Days of Our Lives Review for the Week of 5-15-23:

The Colin story bothered viewers for multiple reasons.

For many DAYS fans, Colin’s villainy was a step too far. Viewers didn’t find it believable that he would order his girlfriend to seduce Chanel and then break her heart, and it was hard to buy that there was real chemistry between Colin and Talia.

On Days of Our Lives during the week of 5-15-23, viewers rooted for Colin to die or leave town as the story came to a head. This story felt cartoonish, yet it involved serious issues like emotional abuse, manipulation, and why the hell Talia couldn’t just walk away.

Talia’s behavior was classic abuse/manipulation behavior. But she agreed to do things that were so ridiculous that it left viewers scratching their heads about how a doctor could be so ignorant.

The fact is that being intelligent or book-smart doesn’t innoculate you against falling into an abusive relationship. Talia has issues, and for reasons that haven’t been fully explored, she felt as if she would have and be nothing if Colin left her.

It made sense to me as someone who was once in a similarly unhealthy relationship, even if the things Colin asked of Talia were absolutely bonkers. She gave up her job in New York and moved across the country to convince Chanel to hire her as a baker because Colin wanted her to.

That seems ludicrous on the surface, but the thing about abuse is that the abuser wears the victim down by alternating extreme displays of affection with scathing criticism and threats to leave.

Abusers of this nature are also highly skilled at making people feel sorry for them as a means of control, which is why Talia explained that Colin had nothing else to live for besides this plan.

Even after backing out of the plan and seeming heartbroken that Chanel kicked her out, Talia’s response was to hope Colin doesn’t hate her. That’s how strong a hold this man has over her.

Days of Our Lives couldn’t make all this explicit at the outset. The writers had to let us infer what was happening from Talia’s behavior. Otherwise, it would have stopped being an enjoyable television series and instead, become a lecture suited for a psychology class.

But now that most of this is out in the open, it’s time to clarify things. Right now, many viewers are doubting the realism of this story because Talia did such extreme things in the name of “love,” so Days of Our Lives has some work to do.

The first order of business is to resolve the situation on the rooftop, of course. Until Paulina and Chanel are safe, there’s no room to decide what should be done with Talia.

People rarely do jail time on soaps for heinous crimes unless they’re leaving the canvas. In the coming weeks, the cops will have to decide what to do with Talia, and so will Paulina and Chanel.

A lot depends on how the rooftop situation is resolved. Since Talia found Paulina’s scarf, she may be the one to save the women she was supposed to be attacking. If she does or tries to, she might think she deserves redemption.

Whatever happens on that rooftop, I hope it doesn’t involve Talia getting killed. Staying with an abusive person can lead to death, but I’d rather Talia stay alive and face justice — and the chance to get real help.

If she’s seriously injured, that could muddy the waters as far as Paulina and Chanel’s responses. I want any redemption for Talia to be earned, not just because they feel sorry for her after the man she thought loved her nearly killed her.

Paulina bore the majority of the trauma from this scheme. Her office was trashed, and she received several death threats. She began to have panic attacks because of Colin and Talia’s behavior. And she watched Colin knock Abe unconscious and force her away at gunpoint instead of getting Abe medical treatment.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if she decides not to press charges against Talia. Paulina suffered severe abuse at TR’s hands, so she may come to see Talia as a fellow victim.

The scenes leading up to the climax, where Paulina and Abe met Colin in the bakery, were among the weakest in this story.

They should have seen through Colin’s posing as a health inspector far earlier than they did. As mayor, Abe must have dealt with the Department of Health before; he should have known that a health inspector would want to meet with Chanel to inspect her business premises, not with her parents.

And even if they didn’t realize that, why didn’t it set off alarm bells in their heads that Colin only wanted to talk about the rumors that Chanel killed Sloan’s parents?

Abe and Paulina are both intelligent, shrewd characters. Surely there was a way to put them in danger that didn’t involve making them stupid for the sake of the plot.

This was also a rerun of what happened with TR. The bad guy again knocked Abe out and threatened Paulina, but this time no Lani was coming to stop him.

It also seemed silly for Colin to grab a rolling pin to attack Abe with when he had a gun. Why didn’t he pull out his weapon in the first place?

Once he kidnapped Paulina, she did a great job holding her own. She tried to empathize with Colin, talk him down, and get him to see the light about what had happened between Chanel and his father, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, the net tightened around him without him realizing it. Jada and Rafe figured out the truth while Talia confessed to Chanel, putting all the pieces in place for an exciting climax to this story.

Chanel should have called Rafe as soon as she learned what Talia had done. He would have been better positioned to protect Paulina and could have found and arrested Talia.

Calling Paulina instead introduced an unnecessary complication, but I can guarantee that neither Paulina nor Chanel will fall off the roof no matter what Colin thinks he’s doing.

