Today on Days of Our Lives, Rafe offers EJ a deal, Jada catches wind that something’s off and Chanel deals with both Joy and Johnny.
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On today’s Days of Our Lives, Rafe struggles in the not-at-all secret DiMera tunnels, tied to a chair as Jada tries calling him. He manages to answer with his foot, but can’t make a whole lot of noise with the gag in his mouth.
Upstairs, EJ sets down a tray of food as Belle calls. He doesn’t want to talk after she “stole” his job. She insists she didn’t pursue it, Jada just asked her to take it. EJ’s annoyed, but he’s putting the blame on Jada and Paulina. Belle tries telling him to maybe skip the revenge and accept what happened.
“Tell me Belle, what could I possibly do to the mayor? Or to Jada Hunter?” He looks over at the secret door. EJ gets down to the room where EJ’s being held, just in time to hang up on Jada. He sets breakfast down, tells Rafe that this is all Arnold’s fault, the undoes a very ticked Rafe’s gag.
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EJ then stands by and lets Rafe get all his yelling for help out of his system. When he tires himself out, EJ calmly asks if he’s through. He didn’t mean for this to happen, but Rafe’s the one who broke into the house after being told to leave before he could get rid of Arnold himself. “You are blaming this on me?!”
He says Jada’s probably already searching for him, but when EJ says no, Rafe realizes with horror Arnold took his place again. EJ’s quick to assure Rafe that yes, Arnold did share a kiss with Jada on New Year’s, but he stopped things and hid the phony Rafe away until EJ “can clean up this mess.”
Rafe points out that EJ doesn’t have a lot of options because he can’t keep him kidnapped forever. EJ shrugs that off, so Rafe offers a deal. The two of them teaming up to take down Arnold for good, while Rafe promises not to turn EJ in or say anything about this. EJ, though, doesn’t think Arnold will keep quiet and once that happens, Rafe can’t keep Jada from coming after him. So EJ turns Rafe down. He’ll clean this up on his own and in the meantime, Rafe has to stay put.
Javi swipes some of Gabi’s shampoo as he gets ready for a shower, only to get a notification of the new Lady Whistleblower. He smiles and heads into the bathroom. After he’s dressed, he heads down to ask a worried Jada what’s wrong. She mentions calling Rafe and just hearing muffled sounds, so she tries again and it goes straight to voicemail.
She leaves a message and Javi tries calming her down about the wedding planning. They plan on doing a modest wedding by the end of the month. Javi offers to take care of the wedding — he’s going to make sure her marriage is right from the jump. After some hesitation, Jada agrees.
Javi admits about how he loves weddings but isn’t sure he’ll ever have one himself. He’s seeing Kerry, but he’s not sure he’s the one. Leo, on the other hand, had him smitten — until he ruined it. Jada teases him a bit, but Javi swears they’re done for good.
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Marlena gets home from a workout after Belle hangs up with EJ and wants to hear all the details on the super “awkward,” strange DiMera New Year’s Eve party. That’s when she tells her elated mom that she got EJ’s job — which means sticking around in Salem. Belle admits things with EJ are uncomfortable, but it’s not like she’ll be bumping into him, unlike Shawn. She is worried about working with him.
Right on cue, Shawn knocks at the door. He asks to come in with cases that Belle may want to look into after EJ declined to prosecute. Belle promises to do what she can to make the charges stick and Shawn smiles that he trusts her completely. As he leaves, Marlena lets him know he’ll always be part of their family.
Marlena compliments her daughter on how well they both handled it, then promises Belle is going to be an amazing DA — so long as she gives EJ a wide berth. They touch on Belle and EJ’s affair and she promises that won’t happen again. She promises to be careful.
Leo laments spending New Year’s Eve by himself up in his room. To make matters worse, another Lady Whistleblower pops up, calling Leo out directly and teasing that he may lose his job soon.
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Out in the square, Chanel hangs up on Johnny, then spots Joy going over lines on the bench. She storms over and just glares until Joy stands up nervously. “I have plenty to say to you,” she begins, “How the hell do you live with yourself?” Joy promises that nothing actually happened because Johnny loves her and stopped it. But when she asks if Chanel could forgive Johnny…
She cares about both of them and this all happened because of a misunderstanding. Chanel takes the chance to go off about how Johnny’s the one who started this by not trusting her, then hopped into bed with her, then kept lying about it. Like Joy did. Chanel wants to know why her ex-friend didn’t tell her from the beginning, especially after all she did to look out for Joy.
“I didn’t ask you to look out for me.” She thanks Chanel for everything, but Chanel’s too angry at her to care. She made a fool of herself over and over again, and Joy betrayed a friend to protect her job. That’s not it, Joy insists. She didn’t want her first impression in town to be “happy homewrecker.” Chanel sighs and admits she’s done stupid things, but she thought Joy was her friend and that’s not how you treat a friend.
Plus, even if she didn’t know who Johnny was, she knew he was married and that didn’t make a difference. Joy tearfully says Chanel’s right. It was always wrong. If only she’d taken the money Johnny’s dad offered to leave town. “EJ did what?!” She’s furious, tells Joy she’s not a good person and her advice is to take the money and pretend none of this happened. Chanel then leaves a stunned Joy behind.
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Johnny’s playing with his ring in the Body and Soul offices when Leo bursts in saying the new Lady Whistleblower lit a fire under him, and he’s in the write new material that won’t get spoiled. He pitches an idea for Regan and Faith to be trapped together and Johnny wastes no time in shooting it down. They won’t do it because of him.
He fills a stunned Leo in on the hookup who isn’t even sure that it’s “technically even cheating.” It doesn’t matter because Johnny screwed up from his first accusations and then lied over and over again. Leo then tells Johnny he did something similar about making accusations with Javi and Lady Whistleblower and now that ship has sailed. Johnny admits he isn’t optimistic about his own chances of reconciling either.
Leo promises to keep Chanel and Joy apart as best he can. He needs more caffeine, though, to figure out a new story, so he heads out, leaving Johnny to sigh behind him.
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In the show’s final moments, Chanel stops in at the Body and Soul offices to tell Johnny she quits. Leo runs into Joy in the square and gives her a heads up about last-minute changes after learning what happened. After, he runs face-to-face into Javi.
Rafe struggles down in the tunnels, while upstairs, EJ checks Rafe’s voicemail. He sends a text to her as Rafe, apologizing, saying he’ll be in touch soon as he’s super busy. “That ought to shut her up for a while.” Shawn pops into the police department as Jada gets a text “allegedly from Rafe.” She has a weird feeling it’s not from him.
Next on Days of Our Lives, Stephanie needs Chad by her side, and Leo and Javi find their way back together.
