Days of Our Lives has been a roller coaster this year, but let’s be real, there have been some not-so-thrilling storylines. Bo Brady (Peter Reckell), Stephanie Johnson (Abigail Klein), and Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall) spring to mind as part of these bad plots.
Stephanie’s Dirty Novel on Days of Our Lives
So, number one, the first bad plot I want to talk about is Stephanie Johnson (Abigail Klein)’s smutty book. I don’t have an issue with Alex Kiriakis (Robert Scott Wilson)’s girlfriend writing a sexy book. Not at all. That’s fine as a soap plot. It’s what they did with Stephanie’s book that is insane. If you have a Kindle tablet or the app, you know there are literally tens of thousands of romance novels on there, plenty of them as smutty as you can imagine.
A plot like this might have been sort of relevant back when there weren’t piles of dirty lady books online, back like when 50 Shades of Gray first came out years and years ago and it was a unicorn. It was a rarity. These days, it’s commonplace. You can buy smutty ebooks for a buck or two or pay $12 a month to read all the sexy romance novels you want on Kindle Unlimited. No, I’m not advertising for them, but I do have Kindle Unlimited, so I know how cheap it is because I’m a voracious reader.
Ridiculous Plot to Save Titan onDays of Our Lives
Alex Kiriakis (Robert Scott Wilson) claiming that Stephanie’s smutfest book, “One Stormy Night,” could save Titan is insane. Like literally insane. Yet somehow that’s what happened. Xander Cook (Paul Telfer), Philip Kiriakis (John-Paul Lavoisier), and Kate Roberts (Lauren Koslow) were all on board with it. The book had wild success. And then Stephanie outed herself as Anastasia Sands. And it was this big event.
Then Stephanie changed genres and wrote a mystery book that Titan was counting on to keep them afloat. So we’ve got a billion-dollar empire that’s crumbling. And it’s propped up by one dirty romance novel. I mean, come on. Even Alex, as pretty as he is, isn’t dumb enough to believe that, right?
It was honestly also particularly gross that Stephanie’s parents, Steve Johnson (Stephen Nichols) and Kayla Brady (Mary Beth Evans), were reading her dirty book out loud together and trying out sexy stuff from it. I got to tell you, that’s so icky to contemplate, especially since Stephanie was writing about her own sex life. It’s gross. And that’s another reason it was a bad plot.
Abe Carver’s Controversial Mentorship of His Son’s Bully on DOOL
Second, another really problematic plot from 2025 was Abe Carver (James Reynolds) mentoring his son Theo Carver’s (Tyler Joseph Andrews) high school bully, Liam Selejko (Hank Northrop). We saw that Theo was super upset when he found out Abe was going to be giving his time to his tormentor, Liam. But Abe assured his son that he just wanted to help Liam with his literacy in hopes of rehabilitating the criminally troubled young man.
Abe was tutoring Liam as part of a plea deal after Liam was arrested for stealing a car. Then Abe had, I think, one session with Liam and then he was off in the park trying to steal Cat Greene (AnnaLynne McCord)’s handbag because he’s broke and he has a kid. The story seemed to bring in Liam, who’s related to a past minor character, as part of a meh storyline for Abe. I guess I don’t know if they were trying to do some sort of soapy PSA for adult literacy issues and how it ties into criminality.
If that’s what they were going for, I don’t think it’s terribly clear. The bottom line is when Abe found out that Liam had tormented and bullied his son Theo, he should have asked somebody else to tutor the guy. Or Abe could have swapped Liam out and worked with another tutor’s person and given his person over. He is betraying Theo by doing this. I didn’t like it. I found it distasteful.
Marlena’s Baffling Lyme Disease Diagnosis vs. The Queen of the Night Mystery on Days
Number three on our bad plot list of 2025 is all of Marlena’s weird moments. The writers brought back the Queen of the Night story this year with a whole bunch of hints. Rachel Black (Alice Halsey) and Marlena were reading “One Thousand and One Arabian Nights,” the book that Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) used to control Marlena’s mind back in the day.
If you remember, she was having dreams about Stefano and the whole Queen of the Night obsession. They did those flashback clips with Marlena. And then there were all the hints dropping about Stefano. And they had Susan Banks (Stacy Haiduk) saying something was off about Marlena psychically.
