Days of Our Lives needs to cool it with the unnecessary violence.

More often than not, violence is depicted as a byproduct of mental illness, perpetuating dangerous stereotypes.

And Kristen stabbing Victor on Days of Our Lives during the week of 4-20-20 was gory, gratuitous, and not entertaining in the slightest.

The stabbing scene showed how far Victor has deteriorated, physically and as a character.

He is sitting more often than not nowadays. John Aniston is in his 80s, and the way Victor is always shown seated makes me think that perhaps the actor can no longer tolerate standing for long periods of time.

But even given that limitation, Victor could have done more than just let Kristen come at him with a knife.

Victor has always been a strong, smart, ruthless man -- surely even if he is mostly confined to a chair he could have grabbed Kristen's wrist and tried to direct the knife away from him.

Also, a former mob boss who lives in a mansion with an infinite number of rooms should have gatekeepers stopping unwanted guests from showing up in the living room. Just saying.

Storywise, too, this took several steps backwards.

Victor: We're family.
Brady: No. Not anymore. I don't want to hear from you or see you ever again. You're dead to me.

• Permalink: No. Not anymore. I don't want to hear from you or see you ever again. You're dead to me.

Victor already went to the hospital once while Brady was on the outs with him, and it seems now the only reason for Brady to disown him is so that he can regret telling VIctor that he was "dead to me."

Brady's anger at Victor was powerful, but how many times are we going to repeat this cycle of Brady disowning Victor right before Victor ends up at death's door?

Plus, Kristen has spent a year reflecting and trying to atone for her impulsive lashing out at Haley that resulted in Haley's death. Her decision to stab Victor undoes all of that in a single step.

And again, this reinforces the lie that people with mental illness are violent and that non-ill people should fear them.

This is the second time Kristen has gone nuts because she lost her baby, and it looks like her violence will be explained away by her mental state again.

Brady told somebody that Kristen's pushing Haley was due to "post partum depression" too. No, no, no. The last thing women who suffer from PPD need is to worry that people will think they're dangerous and suffer in silence.

Who would want to hurt Uncle Vic?

Sonny

• Permalink: Who would want to hurt Uncle Vic?

It's also silly that Sonny and Ciara wondered who could possbly have hurt Victor.

Sonny knows about the baby switch, but beyond that, Victor is an ex-mob boss who has a ton of enemies. A better question might be who WOULDN'T want to harm Victor.

Speaking of which, why on Earth did Sonny and Will go along with Victor's plan to keep Maggie in the dark about the truth?

It wasn't that long ago that Will had to be convinced not to stay in prison indefinitely for a crime he didn't commit. He and Sonny shouldn't be terribly eager to go along with any more of Victor's cover-ups on this.

Maggie also isn't stupid and realized that Julie and Will were keeping something from her. She's likely going to do her best to investigate from prison, and the truth will hit her hard.

And if Julie ever visits again, Maggie will get the truth out of her, so there's that.

The only aspect of this I'm interested in is how Kayla will handle telling Justin. The week of 4-20 began with Justin wondering where their relationship stood while Kayla treated Steve. Now she's treating his uncle.

That might throw an interesting wrinkle into the Justin/Kayla/Steve triangle.

I had to feel sorry for Justin even before this happened.

Despite Steve pushing Kayla toward Justin, we all know Steve/Kayla are probably end game.

And Justin is the only one who is acting like a mature adult over this, despite his hilarious confession to Jennifer that he feels like he's acting like a teenager.

Steve's reasons for pushing Kayla away are ridiculous. He's acting like his bad behavior happened while he was blacked out drunk, but he was kidnapped and a microchip was surgically implanted in his head without his consent.

He had no control over any of that and doesn't remember most of it.

Despite Hope's insistence that it was "her hands" that pushed Jennifer, neither of them were in control of themselves, and it makes little sense to feel guilty about something you don't remember that you didn't even choose to do.

Either way, this Hope/Steve scene better not be the beginning of a new relationship.

Hope desperately needs to spend some time being single. She's always bouncing from one bad relationship to another, and each one ruins her character more than the last.

Besides, when Steve gets back together with Kayla, where does that leave Hope? Nowhere. So she might as well learn to be happily single now.

