Say what, Marlena?

Kristen's hidden Rachel somewhere in her ridiculously large house, and everyone knows why: she wants the custody agreement changed and can't find a lawyer to represent her.

But on Days of Our Lives during the week of 7-10-23, Marlena recommended Brady give in because it's not in Rachel's best interest to be denied access to her mother. This has to be the worst advice that Salem's foremost mental health expert has ever given!

Belle was right behind her, suggesting that Brady could lose a new custody dispute because Rachel ran away from camp while in his custody.

So to recap: Kristen has been in and out of prison her whole life, has a history of attempting to kidnap Rachel so that she can use her as a pawn to force Brady to reconcile with her, and is currently doing just that. But Brady is at risk of losing custody to Kristen because he sent Rachel to a sleepaway camp that "let" her disappear?

If anything, the fact that there's ample reason to believe that Kristen is behind Rachel's disappearance gives Brady a stronger case for keeping them apart.

Brady: This is just a ploy. It's another ploy to get me to revisit the custody arrangement. That's all this is.
Marlena: I understand that. But the thing is, right now, Kristen holds all the cards. And if you do something rash, she could just pick up Rachel and take off.
Brady: Do you really want me to cave in to this diabolical woman one more time?

• Permalink: Do you really want me to cave in to this diabolical woman one more time?

As for Marlena's second claim that they aren't considering Rachel's best interest if they don't give in to Kristen, that's nonsense.

Days of Our Lives perpetuates the idea that children are ALWAYS better off with both parents,  which doesn't consider that Kristen is a toxic parent who has been manipulating Rachel for years and poisoned her against Brady's new girlfriend.

It is not in Rachel's best interest to have anything more than short, supervised visits with Kristen, and as a psychiatrist, Marlena ought to know that.

And as far as the risk of Kristen fleeing with Rachel, if she did that, it would only strengthen Brady's case for Kristen being behind Rachel's disappearance.

He'd have absolute proof Kristen had taken Rachel, and it would be harder for Kristen to hide her daughter when not in that vast mansion full of secret rooms.

Of course, the Salem PD should have been able to differentiate Rachel from a stuffed animal, bear costume or not, and Marlena should have spotted a child-sized "bear" in the tunnels, so maybe Marlena is right that Rachel could disappear forever if Kristen is pushed too far.

Still, Brady did the right thing by refusing to give in, even if he did it in the stupidest of ways. He should have signed the papers, waited for Kristen to produce Rachel, then ripped up the agreement once he had his daughter back.

Considering how short-staffed they are, I suppose the Salem PD could be excused for its usual incompetence.

After Shawn was suspended and Rafe was fired earlier in the week, poor Jada was left to work every case by herself!

Plenty of uniformed officers are in the background, but no other detectives, and Jada might have been in a rush to get to her next case. That could explain the lack of attention to detail in this one.

Jada might also have been preoccupied with her failure to find Abe alive. Steve, John, and Lani have now realized that Whitley is behind Abe's disappearance, and Lani knows he is still alive, but no one official knows what's happening.

That's not a good sign. If the only people who realize Whitley is involved with Abe's disappearance don't have the power to arrest her, she's more or less free to keep it up.

Lani: What do you mean, my father is alive?
Jerry: I mean, he never fell off the docks. Nurse King's had him this whole time.
Lani: Jerry, if you are messing with me...
Jerry: I'm not! I'm not! She kidnapped him from the hospital and she's been pretending to be his wife this whole time. And she paid me to tell Abe I'm your brother Theo.
Lani: And he believed you?
Jerry: Yes, at first. With his head injury, he doesn't remember anything from his life. Well, that's not exactly true.
Lani: What do you mean?
Jerry: Well, every once in a while he has like, these flashes. And he tries to put the pieces together but Nurse King won't let him.

• Permalink: Well, every once in a while he has like, these flashes. And he tries to put the pieces...

Lani rushed to Whitley's apartment to rescue Abe, who was in a medically-assisted stupor and dreaming that he was a character on Body and Soul. Her eagerness to save her father is understandable, but she seems to have forgotten that she's no longer a cop and is due back at prison in a few hours.

At the very least, Lani should have called Jada along the way. She needs backup from someone with the power to stop Whitley if Abe can't be removed from the situation before she gets home.

Whitley and Jerry blamed each other for this mess, but did Steve believe a word Whitley said?

She had no plausible explanation for why she didn't come forward about Jerry's alleged hanging around Abe's hospital room until now, and it should be obvious she made this up on the fly when backed into a corner.

Steve knows that Whitley is on the run, too, since she told him she's leaving town and has no real explanation for why she's quitting her job.

Incidentally, she supposedly has no money to pay her bills, so where is she getting funds to travel?

Steve seems to have fallen for her BS since he ran straight to Jerry's to confront him. That makes it likely this mess will be dragged out even more.

Steve and John will probably turn Jerry over to the cops and be shocked that there's no sign of Abe at Jerry's apartment, while Whitley will come home in time to stop Lani from rescuing Abe.

Lani has an ankle monitor on since she's on furlough from prison, but if Whitley removes it, it'll look like Lani decided she wasn't going back and is hiding somewhere.

