(Girl Fight Tonight!)

Last Update: Octber 14, 1998.

THE PRIMARY PARTIES

It all started when Austin Reed came into Ballistics, where Carrie Brady was working, and stripped off his shirt in order to try on another article of clothing. Both Carrie and Jennifer Horton were working there at the time, and they had much the same reaction: "Wow." When Carrie found out that Austin lived across the hall from her it was too good an opportunity for DOOL writers to pass up. Good girl, bad boy pairings were all the rage that year. Unfortunately, Carrie became ostracized from Daddy and family because Austin was a boxer and they did not approve. It all came to a head when Carrie, during a party where she was named by Bella magazine as the "Face of the Nineties," was splashed by acid meant for Austin because he failed to throw a match. Austin, contrite and desperate to keep Carrie, promised her he would take a desk job so she could be safe. Enter Sami. . . After she drugged and slept with Austin, he woke up the next morning and told her he could never love her. Sami, distraught and foiled (again!), disappeared from town. Carrie and Austin tried to find her, but to no avail. Exit Austin Reed (Patrick Muldoon), and enter Duh-Boy Reed (Austin Peck). Sami reappeared at Carrie and Duh-Boy's wedding (Take One) pregnant with what she claimed was Duh-Boy's baby, gave birth to said baby, baptized said baby "William Robert Reed," was involved in a car accident caused by Duh-Boy, developed a case of amnesia and paralysis resulting from said accident, and was present for the return of her dying Daddy. After all this, Sami manueuvered Duh-Boy Reed into proposing to her. [See The Brady/Reed Hostile Takeover.] The whole, sick, twisted and drawn-out mess was aided by the fact that Carrie had become annoyed and heartsick because Duh-Boy was leaving her in the middle of the night to go see Will. She took to spending time in Mike Horton's company. Mike, the constant gentleman with a comfie shoulder and a sympathetic ear. Mike, who played the "But, Carrie, Austin [Duh-Boy] Loves You" record so many times that it's become a drinking (or 2x4) cue for us, the viewers. Mike, who told Carrie twice that he loved her and she was sleeping both times, gosh-darnit! Mike, who hadn't "gotten any" in four years, and he's so richly deserving. Back to the story: Roman Brady was dying and Carrie goes to a medical conference to try to find a cure for Daddy's disease. She drags Mike along for company and they get back to Salem just in time to find out that Sami's marrying Duh-Boy! Seems Duh-Boy got sick of seeing Carrie and Mike together and proposed to the woman who was the mother of his supposed child. Roman stalled for time by collapsing during the ceremony. Sami suspected nothing, and played her saccharine sweetness to the hilt. But Sami had underestimated the combined forces of Mike, Carrie and the newly-returned Eric, who discovered that Lucas was really Will's father! They got back to the church and Carrie confronted Sami who pretended innocence. Carrie had had enough of this and she punched her sister. Sami hit the floor like a sack of goat chow and Duh-Boy was (and still is) confounded. Everything was explained and Marlena fetched Carrie's old wedding dress. Mike tried to ask Carrie to reconsider her hasty decision, whether it was the right time for her to get married, and if she wasn't rushing it just a bit. Carrie thanked him for his concern, but she was deadset on marrying Duh-Boy. The last thing she wanted was for Duh-Boy to slip through her fingers yet again. Little did she know that Duh-Boy had been warped by his association with Sami. Mike caused himself even more pain by standing up for Duh-Boy as the best man, at Carrie's prompting. Carrie married her loser boyfriend immediately after Sami had been exposed as a fraud and a liar to the entirety of Salem. Sami was locked out of the church and all of her screaming, pounding on the door and pleading for the ceremony to stop was to no avail. Too bad Mike didn't do the traditional "kidnap the bride" bit. He could have made off with with no one the wiser. But since Bo Brady had kidnapped Hope from her wedding to Larry Welch, I suppose the writers thought this was too cliched for the effect they wanted to achieve. So they did the marriage "thang," and at the reception, Mike caught the garter and Sami caught the bouquet! Sami got her revenge on Carrie by pretending that Will needed his "father." Meanwhile Mike stayed in his room and tortured himself with thoughts of the consummation before responding to a call from a man having a heart attack in the very same hotel where Carrie and Duh-Boy were spending their wedding night. Conveniently enough, Carrie was still ticked at Duh-boy and invited Mike in to console her. She spilled champagne (accidentally?) on her gown and Duh-Boy returned to find Carrie in a towel with Mike holding her unmentionables. Mike apologized profusely, but Duh-boy brushed it off, not even thinking that his best man would be putting the moves on his bride even though he had deserted her. So Carrie and Duh-Boy were hitched finally, but you must remember that Kate Roberts assisted in planning the wedding, and Lucas Roberts was the one who found the new priest when the old one wasn't anywhere nearby. It's entirely possible that either Kate or Lucas engineered it so that Sami and Duh-Boy would be married by a fake priest. Kate would have done it so that she could leave room for Duh-Boy to get out of the marriage with ease should her suspicions about Sami prove to be true. Lucas could have paid some actor to get dressed like a priest and marry them because Sami's promptings and henpecking made him think that if she didn't marry Duh-Boy NOW!, he would never get a shot with Carrie. This could mean that Carrie and Duh-Boy are not married at all, and that if Carrie wants Mike and not Austin, then she doesn't have to go through the whole rigamarole of getting an annulment or a divorce. There have been hints from the DOOL writing team that this is the case. Wouldn't that stick in Kate's craw, her "daughter-in-law" falling in love with a handsome and noble man who makes her son look like a caveman?

What bearing does the Brady-Reed Merger have on the formation of B&H, Inc.?

Carrie really, really, really messed up big time! She had the gall to ask Mike to be the best man, and now leans on him for support because her marriage to Austin is crumbling. What was once a promising union between two people who were really in love with each other has shifted because of a casting mistake that never should have been made. Peck plays a dumb and hormonal "Duh-Boy," while Muldoon played a sweet, sensitive and gorgeous Austin Reed. In my humble opinion, Mike spends way too much time trying to support Carrie and not enough time facing the issues that have come up between the two of them. When all is said and done, Carrie's marriage to Austin is destined to fail. The real question is whether or not Mike will still be waiting around to pick up the pieces. . .

~The Brady-Reed Merger Gallery~

~The Brady-Reed Merger Songs~

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