Happy Wednesday, everyone. This is an episode about parallels — even if the characters don't always see them. Marlena watches Paulina go through the exact situation she lived through decades ago. Steve shows Alex the same grace he learned the hard way with Tripp.

EJ, who brought his sister back from the dead, is already figuring out how to sell the formula. The Lexie return is confirmed today — DNA, dental, the works — but the real story is what her return is doing to everyone around her. Let's get into it.

Michael

Forwarded to you? I write The Salem Dispatch daily for other fans of Days of Our Lives: full recap of yesterday's episode, tomorrow's spoilers, and what other fans are saying.

It's Really Her

Kayla delivers the news the Carvers have been waiting for: Lexie's DNA is a match, and her dentist located dental records in storage that confirm the same. It's really Lexie. Theo never doubted it. "I never doubted it," he tells Abe and Kayla. "I just felt it." So did Abe. Better still, the brain tumor that killed her is completely gone, and all of her neurological exams have come back encouraging. The miracle, apparently, is thorough.

When Theo finally gets time alone with his sleeping mother, he keeps talking, the way he used to at her headstone. And then she opens her eyes. Lexie doesn't recognize the man sitting beside her — "Theo is just a boy," she says, confused. So Theo reaches back to a story Lexie told him in first grade to help him get over his fear of going to school. "It is you," Lexie whispers when she realizes. "My son." The fourteen-year gap closes in a heartbeat.

Later, Abe and Theo sit with a more alert Lexie. She takes in Theo's grown face, tells Abe he hasn’t changed a bit, and notices his wedding ring and asks if it's the same one. It isn't. Abe tells her the truth: he thought she was gone, he eventually met someone, and he married her.

Paulina Lets Go

While the Carvers are getting their miracle, Paulina is in the hospital waiting room describing her situation as purgatory. Marlena sits with her and listens. What Paulina tells her is devastating: she was standing in the doorway of Lexie's room last night when she heard Lexie say "I love you" to Abe, and she heard Abe say it back. "I've lost him," Paulina says, and she means it.

Marlena knows this landscape intimately. She brings up Roman — years ago, she had two wonderful men in her life after Roman returned, and it caused pain for everyone. She hopes Abe and Paulina and Lexie don't have to go down that same path. It's maybe the most useful thing anyone could say, because Marlena isn't guessing. She lived it.

When Chanel arrives at the hospital to pick up Johnny (he's being discharged), she finds her mother struggling. Paulina explains everything — Lexie was the dilemma she couldn't talk about weeks ago. "My husband has another wife," Paulina says. "What am I? Am I just a footnote now?" Eventually Abe comes to find Paulina. She doesn't make him choose. "I love you," she says. "But you need to go back with Lexie. I want you to go. Please." He does.

EJ's Billion-Dollar Pivot

At the DiMera mansion, EJ is celebrating. Lexie's drug is, in his words, "an unqualified success," and the business implications are already materializing: anonymous inquiries through encrypted channels, some reaching ten figures. Billions. Gwen does the math and is impressed, but she's also worried about prison. EJ waves this off — he has lawyers lined up, nobody knows about Gwen's involvement, and discretion will keep them safe.

Then he renegotiates the deal. EJ informs Gwen that their 50/50 split is no longer operative. The circumstances have changed, she has no legal recourse, and as her attorney he'd advise her to take his present offer or risk getting nothing at all. Gwen is furious. She reminds him that Dimitri's money funded the experiment and that EJ wouldn't have seen a cent without her help. EJ doesn't care. They still need to track Lexie's recovery to reassure buyers that the results stick, and they need to prove the success can be repeated — but the financial terms are his to set, and he knows it.

Steve’s Fatherly Moment with Alex

Over at Alex's apartment, Steve knocks on the door, and Alex braces for a lecture about Joy and baby Kelsey. He doesn't get one. "You assume wrong," Steve tells him. He's not here to read Alex the riot act. He knows Alex didn't get back with Stephanie until after his relationship with Joy ended, and he knows Alex has stepped up for his daughter. "That's the right thing to do."

What Steve came to say is bigger than that. He tells Alex that he's watched how Alex handled Stephanie's abduction, and he knows Alex would do anything for her. He promises it won't be easy — he's been in a version of this himself — but Alex is family now. "You are a part of this big, crazy bunch we call our family. And so is your little baby girl." He and Kayla will always be there for all of them. It's the kind of scene this show does at its best: a father extending grace to a son who didn't expect it.

Chanel's Quiet Worry

Chanel is at the hospital for two reasons — Johnny's discharge and her own biopsy. She mentions it briefly on the phone with Johnny, trying to sound casual: "A little nervous, but mostly just want to get it over with." When she runs into Alex beforehand, the conversation is lighter — she mentions running into Joy, floats the idea of a play date between Trey and Kelsey so Trey can practice sharing before his sibling arrives. But the biopsy hangs in the background of every scene she's in, even when she's not talking about it.