Of course, that'll bring more police attention Whitley's way since the cops aren't likely to shrug their shoulders and let an escaped prisoner disappear into thin air. (Although this IS Salem, so you never know!)

Let's hope this is the beginning of the end of Whitley's reign of terror!

Abe's behavior is unpredictable. Since he has few memories, he might not recognize Lani and be reluctant to go anywhere with her, assuming she can easily awaken him from his Whitley-induced stupor.

He might think Lani is another person Whitley hired to pose as a family member and resist being moved by her.

On the other hand, he might wake up with more memories since his dream about appearing on Body and Soul included mixed-up bits and pieces of his past.

The soap-within-a-soap also provided an entertaining throwback to Jackee Harry's famous first role on 227 and continued to spoof soap operas in general, but enough already! Let's get Abe home and back to health so he doesn't need to rely on Body and Soul to spark his memories.

Lani's confrontation with Jerry allowed her to ask what the audience has been thinking: why did Jerry go along with this ridiculous plan?

She didn't want to hear his babbling about his grandmother's illness. She wanted to know what happened to her father and why Jerry participated in faking Abe's death.

Although it sucks that Whitley tried to pin the entire plan on him, no one forced him to go along with it, even if Whitley had done a favor for his grandmother. Jerry deserves to be arrested for fraud and for lying to the police. But will he get off scot-free since Whitley was blackmailing him?

Elsewhere, Shawn's alcoholism story featured the quickest turnaround ever -- did it even count as a story?

Shawn returned after being off-screen for several weeks, already deep into full-blown alcoholism. He quickly got into trouble and realized he needed help when his bad behavior got Rafe fired too.

The lightning speed doesn't do this poorly-written story any favors. This is as bad as when Jennifer's pill addiction story consisted almost entirely of her sitting in a rocking chair holding a bottle of pills, with no on-screen explanation of how things had gotten to this point.

Shawn's turnaround made no more sense than his descent into addiction. He tried to use Rafe's relationship with Jada to force Rafe not to suspend him, then quickly backed down and promised to be discreet, only to be left with a ton of guilt because the new acting mayor overheard and fired Rafe.

Speaking of which, why did Abe ever choose this guy as his running mate?

Clint is everything that Abe stands against. He's smug, arrogant, and uses his position to make life difficult for people he doesn't like.

Abe might as well have chosen Sloan as his running mate!

We don't need yet another person who has decided that Chanel needs to be punished for "getting away with" defending herself against the wife of the sexual predator who took advantage of her.

And a white guy informing the Black daughter of the former governor-elect that she and her mother are criminals who have ruined Salem and need to be driven out of town isn't a good look.

Is anyone left among the fan base who isn't severely disappointed in Leo?

He started out as his usual sharp self, but he quickly gave in to Dimitri's advances, betraying his best friend for no good reason.

Dimitri knows what buttons to push to get what he wants, but still. Leo shouldn't have been so weak-willed, even if most Salem men seem unable to resist sexual advances.

At most, Dimitri is bi and attracted to both Gwen and Leo. I doubt he has strong feelings for Leo; he wants to stop him from telling Gwen about the inheritance agreement.

Meanwhile, Marlena deprogrammed Harris, getting him to realize that Megan and not Li had ordered Rolf to brainwash him.

I don't know why that was a surprise to anyone. You can't brainwash people without Rolf, and Li certainly doesn't know how, or he would have made Gabi believe she was in love with him long ago.

Harris insisted he needed to go to Bayview, and Marlena eventually gave in. I'm unsure how I feel about that since it contradicted her professional opinion about what he needed.

It's not a good idea for Harris to hide in a mental institution because he fears being influenced into bad behavior. However, at least this will put an end to him trying to rebuild his life and people insisting he's still evil.

Li should also face some consequences for conspiring with Megan -- Rolf didn't pull his name out of a hat to use as a scapegoat, after all -- and for bringing Rolf back to Salem. Instead, the cops let him go because Harris said Li wasn't behind the brainwashing and Megan's run off in a submarine and can't contradict this claim.

The only part of this story that makes even a little sense is Wendy's disapproval of Li's tactics. I'd love for Wendy to break free of her brother and return to proving she's a highly competent IT professional, but that doesn't seem likely to happen.

Wendy ran home and immediately decided between Tripp and Johnny, following the advice that Li was in no position to give her.

This ends this boring love triangle, at least for now. But before we got there, Steve gave Tripp some ridiculous advice about fighting for Wendy.

While Steve's idea that Tripp should go for what he wants 100% rather than having regrets made sense, he encouraged Tripp to refuse to respect Wendy or her boundaries.

That's not good advice, and I'm glad Tripp called him on his caveman mentality and that Kayla doubted Tripp was interested in Steve's opinion.

As for Wendy, it makes sense that she wouldn't want to choose a man who constantly canceled their dates to be with someone else.

Chanel's going through a lot, but is Johnny her only friend? Why can't she rely on anyone else for comfort and support?

This seems like a young-adult version of the Eric/Nicole nonsense. Eric is also forever supporting Nicole "as a friend, " occasionally realizing he has deeper feelings for her than that and breaking up with his current girlfriend.

One version of that story is bad enough; thank goodness Wendy has too much self-respect to stay with someone acting that way.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics. Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know what you thought of this week's Days of Our Lives!

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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.