j swift

I'm going to say... tenure, (ya that's the ticket)—once you've put in five years at ISA headquarters, you get your field officer wings and can live wherever you want (source: ISA Employee Handbook, 2025). Cat is an ISA analyst, which has been a work-from-home gig since the pandemic. 🥸😉 Also, doesn't Paul coach a baseball team in DC? Everyone’s busy counting who’s in what scene this month, but I’m over here wondering what it was like when Kim and Theresa were under the same roof. That must’ve been wild. It’s honestly a shame we never got to watch them together. And finally—yes, I know they need a visual prop for One Stormy Night, the book that’s apparently making Kate and Kayla blush. But I keep getting distracted by the fact that everyone has a paper copy. Rita’s clearly been grinding. Stephanie and Alex are too young to own a printer. And Kayla owns an iPad. Just say it’s a PDF on the cloud so I can stop fixating and pay attention to the real mystery: why are Kayla and Steve getting turned on by their daughter's romantic fantasies 🤮

Thanks, @janea4old. Totally fair that some of these plot threads aren't your favorites. I think we're just coming at this from slightly different angles. I'm less interested in whether Cat deserves a story and more intrigued by how the writers are recontextualizing her function. Resetting her as ISA analyst (specifically not a field agent) gives them license to connect her to long-term players and plot-heavy arcs, which opens narrative utility even if she’s not popular. It reminds me of how they once used characters like Billie. Not always beloved, but flexible for cross-plot stitching.

One more thing (sorry in advance for being so long-winded today) Okay, but here’s the part of EJ’s logic that doesn’t make any sense. He says he found the hidden camera, removed the memory card, and then he was shot. The footage on the card shows Johnny in the room, possibly with a gun, before EJ removed the card. That means the last thing the camera recorded was Johnny being there—not the shooting. So if Johnny was on camera and EJ removed the card afterward, then Johnny clearly left before the shooting happened. He can’t be the shooter unless the camera magically stopped recording early—which it didn’t. This isn’t ambiguous. The timeline on-screen actually exonerates Johnny, not implicates him. I’m not sure why EJ’s acting like this is proof against Johnny, unless he’s just panicked and not thinking straight.

Given my awful memory for Days Backstage news, I look forward to a surprising treat next spring. 😉 #nospoilersintherecapthread. Has anyone calculated how long this means Chad will be gone from Salem? Billy Flynn mentioned having a "good-bye" scene with Julie. So, I wonder if we could estimate based on the filming schedule and the announcement how long it will be between BF-Chad and CF-Chad?

I think we're conflating two different things. You're recapping Andrew's on-screen reasoning for getting married. I'm suggesting how the writers and producers might have planned to get the maximum amount of content given budget limits. I assume it was probably cheaper to kill three birds with one stone. That way they could film, (1) the funeral, (2), Andrew's wedding, and (3) fit in Cat's backstory, while only needing the actors to appear in a limited amount of scenes. In other words, while it would be nice if we could bask in the glow of Paul and Andrew's love. It would've cost more to have Shane and Andrew come back at a later date to fill in Cat's backstory. My attempt at humor may not have landed. But, I was commenting on the idea that Paul and Andrew got engaged before Sofia knew she was pregnant. So, they've already waited awhile. Thus, they didn't need to get married two days after one of the groom's father's funeral. But, it was convenient given the real life status of the actors and their availability. 🤭 Furthermore, if we extrapolate from Cat being re-set as an ISA analyst (like Chloe from 24), it also provides a clever way for DAYS to tell espionage stories in the future. Cat could be in contact with agents in the field like Andrew, and communicate their whereabouts and capers to viewers, without having to build shoddy sets and pretend it looks like a Parisian hotel suite. I mean, the series 24 could've been made for $24 an episode if the whole story was told from Chloe's POV at CTU-Los Angeles. 🥸

I considered that, but she must have been recruited after the accident, because it is inferred that Shane's promise to help retrieve Katharina (who Cat thought had died in the accident) is the reason Cat joined the ISA. Thus, the car accident must have been truly an accident. But, Clyde and the ISA used the Greene's unawareness of Katharina's survival of the accident as leverage to get Cat on their side. Amusingly, she's the daytime version of Chloe O'Brian from 24, except of course, in Salem even the data analysts look like supermodels.

