fast forward those eight years and what do we find? We find Viki (now Davidson) once again lost. Her children are all grown and out on their own. Her newspaper doesn’t take nearly as much of her time and dedication as it used to. She has lost and terribly misses the love of her life, Ben, and she is just plain tired of dealing with her everyday life, including her nemesis, Dorian and her obnoxious (my opinion), been there done that ex-husband, Clint. So, Viki just happens to be sitting at the airport after bidding farewell to half of her family and doesn’t know where to turn. She buys a one-way ticket on the next flight out of Llanview and winds up, instead of in a bar, in a coffee shop called The Bonjour Café in Paris, Texas where she sits and has a cup of coffee and simply takes in her unfamiliar surroundings. Let me know any time this starts sounding familiar to you.

Okay, so millionaire Viki just happens to be in the right place at the right time when the big old grouchy teddy bear of a cook is in desperate need of help and she decides that she’s found her current calling, dons a waitress uniform and joins the Texas working class. To top it all off, she meets a good-looking man named Charlie and things take off from there. Now, Charlie is no Ben (I like Brian Kerwin but hey, nobody is Ben as far as I’m concerned even if Kerwin does sound a lot like Derwin) and to take Viki out of her comfort zone the writers have her waiting tables at the Bonjour Café just like she took Ben’s dare and sang karaoke at Crossroads. Even the cook at the diner, Mo, fits the pattern because if you remember, Ben used to talk about Marie, the woman who owned Crossroads, as being a very grouchy person when it came to how her bar was run and who touched her kitchen.

Could it be that the powers that be have finally figured out what I’ve known all along; that Viki is at her best and loving life most when she is just having some plain old fun? There are so many parallels between the current storyline and the Viki/Ben storyline that I can’t even get to them all, but let me just say that if Viki can’t have Ben (and I still don’t know why she can’t) then I love seeing her having some fun away from her stressful life and if she hooks up with a guy who even resembles the wonderful guy Ben is (I won’t say ‘was’), then I will be happy to watch it. Let’s face it; Viki can’t have fun with Clint. It’s just not happening and if the writers ever try to show them as a fun couple, I think it will sink like a lead balloon. Hey, Viki is having fun. I’m having some fun. I’m happy. And who knows? Ben sure wasn’t really a bartender, so I can’t wait to find out Charlie’s story.

I like all the characters surrounding Viki as well. The waitresses add a nice touch to the storyline and it’s nice to see Farah Fath in the role of Gigi. I watched her for years on Days of our Lives when she played Mimi and rumor has it that Mimi might be hooking up with Rex in Llanview. Obviously, the fate of Adriana is up in the air, but if the rumors are for real, she won’t be with us forever. I also find it quite funny that Farah plays Gigi on our show and the last character she played was Mimi on Days. Could there be a Fifi in her future? And funnier than that is the fact that during her stint on Days of our Lives, she was very involved with a cute young blond guy whose character just happened to be named Rex. I wonder if she sees this as some kind of funny cosmic karma.

Anyway, I’m glad that Viki is having a good time escaping from her real life and I can’t wait to see what the future brings for her and these new people in her life. And as for Erika Slezak, you know I can never say enough about how wonderfully she adapts to every storyline she’s given, but I hope she’s having some fun with this one and enjoying Viki’s new adventure as much as I am. Who else could take a character like Viki from the boardroom in a tailored suit, to a beaded evening gown at a corporate fundraiser, to a polyester waitress uniform with an Eiffel Tower patch sewn on the shoulder with such seamless expertise? The answer is NOBODY!

Okay, moving on, what’s the story with Jared? Do you think he’s a good guy or a bad guy? Obviously, he is coming off like the world’s biggest jerk by moving in and deliberately pushing Jessica and Nash’s buttons, but I wonder how this is going to turn out. I didn’t really think that Jessica and Nash’s plan to annoy him out of their house would work that well, but I guess it did and Jared will have the last laugh on them because he sure did get himself some classy accommodations, didn’t he?