Julie was more right than she realized when she said the Devil takes many forms.

The literal Devil convinced Marlena that they would be a power couple, but it wasn't the only troublemaker in town on Days of Our Lives during the week of 9-27-21.

Gabi "jokingly" suggested putting a hit out on Ava, EJ convinced Nicole to go out to dinner with him, and Xander and Gwen came up with a ridiculous plan to blackmail a judge when there was an easier way to prove corruption. And that was only half of what happened!

Doug being the only one who knows about the possession is frustrating for multiple reasons.

First of all, Days of Our Lives went in a predictable direction in which John and Julie assumed he was confused and didn't know what he was talking about.

I expected that from John -- though since Marlena was responsible for "killing" Doug while under Andre's influence during the Melaswen story, John should cool it with the insistence that Marlena would never harm Doug.

But I thought Julie would put two and two together. She usually's pretty sharp, and she's already had doubts about Marlena, telling Eli that Marlena didn't seem like herself after Doug collapsed.

I didn't like how both Julie and John talked to Doug like he was incompetent and refused even to consider where this idea that Marlena tried to kill him was coming from. No one even bothered to ask what he meant or what he thought happened while Marlena was in his room.

And to add insult to injury, the scenes with Julie and Tripp would have been a perfect part of the dementia storyline that Days of Our Lives so cruelly pretended we were getting to facilitate this possession business instead.

You keep your faith in science and I'll keep my faith in God and between the two of us I'm sure we can do Doug some good.

Julie

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Julie was desperate to believe that Doug would be all right and trying to hold onto her faith, yet she found the strength to be kind to Tripp and grateful for his help with Doug.

Those are the kinds of scenes I enjoy. There were layers and layers of emotion here, and it was all realistic or would be if only Julie weren't in the dark about the Devil's possession of Doug.

Meanwhile, Marlena's conversation with the Devil made the evil spirit sound more like a jilted lover than anything else. Once again, it seemed as if the Devil was more like Stefano's spirit than the Biblical character, regardless of its references to John's prayers driving it out.

The Devil seemed focused on the idea that Marlena could be its perfect partner in creating chaos, but John was in the way of their eternal union. He couldn't fathom why Marlena didn't feel the same way.

It seems Marlena has a supernatural stalker! After all, there are a billion other ways the Devil could cause chaos and evil, but it's fixated on making her fall in love accept it as a partner instead.

And then, when Marlena acquiesced again, it led to a rerun of the cliffhanger from Days of Our Lives during the week of 9-20-21.

Instead of threatening Doug directly, the Devil knocked out Julie, but it still felt like a repeated beat.

Those yellow eyes are creepy, so kudos to the makeup and special effects people for that, but this story is not bad enough without it going in circles.

Weirdly, when Marlena was still fighting the Devil, John seemed to be getting a clue that something was off, but after it had possessed her again, he was busy insisting that Doug was wrong about what she'd tried to do to him.

I hope that finding the tape recorder in Marlena's empty office will help wake up John as to what the truth is here.

Hopefully, he or Kayla will walk in before the Devil has much of a chance to do any more damage, and Julie will be a bit more lucid about what happened if she's found unconscious.

Plus, Doug is fully awake now and not on a sedative, so he should be able to make some noise and get someone in there to interrupt the Devil's latest evil plan.

Meanwhile, if there weren't a literal devil wandering around Salem, I'd agree with Julie that it takes many forms and that one of them is EJ Dimera.

EJ seems to have far too much time on his hands and is wandering around Salem, causing trouble for his own purposes.

Lucas shouldn't goad him on either, but EJ was quick to come almost to blows, and I wish Roman had kicked him out of the Brady Pub permanently since EJ never comes there for any constructive purpose.

Roman then became the latest person to try to tell EJ that he was alienating Johnny with his disapproval of Johnny's film career,

As usual, EJ refused to listen, but Roman was probably the only person in Salem who could get away with calling EJ stupid and not end up with a bloody nose.

As for EJ and Nicole, that's a disaster waiting to happen.

EJ didn't deny that he would love to stick it to Sami by dating Nicole. Instead, his insistence that Nicole would love a little revenge, too, more or less confirmed it.

Why did Nicole agree to the date when she's aware that EJ isn't into her and that he abused her before? She claims not to want to interfere with Rafe and Ava, but could she be hoping to make Rafe jealous?

I'd hoped that Nicole and Lucas would pretend to date to make Sami jealous enough to admit she loved Lucas, but instead, EJ and Nicole are using each other for a similar purpose.

Of course, fake love always turns to real love in Salem, but hopefully, we won't go there this time. Nicole has been abused enough without getting sucked back into something with EJ.

I had to laugh, too, when EJ asked Brady who he thought he was to tell Nicole who to date.

EJ made all the decisions in his relationship with Sami, including where they would live and whether she would spend any time with Lucas, the father of two of her children, so that was more than a little hypocritical.