Okay, I think I’ve finally cracked the Cat Greene timeline. This has been bugging me for weeks, and now that we’ve had a few more reveals, it actually does make sense. So here’s what happened. The Greene family—Mr. Greene, Katharina, Mark, Cat, Felicity, and Aaron—originally lived in Vancouver. For over 30 years, they were full-time Canadians. Then about three or four years ago, there was a major car accident. The Greene parents were believed to have died, and Cat was badly injured. She needed extensive reconstructive surgery, which explains why none of her siblings recognized her when she resurfaced. Now here’s the key bit: After her surgery, Cat was somehow informed—either by ISA or through her own investigation—that their mother, Katharina, wasn’t actually dead. She was being held captive by Clyde Weston. Enter Shane Donovan. Cat gets recruited by the ISA as an analyst, not a field agent, which probably means she’s great with tech and surveillance (I’m picturing her in front of a laptop, breaking through Clyde’s crypto holdings). While she’s working this case, she likely pieces together where her mother is and who’s behind it. She tells Mark. And Mark, who is already basically raising Aaron and Felicity, applies for a residency at Salem University Hospital—probably both for career reasons and to get closer to where Cat’s investigation is leading. He gets the job, and the whole family moves to Salem. That’s the first time the Greene siblings are actually in Salem full-time. But then Clyde strikes. He kidnaps Cat—probably because she was getting too close to the truth—and holds her in the same place as John Black. Chad eventually rescues her, but that's a set-up for the entire “fake Abigail” plan. Which the ISA must have known about. This explains why Andrew told Chad that Cat wouldn't be prosecuted after he was in attendance at the wedding in Paris last year when Mark tried to shoot Chad. Because Andrew would've known Cat was ISA. IRL, it also explains the odd timing of Andrew's wedding occurring so soon after the funeral. I predict they wanted Andrew and Shane to dump all this exposition now, so that explains Andrew's sudden urge to get married on a Monday in a public park, given that he's been engaged to Paul since Thanksgiving 2024. I also predict @AbcNbc247 isn't going to like it if Cat becomes the focus of Andrew's wedding. Unfortunately, poor Mark and his mother are still in jail---which is what Shane is probably using to get Cat to got back to her analysis work (it also would explain her being a good assistant to Marlena, she's good with schedules and keeping secrets -- but given her ISA training she may have been vastly underpaid by Marlena for such a skilled work. It also explains the inclusion of the meth angle to the Versavix story, and that might bring back Shawn's old schoolmate Asher. Asher seems to have definitely been a more recent addition, which suggests to me that the retcon of Cat as an ISA agent was probably not part of RonC's vision for the character. I realize the character of Asher was previously established. But his proximity to the meth lab seems to be an invention of the writers who wrote John's death scene. That concludes by book report on Cat Greene….

I smiled at all the discarded script pages under the table. They could be anything, I guess. But, (side note), isn't interesting that productions haven't moved to digital scripts just as a cost saving move? The production could send them by encrypted emails.

I assume that will be Well, to be fair, Macdonald Carey/Tom wouldn't have sounded that way when Hope was a little girl,... That's voice and gravitas of an old man

I think we’re all happy for Hope that she didn’t have to pin this thing to her head again 40 years later. (It looks painful) Also, I liked the Steve episode on Monday. But it's teetering on the edge of too much. And as much as I don’t love Cat or Doug3, I’d kind of like to get back to more pressing concerns than a full week of flashbacks. That said, I do enjoy that Aaron and Cat now share a genetically inherited goofiness. It's an unexpected but welcome Greene family trait. We never really got to see that side of Dr. Mark—and everyone seems to have forgotten about him anyway. I’m curious about the choice to make Javi a paramedic. I assume it’s a way to get him into more hospital-based stories, but that character is still paper-thin. It feels like with Javi and EJ, we’re inching toward making the hospital matter again as a workplace. I’m into that. I also like the idea of GabiChic, and I hope we still get some fashion-driven content out of it (pun very much intended).

Has anyone asked Doug3 to speak French? His grandfather had the thickest French accent ever on daytime TV. If this guy's Doug3, then why doesn't at least say mon Dieu! now and then???? 🇫🇷 - Vive la France

Nope. Brady definitely favors his kinda-grandpa Ernesto. They have the same strong jawline. They were both cheated upon as an open secret. And, Brady absolutely inherited his affinity for a bad idea, from the guy who brought a vat of acid on a cruise ship. 🤔

I just finished watching and I have to admit, not once did I find myself wondering who wasn't there. Quick question for anyone who followed this better than I did: was it only Andrew who rescued Cat and John from Clyde, or was Shane involved too? The reactions during their scenes today felt a little off to me. I know it was meant to be vague, but I didn't find it strange that they already knew each other.

I thought Cat would know Shane from the rescue mission that saved her and John from Clyde? I wonder if the next beat comes from exploring Cat and John's imprisonment?

Speculation about Missy Reeves' potential evolution on basic civil rights doesn’t change my opinion of her. My view is shaped entirely by her public social media presence—which I find unpalatable—and I have no interest in learning more beyond that. I simply liked Jennifer’s hair and dress. That’s as far as my admiration goes.

