Timing is EVERYTHING

DAYS’s EJ Comes Roaring Back To Salem — Just When Lucas Asks Sami For Another Chance At Romance

- Stephanie Sloane

EJ returns to Salem this week after a sevenyear absence, which spells trouble for Sami and Lucas, who have been having an affair behind his back. Deciding to recast the role after James Scott’s memorable run from 2006-14 wasn’t taken lightly.

“The genesis of bringing back EJ ties to the character of Sami,” begins Head Writer Ron Carlivati. “When I got to the show and Sami wasn’t on the canvas, she had left Salem but had this drive where she had this idea that her husband was still alive and was searching the world looking for him. So each time we brought Sami onto the show, you could kind of gloss over that, and we could sort of keep alive, ‘Oh, I’m out there in the world looking for EJ,’ but I feel with each successive visit, the spectre of EJ loomed larger and larger until we finally felt we had to deal with it. Otherwise, it’s hard to continue to tell stories with Sami unless you’re going to answer the question, is EJ still alive?”

In 2018, the question was answered when Sami found EJ in Dr. Rolf’s Nashville lab. “So, with each visit, it becomes more imperative that we deal with the question: What’s going on in her marriage and what’s going on with EJ?” says the scribe. “So we came up with this idea to pair her with Lucas and build this little affair, and then how do you not deal with EJ? Does she just leave town with the secret that she slept with Lucas a few times? It’s a little unsatisfying. You want EJ to ultimately show up and wonder if this secret of Lucas and Sami is going to come out. So that is how we went about saying, we have to tear off this Band-Aid and find ourselves an EJ.”