Okay, this is getting too ridiculous.
Soap operas like Days of Our Lives thrive on unreality, but there are fantasy escapes, and then there’s… whatever it is going on in Salem.
Salem operates on its own logic and has laws that don’t fly anywhere else, but right now three stories are so far removed from reality that they’re hard to enjoy.
(Peacock/Screenshot) Why The Heck Is Trask Even Practicing Law, Never Mind Poisoning Jury Pools?Sarah’s lawsuit story could be interesting, but the Trask factor is impossible to believe.
The only reason Trask didn’t lose her license is that Sloan offered her a job as a private adoption attorney after a messy scandal involving bribery and misconduct (which seemed weird for the strait-laced Trask who once lectured Justin about ethics)!
- The Ark Season 3 Episode 10 Delivers an Emotionally Riveting Hour for Sharonby Alexandria Ingham
- After a Rocky Start, The Scrubs Season 11 Premiere Became Everything The Medical Dramedy Does Bestby Jack Ori
- Average Joe Season 2 Episode 8 Review: A Wild Ride To The Very Endby Whitney Evans
That was bad enough, but Trask’s latest trick on Days of Our Lives is so out of bounds that I can’t feel sorry for Sarah.
It’s obvious that Justin is an incompetent lawyer (again!), because an attorney cannot simply go on TV and accuse the defendant of misconduct before a civil suit even begins.
(Peacock/Screenshot)If Justin had at least tried to get an injunction, I could accept the soap logic of an idiotic judge ruling in favor of Trask.
Bad rulings do happen in real life too, and then Sarah would have reason to feel like her life and career were over — even the justice system refused to protect her from Trask’s overreach.
But instead, Justin didn’t even try. He called Sarah to inform her that this was happening, and nothing more.
That pulled me right out of the story.
Instead of thinking about how unfair it was, rooting for Brady, Xander, or Sarah herself to find a solution, or anything like that, I was distracted by how quickly Justin should have shut this down.
(Peacock Screenshot)Sarah’s biggest mistake seems to be hiring the wrong lawyer, and that’s not good for the story.
Justin’s Incompetence Is Also Ruining the Joy Story (Along With The Whole Reflex Problem)I’m disappointed that Joy turned out to be faking her paralysis. It only makes vindictive, paranoid Stephanie look right all along.
Add TV Fanatic as a Trusted Source on Google!
Get More of Our Coverage!And worse, Days of Our Lives made it obvious how unrealistic it all was.
For one thing, Justin could have solved this custody dispute by going to court and letting a judge decide whether or not Stephanie was allowed to be around the baby — including arguing for supervised visitation instead of an outright ban on Stephanie having any contact with Kelsey.
(Peacock/Screenshot)Instead, Justin said (offscreen, of course) that the courts always side with the mother and advised Alex to accept Joy’s terms.
Justin never doing his job is a trope that needs to go, because we don’t get realistic legal storylines — we get excuses and explanations of why the protagonists are powerless against their adversaries when they actually aren’t.
But the worst wound in this Joy storyline is self-inflicted: Days of Our Lives went out of its way to point out that Joy cannot fake the lack of a reflex, only for it to turn out that she could.
Kayla’s explanation was medically sound, and it was frankly idiotic that Stephanie didn’t realize that involuntary reflexes are a thing — has she never had a routine checkup in her life?
It was also insulting to suggest that Kayla was so incompetent that she couldn’t tell when someone was malingering.
We already went through this nonsense with Sophia. Nobody who works in a mental hospital should be fooled by someone pretending to be selectively mute.
(Peacock/Screenshot)In Joy’s case, there are SO many ways this type of scheme would fail, starting with the fact that you also involuntarily move during sleep.
It honestly feels like the writers woke up one day and decided it would be fun if Joy was faking, after going to great lengths to prove she wasn’t. Come on!
- SWAT Exiles Took the Overdone Mole Storyline Trope And Actually Made It Workby Alexandria Ingham
- I Know It’s a Soap, But Is It Too Much to Ask for Days of Our Lives to Be a TINY Bit Realistic?by Jack Ori
- The Walking Dead Needs to Let New Characters Inherit the Franchiseby Paul Dailly
The idea of Dominic being Marlena and Stefano’s son flies in the face of everything we know about Stefano — he would not have kept such a baby secret from Marlena until after he died.
The child would have been used to manipulate Marlena from the moment he was born, and Stefano would have been grooming him to be a “true DiMera,” too.
(Peacock/Screenshot)That’s why I’d prefer that this story be an elaborate Orpheus hoax.
But even if we eventually have to accept that Dominic is Marlena’s son, I hope there’s better evidence than what we got!
Steve asked Bo and Hope to investigate offscreen, then came to Marlena with a birth certificate that listed her as Dominic’s mother.
This would have been suspicious under any circumstances, considering that nobody could find any information about Dominic at all; then, out of nowhere, Bo and Hope found this birth certificate.
Worse, they found it on a secret island where Stefano had once held Marlena captive, and the dialogue made it sound like it was just lying around.
(Peacock/Screenshot)In the age of AI, why would anyone believe that was real?
It wasn’t a certified birth certificate; it was planted in an obscure location, and it would be very easy to make something authentic-looking using an AI image generator.
- Best Lines From Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 10, “Tomorrow’s Enterprise”by Diana Keng
- Dark Matter, Neagley & S.W.A.T Exiles Reminded Us Why Great Character Work Mattersby TV Fanatic Staff
- 7 Storylines from the Books We Could See in Foundation Season 4 — Rankedby Siddhika Prajapati
Marlena’s doubts are supposed to come from not wanting to believe she had a child with Stefano, but they’re the only thing saving this storyline (which has a million other problems).
Stefano tormented and abused her when he was alive, so Steve’s first thought should not have been that he had proof of anything other than a potential hoax, and a cruel one at that.
(Peacock/Screenshot)What do you think, Days of Our Lives Fanatics?
Is the unreality distracting you too, or do you just roll with it?
Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to share this article with your friends so they can join the conversation!
Hungry for more Days of Our Lives chat? Check out our other recent Days of Our Lives editorials.
Days of Our Lives streams on Peacock. New episodes drop on weekday mornings at 6/5c.
-
This Days of Our Lives Fantasy Twist Would Turn This Flat Dominic Story Into Must-Watch TV
This Days of Our Lives fantasy twist would turn one of its most boring stories into something we can’t stop talking about.
-
Days of Our Lives Spoilers For The Week of 9-28-26 Repeat a Silly Story But There Are Other Exciting Developments
Days of Our Lives spoilers for the week of 9-28-26 repeat a story that wasn’t funny the first time, but the soap is still worth watching.
-
Days of Our Lives Spoilers for the Week of 9-21-26 Promise That Johnny Will Finally Find His Backbone , But Is It Too Late?
Days of Our Lives spoilers for the week of 9-21-26 promise an epic confrontation between father and son. Finally!
TV Fanatic is searching for passionate contributors to share their voices across various article types. Think you have what it takes to be a TV Fanatic? Click here to learn more and take the next step.
The post I Know It’s a Soap, But Is It Too Much to Ask for Days of Our Lives to Be a TINY Bit Realistic? appeared first on TV Fanatic.