I tend to think that Chad will actually listen to Jen (this time). And that will be the next stumbling block in their relationship, which will open the possibilities for Cat to seek another member of their love triangle... To iterate my earlier thought, I am also not a fan of the person Melissa Reeves, but the character of Jennifer looks so chic this week, especially in comparison to Hope (and Gabi). That blunt haircut is a winner.

@DeeVee Claire is a perfect example. So many women came to Springfield as competent, smart, and talented professionals. Then they’d attract a so-called “good guy,” get dumped, and spiral into complete chaos. What always strikes me is how clearly it plays like a male fantasy—yet it was written and sold to a female audience. I'm not a content expert, but I don't think cis gendered women fantasize about losing control of their mental faculties in response to an orgasm. Similar to Holly's story, it seems repulsive, because I don't believe women fantasize about becoming more vulnerable and appealing to men after they've been assaulted.

I hope so, you have certainly calmed my nerves a bit. Thanks for the context.

Post-production isn't exactly akin to sweeping the floors, but it makes more sense given her CV. And, it would invalidate any concerns that she has an undo influence on the creative process, as opposed to visual and sound design of the show. In fact, given her interests, it makes sense that she would want to consult and see the impact of newer technology in a post-production facility. I could only imagine how much has changed in sound technology since she worked on SB, and that might be intriguing to utilize. As well as their impending move (not as soon as B&B, but we all know it will happen) and helping set up post-production at the new facility.

I'm getting worried that either Bo is only appearing in Hope's mind (which is indicated by his lack of changing wardrobe), or the drug is going to reverse course and put him back in a coma. I just want some optimism from Bo's story, and I fear the rug is going to get pulled out from under Hope. My only hope is that the EJ's hospital purchase seems to be a long term commitment to center EJ's base of power at the SUH, and that would be undermined if Versavix doesn't work. So, maybe Bo will survive? I'm holding out for a proverbial hero. And Hope looks like she dragged that dress out of a trunk from back in her ice skating days.

I read that, but my interpretation was that she is uncredited because it is in a non-production capacity. In others words, she's not secretly producing, or writing, as some had speculated prior to the confirmation. Her likeliest position would be in a post-production consultant capacity. I assume we agree on this?

I understand why people speculate, but I have to say it doesn’t sound very plausible that Jill Farren Phelps would be working at Y&R in any uncredited role. CBS daytime shows are tightly bound by union contracts and corporate oversight, and that kind of informal arrangement would be a major liability in 2025. Before the mergers of SAG-AFTRA and the two WGA branches, it may have been easier to hire someone quietly or off the books. But those days are behind us. With digital payroll, tighter pension tracking, and increased scrutiny from legal and compliance departments, it’s just not the kind of thing anyone can get away with anymore. Most union members, especially producers nearing retirement, would not risk their eligibility or benefits to take an uncredited role. The Producers Guild of America is also very clear about crediting. To even receive the PGA mark, a producer has to be verified through a formal review process. According to their credit certification guidelines (source), "only individuals who performed a majority of the producing functions on a motion picture or television production" are eligible for credit, and those credits must be official and recorded. If someone is functioning in that capacity, they are not supposed to be uncredited. Studios that are union signatories, like CBS and Sony, know better than to skirt those rules. If anyone has a legitimate, primary source confirming that CBS is hiring someone like Phelps in an uncredited production role, I’d honestly be curious to read it. But without that, this just feels like rumor—not reality.

I keep thinking about the persistent trend of eroticizing mental illness on Guiding Light. Sonni and Annie were never more compelling, or more attractive to the show, than when they were manic. It played into a recurring theme: strong women undone by their unhinged reaction to sex. The writers were likely inspired by Basic Instinct and the broader wave of neo-noir films in the late '80s and early '90s, where female sexuality was often equated with instability. The result was a crude portrayal, not just of mental illness, but of womanhood itself. Both Sonni and Annie were introduced as sharp, capable women, brought in specifically as formidable antagonists to Reva. They were logical and composed, standing in contrast to Reva’s emotional volatility. That difference made them threatening, but not especially “sexy”—until desire became their undoing. In a very male fantasy, their strength unraveled the moment they slept with Joshua. As soon as they got a taste of Lewis lovin’, they spiraled into scheming lunatics, willing to torch everything to hold on to him. It was part of a larger trend in the culture. Fatal Attraction, Single White Female, and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle all traded on the idea that female desire was dangerous, barely held in check, and always teetering on the edge of madness. Looking back, it's a pretty grim trope. And while it's not completely vanished, I'm grateful we don't see it quite as often today.

I'm suddenly fearful that DAYS is going to pull a Flowers-for-Algernon stunt and Bo's progress will be reversed. While @te. is stuck on Abe's tiny bedroom, I can't stop thinking of the size of Bo's huge hospital room.

Trigger warning for SA, but this popped up on my TikTok algorithm v15044gf0000d11rn6nog65g3q6klkhg.MP4