Days of Our Lives Review: Dragging Out the Inevitable
Jack Ori
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I should have known better than to think this awful Gabi revenge storyline was anywhere near over.
Throwing a monkey wrench into the works just as someone is about to find out the truth is standard practice on Days of Our Lives.
And during the week of 10-15-18, Chad came close to finding out the truth about what was going on with Abigail, so I should have expected something like Kate going along with Gabi's horrendous plan.
And it really is a horrendous plan.
Abigail's Dissociative Identity DIsorder has been treated like a joke since its inception, and Gabi's refusal to accept that mental illness is a valid defense for doing things you don't remember helped reinforce the myth that mental health issues shouldn't be taken seriously.
When she graduated to drugging a pregnant Abigail and putting ideas in Stefan's head about "Gabby" returning so that Abby was at risk of being raped for a second time, fans were outraged.
And now, Gabi not only drugged Abigail again but dragged her to the Dimera mansion, dressed her like the Gabby alter, and left her there for Stefan to find.
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How much more tone-deaf can DAYS be?
I know the show tapes six months in advance, but I continue to be shocked that anyone thought this offensive story was a great idea to begin with.
It should have been obvious that mocking a serious mental health issue and setting up a pregnant woman to be raped for a second time isn't quality entertainment.
In addition, this story requires a lot of out-of-character idiocy, and that's never fun to watch.
Chad's been falling into Gabi's trap for at least a month, and he shouldn't be.
Gabi continually encourages him to dump Abigail, insists that Abby is too unstable to be a good partner to him, and interrupts every time he and Abby get anywhere near a reconciliation.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on here so why did it take Gabi hitting herself over the head and making up a story out of whole cloth about Abby attacking her for Chad to begin to get a clue?
The same could be said for JJ, but at least JJ is keeping his mind open! As much as he doesn't want to think the woman who saved his life is trying to destroy his sister's, he listened to her and tried to warn Chad.
Chad seemed so convinced that Abigail's DID is back that it was a shock that he believed Abby for half a second.
Kate: What has happened to you?
Gabi: I'll tell you what happened to me. Abigail happened.
And then there was Kate...
I got excited when Kate stood up to Gabi. She was finally acting in character and refusing to go along with Gabi's plans.
She pointed out that Gabi was a liar and that her plan was going way too far and was hurting Chad as well as Abigail.
But then for some reason, she did a total 180 and told Chad that she saw Abigail drive over to the Dimera mansion in her Gabby get-up.
I suspect this was supposed to be a shocking twist, but really, it was just annoying.
Kate isn't one of my favorite characters, mostly because of her ability to do horrific things to people without batting an eye, but she was never one to easily give in to blackmail.
It took a lot for Ted to get one over on her, and she got her revenge on him FAST.
So why the heck is she listening to Gabi's weak threat to tell Chad that Kate is working with Stefan to sabotage Titan -- something that the ever-oblivious Chad would likely not even believe?
I remember the days when Kate and Sami convinced Gabi to throw Nick in the river instead of reporting his attempt to rape her and her subsequent hitting him with a rock. Kate didn't care if Nick lived or died and had no use for Gabi's panic over the whole thing.
If Gabi and Kate are going to be pitted against each other, the show should be making use of that history!
And Kate should be written true to character, not made suddenly afraid of Gabi just so this awful story can continue.
If anything, Kate should be the one embarking on revenge and blackmailing people, not Gabi.
Gabi's motive for any of this is weak. There's a chance she may not be able to have more kids (even though she didn't want more kids until this story came along), and her kindergartener took several weeks to start talking to her again after she came home from prison.
Gabi keeps saying that she lost everything and Abby suffered no consequences for it, but that isn't even true.
Gabi has lost nothing except the promise that her uterus is 100% healthy and is seeking revenge on someone who has apologized a billion times, turned herself in to the cops to get Gabi out of jail, and would be thrilled to make this right.
Wouldn't it make far more sense for conscienceless Kate to want revenge for Abby killing Andre and blackmail Gabi into helping her instead of the other way around?
And I won't even get into how illogical it is that Gabi can do all this in the Kiriakis mansion living room without getting caught by Victor, who is often omniscient and would love a reason for Gabi to be out of his house. Surely Victor has security cameras in his mansion that could be used to put an end to this!
Plus, how does Gabi carry a pregnant woman who is twice her size all over town without even getting winded?
One of the worst aspects of this storyline was Jennifer basically giving Stefan everything he needed to rape her daughter a second time!
Jen started out strong, telling Stefan that her daughter's health was none of his business, but as soon as he insisted on coming in and talking, she agreed to tell him everything in exchange for him leaving Abby alone.
What happened to the strong Jennifer of years gone by, the woman who was a courageous reporter with more than a few street smarts despite being brought up by sweet Grandma Alice?
Instead, we got a naive, borderline stupid Jennifer who was more than willing to share with her daughter's worst enemy that she suspected Abby's DID was back and lay out all the evidence she had for this fear so that she could feed his delusion that his "Gabby" was back and ready to have sex with him again.
Jennifer's character has been sacrificed little by little over the years for awful storylines, but this one takes the cake! She should be smarter than that. These scenes were a waste of time that could have been spent on more interesting stories.
I really miss Jen's friendship with her cousin Hope, but unfortunately, Hope is still caught up in this crazy game of "keep Ciara away from Ben."
