Slaps and Brainwashing: Days of our Lives Two Scoops for the week of December 9, 2024

Now that Rafe works for Black Patch on Days of Our Lives, Leo hired him to uncover who this new Lady Whistleblower is who’s revealing spoilers from his show Body & Soul, threatening to tank it. Rafe immediately comes to the conclusion that Hattie’s the perpetrator. He's acting like this is something original that he came up with, but her name has been thrown about, and while it seems too obvious to be her, He may be on to something. However, when Jada learns about it, she doesn’t want him to pursue Hattie because she’s a suspect in the drugged cupcake incident. After Rafe goes off anyway to find Hattie, Javi warns Jada that Leo is a no-good troublemaker and she should tell Rafe not to work for him. He's just hurt because Leo blamed him for swiping show info, but he seems to be protesting a little too much. He's Rafe's cousin, so he's immediately off the suspect list, but what if...?

Later, Leo’s in Horton Square and encounters Javi, who’s surprisingly nice to him. He tries to get Javi to go back to his room just to watch the latest Body & Soul episode and nothing else. But then Kerry, Leo’s former groupie who he almost had a one-night-stand with, shows up, and it turns out he and Javi were going on a date, having met on a dating app. Kerry's just a smarmy dude who seems to have a chip on his shoulder. He thinks he's all that, but Leo knows otherwise.

Meanwhile, EJ gave Joy a check so that she would leave Salem permanently. But Kate showed up, unaware that the deal was going down. Joy claimed she was leaving town because she missed New York, and the shooting pace on B&S was too much for her. She had a great excuse: She hired EJ to get her out of the TV show contract. I love how contracts on soaps can be easily refuted and gotten out of with a little legerdemain.

But savvy Kate managed to talk Joy out of leaving town, explaining she believed the girl would become a star. Although it can be said that most people who want to become actors dream of being a star, very few truly achieve that level of success. Kate's not wrong — Joy does have a kind of charm and if given the right role, she could become the next Ali McGraw or Kim Darby. So, Joy changed her mind and decided to stay, much to EJ’s chagrin, and we kind of laughed as his plan fizzled out to nothingness.

At the DiMera mansion, Alex barged in and tore Johnny a new one because of EJ’s plan to buy out Joy and send her packing. Johnny tells him it's none of his business, and as things get heated, Chanel, of course, walks in and asks what they’re fighting about. Uh oh! But you knew they'd be able to come up with an excuse, and they did when Johnny blurted out that Alex slept with Joy.

The hilarious tension between the men at that moment was priceless. Although Alex, who begrudgingly went along with Johnny's ruse, argued that since he and Joy were single, no harm, no foul. But Chanel felt it could hurt Joy, who was new to town and the show. Chanel left, and Alex told Johnny he would keep the secret so Chanel wouldn't get hurt, but he had some choice words for Johnny, hilariously stating that Johnny handled the situation like a little bitch, and giving him the tiniest bitch-slap. I was shocked that they could say that on TV, but it's pay TV, so they could probably get away with a lot worse stuff.

EJ returned home and told Johnny about his failed mission and that Joy was staying in Salem. He gave Johnny real advice: Man up, accept that she's in town, and don't mention their tryst ever again!

Later, Joy told Alex that she was staying, and he was happy about that. But he also shared the story that she and Alex had "slept together," and she was going to have to accept that as their cover story. How long before they really end up sleeping together? You know it's only a matter of time.

Hope showed up at the Brady Pub and filled Kayla and Roman in on Bo's condition. They all agreed that Julie was going to need the family to support her in the wake of Doug's death. She also called Charles to see if New Doug's story checked out. He did have a son who went by Doug Williams, and for a time the Bradys seemed convinced. But if New Doug really is the relation he says he is, then he's a real creep, hiding behind an innocent-looking baby face.

Jack and Jennifer worried about Chad and JJ's safety as the two went off to lure Clyde out of hiding. Seriously? You bring these two beloved characters back only to have them just reacting to everything and sitting around being worried. There was a time when Jack and Jennifer were a front-burner super couple, but now they sit on the sidelines and fret about stuff.

Meanwhile, New Doug was skulking around Julie's and recalled stealing the diamond necklace, just in case his pulling it out of his pocket wasn't enough to convince the audience of his guilt. Julie then arrived, and when she showed him the time capsule, she was horrified that the necklace was gone. Jennifer showed up and told Julie they thought her brother Steven did it, but Julie didn't believe that.

