Peter Reckell & Kristian Alfonso Preview Days of our Lives: Beyond Salem

Bo Brady may have gone to that great soap opera in the sky back in 2015, but he and his beloved wife Hope Williams Brady are set to be reunited! The highly anticipated event won’t take place on the NBC soap but rather on the network’s streaming service peacock on Days of our Lives: Beyond Salem. Soap Hub chatted with Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso about the homecoming.

Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso Talk Beyond Salem

Reckell popped up in 2016 in a DAYS’ fantasy scene. Alfonso exited the show in 2020 after DAYS hit the pause button on production due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. The duo’s fans will want to check out peacock starting Monday, July 11 as the next installment of Beyond Salem commences. The limited series is part of peacock’s paid subscription platform.

Life After DAYS

Reckell and his family (wife Kelly Moneymaker, a producer and singer, and their daughter, Loden) moved back to the United States after living for a while in New Zealand. “I’ve been a dad for the last [15] years and have been enjoying that ride, watching this young person grow and change,” Reckell tells Soap Hub. “It’s a challenging job and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Since departing daytime, Alfonso has been working in Canada on projects including The Chronicle Mysteries and V.C. Andrews’ Landry Family. “It was an incredible amazing experience,” Alfonso says. “It was all hands on deck. It’s how I love to work. I felt very welcomed.”

When Peter Reckell First Met Victoria Konefal

Initially, DAYS reached out to Reckell to see if he’d be available to do a voice-over on the broadcast series to help bring the Devil story to a close. When the show learned that Reckell was back living in the United States, producers invited him to shoot his scenes, which aired in May, in person so that Bo could be seen in the (spiritual) flesh.

Ironically, it wasn’t until later that Reckell met TV daughter Victoria Konefal, even though Ciara was in those scenes. “When I came in to do my part, they hired [a stand-in to be Ciara] and you saw her over my shoulder,” Reckell says. “It was the same with Stephen [Nichols, Steve]. People were saying you guys worked so well together. I was working with a stage manager!” Reckell and Konefal’s actual first meeting occurred during the shooting of Beyond Salem. It was captured on video and has been shared on Twitter. (Check out the tweet below.)

Reckell’s DAYS appearance in May led to a discussion for him to take part in this next installment of Beyond Salem. The show also reached out to Alfonso. The plotline that’s going to reunite them is being kept under wraps, but Alfonso previews it’s going to be beyond (pun intended) satisfying. “The story is so amazing,” the actress teases. “Ron [Carlivati, head writer] had me at ‘hello.’ First, it was the story. Then, I thought of the audience. That’s why I decided to come back. I want the audience to enjoy the five episodes. I want them to be what they want them to be.”

While some characters who have popped up on previous Beyond Salem series have since returned to the NBC series, there’s no word yet on whether or not we’ll see Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso back on DAYS. “It was a great experience,” Alfonso says of reprising her role as Hope. “It was wonderful being back — yet not really being back. It meant so much to me [and to] the fans.”

Thanking the ‘Bope’ Fans

Reckell and Alfonso are both grateful to supporters who keep the romance of Bo and Hope in the forefront. “I so appreciate and love when I see old clips [of Bo and Hope] pop up on social media,” Alfonso says. “I do watch them. I become very melancholy. I feel like I blinked and time traveled so quickly. Beautiful, beautiful memories…lots of them.”

“I’ve [seen] fans keep Bo alive on Twitter,” Reckell says. “The popularity of that is just amazing. People who watched us in the ’80s and ’90s [felt] comfort and now, this series is happening at the perfect time.”

Days of our Lives: Beyond Salem streams on peacock for five episodes starting Monday, July 11. Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Salem, check out all the latest that’s been posted on DAYS spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.