Of Miracles and Cupcakes: Days of our Lives Two Scoops for the week of November 18, 2024

We don’t want to bury the headline, so let’s get it out there: Sarah can walk again! Were you really surprised? I thought not. Whenever a soap character gets paralyzed, blinded, or stricken with amnesia, you know that’s not going to be permanent. The fun is in sharing the journey to where they get cured, and Brady did a fine job convincing Kristen to fork over the serum developed by resident mad scientist Dr. Rolf.

Speaking of Kristen, she’s got some serious issues. Like, she’s totally obsessed with Brady, who keeps a cool head and knows that together, they are toxic. Kristen needs to get over him and move on to another guy. It’s funny that they ever got together to begin with because, let’s face it, she’s a snob. You’d think someone like Brady would be beneath her.

In other news, several cupcakes were delivered anonymously to the staff of Body & Soul. Not recalling the time when Talia put an aphrodisiac in the biscuits from Sweet Bits — and the chaos that resulted from it — several people, including Abe, Johnny, Alex, and Roman. They all got violently ill but recovered fairly quickly. You'd think at this point that Salem would outlaw baked goods.

Rafe and Jada celebrated their engagement while Gabi ironically dealt with her divorce. But the happy couple may not be happy for very long because Rafe admitted to having resentment. Apparently, laws don't apply in Salem because Paulina made the command decision to keep Jada as police commissioner and bump Rafe back down to detective hood. By law, he's entitled to get his job back because he was injured in the line of duty (his workman's comp must be ridiculously huge at this point).

But, Rafe resigned from the police force, not because he didn't want to work under Jada, but because he worked hard to get to commissioner and should rightfully get his job back. This isn't a gender issue, this is one man standing up for his rights, and I don't blame him. He's worried that his underlying resentment will cause tension in their relationship, and rather than suck it up and pretend everything is okay, he just gracefully bowed out to avoid any conflict.

Body & Soul premiered, and it's too bad we didn't get to see it. It would be nice for a whole episode to be an actual episode of the show-within-a-show. I've heard through the grapevine that B&S is the reason Ron Carlivati had to leave as head writer, and fans don't like the storyline. Personally, I think it's fun and creative and hasn't been done before on a soap (at least not to the best of my knowledge).

Everyone thinks Hattie is the one who sent the tainted cupcakes because she was unceremoniously dumped from the series. While that could be true, it's a little too obvious. I would imagine that it was probably Gwen who wanted revenge on Leo, because the show's debut coincided with the delivery of the cupcakes (all of which had B&S logos on them). She might know Leo's computer password and could easily have snuck into his hotel room to get all the info he's written about the show — both scripts and ideas that he got from his dreams.

Or, Colin could be back. He was the mastermind behind the tainted biscuit fiasco, and it seemed like something he would do just to get back at the Salemites who sent him up the river.

EJ took one of the cupcakes as well, but we didn't see what happened to him. Maybe he has a personal taste tester who makes sure his food isn't poisoned. I wouldn't put it past him to have one.

Johnny continues to beat himself up over cheating on Chanel with Joy. He should probably get together with General Hospital's Lucas, who's beating himself up over Sam's death, and they could have a lovely pity party.

Because Leo left Javi alone with his computer for a while, he immediately assumed that Javi not only shared the spoilers online, but also is pretending to be the "new" Lady Whistleblower. Javi explained he doesn't have the skill to do any of the things Leo accused him of and was butt hurt after Leo confronted him. Poor Leo can never catch a break.

Meanwhile, JJ finally came around to accepting Chad's plan to use Cat to flush out Clyde. Clyde phoned Chad with instructions on where to meet because he wants Cat — presumably to kill her. JJ agreed to be a decoy, disguised as Chad, and thinks he knows someone who can pretend to be Cat. You know this is going to go horribly wrong, and someone's going to either end up dead or in the clutches of the vile villain.

Ava was a little miffed that Tate dumped Sophia and went back to Holly, and she blamed Brady. Brady, of course, managed to smooth things over with her. But later, Kristen got jealous because Ava blabbed to her that Brady didn't make Kristen any promises in exchange for the serum, only that he would consider getting back together with her. Kristen was beyond angry, thinking he was just playing her. Uh oh.

One of the best moments this week was when Kristen barged into Sarah's hospital room and tried to forcibly get her on her feet. This was before she got pissed off at Brady, and it was shockingly hilarious to watch.

A nice side note is that Brady and Xander managed to patch things up. It would have been made better if Xander said, "I'm sorry I tried to smash your kneecaps with a baseball bat," but we'll take what we can get. Xander did kindly offer Brady his job at Basic Black back, which was a nice gesture. And Brady accepted the offer, so it seems his life is going back to normal. Somewhat. We don't know what scheme Kristen will come up with to hurt him, and right now, it's just the calm before the storm.