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Marlena said something today that sounded like advice but was really a confession. Sitting with Paulina in the hospital waiting room, she brought up the time Roman Brady came back from the dead — and how she had two wonderful men in her life, and how it caused a lot of pain for everyone involved. "I hope they don't have to go down that same path," she said. She meant it. She also knows they probably will.

The parallels between Marlena's story and Paulina's are close enough to be structural. In 1991, the real Roman Brady walked back into Salem after years of captivity by Stefano DiMera. He came home expecting to find his wife waiting for him. She was — but she was also in love with someone else. A man named John Black had arrived in Salem years earlier believing he was Roman, and Marlena had fallen deeply in love with him. When the real Roman returned, Marlena was caught between the husband she'd mourned and the man she'd built a new life with. She chose John. Roman had to watch.

Now look at what's happening with the Carvers. Lexie was gone for almost fifteen years — twice as long as Roman. Abe mourned her, eventually moved on, and married Paulina. They built a life together, a family. And now Lexie is back, confused and disoriented, asking Abe if he's wearing the same ring. He isn't. But he's still the man who held her hand and told her he loved her while Paulina watched from the doorway.

The crucial difference is who's caught in the middle. When Roman returned, it was Marlena who had to choose between two men. In this version, it's Abe — and both women are making it easy for him in ways that might make it harder. Paulina told him to go back to Lexie. Lexie doesn't even know Paulina exists yet. Nobody is fighting. Nobody is making demands. And that might be the cruelest part, because the absence of conflict doesn't mean the absence of pain.

Marlena's Roman triangle ended with a clear choice: she picked John, and Roman eventually accepted it. But that acceptance took years and left scars. Roman remarried. He and Marlena found their way to a friendship. The wound healed, but it never fully closed.

The question now is whether Abe's story follows the same arc or breaks from it. Marlena chose the new love. Will Abe? He has every reason to — Paulina is his wife, his partner, the woman who knew about Lexie's resurrection and chose not to shut it down because she couldn't take that away from him and Theo. That's not a footnote. That's an act of love.

But Lexie is Lexie. She's Theo's mother. She's the woman Abe spent most of his life with. And from her perspective, no time has passed at all. She woke up today and didn't recognize her own son. She'll wake up tomorrow and learn the world moved on without her. Abe will have to be the one to explain it — slowly, carefully, and without breaking what's left of the life she remembers.

Marlena hopes they don't go down the same path. She's the only person in Salem qualified to say that, because she walked it herself. But hope isn't a plan, and Salem's history with love triangles doesn't inspire optimism.

Lexie's DNA confirmed her identity today. Years ago, another DNA test upended Lexie's life when it revealed the baby she and Abe were raising wasn't biologically theirs. What name did Lexie and Abe give that child, and who turned out to be his biological parents?

Stephen OYoung Debuts as Jason Choi

Sophia's father arrives in Salem for the first time on screen. He's been an off-screen absence through the entire Sophia arc — from the cyberbullying to the fall to Amy's campaign against Holly. Now both Choi parents are on the canvas, and as Soap Opera Digest's comings-and-goings column confirms, the debut coincides with Amy pushing for charges — doubling the pressure on Holly. OYoung is known to gamers as Martin Li in Marvel's Spider-Man.

Amy Goes Off on Holly — Again

Amy Choi confronts Holly directly, per Primetimer's weekly breakdown. With Belle having recused herself from the cyberbullying case yesterday, Holly is losing allies and gaining enemies. Jason Choi's arrival the same day isn't a coincidence — the show is giving the Choi family a full presence just as the legal threat against Holly reaches its peak.

Johnny and Chanel Face a Health Crisis

Chanel mentioned her biopsy almost in passing today, but Thursday puts it front and center. SheKnows' weekly spoilers frame this as the couple facing a crisis together — which suggests the biopsy results are in, and they may not be what Chanel was hoping for.

Jada Takes Shawn In

Shawn moves in with Jada for his recovery, and SheKnows' spoiler column is already teasing a rekindling of their romantic reconnection. This is the first time the two have shared a living space since their relationship ended, and with Belle now out of the picture, the door is wide open.

Gabi Confronts Ari About Liam

After yesterday's kiss in Bookshop, Gabi wants answers. SheKnows flags a direct mother-daughter confrontation about Liam's past, his record, and whether Ari knows what she's getting into. Ari already said her piece yesterday — "my mom's a felon" — but Gabi hasn't heard it yet.

A few things I'm chewing on after today.

Hit reply and tell me what you think. I read all of your responses!

Isaac. Lexie and Abe named the baby Isaac Carver and raised him as their own. A DNA test eventually revealed he was really Zack Brady — the biological son of Bo and Hope Brady, switched at birth on Stefano DiMera's orders. Lexie was devastated when she had to give him up, and the fallout drove her to some of the darkest choices of her life. Years later, Zack's death in a hit-and-run became one of the most heartbreaking storylines in DOOL history.