Days of our Lives Recap: Nicole Can’t Catch a Break, Aiden Continues to Play Jekyll and Hyde

Days of our Lives this week was once again a pretty solid week for drama. The thing with Days is that they’re good at finding that middle ground and keeping it stable, but they’ve recently not been able to keep the stellar drama stellar all year round. Thankfully, they’ve not been stuck in terrible times when things fell off either. But you can’t be just solid or just good forever. With the beginnings of a love triangle, possible murder mystery and maybe a taste of happiness for a long suffering character, maybe the stories will shoot back into the stratosphere. Only time will tell in Salem but until then, let’s check out what went down last week!

Tangled triangle

Just what is Sonix Magazine and do they not have ethics? Poor Will Horton had to not only withstand the wrath of his family after outing their dirty secrets in print but now, I presume, he might be partaking in a mission that’ll chip away at his marriage’s already flimsy base. Zoe is one of the best recurring characters I’ve seen on Days in a good while as she’s naturally assimilated herself into the canvas and is portrayed with a good mix of confidence and fervor that a magazine editor should possess. She’s great. But what’s not so great is that I think she may have told Will to get Paul Narita’s coming out story through any means possible.

The briefing was shown on screen where it was announced that Will would be profiling the baseball star for the magazine and that there’d have to be lots of discretion involved, but what we didn’t see was Zoe maybe giving Will the okay to seduce Paul into it. Why else would he remove his wedding ring before going into the interview? Zoe always knows a lot more than she’s letting on so she must know that Paul is hiding something about his sexuality. And while he may think he’s being discreet by flirting with every woman in sight, he doesn’t do much to hide that he’s flirting with the guys right after them either. My only other guess to why the wedding ring came off before the talk would be that as a sports fan, maybe Will’s always had a bit of a crush on Paul? Their meeting was full of nervous stutters and Paul’s trademarked lusty gaze – and honestly? I didn’t not like it! When it comes to Sonny and Will – whether Chandler Massey or Guy Wilson were in the role – I never took too much to them. The glaring domesticity of the couple always felt a lot like the writers had them screaming, “See? Gay people can be normal too! We’re normal!” This stirring of their usually monotonous pot is just what they needed, and I know even people who had taken to the recasting of Will and those who didn’t are feeling pulled in either direction for this developing triangle. There’s chemistry all around and really, it can go either way now. Either Will really is as attracted to Paul as Paul is to him and something happens or Will keeps things platonic only to find Paul shacking up with his husband further down the line! These results are still more than favorable for me as I’ll be watching intently, feeling pretty thirsty for more.

Is Nicole the Grinch of Salem?

Nicole Walker doesn’t even get a break from being judged around Christmas time! The viewers are used to seeing her being labeled, or cut off from the “civilized” society of Salem, or more or less persecuted (sometimes with valid reason) but with the holidays around, one would think Salemites would be a bit more understanding…  Wrong. They’re treating Nicole as if she were the Grinch and stole every Christmas ornament right off of the Horton tree when in fact, she’s just been trying to move on with her life! The love of her life Eric Brady has chosen to forgive his attacker over the woman who (through misguided means) was trying to protect him. This left her lost and desperate for a long time. I can’t say I hate the pairing of Daniel Jonas and Nicole Walker. There’s always something spunky and young about their pairing, it’s like falling right back into the old pattern that worked out horribly not too long ago. They were both damaged and in need of a rebound love which wound up with Nicole conspiring with Daniel to keep her baby’s paternity a secret, losing said baby and trying to frame Jennifer Horton for it. Why exactly did the two of them think it was a good idea to link up again?

Either way, Daniel (and to some degree Brady Black) are the only people in town who still treat Nicole like a full human, not even her step-father Abe Carver trusts her wholeheartedly. Well, I guess it might be smart to not completely trust her. Either way, with Eric’s former flame Serena Mason bumbling about Salem now, the seeds of her being the saintly one and Nicole being devilish have already been planted from the get go. We learned that Serena and Eric were together before he became a priest and that when he chose to become a man of god, she understood his wishes and let him go off to do what he wanted to do – which is exactly the opposite of what Nicole did. They put such strong emphasis on Serena’s selfless decision also just to stress how different she was than Nicole. Marlena Evans stealing Nicole away from stumbling upon Eric having lunch with Serena this week, more or less rubbing in her son’s ex-girlfriend how much more she loved the one he was spending time with now. It’s almost childish how everyone so easily jumps on Nicole and its certainly lazy writing that always paints her as the evil culpable party no matter what. Writers, Salemites, can’t we just let Nicole be merry for at least one day out of the year?

We’ve got to find out if Aiden’s naughty or nice!

Literally no one has a clue what’s going on with this storyline. It’s not that it’s bad, no! There’s always more room for Hope Brady and Aiden Jennings is no eyesore whatsoever, but the speed at which this beat is playing out is borderline ridiculous now! Just a year ago there was understandable hesitation between the two parties with one being divorced and one unsure of whether that was the right route for her, it made sense to take caution much like someone in the real world would. But it was like the viewers blinked and Hope was filing for divorce from Bo Brady, going on dates with Aiden and then finally spending her lunch breaks in bed with him at the Salem Inn. I like the couple a lot but I wish they hadn’t rushed them into a relationship (and a lot of it off-screen too, we didn’t get to see too much development) just to get this storyline going. Did Aiden kill his wife? Did he rob his wife blind? No one knows exactly what happened except for a few choice people who relocated from the wonderful city of Portland to live in the murder, brainwashing and alien capital of the world, Salem, USA. Hope’s old acquaintance Bree sent a warning call after finding out she was dating Aiden. Apparently being with him only lead to deadly consequences. Hope still got it on with him anyway but not after confiding in her boyfriend about her worries stemming from Bree’s questionable call. We see Aiden consoling Hope in that sweet gentlemanly way he’s perfected but as soon as she’s out of the room, he’s calling and threatening Bree about running her mouth! Hope needs to get on his case ASAP! It’s clear from the famous eyebrow raising that there are doubts in the back of her mind and it wouldn’t be Hope if she didn’t start investigating the roots of these doubts. I hope her investigation will wrap up sooner rather than later before this storyline turns into something of GH’s Fluke proportions.

Once again, these recaps are not blow for blow recaps and contain a lot of my own feelings toward the storylines this week. Use my points to kick off a conversation. Comment here or tweet me if you agree or disagree with me, I want to know what the readers have to say. Your input is what makes this all the most fun! See you next week!