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You got us, Days of Our Lives: Pondering whether or not John is still alive one year after the show laid him to rest was not how we expected to honor the anniversary of his passing! But that’s what Belle jumped straight to on Thursday’s show after her and Brady’s missing pawn discovery, combined with Marlena’s coin mystery.

If someone left a coin at John’s grave, Belle mused, and Stefano bequeathed a chess set to Marlena with a missing pawn… did that mean that John was still alive, but missing, leaving clues here and there?

We’re going to go with “No.” (Which is what Brady emphatically told his sister.) Drake Hogestyn has passed away, and there’s no way Days of Our Lives has recast John.

But Belle’s theory does make sense — from a story planning perspective, that is. Back when John died, Hogestyn was still battling pancreatic cancer. While the actor gave the show his blessing to tell the story and say farewell to John, no one was giving up hope. So the writers added a few flourishes to give them room to bring John back if Hogestyn beat the cancer.

Sadly, he died and the show never got to tell the story of John’s return. But that still left a few unanswered breadcrumbs like the disappearing coin and the mysterious lilacs — Marlena’s favorite flower — at his funeral. Presumably, they were meant to hint that John was still out there and still alive.

But as we noted above, with Hogestyn gone, John is, most certainly dead — so much so, in fact, that the ISA has some sort of miraculous ash DNA-reading science to prove it! (Yeah, that seemed a stretch to us, too.) And since John was truly cremated, even EJ’s miracle (depending on how long it works) drug couldn’t even bring him back.

So it seems that John’s possible resurrection tease has, instead, been folded into the mystery Stefano left behind and the chess set bequeathed to John and Marlena. We’ve got a few ideas about where this story is heading — like a long-lost child. Though there’s definitely one possibility we’re hoping for over the other, horrifying one!