Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI
Batten down the hatches, because Hurricane Sami is about to blow into Salem. If there’s one thing Days of Our Lives fans know, it’s that things tend to get interesting when Alison Sweeney carves time out of her incredibly busy schedule to visit her friends and family. That certainly will be the case when on Thursday, April 10, she arrives just in time to hear sister Belle declaring her love to the recently-shot EJ. You know, the guy who was once the love of Sami’s life!
While that’s your typical soap fare and something fans have waited ages to see, the real meat of Sweeney’s latest return involves something far weightier: Sami talking to son Johnny about the circumstances surrounding his conception.
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“It definitely caught me off guard that they were playing out that story, just because it felt like it was in the past,” the actress admitted to TV Insider. Despite the incident — in which EJ (then James Scott) forced Sami to have sex with him before he would agree to save his rival, Lucas — unfolding nearly two decades ago, Sweeney easily slipped into the past.
“Having played all those scenes, I remember it all,” she reflected, adding that she has “real feelings about how it was to play” the controversial twist. “I remember what a huge uproar this storyline caused when it happened, and how all the different fan bases felt about it.”
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Given how many of those fans still watch, she was keenly aware that revisiting this particular topic would stir things up again. “I felt immediately like I was neck-deep trying to tackle a Days of Our Lives fan controversy, never mind the real-life controversy of this particular issue. I worked really hard with the writers about the material. I hope I put our best foot forward in regard to the scene” in which Johnny and his mom have an honest, potentially painful conversation.
While there’s no official word as to how long Sweeney will be sticking around, this is definitely a “visit” as opposed to a long-term return. That said, TV Insider confirms that she will be back for both John Black’s upcoming memorial and the soap’s 60th anniversary episodes, which will air this November.