Everyone kept the missing necklace a secret from Julie because she was going through a troubled time with Original Doug's death and all, but she's gotta be doubly angry that they kept such an important secret from her. She should be like, "Moving forward, if a family heirloom goes missing, you guys gotta tell me right away no matter what's going on, or there will be hell to pay!!"

Hope had to leave once again to see how Bo was doing (how long can they string us along with the Bo-in-a-coma story?), and Julie reassured her that Original Doug was smiling down on her. Hope warned New Doug not to hurt Julie, and if he did, when she returned, she wouldn’t be very nice.

In Vancouver, JJ and Gabi saw a note slipped under their door telling them to bring Cat to a place called The Kitten Club. Get it? Cat? Kitten? I thought she was going to have to perform a pole dance to save her mother.

At the same time, Steve Johnson got some info about Clyde’s whereabouts, namely the address of his apartment, from the ISA and passed it on to Chad and JJ. Again, another character who keeps getting sidelined. We need Steve to lead the charge on these matters, but Kayla's gotten so crotchety lately she won't let him have any fun.

Chad comforted Cat, who had a nightmare about Clyde killing her mother. She admitted to still having feelings for Chad. The two went to the club to run interference on Clyde while JJ and Gabi went to Clyde’s apartment. While they were searching Clyde’s apartment, Cat’s mother showed up with a gun pointed at them. That was a nice surprise because I totally didn't expect to see Catherina actually doing stuff, I thought she'd be tied to a girder in the basement of a dank warehouse.

In Salem, After opening up to Marlena about Javi and Kerry going on a date, Leo shows up at the pub and sees the two eating. Leo got into it with Kerry, who insulted B&S and said no one needed to watch it because the spoilers were online. Is Leo the only patient that Marlena makes allowances for and treats him on the fly whenever he demands it? Granted, the poor guy needs some mental help, but I hope she's charging him top dollar for emergency sessions.

Meanwhile, Brady had planned to take Rachel to see the Nutcracker, but Kristen had already done that because she was angry when she thought he and Ava were seeing each other. Kind of fitting that what Kristen did to him matches the name of the play. I hope he's got an ice pack. Oh yeah, so Brady ended up inviting Ava to go with him since he now had a spare ticket. Didn't see that coming. Nope, not at all.

Back at Clyde’s apartment, the villain showed up and took Gabi hostage at gunpoint. He forced JJ to toss his gun on the floor, which JJ did, but also surreptitiously dialed his phone. If this took place before cell phones, JJ wouldn't have been able to do that! What would he have done instead? Probably send out smoke signals or flash an Aldis lamp out of the window to get Chad's attention.

Elsewhere, we again met Cat’s mom, Catherina, who held a gun to Chad (who was also pretending to hold Cat hostage). Are you with us so far? Catherina seemed brainwashed and repeated that she had to do what Clyde said over and over again. Kind of like when Simon Bar Sinister brainwashed Underdog in one episode of his eponymous cartoon, and the hero, with swirly eyes, kept babbling, "I must do what Simon says." Ultimately, Chad subdued her and tied her up, giving the gun to Cat to watch her. He then ran off to help JJ and Gabi. You can see where this is going.

Cat tried to break through to her mother and appeared to succeed. She untied her, and the two embraced, but Catherina swiped the gun from Cat and absconded. It was so obvious that Catherina was going to go for the gun!

Meanwhile, Chad snuck up behind Clyde and knocked him out. The bad guy was then tied to a chair and Chad started interrogating him about where the heck Abby’s body was located. At this point, if Abby's really dead, I hope whoever has her body has it shrouded in air fresheners. Unsurprisingly, just as Clyde was about to spill the beans, Catherina showed up and shot him in the chest. Really? With no provocation? She had to have heard that he was about to fess up! Perhaps she knows something about Abby and wants to keep it secret?

Holly and Tate were doing homework and decided to take a break to have a real date, which they never actually had. That sounds a lot more fun than doing homework. It's just back to normal with these two after he strung Sophia along just so he could lose his virginity to her. Tate then talks to Aaron, who’s just feeling miserable about his life at that moment. Cat had called Aaron to tell him their mother was alive, but she doesn’t have more details because Clyde may have brainwashed her. Right.

