I said in the previous post that I had something to say. This is going to be a small, though needed rant-ish sort of post. Tamara has been killing it as Ava. She doesn’t know anything else in everything she puts her mind to. She’s an incredible actress and what I have to say has nothing whatsoever to do with her craft or acting. It has to do with the state of her current storyline. As a viewer of Ava’s since her debut way back in February 2008, I’ve seen her character go through a spectrum of severe rewriting and reconning. I know Tamara has said she hasn’t liked certain returns, and the same issue I have in the inconsistent writing, my issue here is that it’s all the same retread of the last time around. It’s getting tedious and to the point of satire. Let’s see all the ways to make Ava crazy and the villainess with no chance of changing or moving forward. There is no real reason for Ava’s current condition other than the writing being so, well, dumb.

Here’s my main issue: Unless the drugs Martino (Joe Penny) were ordering the doctor to give Ava has had long-term effects, there is no reason for this behaviour to continue. When Ava left Salem in 2008, Ava was sane. She was cured. There was no reason in 2015 when she came back to be back to crazy or the way she was other than plot driven drivel. The whole Ava/Steve “rape” I’ve covered in a blog post When Is It Rape?, was calculated to make Ava hated, as if she already wasn’t for coming in between Steve (Stephen Nichols) and Kayla (Mary Beth Evans), and the sabotaging of the plane that caused the death of Papa Shawn Brady (Frank Parker), whoever created this storyline should be forced into a walk of shame a la Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) on Game of Thrones. Did I want Steve and Ava involved and Kayla out of the picture? Sure thing. The chemistry between Tamara and Stephen Nichols was off the charts. However, Ava/Tamara was designed to fail just like Reese Williams from ALL MY CHILDREN, and Kim Nero on GENERAL HOSPITAL due in large part to the failure of the writing for each character. I hate that so much. I don’t expect Tamara to play angels all the time. She’s that good that her bad roles make her sympathetic, with the exception of Claire Dunning in THE PRETENDER. However, the constant and consistent failure of the writing is bothersome. What can be done to fix this mess that Dena Higley, Ron Carlivati, and Jamey Giddens have created? How to fix Ava Vitali? Simple.

My idea would be to go back to 2008 and Tamara’s original run. Bring back the character of Martino and have Ava under Marlena’s care, never mind her severe conflict of interest considering she was on the plane with Shawn Brady, find out something buried deep in Ava’s conscious that has created this repetitive mental relapse. What could that be? There is more than one way to solve this issue and bring about a change in Ava’s character and allow her to be a mother to her beautiful son, Tripp (Lucas Adams). That is Charlie’s (Mike Manning) father is Martino Vitali, not this guy that suddenly came into the story, Jimmy. Having Charlie be Martino’s from this betrayal from Martino would explain a lot of the reason Ava couldn’t love him. How could she when it was actual rape from her father? Her love of Tripp is because of her love for Steve, which is the reason the whole Indonesia storyline was really bad writing and just making the fans hate Ava more than they already did. When we look back on DAYS OF OUR LIVES history, there have been characters who have done worse than Ava, but who are beloved such as Stefano DiMera (the late Joe Mascolo), and Victor Kiriakis (the late John Aniston). I don’t expect them to completely redeem Ava, but how about allow her some modicum of peace and move on with her story of forging a tighter bond with Tripp? I really love the scenes Tamara and Lucas have had as Ava and Tripp. I want them to have a meaningful relationship. The fact that Tripp has in any way called Kayla “Mom,” or that he changed his name to Johnson instead of Vitali, makes me feel they are actively trying to remove Ava from the picture completely. Sort of like those old Soviet Union photos that would suddenly change if someone fell out of favour with the current big boss. Is it too much to ask the current writers to actually look at the character bible to look into how to make Ava less a pariah? Other women in Salem like Kristin (Stacy Haiduk), and Nicole (Adrienne Zuker) have done worse and have been blessed with being able to be mothers to their children, yet Ava has been constantly denied that right.