Days of Our Lives Review Week of 9-26-22: Time Doesn’t Heal All Wounds

Losing a child is one of the hardest things anyone can ever go through.

Although Jennifer’s been down this road before with Abigail’s fake death, Abby is gone for real this time, and her mother can’t handle the heartbreak.

But did Jennifer go too far on Days of Our Lives during the week of 9-26-22 when she drove drugged and ran over Gwen?

The writers have done a grave injustice by bringing viewers in only for the tail end of Jennifer’s drug relapse. Her decision to get her hands on painkillers, her efforts to do it, and her growing addiction to them were all off-screen.

All we got was one scene where Maggie tried to get her to throw away the pills and took her to a meeting. We then quickly shifted to Gwen’s discovery of the drugs, and even that was short-lived as Gwen waited all of one day before telling Jack the truth.

The accident could lead to fantastic drama. Jennifer ran over Jack’s wayward daughter, and she had more than one motive to do it on purpose. But the story isn’t as compelling as it would have been if we’d followed Jennifer through this journey.

She’s been one of Days of Our Lives’ leading ladies for over 30 years. She’s such an important character that the soap took the unusual step of recasting her when Melissa Reeves wasn’t available, even though Reeves has played her for decades.

So why didn’t she get a complete story this time? Cady McClain has the acting chops to pull it off; the few scenes she was given were powerful. Opioid addiction is far too common, which means this would have been a relatable story; sadly, many viewers have either struggled with it themselves or know someone who has.

If written correctly, this might have been an empowering story, but viewers were cheated out of that. Instead, it seemed like the writers wanted to turn Jennifer into a semi-villain and make the usually despicable Gwen into the hero. Ugh.

Jennifer seems to have a lot in common with her arch-nemesis Eve nowadays.

They both have done terrible things after a Weston killed their daughter, and now they have also both run someone over while inebriated. (In the late 1980s, Eve had been drinking before she stole a car and ran over an eight-year-old Sarah Horton.)

Eve’s reaction to all this would have been fascinating, but she’s not in town. What a shame! This would have been an excellent opportunity to add some more layers to Eve and Jennifer’s complex relationship.

In any case, neither Jennifer nor Gwen seems to remember that Jennifer ran Gwen over. What will happen when that truth comes out?

Will Jack protect his wife, or will he stand up for the daughter he’s so desperate to forgive?

Fans may feel betrayed if Jack chooses Gwen. While Gwen wasn’t at fault this time, he’s forgiven her repeatedly for horrible things she’s done to his family. She tried to break him and Jennifer up out of spite, and that was only the beginning of her reign of terror.

It wasn’t that long ago that Jack believed Gwen killed Abigail; even though he was wrong, the fact that he found it plausible that she did is a gigantic red flag. Gwen should be out of second chances by now.

Of course, Jennifer did almost kill Gwen, and that isn’t right either. She should, at the very least, confess to her crime and be sentenced to complete rehab. She should also temporarily lose her driver’s license.

Most of that probably won’t happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jennifer goes off to rehab without anyone ever knowing that she hit Gwen and the case goes cold.

Even if Gwen uses this incident to finally turn her life around and stop being so hateful, it’s too little too late. She’s done far too much to the Deverauxx family to be forgiven any too easily. Her character needs a new direction ASAP, and it would be best if she left town for a reset.

Instead, the Gwen/Xander/Sarah triangle will heat up again. Even though Xander and Sarah are married, Xander was eager to rush to Gwen’s bedside to keep her company until Jack could arrive.

Sarah can’t possibly be okay with that. Plus, Rex is back in town and working at the hospital. That could add more complications for Sarah and Xander.

I’d rather Rex’s sole purpose be to work on the antidote to the toxin that Marlena, Kate, and Kayla are infected with, but he always turns into a lovesick 15-year-old when he runs into Sarah. It’s hard to imagine that this time will be any different.

The toxin story was mostly backburnered, which was fine. We don’t need scene after scene of the women struggling to breathe while the men stand around helplessly.

Friday’s scenes were enough drama of that nature. John’s impassioned plea for God to save Marlena was moving, but too much of this would have crossed the line into depressing.

There was some unnecessary drama there, too, thanks to Stephanie being resentful that no one told her.

I’m surprised she went along with Kayla’s plan to downplay the severity of her illness to Joey and Tripp. You’d think Stephanie wouldn’t be eager to do the same thing to her brothers after being kept in the dark herself.

Kate is supposedly also seriously ill, but I didn’t buy that. She seemed like she had nothing worse than the tail end of the flu as she lay in bed discussing the situation with Roman and Rex.

This toxin story is a nice nod to the past, but I’d think the Dimeras would want Orpheus to suffer consequences for stealing a toxin from the Dimeras and using it against women who were important to Stefano.