Mind you, nobody wanted that plot either. They didn’t want to see Marlena as Queen of the Night. They didn’t want to see her demon-possessed. And then out of nowhere, Marlena is diagnosed with Lyme disease. I mean, it is serious, yeah, but not as dramatic as past trauma with the Phoenix.
Days of Our Lives: Red Flags in Every Direction
And also that means all that buildup with all those red flags and hints dropped was either for nothing and Marlena’s not in danger from some new version of Stefano, or the Lyme disease is some kind of waypoint on the way to getting to that plot.
If so, then Days of our Lives is dragging it out way too long, especially for a storyline that nobody wanted. The problem is they’re working 10 months ahead of what’s airing. So that means anything that fans hate, oh well, too bad. There’s not a chance to pivot at all because it’s all been shot, almost a year’s worth.
The Stefano 2.0 Tease: A DiMera Storyline That Went Nowhere
Speaking of Marlena, that brings us to a number four terrible plot for 2025. And that is Stefano (Joseph Mascolo) 2.0. There have been so many hints dropped that they’re bringing back some version of Stefano, someone with his memories, maybe like they did with Steve-ano when they had Patch with his memory implanted and the bionic eyeball and all that. So, it was hinted that EJ DiMera (Dan Feuerriegel) and Dr. Wilhelm Rolf (Richard Wharton) were working on a new version of EJ (Dan Feuerriegel)’s wicked father.
There were hints of Stefano. They intensified around summer, July and August 2025. They kind of hit this high point. As I mentioned before, Marlena was having Queen of the Night dreams. We had the Arabian Nights stuff. Plus, there were a ton of mentions of Stefano from his family as well as Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering) filling in Cat about the Phoenix. Then there was that Susan stuff where she was at the house saying that she sensed Stefano’s presence there.
Then they kind of abruptly changed course. And we’ve got what seems to be a woman in that mystery tube. Now I don’t know if Ron Carlivati was planning on a new Stefano and then he got fired and the new writers kept it going for a while because the scripts were done and then they shifted gears. I’m fine with them not bringing back any version of Stefano. But what I’m not okay with is them wasting our time pretending that it might happen.
Bo and Hope’s Return to Days of Our Lives: A Disappointing Plot Device for John Black’s Tragic Exit
For me, the very worst plot of the year was bringing back Bo and Hope Brady (Kristian Alfonso) only as a tool to kill off John without giving us a meaningful return. Writers were presented, I understand, with a significant challenge because of the real-life terminal illness of Drake Hogestyn and then his death. He succumbed to pancreatic cancer in September of 2024. But because of the show’s advanced taping schedule, they actually filmed John Black’s death on Days of our Lives when Drake was very sick but still alive, but he green-lit the storyline. And then, of course, the character’s passing aired on June 2nd, 2025, well after the actor passed away.
True to John’s loyal character, he died from injuries from a drug lab explosion when he went in to get that drug Versix to save Bo’s life. Hope was there with John to help get the drug, but it was him that was fatally injured. They had had Bo lingering in a coma since 2023 with no urgency or interest in bringing him out. Then all of a sudden, they gave him sepsis really bad.
Bo Goes Dark
That was frustrating because if you remember when Bo came back after waking up on the spin-off “Beyond Salem,” we were promised a Hope and Bo reunion. They did PR on it. They did promos for it. And then we got no reunion because Bo had lost his Kiriakis mind. Then Shawn Brady (Brandon Beemer) shot Bo when he threatened Hope at gunpoint. And then we finally got that reunion but only as a plot device to bring about John’s death, and Bo and Hope didn’t stick around.
Bo and Hope did get remarried in a private ceremony in June of 2025. That was a couple of weeks after John died. It was kind of a little cringe for me to tie the Bo and Hope romantic reunion to John’s death. And then it was frustrating for longtime fans that they zoomed out of town right after that. But at the same time, a lot of fans were fine with it. So, kind of divisive on it. I just didn’t like it because the reunion seemed only to have ever manifested to make John Black’s death happen.
We’ll see what happens in 2026 since by now all of Ron Carlivati’s plots should be dead and gone and not resurrected like other characters. I will say I really enjoyed his writing on General Hospital, and I did on Days of our lives for quite a while, but then it just started to get really bad really fast. Then he’s gone.
