Days of Our Lives Recap Hope Confesses to Murder
Jack Ori
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On this week's Days of Our Lives, Hope and Rafe's coverup of Stefano's murder came to an end. Sort of, anyway. After Hope confessed to Roman, he was happy to let Andre continue to sit in jail for a crime he didn't commit.
Meanwhile, after Joey snapped and smothered Ava with a pillow, Steve sent him home and confessed to the murder himself.
From the beginning, this entire Hope/Rafe storyline seemed contrived and unnecessary. The chances were that Roman would cheer Hope's decision to rid the world of Stefano Dimera. Sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
My brother Bo, he was a hero. He did whatever it took to protect his family. WHATEVER IT TOOK. And now that he's gone, that's what I'm gonna do.
Roman
I'm not sure how I feel about Roman looking the other way. He clearly didn't expect Rafe to be involved in the cover-up. Even if Hope is family, Rafe is not, and he seems to never learn his lesson about this sort of thing. Didn't he just get reinstated after being suspended for covering up Gabi's involvement in Melanie's kidnapping?
At the very least, Rafe should face disciplinary action for his part in this, even if Hope is let off the hook because she was out of her mind at the time. He was egging Hope on when she really should have just confessed to Roman in the first place.
In any case, Roman and Hope's scenes were among some of the best, most tense interactions of the week. Roman spoke to Hope as a friend and beloved family member, encouraging her to forgive herself and try to move forward from here.
Andre and Chad's conversation at the police station was also powerful.
Mercy? I feel nothing for you but hatred and disgust and I will not lift a finger to help you.
Chad
I almost felt sorry for Andre. For once he is innocent, though if he wants Chad's support, telling him that he is a sorry excuse for a Dimera probably isn't the best way to go.
You killed the wrong man.
Voice on Phone
The twist that Stefano wasn't behind Bo's kidnapping made Hope's fall from grace even more delicious. Of course, it suggests that the whole contrived "Aiden doesn't really love Hope" storyline was just that. Why did Stefano hire Aiden to stop Hope from searching for Bo if he had nothing to do with Bo's disappearance?
I could have done without Caroline's visions as part of the reveal that Hope made a mistake. There's enough supernatural/otherworldly nonsense with Brady believing that Daniel is sending him messages from beyond the grave via his transplanted heart.
Plus, I quite liked Maggie's assertion that Victor needed to give Caroline her independence.
Maggie: Victor, it's her life, and her decision.
Victor: Well, it's a damn poor one!
Of course, Maggie was probably happy to have Victor to herself for 30 seconds, but that's beside the point.
Victor seemed to be just as sick of Caroline's visions as the viewers, yet he called Hope just before her mysterious caller did. What does he hope to do about Deimos' involvement? Does he know Hope killed Stefano and hope that she will do the same to Deimos?
While all this is going on, across town Joey killed Ava. I can't say I'm sorry to see her go. She is not a villain I love to hate. She's just annoying, and her schemes have been unnecessarily convoluted.
Get Steve and Kayla back together so she can tear them apart. Pretend to have leukemia for reasons unknown. Seduce Joey, then try to seduce Steve.
She was all over the place and it was not at all enjoyable.
I would have preferred that Joey not be her killer, though. We already have a teenage rapist. We don't need a teenage murderer too. Plus, the dialogue is too similar to when Daniel covered for JJ after Theresa's overdose, except that cover-up was to prevent a miscarriage of justice.
Also, Kayla never got to deal with Joey's drunkenness because of this whole mess.
There's too much alcohol use in this show to begin with. It's great that Hope reminded Ciara of what happened to cousin Eric, but it seems most of the teens are following in his footsteps anyway.
Ciara and Joey both seem to have discovered alcohol as a solution to their serious problems, and it wouldn't be surprising if Chase starts drinking too.
The adults aren't much better. Steve was drinking over the whole Kayla/Ava situation at the beginning of the week, and he's the latest in a long list of people to drown their sorrows in alcohol. It's impressive that Brady actually sticks to soda; some other characters need to follow suit.
Anyway, when it comes to the teens I'd like to have seen normal teen problems. Teenage life is the stuff soap operas are made of. Teens date, fall in love, fall out of love, get angry that their friends hooked up with their exes... plus deal with peer pressure, being bullied, feeling the pressure to live up to expectations, and so on.
That is the sort of stuff we should be seeing from the teen set, not rape and murder.
The Chase/Ciara rape storyline is even more disappointing – and disturbing – than the Joey murder storyline. Chase's behavior was bad enough. Now he feels some remorse but is being talked out of it by Andre.
They are not your friends. I am your friend.
Andre
Chase needs to stop listening to Andre, turn himself in, and get counseling while he's in jail. Andre's manipulation of him is extremely creepy and Chase's stalking of Ciara isn't much better.
The way it's being written suggests that the Jennings family is just no good. It's irritating and annoying. Ruining Aiden's character was bad enough. Did they really need to ruin Chase's too?
I'd have much rather seen JJ attempt to mentor Chase, forcing him to try to decide who to listen to. Since Hope and the kids are now living in Jennifer's house, this would have made a lot of sense.
JJ is being wasted in scenes where he is used no differently than the stock cops they use whenever necessary. It would have been nice to give him a storyline that would allow him to come full circle and honor his memory of what Daniel did for him by helping another young person in need.
Elsewhere, the Theresa/Brady/Nicole story got even sillier. Apparently Daniel had a mentally ill friend named Summer, who was so important to him that he never once mentioned her while he was alive. Summer needed to be saved from drowning so that she could reveal she was probably Maggie's daughter.
There are way too many issues with this storyline. We never heard of Summer before (hopefully she didn't give Daniel an elephant statue.) The timeline doesn't work. And, most importantly, there is no point to doing a storyline about Daniel when Daniel is no longer here.
This storyline is unintentionally funny. When Theresa walked into Brady's hotel room and started demanding to know why Nicole was there, Summer must have thought she was back at the institution. From her point of view, all of these random people were converging to argue with each other, and she didn't know what was going on.
What kind of name is Summer anyway? I bet she's a stripper.
Theresa
My biggest problem with this storyline, other than its ridiculousness, is the irresponsible way it is portraying bipolar disorder. While Summer's disorder was not named, from the way she described it, it sounded like a stereotype of how bipolar people act when not on medication.
There is enough stigma against people who have mental illnesses without a bipolar character being portrayed as flighty. Plus, suicide is a serious issue, and most people don't decide to kill themselves on the spur of the moment like Summer apparently did.
Your turn! What was your favorite and least favorite storyline this week? Comment below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion!
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.
