Friday, April 15, 2016

Days: Goodbye Eric Brady

Friday, April 15, 2016 marked the end of Greg Vaughn's run as Eric Brady on "Days of the Lives". The character was sentenced to five years in prison for vehicular manslaughter, while drinking and driving. Below are my thoughts on this story development.

Eric was driven away to prison in a bus, which we saw on camera. Marlena (Deidre Hall) broke down finding out her son's sentence. That said, this was said to be what he would get, and in the real world, that would be getting away lucky in certain parts of the US. Eric being the child of Marlena and Roman, a Brady and related to many characters in town didn't mean there weren't potential uses for the character.

Compared many recent departures, at least Eric didn't die. He also didn't disappear without saying a word like Eve. Having him go to prison for such a long sentence though is frustrating, but Days wrote the character into a corner. Keeping a character who is a good guy on canvas after being responsible for a death while intoxicated is difficult. (Soaps keep bad or ambiguous characters around all the time, who've done worse, but I digress. This happens all the time, so it was strange they went this direction with Eric.) Would it have been better in some ways for Eric to just leave town after not doing anything wrong? Yup, but would it have been as dramatic for months? Nope. The interesting part to me about Eric's falling apart and continuing to drink is his relationship with Jennifer (Melissa Reeves). It was the first time in ages, that I liked Jennifer in an opposite sex pairing. It was twisted and new as neither one was sober.

To me the best part of what happened is that Greg Vaughn bounced back and got a prime time cable gig. If there is one good thing about him being off Days, is he was able to find something new. I'll certainly check it out when it premieres in the future.

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