Michael

That mostly does seem to be it, but

They've really leaned into the "Anna is kooky" thing since... maybe not her return in the 2000s, but since Tony's death in 2009 for sure. And yes, this weird little Tony interlude reeks of an Andre swap. Ugh. Did anyone catch that establishing shot of the neighborhood that the Horton home is allegedly in? It looked like a planned subdivision or a golf community or something. Such a weird mismatch. I did like a lot of the dialogue between JJ/Theo and Jen/Chad, though!

I think the chest is supposed to carry the character for us. The novelty of that wore off about eight years ago for me, but here we are. Also, I just waded through this ridiculous back-and-forth about women in their late 30s (if that's even the age these characters are) conceiving children, and I keep seeing people mention that Sophia committed arson by starting the dorm fire. Did she?! We saw Holly knock the candle into the trashcan. I feel like I'm hallucinating. Was this revealed at some point?

I'm two days behind, so there might be info I don't have, but Tony didn't buy DiMera back, right? He used the information about the fraudulent letter as leverage to get Xander and Philip to GIVE him DiMera back.

The optics of the JJ/Theo storyline continue to be really messy. As was just mentioned, the original storyline did this annoying thing where it gestured at an important social issue but didn't actually engage with it. Theo was committing a robbery at the time of the shooting. JJ was trying to stop a robbery in progress, not targeting a random black person. He also knew Theo personally -- which of course doesn't prevent or erase bias, but this wasn't someone he was only judging based on race or appearance. It was like they wanted credit for a topical storyline but without doing any of the work to engage with the real ugliness of the actual issue. The scenes in this revisit of that storyline have been strong, but they don't entirely make sense if you actually remember what happened. I do think JJ acknowledging his implicit bias wasn't supposed to be an admission of guilt, per se -- it was protecting him by having him acknowledge that all white people have implicit bias, and acknowledging it is the first step toward correcting behaviors. So for him to deny having it would've been more of a red flag for Jada, I think. Also, unless you're suggesting a triangle in which Theo is torn between Ari and JJ... Ari and JJ are biological cousins, so they couldn't play that a pairing there. The dialogue among Johnny, Chanel, and Holly was driving me nuts today. I know they were trying to string the whole thing out for dramatic effect, but Sophia sent those photos "this morning" so that they'd arrive while the social worker was there. Johnny said that they were sent "last night," which wouldn't make any sense unless he hadn't checked his phone AT ALL since the night before. Or am I losing it? And if those were the first messages or photos he'd allegedly gotten from Holly, how would the Anonymous Birth Mother have witness Holly sexting Johnny long enough ago to write that letter? They set up all these specific details and now they're playing fast and loose with them.

To be clear, I think the blackout mostly sucked and the logistics were executed poorly. I just think they mostly explained the timing of Sophia’s dumb plan. And it is DUMB: she is already worried about being connected to that baby… so she writes an anonymous letter identifying the mother as someone who knows both Johnny and Holly — well enough to have seen what Holly was texting.

The timeline didn't really make sense. The social worker came 30-45 minutes early, then they sat around eating pastries. Meanwhile Sophia sent the text and was later informed by Ari that Holly's whole episode happened "around 9 a.m." so... once again, time is a flat circle in Salem.

They showed a flashback to Sophia overhearing the exact time of Johnny and Chanel's scheduled visit from the social worker, so I presume she sent it at that time so it would pop up during the visit. That's about the only part that DOES make sense. Convenient that it arrived right as the anonymous letter was being read. And either the photo came from Holly's phone, which means Sophia stole it, or it came from Sophia's phone which would be easy to track. I wasn't clear. I assume the reason Holly was hospitalized in the morning was so that it'll eventually come out that Sophia set this all up since Holly couldn't have sent the photo, thereby clearing Johnny's name.

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...