Hope and Steve should both have a chat or two with Marlena. Instead, Marlena is stuck in this ridiculous Orpheus storyline.

Yes, Orpheus and Marlena have history, but this story doesn't line up with that history particularly well.

Orpheus' fascination with Marlena stemmed from Roman accidentally shooting Orpheus'wife during an ISA stakeout. Orpheus lost his mind as a result and vowed to get revenge, kidnapping Marlena and forcing her to raise his twins instead of her own.

Nowadays, the twins aren't twins anymore -- Zoey is suddenly older than Evan, unless she meant by only a few minutes -- and Orpheus is obsessed with Marlena for no apparent reason.

My guess is the only reason Orpheus is bothering Marlena is that Stefano is gone and the writers wanted to keep the baddie after Marlena trope going.

That's a shame, because Orpheus is a legacy villain, and his kids could have had a more interesting story than a redux of Jordan/Ben before Jordan lost her mind.

Instead of Orpheus coming to see her at her home (and side note: when you're freaking out about a potential stalker bothering you, opening the door without finding out who is on the other side is beyond stupid!), one of the kids could have come to see Marlena for therapy and eventually revealed their true identity to her.

And the kids themselves could have a better story than a ridiculous legal situation and a custody battle.

Few viewers are invested enough in baby David to care whether Rafe or Evan gets him in the end, and the kid is too young to understand Rafe's explanation about his complicated parentage.

The Sarah/Kristen custody battle would have been far more compelling had it not taken a weird turn.

Kristen lost her mind and stabbed Victor after Sarah lost hers and ran off to Paris with the baby.

Whether Sarah ultimately gives in and lets Xander help her or stays in hiding on her own,  she can't give the baby any sort of decent life while on the run.

We also already met an eccentric neighbor, leaving viewers to wonder whether we're in for a redux of that awful Nicole/Brady story where they hid out in Canada with Holly after a judge granted custody to Chloe.

It would have made for a better story if Sarah refused to give up the baby and everyone headed to court, where Kristen would have to try to keep it together enough to convince a judge she's capable of taking care of a child.

And I'm sorry, but Sarah's refusal to let Xander help is pure stupidity.

If she's going to do this, she needs resources. She can't just hole up in Abby and Chad's old apartment and hope that neighbor never figures out her real identity, and she doesn't have the street smarts or the financial ability to outwit the cops on her own.

She's mad at Xander for being sneaky and knowing how to lie, cheat, and hide from the authorities, but that's exactly what she needs right now.

Meanwhile, Chad, Abigail, and Julie need to take lessons from Tony in how to deal with Gabi.

I was sad that Tony and Anna left again, but hopefully they'll be back sooner rather than later. And Tony refusing to acknowledge Gabi's presence so that she was forced to leave the room was the best part of this awful Gabi storyline.

Few viewers care about this constant battle for the CEO position at Dimera, and Gabi throwing tantrums to try to hold onto power is doubly annoying.

What are you going to do? Hit me over the head with that metal daisy?

Julie

• Permalink: What are you going to do? Hit me over the head with that metal daisy?

There is nothing attractive about the way Gabi carries on nowadays. A strong, successful business woman might be upset at losing the business she created to what she views as an inferior CEO who happens to be male, but she wouldn't respond by throwing tantrums and making threats.

A strong, confident Gabi determined to make her business work with or without Dimera Enterprises might be a compelling story. Instead, we get histronics and repeated regret that she saved Julie's life when Julie is no longer nice to her.

But as for Julie, while nobody does snark quite like her, there was no need for her to start with Gabi at all.

If she thought Gabi was breaking into Gabi Chic, she could have called the police. If she really felt the need to confront Gabi, all that was needed was a, "Hey! If you break that window I'm calling the cops."

That long, drawn-out war of words did no one any favors and Julie of all people should have the maturity to walk away.

Gabi keeps seeing Stefan anywhere, and Abby is now seeing Ben lurking in mirrors -- what is in the water in Salem?

But Ben getting a job with someone who looks just like his late boss might be interesting. After all, he needs SOMETHING to do besides hae sex with Ciara.

So what did you think, Days of Our Lives fanatics?

Hit SHOW COMMENTS and share your thoughts. 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.