Am I the only one who is bored with all of these back-from-the-dead stories?

Ava Vitale was the latest character to reappear after supposedly being killed, and while it wasn't exactly a surprise, it was annoying.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, since her initials were on one of the doors in Rolf's warehouse in Nashville, but Ava's resurrection begs the question: what exactly is the point of her return?

Ava has never been a particularly compelling character, and her last appearance was a nightmare. 

She forced Steve to have sex with her, only for rape survivor Kayla to get mad at her husband for "cheating," and seduced the Johnsons' troubled son, Joey.

When her story ended with Joey smothering her, viewers breathed a sigh of relief that both Ava and Joey would be off-screen for a while... but now Ava is back and involved in some inane plot with Philip.

Ugh.

This story makes no sense for a few reasons.

Philip used to have some common sense and a moral compass, so it's not quite believable that he fell into Ava's debt and is now attempting to manipulate Victor so that he can use Titan as a money laundering operation and get himself out of trouble.

And it's even less believable that he would entertain the idea of bashing Xander's head in with a poker for a second, just because Ava said that's the right way to deal with problem people.

Ava: I was willing to eliminate Kayla to get what I wanted. Are you willing to do the same to Xander?
Philip: Are you telling me to kill Xander to get him out of my way?

• Permalink: Are you telling me to kill Xander to get him out of my way?

All this build up about Philip's mystery partner came to this: Ava the two bit gangster is controlling him. And now that she's been revealed to be his partner, she's wasted no time in trying again to go after Steve even though she needs him to think she's dead so that Joey stays in jail.

Why does Ava want Joey to stay incarcerated? Why does she want to control Philip? What is her end game?

I don't know and I don't care. 

At this point, I'm rooting for this storyline to go away. Everyone involved in it is annoying, and I can think of better things Days of Our Lives could be doing with its time.

Philip is unbelievably smarmy and obnoxious, and the wild-animal look didn't do him any favors either. 

His mindless violence, his ability to let lies roll off his tongue, and his determination to best Xander at all costs are not only irritating, but seriously out of character.

The news that Philip was coming back was exciting, so this awful story is a huge disappointment.

Sarah and Xander are also annoying characters right now.

Sarah is the worst, with her tendency to speak in a baby voice for no apparent reason and the poor impulse control and gigantic mood swings that are more appropriate for a 15-year-old than a 30-something with a successful career as a doctor.

The only thing of substance she's done in the last several months is look tearfully at baby Rachel when she went to accuse Brady of working with Philip.

That's what her storyline should have been all along: adapting to the fact that the baby she raised for a year was never hers and that she can no longer raise her.

Unfortunately, the writers chose to make that a sideline, instead putting her in the center of an immature tug-of-war between Xander and Phliip which does none of these characters any favors.

Xander and Philip's juvenile attempts to one-up each other are bad enough without Philip considering murder while Xander and Sarah push to find out who he is working with.

Am I the only one who thinks Sarah will pretend to fall for Philip so that she can find out what he's up to in the near future?

That seems to be the logical next step for this story, not that Days of Our Lives traffics in logic most of the time. Unfortunately, it's also something that's been done a million times before and usually results in the trickster falling hard for the person they're trying to trap.

If we're going to go that route, I'd much rather Sarah try to team up with Brady.

Those two have actual chemistry, and if they were to fall for each other it would lead to a dramatic confrontation once Kristen came back... that might ultimately free her up to admit her more-than-friendship feelings for Lani.

Lani's behavior is irritating, to say the least, and it makes zero sense absent romantic feelings for Kristen.

Her reaction to Eli and Abe's latest attempt to cover up Eli's convincing Kristen to confess was a prime example.

The guys' cover story that they were planning a baby shower was stupid, but so was Lani's insistence that she couldn't enjoy herself if Kristen wasn't able to attend.

Abe had to talk to her like she was fifteen, suggesting that maybe they could take video for her to share with her friend. 

Days of Our Lives often falls into this obnoxious trope where people center their lives around their "true loves." For example, Ben is completely lost without Ciara and Brady's reason for not helping Philip sabotage Titan is that his whole life revolves around Kristen being gone.

That's not love. It's obsession, or at least dependence, and it's unhealthy. I wish Days of Our Lives would cut it out, because it's a terrible message to send to impressionable viewers.

And to get back to Lani, she's acting just like all these brokenhearted lovers. Kristen is gone so she doesn't want to live the rest of her life... even though she's carrying Eli's twins.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy that she is "just friends" with Kristen. Yes, people can have close, intimate friendships, and in US society women are especially encouraged to do so.

