In the August 14 episode of Days of our Lives, EJ’s miserable week of coughing finally became more than background noise. After Rita wiped Devlin St. John’s memory with CRS-17, she apparently decided one amnesiac man wasn’t enough for the afternoon and handed EJ his own dose disguised as flu medication. Suddenly, that stubborn DiMera flu looks a whole lot more interesting.
Key Takeaways
- EJ’s flu continued to worsen throughout the week.
- Rita used CRS-17 to erase Devlin’s memory.
- Rita then gave EJ what appeared to be CRS-17 disguised as flu medicine.
- EJ may soon forget exactly what happened with Devlin.
- His illness could still be setting up an even larger story.
What Happened on DAYS
Devlin (John Oliver) woke up after being injected with CRS-17 and wandered around the DiMera mansion with absolutely no idea who he was or why the place apparently occupied several ZIP Codes. Rita (Maggie Carney) eventually found him, tased him for good measure, and prepared to stick him on ice in one of the infamous pods.
Then EJ (Dan Feuerriegel) arrived, demanding to know what the devil was happening. Unfortunately, demanding answers works better when you aren’t coughing through the interrogation. Rita calmly told him she had gotten him some flu medicine and handed him a pill from a bottle of CRS-17.
Why It Matters
That conveniently takes care of John Oliver’s three-episode visit without requiring DAYS to permanently rearrange any furniture. Devlin can disappear into a cryogenic tube, EJ can forget the whole thing, and the Coriseal disaster can return whenever the show feels like opening that particular manhole again.
But EJ’s illness started before Devlin ever walked through the door. Paulina (Jackée Harry) previously mentioned a flu going around Salem, EJ spent several episodes coughing and sneezing, and even Rita was telling people he was sick. That makes it harder to dismiss the flu as something created solely to accommodate Oliver’s guest appearance. Characters in movies and TV shows don’t cough or sneeze unless it’s part of the story.
The Fallout
The interesting question is what happens now that the Devlin detour is finished. Does EJ simply wake up minus a few inconvenient memories and recover, or does that cough keep getting worse?
And there is already the contaminated Coriseal, arsenic, and poisoned water floating around this story. Devlin warned that contamination could reach Salem’s water supply after a single storm, which gives EJ’s illness a considerably darker possibility than seasonal flu. If EJ keeps coughing after John Oliver and his gloriously over-the-top similes have vanished into cold storage, that may be our first clue that Salem has a much bigger problem coming.
