Victor really shouldn't be shocked that his baby-switch plan is falling apart.

It wasn't that great a plan to begin with. Relying on other people's silence is a recipe for failure, especially in Salem.

And on Days of Our Lives during the week of 3-16-20, the fallout began to happen before his eyes.

Victor should have seen the writing on the wall as soon as Maggie remembered that she was the one who killed Adrienne in a drunk driving accident.

He may think he can control everyone and everything, but Maggie has too much of a conscience to go along with his plans.

She insisted on turning herself in at the police station and now she's insisting on pleading guilty and going to prison.

Even if she never finds out that she also killed her granddaughter, it's over.

He failed to keep her in the dark about what she did and failed to stop her from suffering the consequences.

Xander and Victor are content to blame the rest of the plan unraveling on Dr. Raynor developing a conscience too.

But the truth is, this plan was always doomed to failure. There are a thousand ways it might have been exposed that don't have to do with one doctor who is waffling about remaining corrupt.

Xander's closeness to Sarah motivates him to keep the baby switch going, but it also puts him at risk of being found out.

He's getting too anxious and threatening too many people out in the open, which means that Sarah is likely to overhear. And that's exactly what happened when he threatened Nicole.

And he and Victor are constantly discussing this in the Kiriakis living room, too, despite Maggie walking in on them more than once and Sonny having walked in on them discussing Will's innocence.

If they REALLY wanted this not to come out, refraining from discussing it in settings where they could easily be overheard would have been a good start.

It was also silly that Victor didn't realize Xander had a plan in mind when Xander started saying they had to tell Maggie the truth.

Did he think Xander was really going to tell Maggie that they'd switched the babies and she'd killed her granddaughter?

Sheesh. The stroke must have diminished Victor's mental capabilities if he couldn't see through that, especially since Xander had used a similar trick on Sonny not that long ago.

Anyway, the biggest flaw in their plan wasn't misjudging Raynor's stomach for deception. It was presuming that nobody would catch on to their suspicious behavior.

As Victor pointed out, both he and Xander have been married to Nicole. She may seem like nothing more than a company head who enjoys verbal tussles with people she hates, but she was an investigative reporter for several years -- and a good one.

It was unlikely that she wouldn't pick up on whispered conversations between Xander and Raynor and take it upon herself to figure out what was going on.

This is the same woman who went toe-to-toe with Dr. Chyka, a Dimera operative who was determined to keep Kristen's rape of Eric secret, after all.

Unfortunately, Nicole is also the same woman who shredded the evidence that Eric didn't sleep with Kristen willingly because she was scared he'd leave her for the church if he knew he could return to the priesthood.

In this case, she wants to make sure her suspicions are right before she tells Eric so that she won't break his heart unnecessarily. But it's obvious where we're headed with this.

Most likely, when the truth comes out, Eric will be hurt and angry that Nicole didn't tell him and will berate her for the next few months while she apologizes over and over.

This is the problem with Nicole and Eric. Their stories always end up like this. Always.

Just as the writers can't seem to find anything to do with Will and Sonny besides Sonny hooking up with a bad guy who won't go away when Sonny and Will reconcile, they can't seem to write anything for Nicole and Eric besides Nicole torpedoing the relationship by keeping some vital information from Eric.

It's happened three or four times already. Do we really need it to happen again?

Anyway, now that Nicole has taken it upon herself to investigate, the next step is predictable.

She lied to Eric about what she was doing so she could get some DNA from the baby and picked a fight with Kristen to get DNA from her.

There is no way the DNA test will be accurate. Xander or Victor will have it changed, just like they had the paternity test showing Eric to be the father of Sarah's baby changed.

Nobody should get DNA tests at Salem University Hospital since this happens so frequently. Or else they should just assume the opposite of whatever results they receive.

As for Sarah, it's a lot harder to enjoy her romance with Xander when this secret is hanging over their head.

It's a real shame, because Xander and Sarah are one of the hottest couples in Salem.

Xander displays a softer side around Sarah which is a far cry from the ruthless villain he attempts to be most of the time, and Sarah is less like a whiny teenager and more like a younger version of her mother when she's around him.

But they're being rushed toward marriage for one reason and one reason only.

As soon as the truth about which baby died comes out, their relationship will implode, and it's more dramatic if they are on the cusp of marriage -- or at the wedding itself.

And that truth will come out, no matter how much Xander threatens Nicole.

