Soap Hub Performer Of The Week For DAYS: Emily O’Brien

Upon concluding that she truly is her mother’s daughter, DAYS’s resident bad girl, Gwen Rizczech invoked nothing but sympathy, and her decision to give up the cure-all potion that would heal what ailed her rival won her brownie points galore…but is she truly capable of redemption? For keeping us guessing and forcing us to alternate between loving and hating her, actress Emily O’Brien earns herself Soap Hub’s Performer of the Week honors.

Emily O’Brien – Performer of the Week

In the aftermath of her arrest, Gwen had nothing to keep her company but the memories of times gone by. When the door to the interrogation room opened, O’Brien perked her expression ever so slightly, hoping against hope that she’d turn her head and find Paul Telfer’s Xander Cook standing before her.

Upon noticing it was her alter ego’s father come to pay a visit, O’Brien shifted awkwardly in her chair, telegraphing Gwen’s uncertainty as to whether Jack Deveraux (Matthew Ashford) was there as friend or foe.

He’d come at Jennifer Rose Horton Deveraux’s (Melissa Reeves) insistence, Jack confessed, to which Gwen indignantly scoffed, “Don’t joke, nobody’s that wonderful.” Put on immediate blast, Gwen demurred and…apologized? Coming from O’Brien, it sounded completely sincere.

Equally sincere sounding was Gwen’s explanation for why she’d left such devastation in her wake. No, the Devil didn’t make her do, though she’d love to pass the buck – the wry little smile that O’Brien pulled when Jack offered that as an out said as much. She’d done it all for purely selfish reasons; plain and simple.

Then, Gwen shared yet another epiphany. “I realized that all those things I did, sort of like my mum, putting the spike in her arm when someone does something over and over and over again to ensure that they stay the same miserable human being…just like my mum did, I put the spike in my own arm.”

Fast forward. Fast past Xander stumbling in, prepared to bargain whatever he could to get Gwen to cough up the location of Dr. Rolf’s memory restoring serum. Fast past a dejected, misty-eyed O’Brien choking out, “It’s like it didn’t even occur to you to just ask me for it because telling you would have been the right thing to do…You don’t think there’s one good bone in my body do you?” Fast past Gwen doing the right thing.

Enter Abigail Deveraux DiMera (Marci Miller) and Jennifer, who wanted to know if Gwen was sorry for murdering Laura Horton in cold blood. Gwen was sorry, she claimed. Sorry that Laura was dead and sorry that she’d told Abigail such a horrid lie. She’d only done that to get under her sister’s skin; to punish her for ruining what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. But was that the truth?

Once alone with Abigail, Gwen bared both her fangs and her claws. “Not knowing is killing you, isn’t it? And knowing that, I’m never going to give you an answer…I’m never going to tell you what happened to your sweet little Granny…Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

Emily O’Brien is oh so good and being oh so bad, and that’s just great for her devoted audience.

Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Salem, check out all the latest that’s been posted on DAYS spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.

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