Uh-oh! Abigail's been bitten by the revenge bug, and she's not the only one.

On Days of Our Lives during the week of 2-15-21, Jack and Jennifer's daughter swore she'd make Gwen pay for killing her grandmother... and being hauled off in handcuffs didn't change that.

And while Abby was making questionable decisions to get Gwen back in an undisclosed location, Christian Maddox took over kidnapping duty so he could get vengeance for Ciara, sending him to jail.

I wasn't happy that Laura became the latest legacy character that Days of Our Lives killed off, but I was even less thrilled about how her funeral was handled.

There were no flashbacks of Laura's 30+ years in Salem, no family coming in from out of town to pay their last respects, and what funeral scenes we got were mostly a catalyst for the next chapter of the Abigail vs. Gwen story.

Laura was recast as a saint and devoted mother just to up the Hortons' anger at Gwen for killing her and so that Gwen could whine that Laura certainly wasn't good to HER.

The truth was a lot more complex. Laura was a good-hearted person whose mental illness contributed to her doing terrible things to her kids. One of Days of Our Lives' most famous storylines involved her psychotic break leading to her abandoning a young Jennifer on a bus.

Alice raised Jennifer while Laura was in and out of mental institutions, trying to get stabilized, so for Jennifer to put in print that her late mother was "always devoted to her" in no way rang true to anyone who knew the character's history.

I know nobody wants to speak ill of the dead but ignoring that history didn't sit well with me either. 

It would have been far more honest for Jack and Jennifer to talk about how Jennifer and Laura had been rebuilding their relationship at the time of her death.

Also, Laura kept it a secret from Jennifer that Abigail was still alive after Abby faked her own death in 2016.

Too bad this was never mentioned during Laura's final stupid stunt. Instead of a compelling story about Jennifer and Abigail taking opposite sides about what Laura had done and those old resentments coming to the surface, we got Abigail and Gwen fighting at Laura's grave.

I could go on and on about everything that was missing from this awful story. The writers didn't give JJ an excuse for not attending the funeral because there wasn't one.

They just chose not to include him for whatever reason, and having Jennifer meet her older brother Mike in Boston to settle Laura's estate off-screen was also not a substitute for having him there.

Even Laura's family in Salem didn't attend the funeral, with no explanation given.

Maggie was a big part of Laura's life, having sometimes been her rival for Mickey's affections, and Lucas is close with Jennifer despite having been a product of an affair between Jennifer's father and Kate, so where were they?

Hope didn't so much as a call to give her condolences to her favorite cousin or pay any sort of final respects to her aunt, Marlena was too busy recovering from food poisoning to come, and Sarah and Xander were proposing to each other. In contrast, Sarah's aunt was being buried.

A funeral should never just be a plot point,  but that's exactly what this one was.

Jack and Jennifer got exactly one scene's worth of grief before leaving for the cemetery and a toast to Laura at a wake that seemed to consist only of the two of them and Julie and Doug. Then onward to the big catfight.

I don't know why Gwen even went to the grave while Abigail was there, other than to cause trouble and interrupt what might have been a genuine grief scene.

I appreciated Shawn arresting the two of them, though.

It's about time someone faced some consequences for all the public fistfights that go on in Salem -- even if Shawn also should have been at the funeral instead of merely being annoyed that the women's antics were interfering with him grieving over his secretly-still-alive sister.

Of course, nobody learned anything from Shawn making Abigail and Gwen sit in the same room. That was just further impetus for Abigail to declare she was going to make Gwen pay.

Even if this story was compelling -- which it isn't, especially since it's far from the only revenge story on Days of Our Lives right now -- I have to question Abigail's judgment in recruiting Gabi to this cause.

Gabi: Want to team up?
Abigail: Actually, you're the last person I ever want to turn to for help. But Gwen killed my grandmother and she needs to pay.
Gabi: I have a lot going on right now so...
Abigail: I know you, and no matter what you have going on, you always manage to carve out a little time for revenge. And judging from my own experience, you're pretty damn good at it.

• Permalink: I know you, and no matter what you have going on, you always manage to carve out a little...

Even though Gabi didn't drug Abigail this time, she did plenty to make Abby's life miserable, and during their conversation, she made it clear she still wants to do so.

Gabi feels just as justified in her hatred of Abigail as Gwen does, so why team up with her? And even if Abby does see some utility in this partnership, there's no need for Gabi to know all sorts of sordid details that she can use against Abigail later.

This alliance just guarantees more of Gabi's snide remarks and obnoxious digs at people with mental illness on our screens. No, thank you.

At least it gives Gabi something better to do than run around Salem trying to get someone to buy her company.

How convenient for her that all the CEOs she deals with are men who don't call her out on her unprofessional clothing choices. In fact, they all seem to enjoy looking at her body while she acts like she's doing them a favor by offering Gabi Chic for their consideration.

Ugh.  Can we have some actual strong women in positions of power instead of ones who try to use sex to get their way?