Meanwhile, Chad is horrified that Catherina shot Clyde just as he was about to give the reveal. Another storyline stringing us along. At this point, does anyone watching really care if Abby's alive or not?

They end up calling an ambulance, and Chad rides in it with Clyde. Later, the doctors inform Chad (who was pretending to be Clyde’s son, Ben Weston) that Clyde’s in a coma (how convenient). The Ben Weston reference was a nice touch.

In Salem, word gets back about what happened in Vancouver, and Steve laments not being there to help them. But Kayla distracts him by getting him embroiled in decorating their apartment for Christmas. Boy, she really has him wrapped around her little finger. He probably has to ask for permission to breathe before doing so.

Meanwhile, Holly helps Aaron come up with a gift list for his siblings, and although Holly offers him money for support (from dear old, wealthy Maggie), he’s just happy to be with his friends. What a nice kid.

Catharina gets arrested for shooting Clyde, and Cat reassures her everything will be okay because she was under duress from Clyde (Not to mention brainwashed). Cat called Aaron and gave him another update on everything, and he was happy their mother was alive. But seriously, if your name is Catherina, why would you name your daughter Cat? Cat, Catherina, Cat, Catherina...the confusion in the house must have been endless.

Brady and Belle had a chance to catch up, and he filled her in on the Kristen and Ava drama, as well as the circumstances around Kristen bartering Sarah’s miracle cure for Titan from Xander. He also tells her how Xander tried to kill him…twice! I'm surprised Brady didn't fall asleep while talking to Belle because she's become so boring!

Meanwhile, in Horton Square, Ava and Kristen have a confrontation and end up hilariously slapping each other. Kristin thinks Ava is trying to take Brady from her, and her obsession with the guy seems to be off the charts now (if it wasn’t already breaking records). Kristen needs to take a chill pill and find another guy who's actually into her.

Justin looked over Shawn’s divorce papers from Belle and said they were good. Shawn then talked to Jada and apologized for his past misbehavior. She accepted his apology and offered his job as a police detective back, which he accepted. Oh great. How long before he falls off the wagon again, and we've got a drunken cop waving a loaded gun around as he yells at everyone who looks at him funny?

Elsewhere, Xander was pumping iron and doing pushups with Sarah on his back. He told Sarah he was getting ready for battle with Philip. Although she thought he meant a physical fight, it turned out he worked it so that Philip’s lawyer had to drop him as a client due to a conflict of interest because Xander had a meeting with him. Philip, distraught, then asks Belle to be his lawyer in the fight for Titan. The lawyer's name was Ned Dickerson, and since we've never heard of him before, part of me thinks that's a sly nod to Kurth's General Hospital character, Ned Quartermaine.

At the DiMera mansion, Kristen mulled over the many ways she could finally get rid of Ava. She really needs to give it up and find a more productive hobby. Perhaps she and EJ could start a parenting podcast.

LOOSE ENDS

Hope, Kayla, and Roman are satisfied with Charles’ answer about New Doug being legit, but they never get actual proof that the new guy in town is the same person. Hope basically threatened the young man that if he did anything to hurt Julie, she’ll probably break his legs. You would think that'd be enough cause for him to try to return the necklace.

If New Doug is having second thoughts about swiping a priceless diamond necklace from his kind, loving family, all he’s gotta do is slip it under the couch. They’ll find it next year during Spring cleaning, and everyone will have a laugh.

So, if he’s not feeling bad about swindling and hurting dear Julie, then he’s a creep and needs to be dealt with accordingly. Perhaps Steve Burton could jump over from General Hospital for one episode to reprise Harris so he can beat the snot out of new Doug for being a jerk.

EXTRA SCOOPS

HOT

Brady and Ava going on a date. While they don’t really have sparks flying between them, both characters have been through a lot and have found solace in unloading their problems on each other. He invited her to the Nutcracker, and both agreed it wouldn’t be an “official” date.

But they’re kind of cute together, so if the writers do it correctly and have their relationship be a slow burn, then they might actually work out.

Plus, Kristen and Ava slapping each other in Horton Square was super fun to watch! I was hoping for more of a catfight, but what we got was definitely hot.

