Days of Our Lives Review: Another Shocking Secret Comes Out!
Jack Ori
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JJ knows that Lani's baby isn't his!
The secret came out in a ridiculously contrived courtroom scene, and JJ may be facing charges for punching Eli, but at least it's out.
If only this meant the end of everyone thinking Lani is wonderful, I'd be thrilled, but I have my doubts on that score.
Trial scenes on DAYS tend to be unrealistic, and this one was no exception.
During cross-examination, Justin tried to force Lani to admit she held a grudge against Gabi, causing Lani to make the weirdest-worded confession in soap history.
Justin: Detective Price, need I remind you that you are an officer of the law and under oath? It is your sworn duty to answer the question or face contempt charges! Now why did Ms. Hernandez think you owed her?
Lani: Because I slept with her boyfriend, Detective Eli Grant.
After this bombshell reveal, which nobody asked to have stricken from the record, JJ jumped up and demanded answers. He ignored everyone who told him to calm down, punched Eli, and the judge held him in contempt for "assaulting a police officer."
It was soapy and dramatic, but it irritated me.
Maybe if there was an actual reason to believe that JJ loved Lani and was so brokenhearted that he just lashed out, I could overlook how ridiculous the whole set-up was.
But there was never any love story here, only the people involved saying over and over that JJ and Lani were this amazing couple.
Their relationship began with Lani raping JJ and then moved on to Lani trying to pressure JJ into more sex he didn't want to have.
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Hours before Theo was shot, JJ told Lani he loved her after throwing her a surprise birthday party that included all her friends and family, but her response was, "Why did it take six months for you to say so?"
Recently, Lani used JJ being with Gabi as an excuse to sleep with Eli, then used JJ's suicidal depression as an excuse to pretend the baby that resulted from this one night stand was JJ's.
This whole relationship has been Lani trying to force JJ to be with her and demanding more of him than he wanted to give. There is no love here, only a woman using a man's mental illness against him to stop him from leaving her.
It's abusive and it needed to stop about 18 months ago when it started.
And JJ has grown far beyond lashing out violently when he gets angry, too.
I can't help thinking that the whole reason for JJ to punch Eli and get dragged off to the police station was an attempt to make Lani look like the sympathetic one and JJ like the one who can't control himself and is abusive.
I have no doubt Abe will take her side and say she dodged a bullet by not getting married to hothead JJ because of this incident. I'm really not looking forward to that.
JJ: Wait, did you know too?
Rafe: I, uh...
JJ: Did Eli tell you? Has this entire department been laughing at me behind my back this whole time, Rafe?
JJ was taken out of the courtroom by Rafe, who kept trying to get him to calm down.
I found it bizarre that Rafe, who recently saw his own marriage implode because he also slept with someone while broken up with his fiancee and also failed to tell her about it, was the one trying to comfort JJ!
It made me miss Daniel more than ever because Daniel understood JJ and could get through to him at times like this (and wasn't a hypocrite, either).
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I also thought it was stupid that these scenes took place in the police station. Being held in contempt means being arrested. JJ should have been in a jail cell.
For some reason, DAYS seems to have arrested people live in the interrogation room and that's a shame. Not only would that have been more realistic, but it would have made the reveal that JJ isn't the father of Lani's baby more powerful.
If JJ had been locked up, then learning he wasn't even the father of the baby would have been doubly heartbreaking for him.
It's been almost five years since he was arrested for breaking the window in the Square.
Having to sit in a holding cell cooling off would have been humiliating and depressing enough without then learning that he'd been made a fool of, that all his former colleagues at the Salem PD knew about the one night stand, and that he wasn't even the father of Lani's baby.
Instead, JJ had no reaction whatsoever to being arrested and nobody brought up the fact that he's been down this road before and worked hard to turn his life around since.
His lawyer wasn't all that interested in talking to him, preferring to let him and Lani fight it out in the interrogation room while he reassured Rafe that Hope would come around!
And most likely no charges will actually be filed, JJ will be allowed to go home, and nothing will come of this other than him breaking up with Lani and all of Salem trying to convince him to give her another chance.
After all, Eli wasn't hurt and told Gabi that JJ punching him was just part of him being a cop, which made no sense but suggests he's not going to press charges and the whole thing will just go away.
I'm curious as to what, if any, that whole dramatic display of temper will have on Gabi's trial.
Lani's sex life is not really relevant to Gabi's guilt or innocence, though Justin did a decent job of suggesting that Lani had a personal problem with Gabi. I wish he'd gone further and suggested she arrested Gabi to ensure she kept quiet about the affair.
That would have allowed people to at long last question whether Lani is really the wonderful woman they all think she is and really helped with that whole reasonable doubt thing Justin needs in order to get Gabi an acquittal.
Gabi: That wasn't good, right?
