Days of Our Lives July 1 Shows The Futility Of EJ’s Moves

With Nicole bearing down on EJ, wondering why Melinda was at their house, he managed to turn things around and prevent her from learning the truth about Jude’s paternity on the July 1 episode of Days of Our Lives. Of course, all his machinations will ultimately be futile. Also, Kristen and Ava formed a power alliance, while Tate and Holly had an important decision to make.

Treading Water Lately

All EJ’s(Daniel Feuerriegel) focus lately has been on the one thing he has left: his marriage to Nicole (Arianne Zucker). Once she learns that the real love of her life, Eric (Greg Vaughan), is the father of her baby, EJ will be tossed aside like yesterday’s newspaper. It seems that people continue to learn the dreaded truth about the baby swap, and he’s basically been trying his best just to stay afloat and fight to preserve his marriage.

Melinda (Tina Huang) was the latest to threaten to blow his marriage apart because he once again took her job as district attorney. But, he convinced her he could get her a job as special counsel for DiMera Enterprises, which changed her tune. (Learn why Melinda got involved in the baby swap in the first place.)

He got Sloan (Jessica Serfaty) to leave town, has held Leo (Greg Rikaart) at bay, and now has Melinda under his thumb — that is if he can convince his duplicitous sister, Kristen (Stacey Haiduk), to use her powers as CEO of DiMera to allow the hiring of Melinda. So, it’s still a bit of an uphill battle for him. And considering Eric has been claiming he wants to leave town and just got accepted for a photography job in Paris, France, it’s well within the realm of possibility that Nicole will learn the secret, grab Jude, and run off to Europe with Eric! Ultimately, EJ is fighting an unwinnable battle.

Kristen Makes Ava an Offer She Can’t Refuse

Ava (Tamara Braun) sat down with Kristen to vent a little bit about Harris’ (Steve Burton) exit from Salem. After a while of discussing her situation in life, Kristen offered her a job at DiMera. She wasn’t specific about it except to say that she needed an ally in that “snake pit,” and besides, hiring Ava would get under EJ’s skin.

That aspect was enough to push Ava over the edge, and she agreed to join the master schemer. Ava will most likely hold an executive assistant job to Kristen or something similar that would make it easy for the two to keep their heads together and work out their next scheme. It’ll be nice to see what direction this takes Ava in, as she’s been working hard to get away from the whole “crime family” thing.

Tate and Holly on the Run?

Not only were Tate (Leo Howard) and Holly (Ashley Puzemis) busted for getting a hotel room when they were supposed to be at the prom, but both kids have seen some harsh punishments as their parents attempt to keep them apart. Holly feels like she’s been grounded into the next life, and Tate was horrified to learn that Brady (Eric Martsolf) and Theresa (Emily O’Brien) are sending him off to Lacrosse camp for the summer.

Brady basically laid it out that Tate had no choice in the matter, so he did what we expected him to do: He spoke to Holly and asked her to run away with him. He did warn his dad that if the parents stepped up their game to keep him and Holly apart, that would only fuel their desire to be together even further. So now we have two potential runaways exiting Salem, but they could be headed for a dangerous summer adventure, which would finally make their characters actually interesting to watch!