Joy Wesley is facing a major medical setback at the hospital on Wednesday, September 9th, as she receives terrifying news about her upcoming spinal surgery. Alex Kiriakis is by her side, hugging her and comforting her as she breaks down in tears. The two are visibly devastated by the development, but given Joy’s recent behavior in Salem, her emotional state is drawing mixed reactions. Since returning to town with her baby, Joy has repeatedly used the child as leverage over Alex, including a questionable insurance scam when she claimed she needed money for Kelsey’s vaccinations after losing her New York coverage.
After Stephanie accidentally fired a gun at Joy in a PTSD-induced haze, Joy quickly weaponized the incident, banning Stephanie from Kelsey’s life and driving a wedge between her and Alex. Seeing Joy terrified in the hospital now is undeniably sad, but her history of manipulation lingers over the moment. Alex, meanwhile, is overwhelmed by a deep savior complex rooted in his childhood abandonment by his mother, Angelica. He is desperate to protect his family, and watching the mother of his child face a frightening medical setback triggers every protective instinct he has.
He holds her, and she absorbs his promises, drawing him even closer in her fear. Across town, Stephanie is drowning. Her marriage is hanging by a thread, and her mother, Kayla, is stepping in to encourage her not to give up on Alex, despite the ongoing Joy drama. Stephanie is shattered, still reeling from her kidnapping by her own Kent, and she feels like a monster after firing that gun at Joy.
She agreed to Joy’s ban because she believes she’s dangerous, isolating herself while Alex plays house with Joy and Kelsey at the hospital. Kayla, who has fought through her own decades of hell with Steve, tells Stephanie that true love takes work, but Stephanie is exhausted from playing third wheel in her own marriage, and she’s not sure she has anything left to fight with. Meanwhile, the Kiriakis mansion is filled with depression as Sarah and Xander pack up their lives. Xander has hit rock bottom, having lost his marriage, his position at Titan, and his home.
As they pack, both are haunted by regret and thoughts of how things might have gone differently. The tension is thick, and one detail stands out: Xander sniffing a green scarf that appears to be Sarah’s, holding onto her perfume, remembering what they had. His love for Sarah was his one redeeming quality, and he blew it by repeatedly falling back into shady corporate dealings and entanglements with Kristen. Sarah can’t handle the chaos, yet the magnetic pull between them remains undeniable.
Marlena has offered Xander therapy, which he desperately needs, but no session is going to fill the gaping hole in his chest where Sarah used to be. Sarah is trying to move on, though, and later this week, she ends up in bed with Brady Black, tangled in the sheets in the throes of passion. But thoughts of Xander still haunt her. Brady is safe, stable, the band-aid covering the bullet hole Xander left in her heart.
She cares for Brady deeply, but what she has with him is nothing like the soul-consuming passion she shared with Xander, likethe chemistry that exploded when Philip locked them in the wine cellar. She’s fighting her attraction to the danger Xander represents, trying to convince herself that a safe life is what she wants, but her mind keeps drifting back to the man sniffing her scarf across town. Brady has bigger problems anyway, because he and Steve Johnson are back at Black Patch, digging through what they found in their investigation into the massive DiMera cover-up involving tainted Corazil pills. Sarah lost a patient, Destiny, whose sister also died from arsenic-laced Corazil produced by DiMera Pharmaceuticals.
EJ DiMera knew the batch was bad, buried the pills near the Horton cabin, and then planted some on Holly Jonas to frame the teenager asa drug addict and cover his tracks. Steve and Brady have been working to nail EJ, cornering Liam inthe park earlier that summer, but EJ has Rafe covering for him, has the money, has the power, and keeps slipping through their fingers. Brady is particularly furious because EJ fired Sarah over this, since she was getting too close to the truth. But here’s the irony: Sarah secretly enlisted Xander to help her with the investigation because she knew Brady and Steve play too much by the book.
She needed Xander’s ruthless mercenary instincts. So while Brady sits with Steve, looking over files and evidence and trying to do things the legal way, Sarah is sneaking around with Xander, a decision that seems likely to blow up in Brady’s face professionally and personally. Whatever happens next, Wednesday’s episode promises an emotional roller coaster, from Joy’s tears to Xander’s green scarf, with the tangled loyalties of everyone in Salem poised to collide.
