It feels like it's been forever since Sloan stole Nicole's baby.

Days of Our Lives often drags things out for ridiculously long, and it didn't help that the writers' strike left us with substitute scribes who kept things more or less in a holding pattern for months.

At the rate this story is moving, baby Jude will be a teenager before Nicole finds out he's his, and not a rapidly aged one! But spoilers for Days of Our Lives during the week of 5-20-24 suggest that there may finally be some significant movement forward here.

This story needs to hurry up and end for another reason. Soon Nicole will leave Salem, and it would suck if that happened before she was reunited with her son.

Arianne Zucker's lawsuit for wrongful termination is still moving forward, and the actress recently said she believes her final scenes will air at the end of July.

That means this story needs to end SOON. It's bad enough that a beloved character is being written out under these circumstances without leaving the story hanging.

The spoiler video suggests we're at a messy crossroads, with Eric believing the baby is EJ and Nicole's and EJ determined to keep it secret that Eric is the father.

Nicole is already inching toward Eric, and EJ just caught her drunkenly kissing her ex. 

EJ is not one to slink quietly away and let his wife go. Ask Sami what happened when he found out she had slept with Lucas!

At least Eric won't suddenly decide to kidnap Nicole to keep her safe from her EJ and end up in prison for scaring and tormenting her, so there's that.

Still, EJ's awareness that Nicole has more feelings for Eric than she admits and his knowledge of the truth about the baby are explosive. If anything, this development will encourage EJ to keep quiet about the baby's true parents so that Nicole won't go back to Eric.

Meanwhile, Eric learns this week that the baby is "EJ and Nicole's son." Eric will probably do the hard thing and return Jude to Nicole, sacrificing his relationship with the little boy because he thinks that baby isn't his.

This mess is full of tired TV tropes, yet it manages to be exciting despite Eric and Nicole probably being endgame yet again.

Please scroll down to check out all eight Days of Our Lives spoilers for the week of 5-20-24.

A shocked and heartbroken EJ reacts to Nicole's drunken kiss with Eric.

Nicole and Eric stopped being a compelling couple a long time ago.

Nicole finally came to her senses after the last time Eric dumped her after two weeks because he decided that Jada's choice to have an abortion was Nicole's fault. 

She correctly pointed out that she and Eric were in love with the idea of each other and what they once had, not with the people they are today. She was 100% correct about that, and nothing has changed since.

This is not a romance, especially not with drunk Nicole kissing Eric when he didn't want to be kissed. Yuck!

But when they discover that the baby is theirs, Days of Our Lives will use it to cement them as a couple instead of letting them co-parent while living separately. 

Paulina attempts to rehire Melinda.

Um, what?

Paulina fired Melinda because she was vindictive and dishonest and used the office for her own purposes (including messing with Paulina because she didn't like her).

Firing EJ because he was also vindictive and used the office to punish his enemies was the right move, but rehiring the woman who made personal vendettas the staple of her tenure makes no sense.

Melinda also was the mastermind behind the baby switch, so what will happen when that comes out? Weird things happen in Salem, but Melinda won't be expected to prosecute herself, will she?

As Leo catches Tate and Holly, more drama is ahead for the teen scene.

The gossip king has been doing nothing but getting drunk and crying about the loss of his relationship with Dimitri. Hasn't he lost all credibility yet?

Still, Leo's encounter with Tate and Holly could lead to interesting complications. If he's drunk enough, Leo might accidentally tell Holly that her baby brother is alive.

That could lead to a mutual blackmail situation where Holly won't tell EJ what Leo said if he doesn't tell Nicole that she was with Tate. Holly would hopefully not keep the baby's survival secret from her mother despite her anger at Nicole right now, but EJ is another story.

Holly never particularly liked EJ and resents her mother's serial dating habits (although Nicole has had far fewer boyfriends than many, at least since Holly's birth. After Eric ran away to Africa, Nicole was with Rafe for a while and now is with EJ, with a brief Eric interlude between Rafe and EJ.)

Anything could happen after this meeting, though there's also sure to be drama ahead for the teens, given Holly and Tate's forbidden romance and the messy love triangles that have been set up for the prom.

Maggie moves ahead with her scheme against Konstantin.

This isn't surprising since she got the green light from John and was last seen dangling some very attractive bait in front of Konstantin.

What happens if Kon the Con doesn't do what she expects? He may be a criminal, but that doesn't mean he's an idiot. He might not embezzle money from the charity he is supposed to be setting up in Victor's name or do it in such small increments that it's impossible to trace.

I'm still betting on another wedding derailed by an inconvenient truth, so I'm not sure this scheme will play into things the way Maggie thinks it will.

Julie finds out the Horton house is finally ready!

It hurts to see that tiny clip of Doug (Bill Hayes) joining the celebration when we know the actor passed away in real life and will die on-screen next winter.

Nevertheless, these are the rarest of all things: genuinely happy scenes where Julie, Chad, and Doug celebrate being able to go back home.

Will the arsonist that destroyed their home ever be caught? Maybe when the cops finally finish re-opening Li Shin's murder, they can pick up this cold case, too.

I also hope that the time capsule story will move forward now that the Hortons are moving back home. We need something other than Julie lamenting every other week that she can't open it.

Johnny and Chanel continue to struggle with their dilemma over her pregnancy.

This heavy story had a silly beginning, but it's one of the more realistic arcs Days of Our Lives has had recently, and Johhny and Chanel needed a real story.

Spoilers say Chanel wants to keep the baby despite the specialist's findings, so the specialist will most likely deliver bad news.

Hopefully, whatever issues the baby has will remain realistic. It's hard to trust that a promising storyline like this one will go where it needs to because medical stories tend to turn into supernatural silliness on Days of Our Lives.

We don't need any angelic visits or embryonic thefts -- a good, old-fashioned story about a tough medical decision is good enough, thanks.

Eric demands an explanation from Sloan.

It's beyond time for Eric to get a clue. Sloan has been acting strangely for months, and Leo has made cryptic comments under his breath that Eric never seems to notice.

That's all about to change. Eric is going to demand the truth again, and this time, Sloan is going to give it to him—at least partially, anyway.

The spoiler video has Sloan telling him the baby is EJ and Nicole's. This will likely lead to a heartbreaking decision on Eric's part because he can't let Nicole continue to think her baby is dead.

Eric has a moral code 99% of the time, so he probably would have made this decision even if Nicole wasn't involved, but Days of Our Lives will likely spin it as more proof of their soulmate status.

This will also be a mess since Eric thinks EJ is the father, and EJ knows the truth but isn't willing to tell it. Poor Jude will be passed back and forth between fathers so many times he'll probably grow up with serious mental health issues.

A disoriented Everett ends up in jail after another episode.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this weird story. 

Days of Our Lives has never done a Dissociative Identity Disorder story correctly, at least not in recent years. Abigail's DID story was nonsense, and it seems like Everett is headed for an equally ridiculous one.

So far, he turns into Bobby whenever he sees Bobby's name on the divorce papers and back into Everett when he types Everett's name on a byline. That's not how any of this works.

It's also unclear why Bobby punches Eric, but I'd bet anything Everett wakes up behind bars with no clue how he got there -- and not because he was blacked out drunk at the time.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics. Which of these spoilers sounds good to you?

Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know!

Days of Our Lives streams exclusively on Peacock. New episodes drop on weekday mornings at 6/5c.

Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on X.