Days of Our Lives Recap: Lies and Manipulations
Jack Ori
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Hallelujah! Summer left town at the end of this week's Days of Our Lives.
Too bad some tired storylines aren't leaving with her. There was more than enough heartache and disappointment to go around, and not a single minute of happiness anywhere.
Summer and Tate are the latest Salem residents to disappear into thin air (in Summer's case apparently literally.) Elsewhere in Salem, JJ and Chad butted heads over not knowing where Abigail is.
Many viewers are offended by JJ's suspicion of Chad, but this is almost entirely Chad's fault. Chad is not thinking clearly and has chosen to make JJ and Jennifer the enemy who wants to take Abigail from him rather than accepting that they also love Abigail.
Instead of using his resources to hire a lawyer and squash the court order that would send Abby to a state facility, Chad chose to explicitly tell JJ that he has no intention of letting him know where his sister is, ever.
Between Chad's bold declaration that he is Abigail's only family, his slowness in providing Abigail's letter to JJ when a delay of hours can make all the difference in a missing persons case and his new roommate Ciara's insistence that Abby is better off gone, JJ would have to be an idiot to trust Chad one bit.
And that doesn't even take into consideration the fact that he knows Chad and Andre appear to be best buds all of a sudden.
Andre: Why would I do that?
Chad: Why do you do anything? To make people suffer.
Viewers know that Chad is playing Andre in order to find info about Abby's whereabouts, but it's not logical for JJ to assume that's the case given all the other evidence that Chad is not being honest. Meanwhile, Chad has an utterly ridiculous plan to lock Abby in the tunnels forever so that her family can't find her.
That is not going to work and is just going to turn Abby against Chad once she is found.
Anyway, Chad is now left with no one but Ciara to confide in because he chose to alienate people who might actually be helpful. This appears to be a set-up for some Chad/Ciara romantic nonsense. I'm hoping that it will be a redux of Abby/Austin, where Abby fabricated a one night stand that didn't exist, and not Abby's affair with EJ.
I had hoped... in my wildest dreams... that we would leave here engaged.
Aiden
While all this was going on, the writers teased Hope/Aiden fans with a few lovely scenes at Green Mountain Lodge that were never going to go anywhere positive. Aiden's fantasy of picking up where they left off brought tears to my eyes because it was exactly what I wish the writers would have gone for instead of this nonsense.
Unfortunately, while they were talking, Rafe and Shawn discovered that Aiden lied about when he was kidnapped. Afterwards, Rafe very stupidly went to an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere by himself to check things out.
Predictably, someone hit him over the head just as he was about to warn Hope about Aiden.
I always thought the two of you were good together.
Shawn
This whole thing is so ridiculous. It's obvious the writers want us to root for Hope/Rafe. Instead of having characters announce over and over that they are a great couple, maybe they should try showing them being a great couple.
Instead, they give us one contrived situation after another to try to make the case that Rafe and Hope are meant to be. Rafe covers up Hope's murder of Stefano. Rafe has a gut feeling about a little white lie Aiden told.
And now, Rafe gets in a dangerous situation that a cop of his stature should never get into because it occurred as a result of stupidity and carelessness.
Tell me that you're gonna run. Best thing for everything, including you, is to bounce. You know that, don't you?
Dario
Dario thought Summer should leave town to get away from the mysterious person blackmailing her into kidnapping Tate. For once, he was right. Many viewers have been waiting for the day Summer took off, so it's in the audience's interest to be rid of her even if it's not the smartest thing for her to do.
Too bad it comes with the price of yet another story about a doped up protein drink. They must sell them with sedatives already mixed in at the Salem eateries. Ironically, someone did this to Brady a few years back. Then someone did the same thing to Daniel. Now it's Theresa's turn.
Theresa also has something in common with JJ, who was given a drugged soda a few years ago so that someone could take a sexual photo without his consent and try to make Paige think that he cheated on her.
Enough already with drugged drinks and people looking like they did something wrong when all they did was not realize something was wrong with their beverage of choice.
It's especially stupid in Theresa's case because she seemed to be sipping on the thing for a good hour or so. Every time she took a sip, she immediately got sleepy. Since the drink was supposed to wake her up, she should have given up on it and taken Tate to the coffee shop so she could get some real caffeine.
Well, if that's the worst problem you have a as a couple, you know, you guys are like, disgustingly solid and happy.
Anne
The scenes in the park were worth it for the Anne/Theresa time. It was great to see the two women joke around and bond. But those scenes also pointed out another flaw in the plan.
How did the kidnapper know Anne was going to leave (unless she was in on it, which as Theresa's best friend is doubtful)? What if Theresa had passed out while Anne was still there and Anne was watching the baby?
The third huge story of the week was the Kate/Deimos/Nicole/Chloe mess. This story would hold more interest if Nicole's name would be cleared already. The fact that Deimos is wasting time trying to stick it to Kate before going to the police is irritating, to say the least.
It was wonderful, however, to see Deimos give Kate a taste of her own medicine by pretending he was going to marry her and then kicking her out of the mansion. Too bad he didn't make the connection between her doing whatever it took to get her way and him poisoning Maggie to get his.
Time will tell if Deimos has changed at all or if he's still playing games with Nicole. In the meantime, Kate is not going to take this setback lying down and is probably going to try to cause more trouble for Deimos and Nicole.
Elsewhere in Salem, Philip shared a rare mature moment with Chloe in which he confessed to all the ways he screwed up before regressing to the age of 16 and arguing with Shawn over Belle. And Nicole bonded with Parker and warned him that Deimos might not be as cool a guy as he thought.
What did you think of this week's Days of Our Lives? Do you think Deimos is actually changing? Are you glad Summer is gone? What was your favorite storyline this week?
Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for our 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.
