Days of our Lives Recap: Hope investigates Aiden, Clyde returns from the dead, Nicole apologizes (Again!)

Only a week ago I had hopes that Days of Our Lives had begun to pace their February Sweeps stories better, that we were actually working up to a nice build-up then climax. All it took was a week for those hopes to come back down to earth after being shot out of the sky by a week in Salem that was 70% of nothing! Absolutely nothing! With recent news that NBC’s sole sudser has once again fired its head writers, we can only hope something more interesting will be showing up on our screens again soon when the new writers roll in. The only downside to this recent upheaval is knowing we’ll have to suffer some months of these non-events. Here we go!

 A glass of anti-freeze on the rocks

Did he do it? Did he not do it? The back and forth with Hope Brady and Aiden Jennings has been going on for nearly two years now, the mystery of the dashing lawyer’s background has been coming to light at a snail covered in molasses’ pace. Just a week ago I worried that if there isn’t some kind of big reveal involving this storyline and it continues to drag on, it’ll spell doom for the show! In a show that claims to not care about super couples (or even couples at all, as we can see from the lack of romance on screen), a lot of fans have taken to the Haiden couple in recent times. Even with the unforeseen circumstances of Bo Brady going MIA, both characters and actors have played up the couple very respectfully without tarnishing the huge romance that was Bope of the past. That’s why so many of us hope that Aiden is not guilty of murdering his wife! But this week, Hope found a conveniently sticky-noted iPad with a video confession from Meredith Jennings before her death. In a Gone Girl-esque turn, we see the blonde pouring out her feelings of fear toward her husband, afraid for her life on a day to day basis. She even makes a shocking confession that she was sure Aiden had tried to poison her with anti-freeze in her drinks but she found out so he had to change up his plans, and now she’s worried he’ll kill her another way. It could be an extremely poignant plot twist for the show to borrow from the bestselling novel and film, maybe even enough to salvage all we had to trek through to get to this point. But that’s only if it’s all done right.

It was great though seeing Hope finally utilize her cop skills, investigating to see all sides of the mystery instead of just blindly believing the man she’s been sleeping with. Gradually, Hope began a descent into panic as more and more uncertainties began to pile up like when she discovered the axe, shovel and the aforementioned anti-freeze. What she doesn’t know is that while she’s piecing together all of these things, Aiden is only a step behind her as he too has found Meredith’s video and is now worried about what Hope might do now that she’s suspecting him. Previews and spoilers show us that finally, finally there will be a climax to this story next week as both parties confront each other over these dark secrets but is it too little too late? Are you guys still enjoying the Haiden mystery or not? Even with every single card slowly being stacked up against this couple, I do hope that Aiden is in fact innocent so that they can form an adorable family unit with those precocious kids of theirs. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve really enjoyed Hope on screen and also found that she’s had a real purpose, other than to bring in the latest criminals or to be Bo’s sidekick. Just please Aiden, don’t turn out to be a handsome apple with a rotten core a la Patrick Lockhart, Hope deserves something new and good in her life!

Nicole’s Apology Reunion Tour

No matter the size of the slip up, the last two years have been giving viewers more than enough of an uncharacteristically pathetic Nicole Walker, and even more recently lots of tours around Salem with apologies for these slip ups. Why? Why does Nicole have to continue groveling to these people who want to be her friend or lover one moment only to turn on her should her innate spunkiness cause a few mishaps? This week Nicole made more laps around Salem, first to apologize to Serena Mason, whom she admittedly did wrong by but for some reason, she also had to apologize to Daniel and Melanie Jonas, Brady Black and Eric Brady too! But for what? Why do the writers keep insisting that Nicole go on these apology tours when Nicole would never care what these people think about her? It’s understandable, Salem has shrunken in the past few years so by alienating herself from these people she might not have many interactions on screen but they’re not the whole cast! Put her in Theresa Donovan’s orbit as a rival since she’s become the show’s new Sami Brady, get her to hook up with Rafe Hernandez or maybe even put her head to head with Marlena Evans for old time’s sake! Give us anything other than Nicole interacting with this group of sad, judgmental people! The official Days of Our Lives twitter has been boasting about it being “the year of Nicole” in a few sparse tweets, so let’s see if they actually turn around a beloved character’s fortune this year.