Allie’s surprise pregnancy and return is one of the best stories to come out of Days of Our Lives in a long time, and it’s quickly beoming a fan favorite.
So what do the writers do? Push Allie to the back burner for almost an entire week and focus on the less-than-riveting tale of Gabi’s kidnapping and a missing book full of secret codes in the margins.
The Gabi story dominated Days of Our Lives during the week of 6-15-20, but did anyone find it compelling?
First of all, Gabi’s been kidnapped more times than I can count in the space of just a few years. Even tacking on the extra year for the time jump doesn’t make it any more interesting that she was abducted yet again.
And this kidnapping was part of a silly story that rivaled the 2015 elephant statue story for most ridiculous espionage story ever.
Jake being on the run from some sort of mob he’d been part of before could have been a compelling story if it wasn’t a stereotype-laden attempt at suspense with a ridiculous item at its heart.
It was bad enough that the bad guys turned out to be after a copy of Crime and Punishment that had secret codes written in the margins (seriously, is this a Hardy Boys adventure or what?) without Sonny having a lookalike copy for Jake to pen fake codes into.
We also had a ridiculous fight over the non-coded book because Xander claimed to be reading it, Gwen turning up at Claire’s with the real book, and Gabi irritating her captors so much that they probably rued the day they decided to kidnap her.
Some of this was so stupid that it was hard to watch.
The interactions between Gabi and the main goon holding her hostage were easily the most painful.
It was nice that for once the kidnapping victim tried to escape instead of sitting around waiting to be rescued.
But Gabi seducing the goon to get untied was all sorts of uncomfortable, and I could have done without knowing that he enjoys having sex while tied up.
And once Gabi kicked him where it hurt, why didn’t she just steal the key to her prison while he was down for the count instead of standing helplessly at the door until he recovered and tied her up again?
That wouldn’t have been as high stakes as Lani and Eli bursting in with guns while Gabi was being held at knifepoint, but it would have made a hell of a lot more sense.
Speaking of which, Lani cannot be on active duty if she’s going to have morning sickness in the middle of a stand-off.
Maybe she was faking nausea to distract the goon so she could shoot him, but it sure looked like the real thing.
Plus, the hostage stood around talking to Lani about her pregnancy in the middle of being held at knifepoint. Talk about a goofy situation!
Lani and Eli were only there because they thought Jake killed Gabi and hid the body, too. But when they found him trying to negotiate with two mobsters, they didn’t do more than ask him a question about why the book was important that we never got an on-screen answer to.
All in all, this was a ridiculous story that ate up way too much screen time, as it stretched over four out of five days during the week of 6-15-20.
The only part of this story that was at all attention-worthy was Claire’s scenes with her grandparents, especially Marlena, who is taking a no-nonsense attitude with her.
Marlena clearly has not forgotten how to deal with a wayward young adult since Sami grew up and her firm attitude was a refreshing deviation from the way these things usually go.
She and John need to get on the same page, though.
John lets Claire manipulate him and lie to him over and over and doesn’t do much about it.This isn’t the time to be soft-spoken — he needs to make it clear that Claire’s behavior is unacceptable and will indeed earn her a one-way ticket to Hong Kong.
As much as Marlena is firm with Claire, though, she didn’t take charge of the situation with Gwen properly.
She didn’t do much about Gwen refusing to give back the book other than tell John not to give it to the bad guys himself, which John wasn’t going to listen to. She could easily have used her knowledge of psychiatry to convince Gwen to give up the book and then tell her she was not welcome in their house.
Instead, she gave Claire a lecture about letting Gwen hide in her room, which fizzled out because Gwen said that Claire convinced her not to run away with the book.
This silly situation was then compounded by Gwen going to Jake the next day to yell at him and gloat that she wasn’t giving back the book, only for them to end up kissing.
I don’t care about Jake and Gwen’s backstory. I don’t care if he cheated on her with Denise Deviccio or not. And I definitely don’t need hate-turning-to-sexual-passion between two characters whose relationship means nothing to me.
When Gabi was rescued, she was no better, either, insisting on going through with her plan to prove Jake is Stefan instead of putting her court case first — and several other characters are starting to wonder too.
This better be a red herring. Jake is an enjoyable character in his own right (except when he’s sparring with Gwen), and there have been too many doppelganger stories
There also has been too much making fun of people with mental illness, and Ciara’s asking Jake not to be ableist was played for laughs.
Thank goodness Jack and Jennifer had that tiny romantic interlude to break up the monotony of the Gabi nonsense!
