Days of Our Lives Review Week of 5-24-21: Kristen Escapes Again

The Dimera family always gets away with murder, literally and figuratively.

So in a way, it was unsurprising that Kristen again tricked Susan, switched places with her, and walked out of the police station.

It’s no more unrealistic than any of the other cartoonish things she’s done lately, but that didn’t make it any less disappointing.

For a while, it looked like Kristen was finally getting at least some of what she deserved.

Brady’s decision to end their relationship has been a long time coming. It was made even more satisfying by the number of times he’s overlooked Kristen’s violent and destructive behavior and insisted that she’d changed.

Kristen: I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t thinking at all. I was just going from moment to moment trying to stop it all from falling apart.
Brady: You were panicking and while you were going from moment to moment you could have got people killed, people that I care about. Do you understand that?

Was I the only one who cheered when he told Kristen that he couldn’t do this anymore and that her obsessive version of love was not what he wanted?

Of course, this is Brady we’re talking about. He’ll quickly bounce to the next “love of his life” (probably Chloe), and then if/when Kristen shows back up, he’ll believe that this time she really and truly has changed.

I hope not, but if history is any guide, that’s exactly what’ll happen, and Kristen certainly thinks it will.

At last. I am free. Too bad I can’t say goodbye to my sweet Rachel. But it’s not forever. I’ll see her again. I’ll be with her and Brady again. Brady will forgive me. He always does. So long, Salem. You haven’t seen the last of me.

Kristen

It was a nice surprise that Chad also turned against Kristen too, though. He hasn’t been strong when it comes to manipulative women, but he let his sister have it with both barrels.

I was almost as proud of him as of Brady, and I WOULD have been proud of Ava too if she’d stuck to her guns and not helped Kristen escape.

Ultimately, Kristen’s latest plan was a rerun of everything she’d just been arrested for. She knocked Susan out and took her identity five minutes after Susan stopped impersonating her in jail!

That was part of what made it so disappointing. It was a repeated story beat, and at a time when audiences are totally burned out on Kristen pretending to be other people, too.

And I don’t care what Rafe said about the police station being short-staffed.

Kristen was known as a dangerous, violent criminal whose MO includes knocking people out and impersonating them.

At the very least, she should have been in handcuffs while in the interrogation room by herself, and ALL cops should have been trained to check anyone coming out of that room to make sure they weren’t Kristen in disguise.

I don’t understand why Ava decided to help her. Ava told her that she was not going to betray Rafe that way no matter what Kristen said about owing her, yet after the commercial, it appears Ava gave in.

Why? It just creates unnecessary drama between Rafe and Ava, especially after Ava swore she would never lie to him while lying to him.

Rafe and Ava’s conversation about it led to the two having sex, which means that when the truth eventually comes out, it’s going to be an ugly breakup even though it shouldn’t matter that much in the scheme of things.

My money is on Nicole being the one to expose Ava’s involvement. She and Ava confide in each other all the time, and Nicole secretly carries a torch for Rafe, so what stops her from using intel Ava gives her to blow up Ava and Rafe’s relationship, especially if Nicole loses Eric?

Of course, that’s not wise since Ava also knows Nicole’s secret, but still.

I feel sorry for Rafe. Everyone lies to him for unnecessary reasons. And Nicole can’t take the moral high ground here when she’s lying to him about her involvement with Xander, and he can sense it.

This whole Nicole/Xander blackmail storyline is ridiculous for many reasons, all of which boil down to Nicole not being as strong as she ought to be.

There’s no reason for her not to tell Rafe what she did.

Rafe is a good, nonjudgmental friend who probably would encourage her to confess her indiscretion to Eric and let the chips fall where they may, and he probably would try to handle Sami for her if he knew Sami was sticking her nose into it.

Instead, Nicole is acting like she cheated on Rafe and going out of her way to hide from him the fact that she not only slept with Xander but no Xander is trying to blackmail her over it.