NOT

Javi and Kerry flaunting their date in front of Leo was just awful. Leo made the same mistake we did in accusing Javi of stealing plot information from Body & Soul and disseminating it. Kerry was really mean to Leo, and that was uncalled for. He’s a jerk and needs to go.

LINE(S) OF THE WEEK

On Monday’s episode, Johnny thanked Alex for going along with the story that he slept with Joy. Alex’s hilarious response was, “Don’t thank me. You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve it because you handled this like a little bitch.” Then he held up his forefinger and thumb really close together and reiterated, “Little bitch.” Then he gave Johnny a light slap on the face, and Johnny clearly knew Alex was right.

Jada referred to the recent drugged pastry incident as ‘cupcakegate,’ which was hilarious. I love how the Watergate scandal has gotten so far into the zeitgeist that any new scandals just add “-gate” to the end of whatever it is. But the result of cupcakegate was lame. Everyone who ate one ralphed on the floor, and that's it? At least the last time baked treats were tainted, everyone tripped out.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

In Leo’s Body & Soul storyline, where characters are seemingly killed but really end up in a place called Weivenip, which is Pine View backward, Rafe said it sounded familiar but couldn’t understand the mechanics of the story. This is just like Melaswen, or New Salem backwards. In 2004, the Salem Stalker was killing the main characters, but it turned out their deaths were faked, and they ended up in Melaswen. I wasn’t a huge Days of Our Lives fan back then, but I did watch the first Marlena devil-possession storyline, and the notion that main characters were getting killed off was something I definitely had to see, so I watched the Melaswen storyline as well. (Side note: my then-wife was giving me grief for not only watching General Hospital daily, but now adding DAYS to the list! I found it amusing, and now I watch four of them daily!)

Has anyone noticed that the initials for Body & Soul are BS, which are also initials for a swear word that means hogwash?

If soap stars were superheroes, Johnny’s weakness would be that he’s compelled to tell the truth and can’t hold it in. EJ has tried to teach him how to keep a secret and live with it, but so far, Johnny’s failing the course.

Clyde’s computer password is ‘Nancy.’ That was a sly nod to Patrika Darbo’s Nancy Wesley, and it would seem he’s still carrying a torch for her. Poor woman.

A full-on Horton Square catfight between Kristen and Ava would have been magnificent. It would have been even more entertaining if someone at Sweet Bits, for some reason, wheeled out a vat of jello, and the two fell into it and kept fighting.

Does Clyde possess or have access to Dr. Rolf’s brainwashing technology? It seems that Catherina was somehow brainwashed into doing his bidding, so hopefully, they won’t gloss over it and tell us how it came about. Rolf's handiwork can be easily replicated with simple household appliances, as they showed during the Stefan brainwashing storyline, so all Clyde would need to do is raid his local hardware store.

And doesn’t Catherina seem a bit too young to be Cat’s mother? But hey, in this day and age, anything’s possible.

The Bo in a coma thing is getting old. It reminds me of an independent comic from the late 1970s called Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman. In it, Reid's favorite show is a soap called The Dangers of Ivan, and in one episode, Ivan lands in a coma, and the rest of the series is just him unconscious in the bed. Until the day he gets up and falls out of a window to his death, and the show changes to The Horrors of Ivan, and he's just a skeleton. Hopefully, something better will happen to Bo.

PARTING THOUGHTS

Xander doing pushups with Sarah on his back was super cute. These two have longevity if he can hold back his criminal ways, and in this episode, he actually did that, so there's hope for them!

The way Kerry was acting when Leo saw him and Javi at the pub leads me to believe that Kerry might be the one who’s posing as Lady Whistleblower, torturing Leo, and running the show into the ground. He seems rather nefarious, so hopefully, his being reintroduced will pay off, and he’s the one trying to ruin Leo. It seemed like he was still bitter because Leo turned him down when they first met.

Catherina shooting Clyde in the chest was just plain stupid. He wasn’t attacking anyone. Heck, the guy was tied up! But they have to keep the whole “Abigail’s body” thing as a cliffhanger so they can drag it out some more. This makes me think Abigail might actually really be returning, but they’re going to want Chad and Cat to get super close, perhaps even to the point of sleeping together, before the real Abby shows up. Then Chad will be all twisted in different directions, and we’ll have an instant love triangle on our hands.

Well, that’s all I have for this week. Until next time, DOOL-ers!!