Soap Hub Performer of the Week for DAYS: Judi Evans

It was no easy feat – but DAYS actress Judi Evans, the recipient of Soap Hub’s Performer of the Week award, made us care about Bonnie Lockhart, Adrienne Kirkiakis’s country fried double…a woman who is, admittedly, an acquired taste.

Judi Evans – Performer of the Week

And in addition to being sometimes hard to take, Bonnie is also someone who’s not exactly trustworthy. Sure, her intentions are, for the most part, pure, and her motivation is usually the betterment of herself and her family…but she almost always goes about achieving her goals the wrong way – hence her spending the morning of her wedding hidden underneath Xander Cook’s (Paul Telfer) bed, his pilfered millions beside her.

After managing to make her way outside the Salem Inn, and back inside the Kiriakis mansion, Bonnie had to then drag her sister-in-law, and, coincidentally, her blackmailer, Calista Lockhart (Cady Huffman) from atop Steve Johnson (Stephen Nichols) and into her boudoir.

There, Bonnie produced the cash, and insisted that Calista take it, and never darken her door again…and oh, she also wanted the gun – a murder weapon supposedly containing Bonnie’s fingerprints – that Calista’s got stashed away; but Calista didn’t want to trade.

Instead, she’d decided to shoot Bonnie with the gun and keep both it and the money. Bonnie tried to reason with her would-be executioner; and when they proved futile, she lunged for the gun. The women struggled, a bullet was fired, and a dead Calista slumped onto the bed.

Thinking fast, Bonnie covered the body with a comforter, convinced a concerned Kayla Johnson (Mary Beth Evans) that Calista was merely sleeping off a bender, and readied herself for the ceremony.

At the altar, Evans imbued her character with a haunting, near tranquil detachment – a perfect (albeit distinct) choice for a woman who’d just committed manslaughter, and was now fantasizing about the corpse coming to life and halting the proceedings.

But it wasn’t Calista who eventually objected to the union – it was Xander! He’d come to collect what was his…a goal which he subsequently achieved, but only after he’d come across Calista’s gun.

When pressed by Justin Kiriakis (Wally Kurth), Bonnie swore she could explain everything – the robbery, the gun, even the decedent in their bed…which was news to the ears of her arresting officers.

Here’s hoping that said explanation is good enough to earn DAYS’ Bonnie a free pass. We want her, and by extension, the luminous Judi Evans, on our screens for some time to come!

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.