Elsewhere, Ava and Philip teaming up against Gabi and Jake might be interesting.

I don't understand Philip's reasoning for not firing Gabi when he knows she's plotting to undermine him and steal his job. Isn't corporate espionage a crime? He could have her arrested for putting the keylogger on her computer, fire her for committing an arrestable offense,  and appoint someone else as head of Gabi Chic while she's in jail.

Let her try to sue for breach of contract under those circumstances.

Of course, that would be too logical for Days of Our Lives, but still. There's no good reason to keep her employed. Even if she takes Gabi Chic with her, she'll lose her ability to try to unseat Philip as CEO of Titan, so that seems like a good business decision.

Anyway, things have taken a disturbing turn, with Gabi joking about having the mob "rub Ava out."

I guess she's determined to prove Julie right about thinking Gabi is nothing but a murderer who will never change. But Gabi's attitude towards Ava just went from obnoxious to over-the-top, and she has no business calling Ava a Mafia princess when she's the one with the mob mentality.

Gabi also seems to have no clue how dangerous a game she's playing is, despite having been in hiding for months because of the Mexican mobsters after her family.

And with Jake constantly worrying that the mob will somehow pull him back in, it seems we're soon going to be in for Round 2 of that silly story with the mob book he stole.

Of course, Ava's idea that she can be given Gabi Chic in exchange for helping Philip expose Gabi's lies and manipulations is equally silly to Gabi thinking she's going to be the head of Titan.

I don't know how Philip thinks he's going to pull this one-off. Between Gabi and Victor, Ava won't have a chance in hell of running Gabi Chic.

Maybe none of it will be necessary since Philip and Ava are hiding in the next room while Gabi and Jake discuss their plans. But that would make for an awfully short story, so it can't be that easy. Besides, Gabi smelled Philip's aftershave and is bound to be too suspicious to spill the beans.

Elsewhere, things are heating up between Johnny and Chanel, but for how long?

Johnny's serenading Chanel was a sweet scene that reminded me of JJ with Paige, especially when Johnny let slip that he used to want to be a rock star. Too bad JJ isn't in town to give him some pointers!

Anyway, Chanel seemed jealous of Allie and Tripp's relationship, while Tripp was left out of Allie and Chanel's reminiscing about their weekend in Paris that he wasn't part of. And Chanel seems to be asking Allie every two seconds if she's sure she's okay with Chanel dating Johnny.

All of this will lead to disaster eventually, and if it doesn't, Chanel's disapproval of Johnny's dramatization of the possession story will.

Chanel believes Johnny is opening the door to the Devil by making this movie, and Johnny is single-mindedly focused on it. That can't be good.

I'm wondering if (God help us all!) this will also lead to a resurgence of Abigail's DID.

Abby is eager to play a possessed Marlena to get her mind off her problems and acknowledges that her experience with DID was similar to being possessed.

Could her involvement in Johnny's movie trigger a DID episode while Marlena is unable to help? Or worse, could the Devil possess Abigail too as a result of all this?

I have no desire for a story reinforcing the 16th-century trope that mental illness is caused by demon possession, but I wouldn't put it past the writers to go there either.

Meanwhile, Xander and Gwen made a plan to topple a corrupt judge that is so ridiculous it's barely worth mentioning, especially since it's entirely unnecessary.

Gwen's father is an investigative reporter who would love to expose a judge on EJ Dimera's payroll. Gwen and Xander could easily involve Jack without risking Jack learning the truth about Gwen's miscarriage.

That would have been a fascinating story. This is a silly one.

Finally, there was some forward movement on Ben and Ciara's baby storyline.

This is a better story than their endless sexathon, though Ciara still comes off as selfish, entitled, and spoiled.

Allie has firsthand knowledge of how hard it is to raise a baby, but Ciara wasn't listening. She was too busy worrying that Ben wouldn't want to have her baby.

Allie: If Ben really doesn't want to have kids because of his genes, there's always adoption.
Ciara: No. That's not an option. We'd have to find an adoption agency that is willing to accept Ben as a father when he used to be a serial killer.

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And she's also assuming there are no fertility problems. What if it turns out that she can't conceive for some reason after all this arguing? How will she and Ben move forward then, since she's convinced that adoption is impossible because of Ben's past?

Ben's conversation with Tripp was much better. Tripp gave him some information, pointed out that homicide is not a genetic trait, and told him what the odds were.

Unfortunately, this is all moving toward Ben confiding in Marlena -- while she is possessed by the Devil. Where that will go is anyone's guess, but it won't be anywhere good.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics! What did you think of the latest in the possession story, the war between Gabi/Jake and Philip/Ava, and the Ciara/Ben baby story? Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know!

Eager for more Days of Our Lives chat? Be sure to check back on Sunday for the latest Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

Days of Our Lives airs on NBC on weekday afternoons. Check your local listings for airtimes or watch online on Peacock TV after 8 PM EST on weeknights.

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.