Once Kristen stopped throwing a tantrum about Rolf’s refusal to brainwash Chloe for her, she should have sworn revenge.

Instead, I have a sinking feeling that my prediction from last week was correct: Kristen will offer John the antidote if and only if Brady agrees to break up with Chloe.

At least if we go that route, it’ll kick this Stefan story into higher gear. Stefan’s attempt to win Chloe by remembering her birthday was as tedious as ineffective.

Predictably, Chloe understood that Brady’s stepmother being on death’s door took precedence over celebrating her birthday. Brady didn’t doubt her fidelity for a second when he walked in on her and Stefan having a toast.

There was no drama there. These scenes were pointless and silly, and Stefan seemed delusional when his takeaway from it was that he was “making progress.”

Similarly, there was zero reason for Li to visit Chloe to check up on her, and she should have been suspicious of his questions. 90% of the conversation was about whether she was sure she didn’t want to get back together with Stefan!

Since Chloe already suspects Kristen’s involvement in Stefan’s resurrection, it shouldn’t be a leap for her to realize that Li is involved, especially since he’s being so obvious about it.

This story has just started, but it needs to go. It’s far less interesting than everything else. If we must have Stefan, he’s far more compelling as EJ’s partner in crime.

EJ’s constant attempt to regain his position as CEO is annoying, though. How much of this drama remains behind the scenes? Customers would lose confidence in this company if they knew about the constant battles in the boardroom, especially since EJ keeps trying and failing to oust Gabi.

This latest attempt may fail, too. I’d put even odds on Stefan regaining his memory right before the vote and throwing his weight behind Gabi.

The week’s biggest story was the fallout from the discovery that Clyde killed Abigail.

For some reason, some viewers doubt Clyde is the killer even now, but at this point, there’s no way out of this conclusion. Clyde had flashbacks of both Sonny’s attack and Abigail’s murder. He did it. It wasn’t Craig or anyone else in a Clyde mask.

The only one who has access to new masks is Kristen, anyway, and she would have no reason to help anyone frame Clyde for Abigail and Sonny’s attacks.

Great. I have a murderer on the loose and two Dimera brothers out for revenge.

Shawn

Instead of telling Rafe what he knew, Chad took matters into his own hands, nearly getting himself killed. As usual, the police force was worse than useless so that Chad could have his big confrontation.

Clyde’s reason for killing Abigail was ridiculous. Supposedly, he was trying to kill Belle and only stabbed Abigail because she threatened to call the cops. There were people with far more motive to kill Abigail than Clyde, and his explanation didn’t make this any easier.

Clyde keeps saying that Abigail was a slut who turned Ben into a serial killer. Leaving aside the fact that this is the first time he’s complained about this in all the years since Ben’s arrest, was Abigail’s murder random, or did he want revenge?

The writers can’t seem to make up their minds about this, making it seem like they hadn’t decided on a killer and tacked on this solution to the mystery at the last second.

Jack’s attempt to confront Clyde was as much of a waste of time as Steve’s confrontation with Orpheus. But Nancy and Clyde’s scenes were interesting.

Clyde displayed a softer side to Nancy. Abusers often engage in love bombing to keep the object of their torment bonded to them, and in part, this is what he was doing. But I also did not doubt that Clyde loved Nancy as much as someone like him could love anyone.

His desire to avenge Nancy’s heartbreak by framing Leo for Sonny’s attack seemed more logical than his reason for killing Abigail in the first place.

But Nancy showed the backbone that’s been missing since she fell for Clyde when she told him that she was so desperate for love after Craig that she jumped into a relationship with the first man who showed any interest in her and refused to do anything with him other than pray for him.

It’s also time for Joy to come back to Salem. She has been mentioned several times, missed both of her parents’ wedding disasters, and could be an extra shoulder for Nancy to cry on.

Finally, Abigail appeared to Chad as a ghost — unlike when Jennifer hallucinated, she spoke.

Her scenes with Chad were a beautiful ending to their love story. Abigail encouraged Chad to move on with his life and gave him tacit permission to fall in love again.

It should take Chad years to be ready to date, but three months’ worth of grief is a long time for most soap characters. Now that he’s got the closure he needs, he’s probably going to move on to the next love of his life.

He had chemistry with Stephanie, and she’s now annoyed with Alex. Could this be where Chad’s story is going?

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics! Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know your thoughts about the aftermath of the Clyde reveal, whether Kristen will use the antidote to get her way, and anything else on your mind about Days of Our Lives.

If you’re eager for more DAYS chat, check out the latest Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion. (New Round Tables post each Sunday.)

Days of Our Lives streams exclusively on Peacock TV. New episodes drop on weekdays at 6 AM EST / 3 AM PST.

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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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