Now that Hope knows someone planted evidence against Ben, you'd think she'd take stock of her behavior and realize she was contributing to people thinking that was a good idea.
Instead, she first went along with Rafe's plan to question JJ about it, then quickly realized that if JJ's not guilty... Ben must have faked evidence against himself!
Hope offered Ben a fake apology that he was immediately suspicious of but accepted anyway, then went all of five feet away to tell Rafe that next time, Ben wouldn't see her coming.
I guess DAYS is determined to make Hope the villain in this story in order to help make Ben/Ciara a rootable couple, but surely there was a way to do that without totally ruining her character.
Couldn't Hope be worried about Ciara hooking up with the serial killer that messed with half of her family without abusing her power or somehow twisting someone else framing Ben into a new way to harass him?
When Rafe is the more likable half of the awful Hope/Rafe pairing and Hope is almost as annoying to watch as Gabi, there's a problem. She's been a heroine for years and I wish it had stayed that way.
Claire is also annoying. I know that trying to steal someone else's boyfriend is a soap staple, but it's getting old.
Claire and Ciara's constant rivalry is not entertaining. Both girls have, at various times, regressed to the level of preschoolers when dealing with each other, and Claire has not had a story in months other than chasing after whatever guy Ciara is into at the moment.
If she succeeds in pushing Ciara and Ben together, the odds are that she'll lose interest in Tripp and suddenly want Ben for herself!
Enough already.
Plus, it would make more sense for Ciara to be the new Sami, not Claire. Ciara as a child was a spunky, spirited schemer, and Claire was a mini-Belle for the first two weeks or so of her run.
So making Ciara the sweet girl-next-door and Claire the scheming villain doesn't make any sense at all.
Bonnie: They almost always give custody to the mother.
Mimi: Except when the mother is you.
Meanwhile, the Bonnie/Lucas story continues to be a gigantic mess.
It was bad enough when several months back, Lani lied about who the father of her baby was in order to manipulate JJ into staying with her.
Now we have two stories on canvas about people fooled into thinking they're a father when they're not. The Stefan story is the more offensive of the two, but the Lucas one is cruel in its own right.
Not only is it horrible to get Lucas to bond with a baby that's going to turn out not to be his, but Mimi is as awful a mother as Bonnie is because she agreed to go along with this scheme.
Bonnie's blackmail threat is so weak. Nobody is going to believe a woman who did 10 years for murder when she suddenly turns around and says, "By the way, my daughter was the one who did it and I was just covering for her."
I don't understand why Belle didn't just agree to defend Mimi for murder if Bonnie went through with this threat instead of fighting for custody when she knows Bonnie isn't the mother -- something which could get her disbarred!
I also don't understand why anyone is worried about losing a case to Justin. According to dialogue, he's a great lawyer, but other than Sami's bail situation, he hasn't won a case in years. And even that one took multiple visits to the judge!
Anyway, Mimi doesn't deserve custody either after going along with this scheme. And since there's only one custody judge in town, it seems silly to keep bringing up Chloe stealing Holly from Nicole -- that judge sided with Chloe so it's unlikely to be a black mark against her and Lucas in court.
The biggest story of the week of 10-15-18, of course, was all the stuff at the warehouse.
I'm still not happy that Xander is constantly threatening to kill Eric or send Nicole to prison if she doesn't have sex with him. Since it hasn't actually happened, it's not rape yet, but it's still problematic.
I'm also not happy with how stupid Eric was.
He wasted a ton of time before following Xander in order to make out with Nicole in the doorway, never thinking that Xander could double back and see it.
And then, when Eric finally got to the warehouse and found the tape, he wasted time sitting there listening to it so that Xander knocked him out and he ended up tied to a chair.
Seriously? All he had to do was think about safety for half a second and get out of there with the tape before he worried about listening to it or anything else.
I did like Nicole knocking Xander over the head with Holly's water bottle, though. We finally saw the strong, feisty Nicole who has been part of the DAYS canvas for over 20 years, and Xander got a taste of his own medicine!
Plus I'm all sorts of excited about the people Kristen is trying to bring back to life. I saw an A.D. there which I am pretty sure stands for Andre Dimera, and I would love to have Andre back!
I just wish Kristen had decided to experiment on Paige too so that she could have someone to brainwash into being evil.
Eric: I know you hate Nicole, but I feel the same way about her that you do about Brady. Nicole and I are soulmates. She's my everything.
Kristen: So are you saying you're rooting for me and Brady?
Eric: No.
Kristen: I guess even a hopeless romantic has limits. Me, I'm romantic, but I'm also practical. I have work to do.
The Kristen/Eric scenes were gross, though. Kristen laughed about having raped Eric before and looked like she was going to do it again while he was out cold. This show definitely does not need any more rape jokes or glossing over of the horrific nature of sexual assault.
I loved seeing Sami in action for the most part! Sami doesn't let anything get in her way and while I wish she wasn't so obsessively focused on finding EJ, I enjoyed her determination.
I could have done without all the time she wasted arguing with Brady, though. And I didn't like her whining about how horrible a person Nicole is when she's done things that are worse.
What did you think, DAYS fanatics?
Who do you think are in those other rooms, and will we see all of them?
What was the best and worst story of the week of 10-15-18?
And how hard is it to watch these awful Gabi scenes?
Weigh in 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.
