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Days of our Lives is once again back to coasting through the middle ground with its storylines. This week was an okay week, giving the audience little teases with their most interesting storylines (Thersa’s stolen baby and Aiden’s mysterious background) while keeping their more uninteresting stories on the front burner. There’s a lot of potential with all of the webs that are being woven in Salem, but there’s also a lot of doubt as to whether the culmination of them all will even be riveting. Let’s look back on a more or less solid week in Salem, USA!
#Clydecicle
Without much talk of weather, it was strange hearing that a blizzard was on its way to Salem, USA, sort of unnatural even. But the audience learned that Victor Kiriakis is probably the nation’s best weatherman after he organized his grand plan around the impending storm. A war is brewing between Victor and Clyde Weston, the former upset with the way the latter is encroaching on his less than savory business territory. When Victor’s hot new deputy, Damon stops by the Kiriakis mansion to inform him of one of Clyde’s men dealing in the safe zone of the park, Victor gets all riled up. Later in the day, Clyde is searching about Salem for any sign of Chad Dimera, the man who sent his son to jail for assault; it’s during this search that he gets a call from Victor asking to meet in the park. Clyde drops the search for the time being and heads for the park – only to get gunned down by a stealthy Damon lurking between the trees. Shouldn’t people have learned by now how dangerous that park is? For God’s sake, Kristen Dimera reappeared there after fifteen years away in a harem. That alone should desecrate the site. Victor’s man Damon only barely makes it out of the park as passerbys come through, musing about the foot of snow that Salem is expecting to get. He relays this information to Victor later, wondering if he should call in an anonymous tip so someone can discover the body but no, Victor doesn’t want that. Like the super villain of days gone by, Victor takes the cold hearted route and opts to leave Clyde bleeding out in the park until he freezes under the cover of snow.
We don’t hear much about Clyde for the rest of the week, anything said just coming out in passing. No one seems to be able to reach him but is it because he’s frozen to death in the park or did Mr. Ruggles snatch him up to recoup too? Either way, I lay my hat down to Victor for doing something that should have been done so long ago! And to do it in the same cold-blooded fashion that Clyde’s man gun downed EJ Dimera in just a few months ago! Although it’s apparent that Clyde is neither dead nor gone, the build up to Victor finally moving out of his fluffy grandpa with a silver tongue mode and back into the fold was played excellently as I’m sure the aftermath of this shooting will too. Did anyone else notice the way Victor glanced at the photo of Maggie Kiriakis after hearing the news of the shooting? Could the fallout from this hit signal some real trouble in their golden years paradise? Whatever way this story goes, just promise to keep Damon around for a good while.
Art thieves? Anything?
We start off the week with Nicole Walker at Daniel Jonas’ apartment, her boyfriend’s in the shower getting ready so she’s forced to answer the door when her insta-enemy Serena Mason comes knocking. There’s a bit of a standoff there before Nicole melts, asking if she’d like to stay to make peace but a towel-clad Daniel is Serena’s cue to get going. He’s her insta-best friend’s dad, that’s so creepy! The couple then have sex once they’re freed of Serena’s presence, but the good times come to an end when Daniel is called away for work. He praises Nicole like a dog for remaining civil with Serena especially after their physical fight at Victor’s new club before he’s off, giving Nicole the chance to call Serena to ask to meet up. Little does Serena know, this is all just another one of her schemes to get the dirt on her past. Nicole checks in with her source, Ted one last time before she heads into Serena’s room to do the real digging. They chat idly first, Serena admitting to researching Nicole and her misdeeds online to which Nicole admits to not being proud of though she owns up to them anyway. Not a moment or two later, Serena’s phone goes off and she has to take the call in the next room which allows Nicole to get down to business. While Serena is on call, Nicole boots up her laptop and begins to copy files from her hard drive, finishing just in time before being caught. Later that day, when Serena is explaining to Eric Brady how Nicole came by to make peace, she notices that some of her computer files had been touched and instantly blames Nicole for the digital theft.
With her equally judgmental boyfriend in tow, Serena stomps back to Daniel’s apartment to confront Nicole about her missing computer files. In pure Nicole fashion, she owns up to it, producing the USB filled with Serena’s files with intent to go through them all to reveal what a fraud she was. Then in pure Salemite fashion, everyone is just about ready to jump down Nicole’s throat before she further explains that all she was doing was researching for a tip an anonymous source had sent her way. Again, she has to explain that it was a confidential and anonymous source which was why she couldn’t tell Daniel though he still seems confused about that aspect of journalism. Since no one still wants to believe her, Nicole invites in the source, Ted which leaves Serena stunned. Ted explains that they once worked together and were also lovers but Serena betrayed him, stealing his stories and putting her name on them. But even with living, breathing evidence before them, Eric jumps to defend Serena who seems to have finally gone placid.
