Days of our Lives Character Recap: Shawn Douglas Brady

As the son of a globe-trotting, crime-fighting, frequently in peril duo, it only makes sense that Shawn Douglas Brady of Days of our Lives would dedicate himself to a career that fights for truth and justice – and that the course of his romance with a fellow do-gooder would be fraught with such tension.

Who Is Shawn Douglas Brady?

Shawn Douglas’s birth was something of a miracle for Beauregard “Bo” Brady and Hope Williams Brady, especially following the latter’s miscarriage the year before. Though he was born into a pair of large extended families, Shawn Douglas saw very little of Salem during his formative years, as those were spent sailing around the world alongside his parents.

When Hope was presumedly killed by career criminal Ernesto Toscano, single father Bo decided to once again settle in his hometown. Over the next few years, a maturing Shawn Douglas happily welcomed a number of perspective mother figures into his life – chief among them Doctor Carly Manning and Billie Reed – but his joy was compounded when Hope was revealed to be alive and well and desperate to reunite with her husband and son.

Medical Maladies and Perils 
Aside from the usual cuts, scrapes, and bruises expected of a rambunctious youth, Shawn Douglas suffered a number of serious medical emergencies. A fall at an oil refinery site resulted in a prolonged bout of deafness – necessitating the learning of sign language – and a fall from a set of monkey bars left him with a severe concussion.

During his teenage years, Shawn Douglas was severely wounded by a gun-toting, murder-minded Princess Gina. In adulthood, he was targeted by an obsessive ex who kidnapped him and held him captive inside a cage. Upon making his escape from the makeshift jail cell, Shawn Douglas was involved in a motorcycle crash, which briefly altered his personality and left him with amnesia.

Shawn and Belle: A New Generation Supercouple

Perhaps it was fated that the offspring of two of DAYS’ most popular supercouples – Bo and Hope and John and Marlena – would themselves unite and start a family.

Shawn Douglas and Belle grew up together and became extremely close upon entering Salem High together. Their love affair was complicated by Shawn Douglas’s decision to claim Jan Spears’ unborn child as his own – a consequence of his convincing her not to abort the babe, which had been a product of rape.

They weathered that storm, and Jane’s false accusation that Belle caused her to have a miscarriage, but subsequent issues saw them break up and move on with other people. She married Philip Kiriakis, and he wed Mimi Lockhart.

Still, the love they had for one another endured – and resulted in extramarital affairs and the birth of a daughter, Claire. Once extricated from their other partners, Shawn Douglas and Belle reunited.

Taking inspiration from his childhood on the open waters, the couple and their little girl set sail aboard the Fancy Face IV. Their travels took them to picturesque locales like Maine and Hong Kong, but they did little to quell the fractious partnership.

Belle had an affair that led to a number of separations and reconciliations between the two and the ping-ponging adversely affected Claire. On their last visit home, the Bradys had to assist in sanctioning the twenty-something firestarter in their home town’s local sanitarium. Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes.