SOAP OPERA WEEKLY
September 12, 2000

Will Lucas end up killing Sami or saving her?

Sami's life is on the line this week on Days of Our Lives as Kate and Lucas' plan to drive her nuts spins dangerously out of control.

As the week opens, a drugged Sami is recovering from her first visit from "Will." A concerned Brandon arrives at the cottage and finds her struggling to locate her son, whom she's convinced she's seen in the window. What the duo don't realize is that Sami has been drugged with a mind-altering herb, and that Kate put a doll that looks eerily like Will in the cottage window.

"Sami is bought back into reality because she doesn't see anything," Alison Sweeney (Sami) explains. "She's sort of hysterical, but starting to sober up. By the end of the morning, she realizes she was hallucinating, but really thinks there might still be some kind of trouble with Will." Brandon thinks Sami is overreacting, and assures her that Will is fine and she needn't hop a phone call to the Kiriakis mansion and Henderson informs her that her son is OK.

Sweeney says Brandon is "Sami's only rock" at this point. "He's really trying to rescue her, and help her see the light." He also has his own agenda. "He's getting closer to Sami, and she really relies on him. So he feels that by keeping her in Italy, he's getting her to fall in love with him. In a way, it's working."

Kate and Lucas, meanwhile, think the visit from "Will" was a success. "They're gloating and thrilled," Lauren Koslow (Kate) says. "They're thinking: 'It's fabulous, it worked out, and she's probably on her way back to Salem as we speak.'" The ruthless Robertses' bubble is quickly burst, though, when they learn Sami is still ensconced in the cottage and has no plans to leave Italy. That makes Kate even more determined to push Sami over the edge. "Kate's stuck between a rock and a hard place with Sami, and she knows she's really fighting for their (Kate's and Lucas') lives - while Sami's fighting to destroy their lives. So, what do you do?"

The answer comes to Kate quickly enough: She needs to make sure Sami ingests even more of the hallucinogen. Kate orders Lucas back to Moroni's restaurant, where he's to slip even more of the herb into Sami's food. "He thinks this plan is going too far, and he's not being as cooperative with Kate and Victor because he's starting to feel a lot more guilty and responsible," Bryan Dattilo (Lucas) says. "He tries to cool them down, but it's a losing battle, and he winds up heading back to the restaurant in his surfer disguise anyway."

When Brandon and Sami arrive for dinner, Lucas laces her salad with the drug. Afterward, there's a tense moment for Lucas when it looks like Brandon might eat the salad, instead of Sami; she winds up eating it, though.
"The only problem is that Kate didn't reveal how dangerous this herb is," Dattilo continues. "She tap-danced around that with Lucas. She keeps teeling him: 'It'll be fine.' Lucas' big thing is, 'I just don't want to kill her.' And Kate's like, 'Don't worry, we're just going to mess her up a little.' And Lucas is like, 'Oh. That's fine. As long as we don't kill her.' So, knowing that, he spikes the salad pretty damn hard."

Hard enough, it seems, to send Sami into a more severe drug-induced state. "Lucas doesn't know what he's doing to with her - her body is not taking this drug well," Sweeney says. "Besides the hallucinations, she's convulsing and having trouble breathing. It's definitely not good at all."

Koslow says the severity of the situation isn't giving her character any pangs of guilt. "I imagine that if something tragic happened to Sami, Kate wouldn't be too devastated," she says with a laugh. "They both feel the same way about each other. Kate's worked too hard to get where she is, and now she's scrambling to avoid losing everything. So, if Sami has to die, well…"

Kate also makes plans to take the meddlesome Brandon - who is inching closer to the truth about Franco's murder - out of the picture at any cost. "I go to Moroni because I want to have Brandon 'taken care of,' "Koslow says in character. "What's interesting is that Victor has suggested that I need to deal with Moroni in a very special way. Kate's really taken aback, because he's saying that she should use her body to get what she wants. That's an enormous blow, because that takes her straight back to the time in her life when she was a prostitute."

By week's end, Lucas makes an appearance at the cottage with the Will doll after Brandon leaves for a meeting with Angela. He props the doll on the windowsill once again, which sends Sami into an advanced state of hysteria. "She's really terrorized by this doll and horrified at what it's doing," Sweeney says. As Sami watches in horror, tears of blood fall from "Will's" eyes as he cries out to her in pain. Lucas then pulls the doll out of the window, which makes Sami even desperate to find her injured son. "So, she jumps out the window after the doll and begins to deliriously search for Will," Dattilo explains. "She staggers, doesn't know where she is, and winds up falling and having these bizarre flashbacks and hallucinations."

By week's end, Sami's dilemma becomes even more dire when she has a seizure and collapses. "When she finally passes out, and I think she's dying, that's when I say, 'Forget it, this has gone too far,'" Dattilo says in character. Will Lucas wind up coming to Sami's rescue - or will he be too late? "The real cliff-hanger here is that Sami may have overdosed on this poisonous herb," Sweeney says, "and the audience is going to be left wondering if she's alive or dead."

THE PERILS OF SAMI BRADY
Sami's current drug-induced nightmare on Days isn't the first - and probably won't be the last - time she's been in jeopardy. She's survived everything from a freak car accident to an execution. This time, however, Sami's luck may have run out.

1993: Extremely jealous of her sister Carrie, troubled Sami went on a crash diet in order to compete with her - and gain Austin's affections. Her misguided dieting led to a dangerous bout with bulimia that further aggravated Sami's already off-kilter psyche: She kidnapped Marlena's baby, Belle, after learning John was the father.

1994-'95: Lucas' pal Alan was obsessed with Carrie, so he dated Sami to get closer to get closer to her sister.

1997: Dimwitted Austin backed his car over Sami's head (not once, but twice - ouch!) on the way out of the Titan Publishing parking garage. Sami lingered in a coma for weeks, and when she finally came to, she suffered from amnesia. In typical Sami fashion, she recovered from memory and didn't tell anyone!

1998-'99: Franco plotted to marry Sami to secure a green card. When a furious Sami uncovered the scam, she threatened rather loudly to kill him. Franco died, all right, but it was Lucas who pulled the trigger. Kate and Lucas framed Sami for the murder; she was later found guilty and sentenced to death. Sami's innocence was revealed just as she received her lethal injection. Luckily, Mike managed to revive her just in time.

1999: Lucas and Sami's custody battle over Will came to a crashing halt, literally, when the two went down in a helicopter accident. Lucas actually put aside his animosity to help an injured Sami, but alas, the truce didn't last long.