Michael

This is the intensity I was hoping for.

Right. People just saying, "Oh, it's not safe to drive, so we'll sit here and eat chips/dance/talk about Titan" doesn't feel elevated at all. I do like Judi Evans' haircut, though. It's insane to me that Bonnie and Maggie are sitting around HUGGING, but the hair looks good!

Why are we doing a blackout if people can move around freely and half the scenes feature people using generators to have lights, electricity, internet, etc??

Thank you! I obviously remember Martha's maternity leave but had blocked out additional kids for Lily.

I even watched ATWT throughout this decade and only remember Faith existing. Was Holden the father of all three??

I know time is a flat circle in Salem, but Theo should be in the Johnny/Chanel age range, since they're obviously the same age as Allie, who is the same age as Claire and Ciara, who went to high school with Theo. (Whew!) So I think Theo is an age group down from Stephanie at this point.

Did NOT expect to hear the name Selejko on Days in 2025!

Agreed. It's not super-consistent with whoever Tony's been since 2019, but it's at least kind of interesting?

That was Andre! See?! It's craziness.

They were cousins until 2015, and the story had been that Andre (Stefano's nephew) for some reason got plastic surgery to look just like Tony. Then in 2015, Andre showed up and was like, "Btw I found out I'm actually your son, Stefano!" They never explained it beyond that. You're both probably right. I know the "Plan to Save Days" stuff started around that time. The media blitz about JER returning definitely had a whiff of "we're gonna right this ship!" -- it felt like they had hit the "Break Glass in Case of Emergency" point by having him do double-duty with Passions. It also felt like Higley's stuff had barely aired when we found out JER was coming back, but that might be my memory warping things a bit.

Andre being four years younger than Tony is the most insane and random fact. They've never told us who his parents are, how he became Stefano's son, or what he looked like before having this radical surgery, but we know THAT!

Technically, never! DiMera Enterprises wasn't a thing until 2008-09. Tony "died" in 2009 (when Stefano was alive and running things) and didn't come back to life until 2019, and he's been very in-and-out since then. So I have no idea why he cares this much about "Faaaaaaaathuh"'s stupid company.

There was definitely something weird there. The talk has always been that C&B's show was too expensive, and Higley pitched a bible that was way more affordable and producible, but she was out almost as soon as she started. I think JER's arrival was the first "Plan to Save DAYS!"

Bo and Hope getting bonked at the fashion show was definitely the start of the SSK storyline. It was probably technically a transition week, but that was absolutely JER’s big return. The entire episode was like a hard reset of the show.

Thanks for the reminder about Tony and Anna. It’s seemed weird that they’ve mostly been in separate episodes.

Have Anna and Tony been in a single scene together since their return this past spring/summer?

DEAD. It's so true. I don't think it's unreasonable for Tate to want to know what actually happened to his child, or for Brady to want to know what happened to his grandchild. Especially since Sophia is very clearly lying about something. And now there's a very specific child who could actually be that child -- it doesn't seem crazy or unfair to want that information. I'm still unclear how Sophia would've been able to give up this baby for adoption without the legal consent of the biological father, but that's another story...

I... thought the Solana backstory worked? I mean, an exposition dump of that nature is always tough, but there have been SO many news stories about exhausted and disoriented parents leaving children in hot cars for an entire workday, leading to their deaths. It happens a LOT. The legal cases surrounding those incidents have received a lot of coverage. I definitely couldn't watch the whole thing play out onscreen, but as backstory that adds depth, I find it pretty compelling. I even thought the acting was okay? I think where it faltered is that we had almost no buildup to this. We had two mentions that Javi previously had a child, and then BAM. A normal person would probably go to that level of histrionics in revealing a story like that, but we didn't have weeks of intrigue and near-misses and half-truths before the whole thing came spilling out. That, and the pretty static way it was shot, really undercut the whole thing. Greg Rikaart had a great expression as Leo when he hugged Javi and then looked over his shoulder with this "Holy sh*t" look.

When that long promo video came out, I was sure that Thaao was playing Andre in those clips and that there had either been a switch or Tony had just been Andre all along. But now I'm not so sure. I kind of think they just decided to write Tony being more devious, and Thaao is playing the same way he played Andre from 2015-17 because he doesn't have a damn clue who Tony actually is, since they retconned half his life away and the actual Tony has done so little of consequence.

Nice to have confirmation on who's playing him. Thanks for posting!

Thanks! I didn't realize they divorced offscreen between the '84 exit and that Doug return. I'm actually surprised/relieved they didn't recast Julie with someone cheaper.

I'm so lost on what was Sheila and what wasn't and who was where when... I know the recent B&B years are all clearly canon but it's weird she's so fixated on Finn with no thought about any of the other kids.

Yeah, I thought Bo/Gabrielle actually kinda worked and was liked!

It's stupid/insane but honestly more plausible than half the sh*t this show tries to sell us. It's an adjunct position teaching a film class, and he directed a bunch of television just in the past year. Him working at Titan-DiMera was almost a bigger leap.

Bill Hayes also had that weird 1986 return without SSH where he... became mayor or something? Did they explain why Julie wasn't around for that?