Justin: Word to the wise, Gabi. Don't let anything surprise your attorney. If you told me you knew what happened between Lani and Eli, I never would have pursued that line of questioning.
But since DAYS seems determined to paint Lani as a flawed heroine when she is anything but heroic, Justin stopped short of that suggestion.
JJ yelled at Gabi that he was mad she didn't tell him about the affair before going off on Eli and getting himself arrested, and then Gabi walked into the interrogation room just in time to hear Lani say that the baby was Eli's.
All that ensures a lot of drama for all four characters involved in this mess.
But it's too bad JJ hadn't been tapped as a character witness for Gabi before all this because then his behavior would have interfered with him doing that and he wouldn't be able to help out the woman who saved his life because of it.
Trask: Please don't tell me you're still clinging to this asinine theory that someone is moonlighting as a Gabi Hernandez impersonator. [flips hair] Like me? That was one of your best arguments.
Justin: Was that a confession?
Trask: You wish. But unless you find your client's doppleganger, the real Gabi Hernandez is going down for murder.
I wish a mistrial had been declared because of all the chaos, mostly so we wouldn't have put up with any more of Trask's unprofessional behavior.
There is no need for this over-the-top behavior on the part of the DA. She's constantly smirking and making objections that make no sense, and outside of the courtroom she gloats to Justin that she's going to win even when she is losing by a mile.
The less we see of her the better. Can someone please get her for prosecutorial misconduct?
Trask was right about one thing: The Gabi doppleganger must be found in order to get rid of this silly case.
Unfortunately, we're in the part of the storyline where people keep almost running into Gabigail and then she somehow disappears or manages to get rid of her wig before the person approaches.
This happened three times.
First, Kate heard Vivian confronting "Gabby" from outside the living room, but the wig was gone by the time she went inside.
Then Hope saw her from the back in Hong Kong, but she'd mysteriously disappeared by the time Hope approached.
Finally, Chad knocked on the hotel room door, forcing Gabigail to ditch the wig and practice sounding normal before facing him.
If I enjoyed this storyline maybe I wouldn't be so annoyed, but this "almost but not quite" trick is overplayed as it is and this whole thing is ridiculous.
At this point, we don't have a DID storyline. We have a storyline of Abby deciding she wants to be this completely different person named Gabby and seduce Stefan while wearing a black wig.
Gabby: What are you going to do to Chad?
Stefan: It would be nice if you trusted me.
Gabby: It would be nice if you gave me a reason.
Stefan: How about this? I'm the only one on your side. Do you want Abigail to come out or do you want to continue to be yourself?
Gabby's dialogue is all about wanting to be herself and feeling wrong and uncomfortable without her black wig.
Everything she says matches completely what many transgender people feel when they are forced to hide their true gender and pretend to be what people in their lives expect them to be. But there's a problem: Abigail is not transgender.
This dialogue should have been saved for a character who is actually struggling with their gender identity so that it could be moving and powerful instead of a mockery of what many people feel on top of making light of Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is a bona fide mental illness that can interfere with people's lives if not treated.
Plus, Stefan wanting to seduce Gabby comes off as using Gabigail's mental illness against her to get what he wants, sexually and relationship wise.
Wasn't Lani doing that to Abby's brother over and over bad enough?
Hope was also in Hong Kong, though for a better reason than wanting to take advantage of a woman with serious mental illness.
After breaking up with Rafe, she decided to go visit her son and daughter-in-law on the other side of the world so she could clear her head.
I loved seeing her tell Rafe to stop stalking her and hang up on him, but her entire visit was irritating because it was all about Rafe.
Shawn should be 100% on his mom's side, not on the side of the man who slept with someone else 30 seconds after a temporary breakup and then lied about it for months.
He should not be trying to convince Hope that Rafe is a great guy that she'd be a fool to let go.
If anything, he should be shocked and angry that Rafe, who has been Hope's police partner for years, could so easily break her heart.
And he definitely should not be apologizing for his daughter telling the truth rather than allowing Hope to continue to be hoodwinked.
Another one who should not be apologizing is Kayla.
Kayla is the only person in Salem who seems to be holding John accountable for his choice to poison Steve.
John should have talked to Steve and the two of them should have found a way to defeat Pamela Van Damme together. This nonsensical behavior on his part should not be so easily forgiven.
Steve and John had a good time hanging out while Kayla was fighting with Marlena, but these scenes were tainted by the knowledge that John betrayed Steve in the worst possible way and had not earned the forgiveness Steve offered him.
In addition, Marlena should have been in Kayla's office to consult on Abby's case, not to defend John.
What did you think of Days of Our Lives during the week of 3-19-18?
If you love the Gabigail storyline or the Lani reveal, I want to hear from you! If you hate it, I want to hear your opinion too. Let's get some discussion going!
Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for the 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.
