What Was Days of our Lives Thinking With Allie’s Rape Story?

From the moment Allie first popped up – pregnant – on Days of our Lives, we’ve been wondering what the show was thinking. Why saddle someone who could anchor a whole new generation of young legacy characters with a baby straight off the bat?

Where is the slow build-up? The romance? The longing, the pining. Why didn’t Allie (Lindsay Arnold) get the same kind of build-up as Hope (Kristian Alfonso), Belle (Martha Madison), Ciara (Victoria Konefal), or Claire (Isabel Durant)?

Days of our Lives Plot Twist

Well, at least we thought Who’s the Daddy would be an interesting story. Except it wasn’t a story of some forbidden romance, Romeo and Juliet style. Instead, we got a rape story. Rape stories are the opposite of romantic.

And not a straightforward rape story, but one where Allie had been so drunk that she couldn’t even remember the guy. Nicole (Arianne Zucker) didn’t let that so much as slow her down. She pushed and pushed and pushed until Allie recalled who it was (kind of). That didn’t exactly make Nicole look heroic, especially when, any time Allie expressed a smidgen of doubt, she bulldozed her into sticking with their – uh, her – story.

Innocent Victim

The guy Allie fingered, Tripp (Lucas Adams), denied strenuously. So Allie only got more shrill, swearing that she now remembered everything about an encounter she’d earlier confessed was still fuzzy. That didn’t make her look exactly heroic, either.

Final Cut

The worst indignity came when the audience learned that Tripp wasn’t the culprit weeks before Allie did, which means, every time she accused him and/or waved a gun around, the audience only thought better of him – and worse of her. How was this supposed to forward the cause and progress brought about by the MeToo movement? How was it even something that would make Allie someone worth rooting for?

Sure, the audience has warm, fuzzy feelings for Allie as a result of caring about her parents, Sami (Alison Sweeney) and Lucas (Bryan Dattilo). But we needed a reason to care about her as a standalone character. And this was, quite possibly, the worst way to make that happen. However, now that she remembers who really raped her, maybe her story can truly begin.