Days of Our Lives Spoilers Week of 12-07-20: The Season of Many Returns

The holiday season is always a good excuse for Salem's errant family members to return for a visit.

Theo and JJ came back shortly before Thanksgiving, though sadly, neither stayed.

Chloe is back now, and on Days of Our Lives during the week of 12-07-20, Joey is set to join her.

Joey's return is meh news for a lot of fans.

Many of his storylines were weak rehashes of JJ's stories; he didn't have much of a personality and didn't seem overwhelmingly intelligent.

In fact, his character was so unlike either Steve or Kayla that some fans wondered whether he was really their son!

Days of Our Lives has switched head writers since Joey confessed to killing Ava, though, so there's some hope Joey will go in a different direction now.

And with Ava coming back, it was inevitable that Joey would get out of jail sooner or later. While smothering her unsuccessfully with a pillow is still attempted murder, his original charges should be vacated, and Days of Our Lives will likely forget about any further punishment.

First, the news about Ava's resurrection has to spread.

The Days of Our Lives spoiler video has clips of Kayla confronting Ava and both of Joey's parents coming to tell him he's going to get out of jail.

I'm not terribly happy that Kayla attempts to strangle Ava -- didn't John just get arrested for doing the same thing to Jan? But at least with Joey back in town, Steve and Kayla will have something to do other than fight over whether Tripp raped Allie.

Of course, Joey will be forced to take a side, so there's that. But since he's blood related to Allie (Kayla is her great-aunt.), at least we won't have the issue of him dating the woman who accused his half-brother of sexual assault!

Not thrilled about Joey's return? No worries. We've got 10 spoiler photos below, so scroll down and see what you're excited about.

Nicole reels from Allie's news.

At first, I wasn't sure what this was supposed to mean. Allie already told Nicole that she pulled a gun on Tripp on Friday.

But Allie also told Nicole that supposedly-dead Ava saved the day, which shocked Nicole even though Nicole also allegedly died and turned out to be very much alive.

The big question is what Nicole is going to do with this information. Will her reporter instincts kick in, or will she keep it to herself?

Philip is pleasantly surprised to run into Chloe.

Many fans have speculated that Philip would again end up with Chloe.

While I was a huge Phloe fan back in the day, I fear this ship has sailed.

Philip has been lamenting that Belle got away when she is "the love of his life" and insisting no one compares to her. So it would be flighty at best for him to suddenly jump to being interested in rekindling the romance with Chloe.

Plus, with his connection to Ava, Chloe doesn't need the drama.

Chad catches Jake in a lie.

This ridiculous story needs to end.

There's no reason for Kate and Jake to sneak around, and, predictably, Chad will jump to the conclusion that Abigail is the one sleeping with Jake.

And the last lie Chad caught Jake in turned out to be easily explained away. In fact, trying to disprove it blew up in Chad's face and made him look incredibly unprofessional to Li Shin.

Abe presents Rafe with an offer.

Abe requires a new commissioner now that Hope's flown the coop, and Shawn turned him down.

So Rafe is probably next on his list.

The question is: is Rafe staying long-term? If not, Abe will be in this same position again soon.

Also, since Lani is on the outs with Eli, it would cause drama if Abe promoted Eli to commissioner. Just saying.

Kayla is horrified to find Ava making herself at home.

Get ready for some fireworks!

Kayla's already had the day from hell, between having to deal with Lani wanting to kick Eli out of the appointment room and arguing with Steve over Tripp.

Finding Ava at home will probably push Kayla over the edge. We already know from the spoiler video that she's going to try to strangle her, and she may assume that Ava and Tripp are in league somehow.

Gwen tries to poison Jennifer against Jack.

It would be nice if somebody -- anybody -- saw through her.

Jack, Jennifer, and Abigail are all supposed to be top-notch investigative reporters, and JJ has reporters' instincts, yet none of them has a clue about Gwen's increasingly obvious manipulations.

Not does Chad, who is supposed to be a brilliant business executive.

This story would work better if Gwen wasn't so transparent and everyone else wasn't so oblivious. I hate the fact that Jennifer will likely fall for this nonsense.

Bonnie gets the wrong idea about Justin.

Does anyone ship Justin/Bonnie? I certainly don't.

Justin's only interest in her seems to be that she looks like Adrienne.

Unless she turns out to be his dead wife in disguise, there's no point to this relationship.

And this silly picking up a random guy to make Justin jealous is entirely unnecessary, too.

Steve and Kayla tell Joey that Ava’s alive.

You'd think his lawyer would tell Joey that his victim turned up alive and that he is likely getting out of jail.

Oh wait, this is Salem.

According to the spoiler video, Steve and Kayla visit Joey to give him the good news themselves, which is par for the course.

Joey will likely be thrilled, and I do not doubt that he will be coming home within a scene or two of this reunion.

Sarah has a revelation about Philip's partner.

I hope this is directly connected to the flash drive of stolen data she gave Xander. Otherwise, what was the point of that whole thing?

Or will Sarah guess wrong and assume Chloe is Philip's partner?

A bigger question is what happens to Philip's interest in Sarah now that Chloe is back in town?

It seemed like this was going down the fake-relationship-becoming-real path, but now I'm not sure.

Kate advises Allie on her next move.

Kate is not the best person to advise anyone on anything. She's the one who jumped into another secret affair minutes after the last one was discovered!

And she also has done crazier things than Allie just did, like throwing Nick in the river.

Still, though, Allie has a close relationship with Grandma Kate, and she does have to explain what happened to Kate's gun somehow.

It'll be interesting to see whether no-conscience Kate or empathetic Grandma Kate shows up for this conversation. It could go either way.