Kristian Alfonso, Peter Reckell posing for beyond salem as bo hope
Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI

It looks like Bo and Hope’s time in Salem (well, to be fair, they haven’t quite made it back to Salem just yet) will soon be coming to an end! Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso tell Soap Opera Digest‘s podcast that their most recent stint back to Days of Our Lives has wrapped.

It was virtually guaranteed just to be a short return as both actors came back to wrap up the cliffhanger from Beyond Salem: Chapter 2. As Reckell says, it was “only fair to wrap up — or continue, I should say — something that had been started.”

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When Alfonso got the call, she says, she admits that she hadn’t been planning to come back to the main show, but if the Bo and Hope story was to be continued there, then that’s where she was going. She called headwriter Ron Carlivati thinking the run would be something like Beyond Salem, with just “five episodes. And Ron said, ‘Oh, I think it’s like 20 or something.’ Twenty?! I thought it was going to be five! It was either 12 or 15 episodes we shot.”

Hope furrows her brow while facing Steve.

The number they settle on seems to be 15 episodes, which means we’re just about halfway through the return, so it sounds like we’ve got a bit more to go before they say farewell once more. And that makes sense, seeing as how “Bope” are still quite a way from reuniting. At the moment, Kayla and Megan (and Dr. Rolf, of course) are the only two who know he’s even alive. But even once the current story wraps up, it sounds like Bo and Hope won’t just be riding off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

“Each time,” Reckell explains, “it’s gotten to be a bigger commitment. Like Kristian said, suddenly we’re going from five shows to 15 shows. Wonder what the next episode is going to be? We’ve left the show in a place where, yeah, we’ve got to see what’s going to — It’s got to be a continuing story, not only for us as actors, but for the audience.”

In Victor's childhood home, Kayla yells into a phone. Bo scowls and grabs at the phone at her ear.

That certainly sounds like there could be more to come down the way! Whether this stint will end on another huge cliffhanger like when we learned Bo was alive once again, though, is hard to tell. Just as it’s hard to tell what would bring them back. And that, Alfonso says, is the point.

“It has to be interesting,” she explains, “it has to be adventurous. It has to be romantic, of course, and unexpected. To keep it interesting! Unexpected events!”

For right now, there’s still a bit of a ride left. And the future’s looking just a bit brighter knowing that “Bope” will be out there as part of it once again!

Relive their epic love story with our Bo and Hope photo gallery.