And if Gabi's personal style is reflective of her brand, why would any CEO in their right mind think Gabi Chic is a winning fashion company?

Philip's banter with Kate was fun, though, or it would be if we didn't have this ridiculous rivalry between Kate and Gabi over Jake.

Kate has never been the type to stand idly by while some too-big-for-her-britches woman tries to steal her man. She doesn't usually stew silently while trying to push her son to go into business with the enemy just to get her out of her way.

The Kate of yesteryear would have poisoned Gabi a long time ago, and most viewers would have been grateful she did us the favor of getting that annoying character off our screens, at least temporarily.

There is no chemistry between Jake and Gabi whatsoever. She's a stalker who annoys the hell out of him. So let's stop trying to make them end the game and just move on, please.

Kate doesn't need to be involved in the latest iteration of Brady/Chloe/Philip, either, but if she has to be, she should be glad that Chloe seems more drawn to Brady.

Pretty much everybody saw that coming to the second Chloe declared she and Brady should be friends and started inserting herself into every aspect of his life.

Chloe needs to stop jumping from ex to ex. She and Philip aren't in high school anymore, and she's already given Lucas another try. Now she seems to be moving toward Brady, and Kristen going nuts virtually guarantees that he'll forget about her and go all-in with Chloe.

Brady's love for Kristen is based on the fact that she's changed since giving birth. He wants a stable family with her and their daughter and is counting down the days until she gets out of prison so he can have that.

But Kristen has already tried taking Tony hostage, and now she will do yet another switcheroo with Susan so that she can eliminate Chloe and be with him.

Brady freaked out when Kristen joked about re-donning her Nicole mask so that she could move freely while on the run. There's no way he'll accept her latest trick.

And every time Susan comes to town, she and Kristen end up switching places, so everyone should catch onto this trick more quickly than they will do.

Besides that history, there's the fact that Salem has become the doppelganger capital of the world. Everyone should be suspicious whenever someone acts a bit off or rushes off to parts unknown and fails to communicate for years.

Speaking of which, why the hell has nobody thought of tracing the call that Ben thinks he got from Ciara?

Ben and Shawn spent a lot of time arguing about whether that call was really from her. But she used Rhodes' phone, so if Shawn traced the call, he'd likely discover that along with the place where she's being held.

That would be too logical or too easy, I guess. The two would rather sit around lamenting that they have no leads on where Rhodes might be than do the one thing that would answer the question.

This Ciara kidnapping story is getting tedious, too. 

Apparently, Rhodes holding her prisoner in a luxurious but always-locked suite as a favor to his buddy Vincent wasn't a good enough story, so now VIncent is dead, Orpheus is calling the shots, and Orpheus' son killed Rhodes just to be the one who has the pleasure of tormenting Ciara.

Talk about a convoluted mess!

Orpheus and Christian could have been behind the kidnapping in the first place. Everyone suspected Orpheus before Vincent's involvement was uncovered, so it would have been a neat twist for him to have been the one to have stolen her the second she escaped her original captor.

Ciara: Christian Maddox.
Christian: I prefer Evan.
Ciara: Is he...
Christian: Dead? Yeah. Sorry about all the blood.

• Permalink: Dead? Yeah. Sorry about all the blood.

Also, Christian's story makes little sense. He turned Orpheus in last time around because therapy had helped him develop a conscience, but now he's working with his father to torment Ciara because getting revenge on her for sending him to jail sounds like a good idea.

Either he has a conscience, or he doesn't. Either he wants to repudiate everything Orpheus stands for or not. He can't have it both ways.

But whatever. Can we just get on with ending this now?

Ben is doing more investigating than the entire Salem PD.

Shawn has suddenly developed a case of believing it impossible Ciara could still be alive despite the 10 billion other resurrected people to have popped up in Salem in the last year and cites such impressive facts as Hope hit a dead end, so, therefore, Ben's evidence is meaningless too.

Why, why, why are the cops always so useless on Days of Our Lives?

Anyway, the best part of this storyline was Ben interviewing Clyde. Clyde could redeem himself by investigating Orpheus for his son, though he needs to be more subtle about it and not accost Orpheus at the phone bank.

Finally, Xander and Sarah's mutual proposal was supposed to be romantic, but it somewhat missed the mark.

It was jarring for these scenes to be juxtaposed with Laura's funeral's sadness, especially since Sarah should have been among the mourners.

And the proposal came out of nowhere, with little buildup. Plus, Sarah's insistence on Xander opening the cake box was obnoxious, even if she did want to use it for popping the same question to him.

Plus, Xander has no job right now and no plans for his future other than marrying Sarah. That's not exactly attractive.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics!

What did you think of Days of Our Lives during the week of 2-15-21? Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know.

Hungry for more Days of Our Lives chat? Be sure to check back on Sunday for the latest Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

Days of Our Lives continues to air on NBC on weekday afternoons. Check your local listings for airtimes.

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.