Also, she should be glad that Sami already knows the truth. Yes, it’s embarrassing, and Sami will likely try to apprise Eric of this fact just to be petty (even though Sami is trying to hide her own infidelity from EJ…).

But doesn’t Nicole realize that Xander’s power to blackmail Nicole goes away if Sami knows the truth? He can’t threaten to tell Sami when Sami already knows, and everything Nicole said about Eric not listening to Xander about this still stands.

So Nicole can stop trying to convince Brady to hire Xander now.

In fact, she should tell him that Xander is blackmailing her again. Brady probably has little tolerance for such shenanigans after this whole Kristen debacle and would probably work with Nicole to neutralize Xander for once and for all.

As for Xander, I wish the writers would find something better for him to do than wander all over Salem either getting drunk or threatening people.

For example, he could find out that Kristen also kidnapped Sarah and find his bride so that they can get married after all.

That would require Xander turning away from the dark side, but it would be a more compelling story than this nonsense!

And what was up with him crossing paths with Gwen? That has to be leading somewhere other than them just exchanging words once. Will Xander redeem himself by being the one to take down Snyder?

Snyder’s blackmail scheme is equally ridiculous as any of the others we’ve been subjected to recently.

The Spectator is Salem’s biggest paper, and Jack is a star reporter, for God’s sake! Gwen could easily get Jack to undermine Snyder, and she wouldn’t even have to confide in him about her lie to do it.

All she’d have to do is mention that she overheard Kayla say that some drugs have gone missing from the hospital and that Snyder’s weird behavior made her wonder if he was the culprit. Jack could never resist a big story like that!

Speaking of Kayla, the only good thing about this entire Snyder mess is that she and Steve got the chance to share some romantic scenes while she attempted to let go of her irritation toward this annoying doctor.

40+ years later, these two still have the chemistry and strong relationship that made them one of daytime’s hottest couples back in the late 1980s.

Kayla: I can’t believe the way Snyder treats Tripp. It’s so unfair.
Steve: You know what else is unfair? That we only have a couple of hours together and we spent most of them talking about that jerk.

Nevertheless, though, I think Kayla needs to do something about Snyder.

No, she shouldn’t fight Tripp’s battles for him or let Snyder’s misbehavior interfere with her alone time with Steve. But the guy is incompetent, has a poor bedside manner, and is probably breaking a thousand hospital rules a day!

It’s beyond time to fire him. Only in Salem could a coma specialist keep his job after missing the fact that a patient had regained consciousness a month before he thought!

And why on Earth is he suddenly Kate’s doctor?

Snyder: Hmm.
Kate: What?
Snyder: The results of your exam are very clear. There’s not a damn thing wrong with your eyesight.

Kayla was tending to Kate’s coma. Kayla told Jake that Kate might have brain damage.

And all of a sudden, Snyder is in charge of her care, annoyed that people are asking him questions, and informing Kate that he sees through her blindness act (yes, that bad pun was intentional.)

If I were Kate’s family, I wouldn’t want the same guy who can’t tell the difference between comatose and awake in charge of her care.

But Snyder may have met his match. Kate is one of the few Salemites who not only doesn’t usually give in to blackmail threats but fights dirty to get out from under someone’s thumb.

So if Snyder tries to mess with her, he is going to regret it… if she is written in character and doesn’t suddenly become weak to keep this storyline going.

That’s a big if, though, considering how out of character Sami’s kowtowing to Kristen has been.

All of Sami’s fear of EJ finding out she slept with Lucas is ridiculous. Sami knows how to out-scheme EJ, and every time she and Lucas talk about how EJ will hurt or kill them, it just makes me wonder what the hell she sees in this guy.

EJ is nothing more than an abusive husband, no different than when he used the threat of letting Lucas die to force Sami to sleep with him in the first place.

Sami needs to have the same kind of realization that Brady had about Kristen and kick EJ to the curb for once and for all.