It didn’t make sense that Jennifer asked to go on a honeymoon, then suggested they don’t need to go anywhere, but the couple brought the lighthearted romance DAYS desperately needs, so I’ll take it.
As if day after day of Gabi’s captivity wasn’t bad enough, there was also more than enough of Sarah pushing Brady to have sex with her.
Brady did not want to have sex. He said he did not want to have sex 100 times. Sarah kept pushing until he said okay.
If the roles were reversed, would anyone be okay with this? It’s not any more okay if it’s the woman endlessly pressuring and manipulating the man into unwanted sex than if it’s the other way around.
Plus, her motives were so juvenile. She’s not sixteen anymore. Hooking up with a guy because her mother said it was a bad idea isn’t a good look for her.
She and Brady didn’t end up having sex, thankfully, but still.
Xander’s decision to get a headstone for baby Mackenzie was sweet, but dragging Sarah to the cemetery was inappropriate. She said she hadn’t been ready to visit the grave, and that should have been her decision to make in her own time.
At least Sarah didn’t find a new reason to snipe at Xander over it. For a second, they had potential as a couple again.
Meanwhile, Ben asked Will to be his best man after all while Claire continued to secretly obsess over the save the date card.
This wedding is registering at about 0.3 on the excitement scale so far. Ben and Ciara still don’t have lives outside of each other, and Claire’s obsession with their ceremony isn’t helping generate interest.
Plus, Ben asked Will to be his best man when he was going to marry Abigail shortly before he became a serial killer and no one has pointed that out yet.
Luckily, Allie was only missing for four out of five days during the week of 6-15-20, so there was something to look forward to.
This is a realistic story that involves a ton of legacy characters and explores interesting family dynamics.
Lucas: Why is it better you talk to her and not me?
Kate: Because I understand her better right now.
Lucas: Okay, I don’t want to be cruel, so I’m going to watch what I say, but please don’t talk to Allie for me.
Kate: You don’t trust me?
Lucas: I don’t want your parental advice. I am going to handle Allie on my own.
Lucas, Kate, and Allie are all too damn alike but they don’t see it.
Kate wants Lucas to let Allie make her own decisions but won’t let him make his own decision about how to handle things with his daughter, while Lucas wants Kate to back off him but won’t back off Allie, and Allie wants to make her own decisions and is resisting Lucas’ involvement as hard as he’s resisting Kate’s.
Kate at least admits the irony in telling Lucas to back off while doing the opposite.
Her scenes with Hope were fun, too, despite the goofiness of this Key to the City ceremony story.
Kate and Hope have never had much love for each other, but Hope was able to be supportive of Kate’s desire to fix things for both Lucas and Allie, and this could be the start of an interesting new frenemy relationship.
Meanwhile, Allie’s presence allows Nicole to be a mentor to a young woman in trouble, which is a refreshing change from the usual nonsense she gets.
Days of Our Lives dropped the ball back in 2013 when Nicole’s helping Daniel protect JJ from a ridiculous legal situation never led to any kind of friendship between her and JJ.
But now they’re making up for it by giving her a similar relationship with Allie.
Nicole not only understands how Allie feels about Sami, but understands what it is like to be a troubled young woman who wants to do the right thing but wants to handle things herself.
Lucas: I’m trying to do what’s best for my daughter.
Nicole: Believe it or not, so am I.
Lucas: Maybe it’s time to get her mother involved.
Nicole: Come on Lucas. You know that in general and especially in this situation, getting Sami Brady involved is the worst possible thing you could do.
She also clearly is an asset to the Horton Center and should be working there instead of at Basic Black, not that she’s been in the office since Allie arrived.
She has history with Lucas, too, having briefly married him for money when she was around Allie’s age, and this is the first time the two have interacted in a long time.
Allie feels Nicole understands her, but she could easily try to manipulate her to take her side against Eric if he is being strict, which could lead to a fantastic conflict for the almost-married couple.
There is a ton of rich, realistic story potential here that hopefully the writers will pursue. It would be tragic if this went in some ridiculous direction involving doppelgangers or other nonsense.
Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics!
Hit the SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know if you’ve had enough of Gabi or if you liked the week long Gabithon, what you think of the Allie story, and any other thoughts you have about Days of Our Lives during the week of 6-15-20.
And don’t forget to check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion!
Days of Our Lives continues to air on NBC on weekday afternoons. Check your local listings for airtimes.
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.