(Side note: there was no reason whatsoever for Dr. Raynor to warn Xander that Nicole was onto them, other than it propelled the story forward. If she felt guilty about her part in this, she could have absconded to parts unknown and allowed things to play out.)

The other flaw in Xander and Victor's plan is one that should be obvious: the bond between mother and child.

Kristen's already had lots of dreams about baby Rachel needing her, and she's inexplicably drawn to "Sarah's" baby.

She instinctively rushed to be tested to see if she could donate bone marrow to her and just as instinctively rushed to the hospital to see her after the procedure was done.

If Eric had been able to allow Kristen to hold the baby, it would have been all over. There's no way that, minutes after a quasi-hypnosis session in which she remembered everything about her lost child, Kristen wouldn't have realized whose baby was in her arms.

Meanwhile, the most inept search in history for a missing child went on across town.

Rafe: Orpheus is dead.
Orpheus: Orpheus is back.

• Permalink: Orpheus is back.

It's hard to believe that any judge would grant Evan bail when he's accused of murdering his son's mother, he's the last one to have seen his child alive, and he's refusing to divulge the kid's location.

But since Evan is free, could the Salem PD do more than put one tail on him that he easily shook off?

It doesn't help that the Salem PD seems to consist of... Rafe.

He can't be on every case at once, and he definitely shouldn't be in charge of looking for his adopted son.

Luckily -- and predictably -- Lani and Eli joined him.

This is a better use of their time than making out and pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist. But so far, they haven't done much.

It wasn't necessary to have three people questioning Evan, who kept talking to them after asking for a lawyer.

And if there is a child who is missing and possibly in danger, the police response should be more than a few people sitting behind desks looking through paper transcripts of texts.

If nothing else, there should be citizens volunteering to join a search -- on-screen. Yes, Lani and Rafe talked about searching all night, but it was hard to believe they did much of anything when all we got on-screen was them reading paperwork.

I'm not sure how I feel about the reveal that Orpheus is Evan/Christan's father, though.

Orpheus was a legendary villain back in the day, and one of his most memorable stories involved kidnapping Marlena, making John (then believed to be Roman) think she was dead, and forcing her to raise HIS twins instead of her own.

Making Evan turn out to be one of those twins was a nice touch, except for that Evan is too young to be that child who was last seen in the 1980s.

Also, so far Orpheus' role has been to berate his son endlessly for being an idiot and to wander around town wearing a hoodie and sunglasses. 

This doesn't seem like a great use for his character, but he's only been in Salem for a short time, so maybe it'll improve.

Orpheus' connection to Clyde made the continued Ben in jail storyline more tolerable. Even though Evan's confession was thrown out, it doesn't make sense to continue to hold Ben as punishment for a crime someone else has just been charged with.

More interesting was the end of the Gina/Hope storyline -- for now, anyway.

Ciara: I was so focused on Ben that I wasn't there for Mom these past months.
Shawn: She wasn't exactly the most pleasant person to be around.

• Permalink: She wasn't exactly the most pleasant person to be around.

I don't understand what Rolf did that would have been any different than what any other surgeon would have done. Prior to Rolf's re-emergence, Kayla was worried that removing the microchip could leave Hope paralyzed, so what did he do to mitigate that risk?

Anyway, it's clear that the writers want us to wonder if this is really Hope or if Gina is still there and pretending to be Hope now.

That's why Kayla keeps making vague comments about how she watched Rolf and "to the best of her knowledge" he didn't play any tricks.

Kayla did eventually ask Hope what her last memory was, and it was accurate. Gina wouldn't have known that, though she could have been briefed by Rolf.

However, hopefully, this is the end of Gina. That was a terrible storyline that doesn't need to go on any longer.

This Stevano storyline is not much better.

I can't stand it whenever Stevano is on my screen even though Stephen Nichols is one of Days of Our Lives' best actors.

Inserting a microchip to "make Marlena love him" is high-tech rape, and this entire brainwashed Chad thing is even stupider than the rest of this story.

Not only is Chad no murderer, but the original Stefano did more inventive things than killing anyone who got in his way.

I've already had enough of Chad wandering around with a knife in hand and unaware of what he's doing.  We've had more than enough of brainwashed, microchipped, or mentally ill people acting like they're someone else. Enough already!

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics.

Hit SHOW COMMENTS and let us know your thoughts about Days of Our Lives during the week of 3-16-20.

And don't forget to check back on Sunday for our 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.