Johnny was talking in his sleep and said, “No, Joy. We shouldn’t do this.” Of course, Chanel walked into the bedroom and heard him say this out loud. When she asked what he was dreaming about, he lied and said it had something to do with the show when he and Joy had a disagreement about a scene. What a dope.

Johnny should have just said, I don't recall, as dreams fade away faster than failed television pilots.

Meanwhile, Philip encountered Stephanie and asked her to use her PR magic to make him look good before he goes to court to wrestle Titan from Xander (with his phony letter, no less). Thankfully, Stephanie gave him a resounding, "Absolutely no." Philip's a well that she doesn't need to go back to.

Steph recalled that they had once been engaged, but Philip pleaded with her that it would be strictly business with no hanky panky going on. Unfortunately, she acquiesced and agreed to work with him. But Alex is really starting to fall back in love with her, so I smell a love triangle headed our way.

Loose Ends

This brings us to the miracle serum. Kristen’s been boohooing that she couldn’t get Xander to relinquish Titan in exchange for it. Even though she now looks bad in the eyes of the board of DiMera Enterprises, this cure for paralysis will put her back in everyone’s good graces. But she’s been so focused on Brady that she didn’t realize she should have enthusiastically given Xander the potion because it would be a huge win for her if it worked.

At this point, she doesn’t know that Sarah can walk again, and she’s so mad at Brady for thinking that he strung her along she’ll be too busy scheming to get back at him to notice that she’s got a win. Of course, there will probably be setbacks for Sarah because…soap opera. And if someone invented a formula that could cure paralysis, it would revolutionize the world.

I doubt Kayla analyzed a sample so they could replicate it, which would have been the smart thing to do. Could Rolf have done something to it so that the chemical compounds can't be broken down? Is that even possible? Much like the Salem police, the medical staff aren't the best.

And what's up with Tate? He doesn't come across as a jerk, but he really screwed up. He said Holly's name when he and Sophia were bumping uglies, and she didn't take too kindly to that. So, instead of taking a moment to reassess his decisions, he just got back into the saddle with Holly. He stupidly confessed to her exactly what happened, and it appears the boy is just a clueless twit.

Extra Scoops

Hot

Leo finally found some happiness when he hooked up with Javi. Since they connected so well, he thought it would be something more than a one-night stand. Even though Leo conspired with Dimitri to marry Gwen so he could have access to his fortune, Dimitri dumped him with a Dear John letter. You could see on his face that when Leo found a new friend in Javi, he was truly happy once more after that last relationship left him under a mountain of sadness.

Not

Leo ruined his chances with Javi by accusing him of stealing Body & Soul spoilers from his computer and disseminating them on the Internet. A better approach would have been to ask Javi if he had been on his computer and told him what had happened. They would have had a much calmer conversation.

But Leo being Leo freaked out. There was a great shot when he was sitting at his computer and saw all of his hard work spoiled on the interwebs. The camera was looking down at him as he threw his arms up to the heavens and let out a blood-curdling scream.

Random Thoughts

Kate told Bonnie that she worried that others (besides Roman) who ate the mysterious cupcakes would get sick. After the whole Talia-tainted biscuits fiasco, Bonnie learned the lesson not to eat tasty pastries of an unknown origin. Instead of sitting there, calmly mulling it over, shouldn’t Kate have gotten on the horn and warned everybody? It was just people working on Body & Soul who received one, so it would have been easy for her to spread the word. Just a thought.

Those who ate the cupcakes got violently ill but seem all better now. Perhaps there’s going to be another after-effect coming? DAYS has often delved into science fiction, so wouldn't it be funny if those who ate the cupcakes suffered a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome where their id got out of control? They wouldn't have to physically transform, but watching each person turn into some kind of monster (until a cure is found, naturally) and the havoc they could wreak both verbally and emotionally would be highly entertaining.

Sophia and Aaron have been getting chummy since Tate made his egregious gaff in bed. I'm glad the show has taken these side characters and given them stories. Aaron seems to know what he wants in life and doesn't come across as wishy-washy like Tate.

They've also been dropping little nuggets here and there about Sophia's terrible home life, so it seems there's a lot of story potential to mine there. She's definitely an interesting character and may spice up the bland Aaron's life.

Parting thoughts

Why did Joy tell Alex that she slept with Johnny? When will soap characters learn that if they want to keep a secret, DON’T UTTER IT OUT LOUD?! Now that she’s done that, the secret’s bound to get out, and disaster will befall Johnny and Chanel. Oh well.

Until the sand falls out of the hourglass, join us again next time DOOL-ers!