The fun in these stories isn’t in finding out who survives; it’s in learning how the protagonists get out of this one! Will Rafe, Jada, or Talia save the day here, and at what cost?

Meanwhile, Nicole’s behavior continued to aggravate me. Nicole has always been one of my favorite characters, and this story is beneath her.

If she’s not announcing secrets loudly in public or semi-public places (seriously, did she and Anna learn nothing? Why were they talking in the living room with the door open?), she’s telling lies she can’t expect to get away with for long.

As Anna pointed out, Nicole will start showing eventually, and then what? Nicole wants to keep her pregnancy secret until she is sure of who the father is, but how will she undo the menopause lie?

Every time she says that’s what the issue is, it makes me wish that the writers had gone in the direction of a perimenopause story instead of yet another who’s the daddy involving Nicole telling lies.

Nicole has already said some important things about how becoming menopausal shouldn’t be an excuse for men to treat women as less than. Imagine if the story was actually about her dealing with menopause!

That would be an original, compelling story that many viewers could relate to.

Instead, Nicole’s comments about menopause fall flat because we know that she’s not angry about that at all, and she’s just using that as a cover.

Plus, her mood swings are so stereotypical of pregnant women on television. It was funny when an actually menopausal Edith Bunker had them on All in the Family, but by now, we should be ready to have more nuanced depictions of women than that.

In addition, there’s no way in hell that Nicole will be able to pull any of this off. She can get away with not drinking when Stefan offers her champagne — it’s not that long ago that he was the one spiking drinks, after all! — but EJ’ll eventually notice that she’s lost interest in martinis.

Sloan’s already learned that Nicole is pregnant and probably won’t keep that secret long-term. I wouldn’t be surprised if she blurts it out to upset Jada because she doesn’t like being arrested and questioned about Colin!

Anna’s been a good friend so far, but her crazy ramblings will surely get Eric suspicious sooner rather than later.

And again — there’s the issue of Nicole showing. She can only pretend that she’s gaining weight for other reasons for so long!

Nicole would be justified if she rejected EJ’s marriage proposal. He made it obvious that he wanted to marry her right now to stop Stefan and Gabi from taking over Dimera together.

That’s hardly a romantic proposal, and Nicole is all about wanting to be loved. She doesn’t want to be used this way, and there’s probably a kernel of truth to her drugged-up claim that being EJ’s partner-in-crime was boring her.

Stefan’s proposal was beautiful and romantic, and his addition in his toast to “less death” cracked me up. But since Camila Banus is leaving Days of Our Lives, investing in this relationship is hard.

Hopefully, Stefan’s comment didn’t foreshadow how Gabi will be written out. We’ve had more than enough death and destruction, thank you.

When I came back alive, I asked the two of you to put aside your differences. I thought you might be grateful, enjoy that all of us are together. But did you do that? No. If there is one thing I have learned from all of this, it is that life is too short and too precious for me to waste time refereeing fights between adults who are acting like children.

Marlena

Marlena broke up a fight between Eric and Belle, admonishing them to be grateful that they were both alive. She was right — these two are acting like children, and it’s not entertaining.

It was silly that she had to refer to having “come back alive,” but that’s Salem for you.

Meanwhile, the Greek adventure is more or less over.

The good news here is that Kate is safe, although it was odd that one minute a goon threatened Steve with a gun, and the next, Steve was back in Roman’s hotel room, sporting a sling and delivering Kate safely into Roman’s arms.

Many viewers felt like they had missed something. Did a scene end up on the cutting room floor? We’d rather have had it than the fiftieth flashback of Colin telling Talia to seduce Chanel!

This story also suffers because Bo and Hope are off-screen. We keep hearing secondhand how  Bo is not doing well, and Hope is moving him to a long-term facility.

These scenes would have been more powerful on-screen. Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso were only available short-term, but the writers should have planned for that and ended their run with Hope and Bo taking off for the rehab facility; the way it was done feels like they disappeared in the middle of their story.

Finally, Megan revealed that Dmitri is her son, while Dmitri told Harris that he is holding Andrew to force Shane to give himself and Megan immunity for their many crimes.

This plan is unlikely to work. 

The ISA doesn’t easily give in to terrorists, and Shane will probably launch a full-scale search for Andrew before doing anything of the sort. John is already on the case, as Paul is concerned, and has alerted him to Andrew being missing.

Still, the news that Dmitri is Megan’s is an interesting development that solidifies Dmitri and Megan as the next generation of Dimera villains.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics. Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know your thoughts.

If you’re eager for more DAYS chat, check out the latest Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion!

Days of Our Lives streams exclusively on Peacock. New episodes drop on weekdays at 3 PM EST / PST.

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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.

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