Things moved fast.

One second, Craig asked Kayla to consider hiring him to work under her. The next, he was the new Chief of Staff.

Kayla accused him of secretly working to steal her job. Whether he did or not, that was seriously the least bad thing anyone did on Days of Our Lives during the week of 3-21-22.

Days of Our Lives is working overtime to convince viewers that Craig has gone back to his old ways and did something sleazy and underhanded to get ahead.

This Chief of Staff switcheroo is NOTHING like what happened last time Craig became determined to become Chief of Staff. He didn’t lie, plant false evidence, or do anything to make his opponent look dirty.

At most, Craig is guilty of listening to Leo when doing so wouldn’t make him friends.

He applied for a staff position, fully intending to take it. Then when Leo pushed him, he casually mentioned that IF Kayla’s job became open as a result of the Marlena scandal and IF Seth Burns didn’t already intend to offer it to someone else, he would be interested in taking it.

What’s the big deal? He didn’t do anything other than put himself forward as a candidate. Seth Burns would have fired Kayla anyway since they’d both made their positions clear, and Kayla has said more than once that she did not want the job if it meant firing Marlena.

Half of Kayla’s anger is that she believes Craig manipulated Seth Burns into giving him the job, which he didn’t. The other half is because Craig has said he will fire Marlena, so her stance against it was for naught.

But Kayla shouldn’t be surprised about this. Marlena warned her that if she didn’t fire her, Seth Burns would replace Kayla with someone who would! 

Marlena was willing to resign to avoid this whole mess, but Kayla wouldn’t accept that.

So Kayla has no one to blame for her job loss but herself.

Marlena: I appreciate your loyalty, but if you don’t fire me, they’ll just replace you with someone who will.
Kayla: It’s not about you. I mean, you’re my dear friend and I love being able to spend time together, but it’s the principle of it. If I fired you, it would send the message that personal problems are a firable offense.
Marlena: I appreciate that, but this is a unique situation.
Kayla: I’m Chief of Staff. I’m supposed to control staffing decisions. And if I can’t do that, then I might as well not have this job.

I’m not super-invested in whether or not Marlena continues working at the hospital. She could easily go into private practice with her years of experience and pick up clients who don’t know about her Devil possession issues.

And for all her squawking about how unfair this is, Kayla refused to involve Marlena in Sarah’s care. Instead, she allowed Maggie to take Sarah home when Sarah believes she’s Renee Dumonde and is determined to destroy Tony and Anna’s marriage and possibly kill Anna, too!

Kayla deserved to lose her position on those grounds alone. 

Sarah’s already been discharged, so Craig will likely have no say in what happens with her. And if he fires Marlena, does he have another psychiatrist in mind to take her place?

SOMEONE needs to take over for Kayla’s appalling lack of adherence to medical standards!

The whole Sarah/Renee thing has way outstayed its welcome, and the conflict between Tony and Anna over this is ridiculous.

Maggie and Tony are both enabling Sarah’s delusions. It does her no good for Tony to give her what she wants and only hurts Anna.

Maggie should know better. She’s struggled with mental health issues herself, and surely she witnessed Laura’s epic battle with them too. 

So the last thing she should be doing is enabling Sarah because she doesn’t want to put her in Bayview.

And where is Victor? At the very least, he should be making snarky comments from his easy chair while Maggie moves her completely-out-of-touch-with-reality daughter and Anna Dimera’s husband into the mansion.

Anna’s suggestion that they instead engage psychiatrists in Sarah’s care fell on deaf ears.

Tony gave her some claptrap about how Sarah’s condition was so rare that no institution could help, which no one had said. Not even Kayla.

He also claimed that Maggie had lost one daughter, so she needed her other one to stay home rather than go to a mental hospital. But that’s a poor reason indeed for going along with this scheme!

Sarah is making Anna’s life miserable. She’s not only determined to be with Tony but insults and threatens Anna every chance she gets.

And she’s getting her way even though Tony doesn’t intend to be with her romantically because he’s separating himself from Anna, and his decisions are causing tension in their marriage.

Once again, the writers have refused to write about mental health conditions with anything approaching respect. In reality, very few people believe they are someone else, and nobody develops that delusion from reading a diary.

But by suggesting that any crazy scheme is better than the idea of your loved one getting in-patient treatment at a mental health facility and refusing to involve a psychiatrist in this story, Days of Our Lives again mocks mental health treatment.