Unfortunately for Nicole, when they open up the files on the USB, it’s revealed that Ted’s story has loads of inaccuracies. According to Serena’s logs, Ted was mentally unstable and after skipping out on his medication, began to create a romance between them which got in the way of their work. Nicole doesn’t believe it until Ted admits to it while in tears over Serena. He’s later picked up by his helper from the group home and Eric and Serena leave, clearly feeling triumphant. Daniel then moves to drill into Nicole, but she storms off before he can. They break up over Daniel thinking Nicole is attacking Serena out of her love for Eric, meanwhile Serena is proving to be as much of a snake as Nicole suspected. Once Eric leaves her alone in his apartment she begins to snoop around for an elephant statue which she finds in his bedroom. When he finds her later she back pedals quickly to Nicole whom she thinks has learned her lesson after messing with her again but Eric wonders why was she so nervous if she knew that the big reveal would discredit her source. Serena talks his curiosity down though, most likely still thinking about this mysterious elephant statue.
Days seems to be pulling out all the stops to give us underwhelming reveal after underwhelming reveal. Just when we thought that maybe Nicole Walker had the upper hand when it came to dealing with Salem transplant, Serena Mason, we were fooled – but for a really rushed and stupid reason. There has to be a way that this can turn out to be interesting, right? Serena is fooling the entire town into thinking she’s a goodie two shoes when in fact she’s creeping around for an elephant statue! She’s got to be an international art thief a la Princess Gina! One thing’s for sure though, she has to be in cahoots with this Ted character because her initial reaction to seeing him was an intense one which meant she might have feared he’d ruin the plan too early on. Oh, and former All My Children actor Adam Mayfield signed on to do a “short arc” as Ted and four or five episodes is no short arc!
Kate Roberts’ School for Adultery and Getting Away With It
Will Horton sure chose the right grandmother to confide in this week! I’ve always admired Will’s relationships with both Kate Roberts and Marlena Evans, two people his own mother was always at odds with, and how well he could open up to them but wow, am I glad that Will went to his naughty grandma with his naughtier secret. Will’s week kicks off with a meeting with his paternal grandmother, one that has him quickly breaking down as guilt takes over him. Kate assumes it’s because Will and his husband, Sonny Kiriakis, are going through tough times with their finances after Sonny blew through their savings account. She learns that money isn’t the problem after trying to write him a check, and through her expert deduction, Kate comes to learn that Will cheated on Sonny with Paul Narita. While Will expresses his guilt for not being supportive to Sonny in the last weeks then cheating, Kate too feels some guilt as she’s the one who advised Will to push as far as possible to get the story. Soon enough, Will has to go to meet Paul for to conduct his coming out interview but before leaving Kate has one more piece of advice for her grandson: As long as it doesn’t happen again, do not tell Sonny! Coming clean will only make matters worse.
In an ironic turn, when Paul and Will meet in the Sonix offices for the interview, Paul is gushing about his first love and how he lost him. Little does Will know, his one night stand is mooning over his husband, wishing that he could get a second chance with him to which Will encourages him to go for it. As the two men unknowingly barter for Sonny inside, Sonny shows up outside of Will’s office hoping to reconcile with a rose, but Will’s editor Zoe steps in before he can enter. The interview going on inside is confidential and she doesn’t want Will’s husband to be clued in, so she offers to deliver the rose herself and lets Sonny go. After the interview wraps up, Will heads home to find his grandmother Kate waiting for him, clearly worried about him. Will explains that he has to tell Sonny what happened with Paul, but Kate doesn’t think that’d be a good idea as it’d do nothing more than cause trouble. Kate, the former call girl extraordinaire, has a philosophy that unless Will is feeling a deeper connection with Paul rather than a physical one, then he should keep their one night stand a secret. But it’s because Will only loves Sonny that he feels he should be honest with him, work through it together. His grandmother feels that as a cheater, Will should suffer through the guilt on his own and not “ruin Sonny’s life” by clueing him in. After speaking with a concerned John Black about his marriage, Sonny walks through the door of his and Will’s apartment just in time to hear Kate pleading with Will not to tell Sonny. Now had Will told his other grandmother about his slip up, I can only imagine that she’d take this chance to hypnotize him with that smooth shrink voice into telling Sonny the truth to set his guilt free but Kate is no Marlena. Like a cat, Kate is quick on her feet and quickly spins a story about how Will shared confidential bits of his new story with her and how it has to remain a secret to keep him from being seen as an unethical journalist. Poor Sonny easily buys into the lie and promises to keep it a secret; with her lie set in place, Kate leaves the two men to finally spend some quality time together after a hectic few weeks.
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!
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