Salem is mostly short on happiness, but could a brief respite be in the cards for the Donovan-Blacks?
Spoilers for Days of Our Lives during the week of 1-15-24 say that Tate’s family receives good news, which can only mean one thing: Tate’s coming home.
It probably won’t be smooth sailing. Although Days of Our Lives doesn’t have the best track record with mental health issues, an innocent kid being thrown into jail with adult men and having to be held in solitary confinement for his protection is an obvious PTSD storyline.
That type of story also has the potential to advocate for the end of real-life teens being held in adult jails, especially when there’s no real reason to hold them anywhere. If so, let’s hope the writers can let the story speak for itself instead of inserting heavy-handed PSAs into the dialogue.
Storywise, this’ll give Jamie Martin Mann (Tate) some meaty material to work with, along with his on-screen parents. Estranged parents having to band together to support their recently released-from-jail son is soap opera gold!
Brady and Theresa have been headed toward reconciliation for a while. It’s hard not to miss Jen Lilley during their scenes — she and Eric Martsolf had terrific on-screen chemistry — but Emily O’Brien is settling into the role now, and I’m eager for her take on this development.
Brady and Theresa are a better match than Theresa and Alex, and Theresa’s been annoyed with Alex’s attempts to take over since Tate’s arrest. But since Theresa worked with Konstantin to forge the document stating Alex was Victor’s son, this reunion can’t last.
Will Kristen get in the way? Spoilers for the week of 1-15-14 don’t mention her, but her sudden reappearance can’t mean good news for Brady and Theresa.
The closer they get to each other, according to the spoiler video, they’re supposed to kiss soon, the more desperate Kristen will become to tear them apart.
Kristen recently supported Brady through Tate’s arrest and was even open to him spending more time with Rachel. So, how long will it be before she finds a way to blackmail him into being with her again?
Offering to intercede with EJ only if Brady reconciles with her is the obvious choice, but EJ seems to be coming to his senses on his own, so the door is closing on that.
Meanwhile, there’s romance in the air for Johnny and Chanel to offset the heartbreaking drama of Holly having to leave Salem for medical treatment.
Please scroll down to check out all eight Days of Our Lives spoilers.
While most of Salem observes Martin Luther King Day, Paulina and Abe anxiously await biopsy results.
I don’t understand why Paulina couldn’t get her test results after the ceremony she was supposed to preside over. However, that cough could interfere with her ability to make a speech anyway.
This health scare will make her and Abe closer, but will it jog his memory?
Or will Abe defy the usual soap tropes about amnesia and learn to live with his memory loss instead of magically remembering everything when the time is right?
Sloan turns to the last person you’d expect her to for advice: Nicole!
This spoiler makes no sense whatsoever. How can Sloan ask Nicole for advice without giving away the truth about the baby, especially after demanding Nicole stay away from her?
Sloan’s unraveling because of her guilt, so maybe she wants to get caught.
But any request she makes while Nicole is struggling with the potential loss of her daughter will come off as insensitive and make Nicole hate Sloan more.
There’s good news in store for Tate — could he be set free?
It seems like that’s the only good news they could get.
If Tate were moved to juvenile detention, that might be a safer situation for him, but his parents would hardly celebrate since he’d still be behind bars.
And since EJ realizes he may have made a mistake in prosecuting Tate, it’s time for him to redeem himself by undoing this farce altogether.
To Justin’s surprise, Alex offers an apology for his obnoxious behavior.
That’s good, but is it sincere?
Chad suggested Alex turn to Justin for advice about supporting Theresa during this Tate fiasco, and it would be just like Alex to apologize so that Justin would be willing to give it.
Justin wants a relationship with the son he raised so he may accept this apology. But considering how awful Alex has been, it should take more than that to make amends.
During a family dinner, Steve puts his nose into Stephanie’s love life again.
Ugh. Stay out of it, Steve!
He hasn’t learned his lesson after meddling in Stephanie and Chad’s relationship, which was the catalyst for it to implode.
And when will he let Stephanie grow up and handle her own business? She’s a badass woman in her 30s, not a teenager who needs protection from potentially troublesome boyfriends.
If Steve has to do this, the writers need to connect it to Stephanie’s troubled past. Jeremy Horton abused her, so Steve has a legitimate but outdated reason for concern that isn’t coming through right now.
Johnny excitedly proposes to Chanel, but will she accept?
The spoiler video has Chanel asking Johnny to redo this properly.
She wants romance, not a spontaneous proposal, while lying in bed.
But once Johnny obliges, she’ll probably accept. Technically, these two haven’t been together long, but they’d still be married if the Devil hadn’t possessed Johnny, so why not?
Soon after a raid at the Bistro, Harris is ready to explore his feelings for Ava.
If it weren’t glaringly obvious that Ava is involved in the drug trade, I wouldn’t blame Harris for still dreaming of a future with Ava.
Her reasons for ending things seemed like a split for the sake of drama that left him confused and brokenhearted, and now that some time has passed, it’s reasonable to want to try again.
But the timing is weird. According to spoilers, Harris struggles with these feelings after he raids Ava’s restaurant, looking for drug activity. What kind of turn-on is that?
Nicole and her family say goodbye to Holly, who is leaving Salem for treatment elsewhere.
Spoilers don’t make it clear whether Holly is awake. Saying goodbye sounds like an interactive activity, but it doesn’t have to be.
EJ suggested the clinic in Italy, so she may be going there to help get her coma resolved.
Hopefully, this will reset Holly’s character, and she’ll come back with a new appreciation for life and remorseful about how her actions affected Tate.
What do you think, Days of Our Lives fanatics?
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Days of Our Lives streams exclusively on Peacock. New episodes drop on weekday mornings at 6/5c.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on X.