The battle lines are drawn! Maggie and Tony prepare to face off: Days of our Lives Two Scoops for the week of September 22-26, 2025

It was an exciting week on DAYS as many storylines began heating up!

Sophia’s starting to become unglued. Rachel Boyd is doing a great acting job because you can see the wheels turning in her head as she’s starting to go off the rails. She’s obsessing over not wanting Johnny and Chanel to adopt her baby, as well as sabotaging Holly at every turn she gets. It’s at the point where you don’t know what she’s gonna do next, and that’s certainly keeping me engaged as a viewer. She even told Melinda that while she doesn’t want to kill Johnny, she’s going to make him wish he were dead. That sent a chill down my spine!

But Tate is playing a dangerous game. Last week, he kissed Sophia out of the blue, and this week, he told Brady about it, explaining that he had been faking his affection to get close enough for her to reveal what had happened to her baby. But that’s a slippery slope he’s climbing, and he should be careful because she could start to go into Luna from The Bold and the Beautiful territory. It can only end in disaster for Tate and maybe some others.

Maggie learned about Tony’s demands and went to confront him right away. She told him in no uncertain terms that Titan would not go down quietly, essentially throwing down the gauntlet and challenging him. Tony then said, “Maggie, let’s try not to be adversaries. And as you well know, I can be ruthless if need be.” Maggie had an awesome response with, “Well, so can I.”

She then walked in on Xander, Philip, Brady, and Alex fighting about what to do. She yelled at them to cut the crap and figure out a way to work together to stop Tony from taking Titan. It was a nice ‘rallying the troops’ moment as battle looms on the horizon. “Let’s show Tony that the Kiriakis family’s not going down without a fight,” she stated, inspiring them to do better.

And Salem has been plunged into darkness as the city’s power went out! Thankfully, the Kiriakis mansion and the hospital have generators, so not every scene is in blackness. It’s bringing couples together like Xander and Sarah (who slept together!) and Chad and Cat.

THE MANY SCARY FACES OF SOPHIA

Sophia started going off the rails and had several moments this week where she had a scary face on, many times while stalking Johnny and Chanel. She also took a pic of Holly while she was passed out, and made it so you could see her shoulder. What is this, the Victorian era? Next, she might take a snap of Holly’s ankles! How scandalous! The above image is just some of the scary faces Holly made this week.

And to top things off, she sent a nasty letter to child services to put the kybosh on Johnny and Chanel’s attempt to adopt Tesoro. She’s really turning evil!

LOOSE ENDS

Sarah feels like she’s failed Marlena for not finding out what’s wrong with her. But as I’m sure I said once before, I don’t think Marlena’s issue is physical - it’s spiritual. Perhaps there’s some connection with Stefano from the beyond. I think I speculated on this before as well, but my theory is that as his soul is drawn back into our world, perhaps to inhabit a clone or something, Marlena (along with Susan Banks) is sensing his presence.

Mark Greene got paroled, so it will be interesting if he eventually returns to Salem. It’s possible he could be instrumental in finding out what EJ and Gwen’s plan is with the hospital.

Julie bought the bookstore! Yay! That’s going to open things up to some good stories. And, of course, after handing over the keys, Foster looked like he was about to drop dead. He turned out to be okay, but was told not to do any traveling. Is romance in the air for the two of them?

When Foster was in the hospital, it was mentioned that his son was coming to Salem to check on him. I wonder if the son is the same person stalking Stephanie? Or perhaps he’s a new love interest for an unsuspecting woman…

Marlena passed out again! Hopefully, next week we’ll get more details about what she’s going through.

EXTRA SCOOPS

REFERENCES

EJ and Tony were talking about Tony’s plan to get DiMera back from Xander and Philip. Then EJ told him, “Please do let me know as soon as the Brothers Dim make a decision.” That was an obvious nod to the Brothers Grimm, 19th-century folklorists and scholars who published traditional fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel.

I knew having Johnny be a film teacher would be fertile ground for references. We got some good ones this week, starting with Holly talking about Douglas Sirk. He was a German-born filmmaker best known for his 1950s Hollywood melodramas, such as All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life, which combined lush visuals with sharp social critique. She called him one of the most influential directors, citing his movie Magnificent Obsession as well.

