A New DAYS Has Dawned: Days of our Lives Two Scoops for the week of April 21

One thing about watching Days of our Lives on Peacock Premium with no commercials is that the show is a different length every day. Each morning, we sign on like it's a game. How long will DAYS be today? Rarely is it ever longer than 41 minutes. And then came Friday, April 25, when our beloved soap was...48 minutes long. Now, that's a lot of soap opera on a show that actually felt like a soap opera for the first time in ages.

Our mini soap is a real soap

For the last few years, DAYS has almost felt like a parody of a soap opera in what often seemed like self-contained episodes with two different shows happening at the same time. Plots didn't interconnect, and characters interacted within a bubble, rarely branching out into other stories and mixing things up. Entire episodes had absolutely nothing to do with the episode before, so it was easy to just watch some of the time to only see your faves when the objective is to get viewers to tune in (or, in DAYS' case, stream) every day.

On Wednesday, the last episode with former head writer Ron Carlivati's work streamed. On Thursday, Paula Cwikly and Jeanne Marie Ford's work made its debut, and for the first time in a long time, DAYS flowed like a soap opera. The new writers understood that the best way to mix things up and get characters to interact again was to throw them all together for a big event, in this case, the Salem University fundraiser carnival.

The plotlines already set up flowed through as Gabi bid $10K on Alex, whom she has barely ever had scenes with, during the bachelor auction. She did this to make JJ jealous because he'd accused her of shooting EJ. Outside in Horton Town Square, the writers remembered that Sarah raised Rachel during the first year of her life and would have an attachment to her. So, of course, she wouldn't have minded keeping an eye on her at the carnival. That little natural nod to not-so-distant history is the soap touch DAYS had been lacking for quite some time.

The scenes also seemed longer, which could account for the fact that Thursday and Friday's episodes were not 31 minutes long, which was not an unheard-of length for DAYS over the last few years. Longer scenes, natural interactions, and more grounded dialogue made us feel like we were in our Salem again — and that's before we even get into the actual storylines, so let's head there now.

With a new DAYS come a new EJ

We have no idea if EJ's supposed new leaf is an act or not, but we are willing to go along for the ride. Kristen also has no idea if it's an act, but she doesn't like it either way. Honestly, one of the highlights of the week was her reaction to the new EJ. She was absolutely incredulous that EJ now wants to be...nice. Who is this man before her? The DiMeras aren't nice people! (Well, except maybe Chad and Johnny, but they seem to be the black sheep of this clan.)

Kristen was so discombobulated that she had a meltdown over a nice EJ right in his hospital room. What made these scenes all the more hilarious was that the actors had just shared scenes earlier in the week when Stacy Haiduk put on her Susan persona and mothered her sweet little baby Elvis. The contrast between the always-weird Susan as the doting mother and always-high-strung Kristen as the furious sister never ceases to entertain, but typically, when Susan is around EJ, Kristen is out of sight and out of mind for weeks. This was a nice change and we hope we see more of it.

Sarah is still Sarah-ing

We're glad that Xander now knows of Philip's duplicity and is even aware that Alex and Stephanie were kinda-sorta in on it, but we still have to get through Sarah's guilty facial expressions she will show anyone but Xander. The looks she gives everyone covering for her both amuse and exasperate us. We have had zero sympathy for Sarah during this plot and have even less so now that Xander knows half of the truth.

It also turns out that Sarah didn't have to worry about Xander immediately killing Philip after all. For the sake of Titan, he is even still willing to work with Philip. Considering how self-righteous Sarah can sometimes be, we do enjoy her being dead wrong on this one.

Sometimes Chanel deserves better

Chanel hasn't been having an easy time of it with married life. She ended up stuck in a snow drift on her honeymoon, learned she had radiation poisoning, had a molar pregnancy, and then learned her husband nearly slept with another woman due to his own immature and irrational jealousy. Johnny is one lucky man that Chanel took him back to quickly and easily, but if she now kicks him the heck out, we wouldn't blame her.

Just as Chanel thought she and Johnny could finally adopt Tate and Sophia's baby and become parents, Johnny got ready to throw her a curveball. When Tate throws Johnny a fist this coming week, we will be cheering this on.

The gun(s)

One thing we hoped not to see when the new writing debuted was constant flashback scenes of every EJ shooting suspect remembering having a gun that night. We get it. Everyone was gunning for EJ and still may be. There is no longer any need to set up the suspects because that was done ad nauseum already. So, maybe it's time to actually start giving us some hints as to who actually did this, so the audience can play along and solve this crime.

We acknowledge it's only been two days, and if the change in DAYS since then continues, we expect to get a move on it soon. We also expect another story to take center stage, and we can't wait.

Holding out for Salem's forever hero

It wasn't lost on us that Ford and Cwikly very quickly dove into righting a wrong (or writing a wrong) done to us by some powers that be, which had nixed Carlivati's plan to give Bo and Hope their happily ever after two years ago. The last few seconds of Friday's episode will usher us into every 1980s DAYS fan's fantasy come true. Beauregard Aurelius Brady is coming home — after Shawn saves his life, of course.

We are still pinching ourselves that this is happening as we remember that Fourth of July carnival 42 years ago when Bo and Hope kissed for the very first time. Ten years ago, Bo died in Hope's arms in that very same spot, and a soap era had ended. Except, it didn't. In 2022, we learned that Megan Hathaway (DiMera) had Bo cryogenically frozen and finally thawed him out.

Bo and Hoep's reintroduction to the scene also happened organically. Jada had decided to move on from Rafe once and for all, and jumped right into a casual Chinese food dinner with Shawn in Bo and Hope's old house, where Shawn now lives. As they got to know one another better, Hope called to deliver bad news about Bo. In our living rooms, all we could think was, "And we're off. It's time for Days of our Lives to be Days of our Lives again."

Catch all-new episodes of Days of our Lives weekdays on Peacock.