Sadly, this is far from the craziest idea anyone’s had on Days of Our Lives during the week of 3-21-22.

Instead of making it a priority to try to get an antidote to the drug that ruined Sarah’s brain, Chad took the time to help break up Leo and Craig first.

To his credit, Chad at least insisted that he had to accompany Abigail to visit Rolf, even if it meant this plan went by the wayside. But still, he should have gone with Abigail to see Rolf NOW, not make plans to do it tomorrow.

This plan is ridiculous, and Sonny’s insistence on it does NOT make him look good.

He’s continually manipulating Chad, bringing on the tears as needed and insisting that if Chad doesn’t go along with him, Craig’ll get seriously hurt.

He even claimed that what Chad went through with Gwen was nothing compared to what’ll happen if Craig continues to date Leo, despite not having been in town when Chad slept with Gwen. Thankfully,  Chad shot THAT down in a hurry.

This whole story is being played for laughs, but the problem is that it isn’t funny.

Nothing is amusing about Sonny telling Chad and Abigail repeatedly not to kiss because Leo will know somehow that Chad isn’t gay or about Chad pretending to be gay so that he can trick the guy who sexually harassed him into thinking he has a chance with him.

Furthermore, Chad was right that if Leo is wrong for Craig, Craig will eventually figure that out.

Chad, Sonny, and everyone else in Salem should realize that if you try to make someone NOT date someone else, it only pushes them closer together. It’s as true of the 60+ set as it is of the teens.

And it isn’t their business, anyway. Craig knows what Chloe and her friends think about Leo. Now it’s up to him what to do about it.

Elsewhere, Rafe’s trial concluded off-screen. It seemed like this story was rushed to a conclusion to make more room for the Chad/Leo silliness and the Devil stuff.

Ava: My things are here.
Rafe: I’ll pack it up for you and send it to you. Give me the key.
Ava: Why are you two being so hostile? First you sleep with each other behind my back and then you falsely accuse me of falsely accusing you of corruption. I just came to get my things and to congratulate you, but if I knew you were going to be so nasty I wouldn’t have bothered. I’ll send you my forwarding address. Unless… are you really going to arrest me?
[Rafe shakes his head]
Ava: I didn’t think so. Have a wonderful life , you two, as long as it lasts.
[Ava storms out]
Nicole: Well, one thing you can say for her is that the lady really knows how to make an exit.

Ava’s threats are interesting now. I’m curious as to what she’s going to do next. But whatever it is, will it also be off-screen? 

Ava’s a compelling villain, especially when she spends time with Tripp instead of just engaging in her revenge plans. Her empathy for Tripp added another dimension to her character, though I have to admit that I wondered if she was plotting revenge against Allie.

Days of Our Lives spent a good chunk of time on the latest silliness surrounding the Devil. 

Unsurprisingly, the demon got away with its stupid plan to make everyone think Belle was possessed and that it is now gone. You’d think people would be worried about who the Devil got into now, considering that last time they thought it was banished, it popped up again.

Now Belle feels guilty and makes an apology tour when she didn’t do anything wrong. Both Kate and Susan have a ridiculous idea about EJ claiming he had ineffective counsel because the Devil allegedly possessed his lawyer.

Please. Belle’s behavior in the courtroom was by the book, plus no judge is going to accept the idea that the Devil possessed the lawyer.

It’ll suck if Belle’s law practice suffers because of this. It’s bad enough that Marlena’s job is in jeopardy because of the Devil business (even though it wasn’t a problem when Hattie took over for Marlena and gave clients equally lousy advice!)

But Belle wasn’t possessed in the first place, and she shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences.

More importantly, when are we getting rid of this Devil?

Johnny is running around town seducing Gabi and causing trouble for Allie. His attempts to fight the Devil off seem to have evaporated now that the demon pinned its bad behavior on Belle.

This story wore out its welcome a long time ago, but it shows no signs of being anywhere near over.

And even when Johnny finally is rid of the Devil, there’s no guarantee that the writers won’t put it into someone else to keep the nonsense going. Hopefully not, but given all the doppelgangers we’ve been treated to in the last year, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics. Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know what you thought of this week’s goings-on.

If you’re hungry for more DAYS chat, check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

Days of Our Lives airs on NBC on weekday afternoons. Check your local listings for airtimes or watch on Peacock TV on weeknights after 8 PM EST / 5 PM PST.

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