Bonnie told Maggie how, when she was a kid, she loved the band Duran Duran and wanted to marry lead singer Simon LeBon. But upon reflection, she quipped, “Then I would be Bonnie LeBon.”

SHOT OF THE WEEK

Hands down, shot of the week was Holly flat-out punching Tate in the face. If you look carefully at the above image, you can see the lady in the background (over Holly’s right shoulder) looking horrified! Such a great scene. Holly has no idea that Tate’s just playing Sophia, so her anger is justified.

TONY’S OUTFIT OF THE WEEK

It turns out, Tony had the same suit on this week as he did last week. So I guess this week’s outfit of the week goes to…(drum roll, please)...the baked goods onesie!! Chanel showed it to Johnny because it was the only baby item she saved when they were last planning to adopt. It’s super cute, and Tesoro would look great in it!

LINE(S) OF THE WEEK

Philip and Xander were fuming that they had to give in to Tony’s demands. Philip declared, “This is the second time Tony’s gotten the best of me.” Xander asked what the first was, and Phil replied, “Oh, years ago, he managed to get his hands on this alternative fuel project I was pursuing for Titan. We got into a bit of an argument about it, which kind of sort of led to him falling off some stairs and getting impaled on a piece of wood.” Xander mulled it over and said, “Accidents do happen.”

Stephanie and EJ were talking about Tony’s lawsuit, and Stephanie said she would stay out of it, noting, “Last time I was caught in the middle between a Kiriakis-DiMera feud, I found myself locked inside a morgue drawer.” EJ’s response was, “Well, let’s hope something like that doesn’t happen this time around.”

Xander asked Philip, “When did you become an optimist?” and Phlip replied, “When did you become a pessimist?” I love their dynamic, and I’m enjoying watching them work together.

REACTION OF THE WEEK

After hearing Bonnie rave about the book One Dark and Stormy Night, as well as how she enjoyed the online Q&A session with the author, Maggie decided to peek at it. Whatever it was she read was so racy, her shocked reaction was hilarious.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

This whole baby Tesoro storyline has ratcheted up the tension on the show. It’s a constant thing where you’re wondering which couple is going to get the baby, what’s Sophia going to do next, and so forth. I think it’s good because it keeps the viewers concerned for the characters. They’re doing a good job with it.

I always watch TV shows and movies with the closed caption on because you pick up on background voices and things being said from someone not in the shot. It’s also good to lessen the number of moments where you go, “Wait. What did he just say?” Anyway, the point is the subtitles also describe the music, and I thought it was funny that one description was “Light, twangy music.” I laughed out loud at that.

Gwen apparently is pumping some money into EJ’s secret hospital project. He showed her the space, which has a state-of-the-art alarm, and of course, she got stuck in there when the power went out. I think having the power go out is going to create some crazy stories! At one point, she wondered if throwing a gala while they had a secret scheme going on was a good idea, and EJ glibly stated that while the Hortons are reminiscing about Tom’s legacy, “They won’t know that we’re building ours.”

Sophia’s got some mad computer skills if she’s able to remotely get into Holly’s computer and delete her report!

PARTING THOUGHTS

So, Kayla was helping Stephanie move and found papers showing that she reps Anastasia Sands, the author of One Dark and Stormy Night. Steph narrowly avoided being outed as the writer and breathed a sigh of relief when Kayla finally left. How long is this story going to go on? I was going to ask what the point of it was, but we saw a stalker following her, and it’s clear the guy is either a crazed fan or an old boyfriend, like Jeremy Horton, who recognized the racier parts of her book. The stalker had flowers for her as she wandered in Horton Square during the blackout, but then dumped them into the trash when she walked off with Alex. The stalker was clearly angry at this, which makes the whole scenario super scary! I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

I’m also looking forward to finding out what exactly EJ and Gwen are doing at the hospital! EJ told her that they had “enhanced electrical needs,” so that spells mad scientist stuff to me! Hopefully, Dr. Rolf will return.

OUTRO

As always, thanks for joining me, DOOL-ers! Join me again next time as I tackle my new invention: the procrastinator’s time machine. It always arrives a little bit later.

Days of Our Lives can be found on the Peacock streaming app.