That’s why her insistence on proving Nicole cheated on Eric is so disappointing.

She and Nicole are essentially in the same situation. They both have strayed BECAUSE they realize something is seriously wrong in their marriage.

Sami even admitted she could empathize with Nicole. Sure, she was manipulative, but that also should have and could have been true.

And how fun would it have been for Nicole and Sami to be forced to team up to get rid of Xander and EJ so they can move on with their lives instead of being bitter enemies like usual?

Don’t get me wrong: Sami and Nicole’s exchanges were as fun as they usually are. But enemies working together is always equally entertaining.

Years ago, Kate and Sami becoming frenemies worked out well, so why not do that with Nicole now? Sydney and Allie would surely be grateful.

Sami’s insistence on finding out the truth is typical Sami, but there’s no need to drag Allie into the middle of this, nor is there any real need to play detective.

And Sami should have bigger things to worry about, with Kristen MIA and EJ more than likely heading back to Salem to straighten things out since he undid his payment to Xander.

Speaking of Kate, it seems like she and Gabi are about to begin a tug of war over Jake for a change.

Kate is faking blindness and amnesia, taking her cues from Ciara’s real difficulties in that area to manipulate Jake into spending time with her. At the same time, Gabi is name-dropping Chad 100 times per conversation to try to make Jake jealous enough to pay attention to her instead.

I can’t blame Gabi for that, though. Jake’s reassurances that reconciling with Kate “can’t happen” must seem empty when less than a month ago, he reassured Kate that a reunion with Gabi would never happen!

Gabi is ALMOST sympathetic here. When she’s not picking on Ava or Abigail, she comes across as a lot more human, so I’d prefer she be embroiled in this triangle even though Jake’s continual bouncing back and forth between these two women is not compelling.

The other big story to hit Salem is Jan’s kidnapping of Claire.

Ava: You were working late last night. You must be tired.
Rafe: I am. I gotta find Kristen. And Jan Spears. And Chloe Lane. And Claire Brady.

Rafe’s complaint about the amount of work he has to do underscores how overused the kidnapping trope is lately on Days of Our Lives.

Plus, this story has many plot holes and unrealistic coincidences that make it less enjoyable than it could be.

For one thing, Jan seems to have a magical ability to get into anyone’s house. She regularly shows up in Claire’s living room without being invited or let in, and she got into Charlie’s apartment to kill him without Charlie knowing she was there, too.

I guess no one locks their door, but the fact that Jan has broken into Belle’s home on multiple occasions to cause trouble when a cop lives there is disturbing, to say the least.

And this whole Belle and Shawn tricking Jan story that led to the kidnapping was unnecessary when there was a better option available: let Claire pretend to be Jan’s friend so she can get intel on her.

Finally, it’s a massive coincidence that of all the cars in the lot, Jan chose to force Claire into the one where Chloe had been stashed in the trunk.

Jan is probably the one person in Salem who hates Chloe more than Kristen does, so wasn’t that convenient?

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, viewers were forced to suffer through two days of an entirely pointless imaginary visit from Jordan.

If Ben is seeing his dead sister everywhere telling him that he’s worthless, that means his meds need to be adjusted. And these scenes felt like filler designed to stop Ben from answering the phone when Claire called for help and wasted time looking for her.

However, the Salem PD proved capable for once when Shawn got Philip the security footage, and they were able to find the tape of Jan making Claire get in the car right away.

If Philip’s search for Claire and Chloe redeems him enough in Chloe’s eyes for her to be interested in rekindling their old flame, that might make this silly story worth it.

Also, Philip once thought Claire was his daughter, so I’m cautiously optimistic that his history with her will come into play here.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics! Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know what you thought about the latest Salem goings-on.

Hungry for more Days of Our Lives chat? Be sure to check back on Sunday for our latest Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

Days of Our Lives airs on NBC on weekday afternoons. Check your local listings for airtimes.

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Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.

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