But there's a difference between being close with a friend and making that person your frist priority. And that is exactly what Lani is doing.

Kristen is a bigger priority to her than Eli, and for the most part Lani is a greater priority for Kristen than Brady is. Kristen has risked her freedom to visit Lani in the past and sacrificed it so that Lani wouldn't get in trouble now. 

That is not something you do for a friend. That is something you do for someone you love deeply but feel you can't be with.

I'm glad Lani caught Eli and Abe, though, for no other reason than I'm tired of them whispering about how she can never find out their secret.

Not only is that a great way to guarantee someone hears who shouldn't, but it twists both of these men's characters out of shape.

Eli is about the only cop who doesn't put family above his job duties, and Abe has been Salem's moral compass for years. So for them to join forces to make sure that Lani doesn't know that Eli blackmailed Kristen is incredibly out of character for both of them.

I'm not looking forward to the tantrum Lani is going to throw about this, and I hope it doesn't lead to the premature birth of her twins, but at least this part of the story is over!

Also, can Theo come back soon?

It seemed pointless to hire a brand-new actor to play this character for just a couple of days.

Theo caught up with his family, mentioned about a million times that he has a girlfriend in South Africa, sang JJ's praises, rejected Claire's attempt to kiss him, and then went home.

He's got to be ocming back, because otherwise all of that was a waste of time.

And when he does, I hope the writers delve more into his autism. It's not enough for him to mention that he was afraid his new partner wouldn't accept him because he had it. We need to see that in action.

Plus, I'd rather Theo be more than a plot point in the Charlie/Claire story.

The idea of Claire being afraid to get in a relationship because of her past is a compelling one, especially if there are people like Xander around who are willing to spill the beans for no reason whatsoever.

But knowing Days of Our Lives, Charlie is probably going to turn out to be the person who really raped Allie, or else hurt Claire in some other unforgiveable way.

God forbid we have an actual love story that doesn't involve violence!

I also don't like the advice Xander gave Charlie. Persistence is one thing, but Xander was more or less encouraging stalking and not respecting women's boundaries. Yuck!

The Allie/Tripp story continued to be an affront to rape survivors everywhere, too.

I don't blame Kayla for believing the science over me. It's not like she's my mom.

Tripp

• Permalink: I don't blame Kayla for believing the science over me. It's not like she's my mom.

Really, Tripp? The only reason Kayla would believe in scientific evidence that contradicts your claims is because she's not your mother?

Also, even if the rape hadn't taken place in London, Trask had no right being on this case. She practically considers Tripp a son-in-law, so how could she possibly be objective?

It was nice to see her softer side for once, but this was at least as much of a conflict of interest as her decision to prosecute Kristen.

And again, the focus shouldn't be almost exclusively on how hard it is to be falsely accused of rape. Allie's emotions are mostly secondary, and for some reason Tripp coming over to try to convince her to drop the case seems like normal, or at least justifiable, behavior.

Finally, Abby's big secret turned out to be that Jack and Kate had a one-night-stand.

This is run-of-the-mill behavior in Salem, but there were a lot of problems with it.

The fact that Jack never appeared to have any guilt, shame, or other negative feelings until after the reveal made it look like the writers made this up after the fact.

And while Jack is a king of self-destructive behavior, it didn't seem likely that he would have a one-night-stand with Kate or anyone while Jennifer was in a coma.

Since we're stuck with this silly story, it would be nice if JJ had some emotional response based on his own past.

JJ got drunk and Eve took advantage of him. Then later, JJ got drunk and Lani took advantage of him.

In both cases, the world was thrilled to blame JJ for this, and he blames himself to this day.

So he should see himself in Jack's supposedly having gotten drunk and ended up in Kate's bed. But so far, his only role has been to put his arm around Jennifer while she cried about it.

What we don't need is what we did get: Kate immediately jumping into bed with Jake and agreeing to keep it secret.

She kept saying that no one would ever know. Didn't she just suffer the fallout of the last time she thought that?

Kate is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them!

I wish she and Jake would team up to prove Gwen was behind this whole mess. If they fall for each other in the course of doing so, fine. 

But that kind of story would be logical, true to character, and way more compelling than Kate making the same mistakes over and over.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics.

Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know what you thought about Days of Our Lives during the week of 11-09-20.

Hungry for more Days of Our Lives chat? Be sure 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.