Days of Our Lives Laid the Groundwork For Their Baddies’ Comeuppance — Plus, Shawn’s Trauma Ignored and the Devil’s Plan Fell Flat

Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI

This week’s Days of Our Lives moved quite a few stories along, setting up a lot of action to come next week. So, let’s get right to it…

What’s Her Plan?

The walls are closing in on a few Salem baddies, just as they some are about to get everything they want. Sonny and Chad are off to find Jackie Cox to ruin Leo’s wedding to Craig. Ava’s been arrested, just as, I don’t know, she’s free and flirting with Jake? And Gwen, well, you just know her wedding to Xander isn’t going to go off without a hitch. Especially after Ava called Abigail. Ava does know a thing or two about Gwen’s misdeeds and she doesn’t exactly appear to feel any loyalty to the woman with whom she helped kidnap Abigail.

What Are the Odds?

As for the double wedding, it’s hilarious that soap characters plan their nuptials in a week. Or in this case, a day. I mean what are the odds that two old friends would run into each other in a small town, both with plans to marry in the very same rushed time frame? I actually didn’t mind the contrivance, as Leo and Gwen could be fun partners in crime. Considering Leo wasn’t his usual lechery self this week, he proved he could be an entertaining character.

Alas, that’s what I thought until Leo, upon discussing his past indiscretions, said something along the lines of, “What I tried to do doesn’t matter because it didn’t work.” To quote the Esurance commercial, “That’s not how it works. That’s now any of any of this works.”

Who Is This Really About?

Belle’s scenes with John were great, but Days is doing exactly what was feared and making Shawn’s rape about her. Of course, she should have feelings about what happened and even that Shawn didn’t tell her right away, but simply throwing out a line acknowledging that Shawn was victimized isn’t enough. Shawn should get time to process that the woman who has repeatedly tried to rape him succeeded and now she’s pregnant with his baby. Otherwise, it becomes as confusing as Sonny who suddenly cries every time he thinks about making Leo pay for what he did to him. Where were these emotions when it was actually happening?

On a side note, did anyone else wish we could have seen Belle actually getting drunk with EJ before she stumbled into John’s place?

What Was the Point?

Like all of the devil’s other plans, the point of his gender reveal cake snafu was unclear and anticlimactic. If he’s going to cause trouble with the cake, why not have it explode or poison it so everyone gets sick? Because a messy filling accomplished nothing. I take that back. It accomplished Ben and Ciara looking silly for creating such build-up to the big reveal only to have AllieDevil basically shrug and say, “It’s a boy.”

Was That It?

Speaking of anticlimactic events, is Sarah just gone now? To Days‘ credit, her leaving to get treatment in Florida is not how I saw this playing out, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. For one thing, her exit was done through dialogue between other characters. For another, the classic drama of her remembering and stopping the wedding to reunite with her true love isn’t going to play out. I suppose she could return upon getting better, but what will become of Xander until that happens? How will he react upon learning the lengths Gwen went to keep him and Sarah apart?

What’s Next?

The other big moment this week was that Eric came home. How great would Friday’s ending have been if it hadn’t already been revealed in a promo? Greg Vaughan teased a change in direction for the character where he’ll be involved with “new people and new faces and new opportunities.” What are your best guesses for what that means?

As I mentioned, the groundwork was laid for a lot of long-awaited fireworks next week. While I will continue to recap it, I will no longer be chiming in with my thoughts here. Instead, my Soaps.com colleague Curtis Harding will be offering up his views and takeaways on the goings-on in Salem.

Thank you all for joining me every week — whether you agreed with me or not!

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