Days of Our Lives Recap: Round and Round We Go
Jack Ori
at
.
Here we go again...
On this week's Days of Our Lives, Rafe became the third person to be chained up somewhere by the Dimeras while Hope punched Aiden in the face and then arrested him. She then decided to hold onto him while she searched for something to charge him with.
Can this storyline sink any lower than it already has?
There are so many problems with this story that it's hard to know where to begin. First, Rafe and Hope keep looking down their noses at Aiden for telling lies while conveniently forgetting that they covered up a murder and sent an innocent man to jail for it.
Yes, the dead man is Stefano and the maligned one Andre, but that doesn't make Hope and Rafe's behavior okay.
This latest incident just makes Hope and Roman even more corrupt than they were before. They basically want to put Aiden in jail for lying and are holding onto him until they find something to charge him with. That's an abuse of power, and I was surprised -- but glad -- that for once Justin was the voice of reason here.
Justin, a tie in a gym bag is not enough to put me in prison, and you know it. Now look, I know what you're trying to do here. You're trying to come up with some evidence you can use to keep me locked up. Well here is the truth. I did not do it. I wouldn't. I couldn't. I would never try to kill a woman that I love!
Aiden
Aiden was wrong not to have told Hope about the threats against Chase's life, but that doesn't make them unimportant. Everyone dismissed that without comment.
The bottom line is, Aiden does love Hope. And they were getting back on track until Hope decided to go into corrupt cop mode, so he feels like the rug has been pulled out from under him again.
Rafe probably would have investigated Aiden either way because he was jealous. That shouldn't be something that Hope finds attractive. It should, in fact, repulse her, because it's just more controlling behavior on Rafe's part.
The scenes in the abandoned house were completely ridiculous. Rafe is the third person to get into this situation since November, and he got into it because he did something incredibly stupid. He went to an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere by himself just because Andre said Aiden owns it.
Naturally, he was knocked unconscious and chained to the wall. He then spent a lot of time yelling for help and staring at the timer on a bomb on a shelf.
It's hard to believe this guy is a former FBI agent.
When Hope arrived, instead of calling for help right away, she argued with Rafe about whether she should leave or not until Shawn happened to call. By the time she got the idea to tell Shawn what was up, there was less than five minutes to go before the bomb exploded.
Hope then shot at the chains and caused the explosion just as Shawn pulled up in a squad car.
This is one of the most contrived plots DAYS has had in a while. It does very little to make Rafe/Hope a rootable couple. Instead, they look like they are both incompetent and corrupt, neither of which is an attractive quality.
I am trying to stay strong, Mom. I am. But every minute that goes by, I'm just... scared.
Theresa
Meanwhile, Theresa was falling apart as time kept passing without any news about whereTate was.
Jen Lilley knocked these scenes out of the park, as usual. Too bad that Hope is stuck in this stupid Rafe storyline so she can't help and JJ is busy with his own missing persons case. It would have been especially interesting to see JJ involved in this given his history with Theresa.
Anyway, Theresa quickly identified Summer as a suspect while Brady accused Victor. Both of these people are obvious choices, which means they probably had little, if anything, to do with it
.
Maggie: If this is true, I can't help thinking that part of this is my fault.
Victor: What are you talking about?
Maggie: Because I abandoned her when she was just a few days old.
Maggie arrived and first defended Summer, then blamed herself. Can we please retire this refrain about how she abandoned Summer? She did not. She put her up for adoption.
This guilt of Maggie's is not endearing and continues to send the message that it's wrong to decide to allow your child to be adopted. Women who are struggling with the question of what to do about an unwanted pregnancy don't need to hear that.
Also high on the list of poor social messages is this entire Shady Hills storyline. This week, the mental hospital continued to look like a house of horrors, as Ciara yelled at Chase until he had a panic attack and he confessed that he's afraid to talk to his doctors because all they do is prescribe more and more medication.
This makes me long for the days of socially conscious storylines rather than negative messages that might interfere with real people getting the help they need to deal with certain issues.
Summer's stereotypical bipolar disorder was bad enough without constantly being shown a subpar mental hospital full of people who are completely out of it on psychoactive drugs.
Claire: That's so sad.
Doug: Yes it is. But that's what we do to protect our children and our grandchildren.
To many viewers' disappointment, Doug encouraged Jennifer to sue for custody of little Thomas this week. While Jennifer is often ridiculous and her parenting of JJ was horrendous, she does have a few points.
Chad has been actively seeking to ensure that Jennifer and JJ never find out where Abigail is, wants to be the sole source of support for Thomas and for Abigail when she returns, and relies on Ciara, who is not exactly stable and who has designs on him, for all of Thomas' needs.
The custody battle is really about whether Jennifer and JJ will continue to be part of Abigail and her child's life or not. If Chad wins, it's a victory for the side of making sure they're in the dark about what happened to their loved one. If he loses, it's a victory over that nonsense.
As far as Thomas' best interest goes, Jennifer and Chad should work it out without going to court so that they both can help take care of the baby. But as long as Chad is determined to use the baby as a pawn in his quest to eradicate Abby's family from her life, that will never happen.
Any offer from Jennifer to help would be seen as a threat and be dismissed angrily. Jennifer is doing the only thing she can to protect her family.
While living with her would not be ideal, it would be better for Thomas than being taken care of by Ciara and exposed to Andre on a regular basis. Julie and Doug are far better support than Ciara and aren't trying to get Chad to fall in love with them. I don't trust Ciara not to do something to the baby if she thinks that will help her get Chad.
Finally, there was some more nonsense on the Nicole/Deimos/Kate front. Deimos made a lot of noise about not wanting to be around Kate while Kate was angry that Chloe is back in Philip's life.
When will Philip get a clue about his mother and stop trying to help her?
The end result of the Deimos/Kate fight was that he went to the police station, said that Nicole did not try to kill him, but left out Kate's fake marriage license and her role in Deimos falling into the river.
Kate is undoubtedly out for revenge now. What she'll do is anyone's guess.
What did you think of this week's Days of Our Lives? What storyline drove you nuts the most, and which did you actually enjoy?
Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for the Round Table discussion.
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.
