John Celebrates Wife Marlena Evans Black On Her 5,000 Milestone

On today’s Days of our Lives, Marlena Evans Black is hailed for her years and years of being Salem’s top talk therapist.

Days of our Lives Recap Highlights

In addition, big bad Dimitri Von Leuschner (Peter Porte ) invited Kate (Lauren Koslow) to dine with him while her loved ones — well, Chad (Billy Flynn) and a posse made up of Steve (Stephen Nichols) and Harris Michaels (Steve Burton) launched a rescue mission. Also, a slip of the tongue costs Alex (Robert Scott Wilson) big time. Now, let’s dig a little deeper into what exactly happened.

Marlena Evans Black, This Is Your Career

As yet another normal workday came to a close, John (Drake Hogestyn) swung by Marlena’s (Deidre Hall) office and wondered if he could fetch her some dinner — assuming as he did that she had more left to do. After all, a psychiatrist’s work is never done.

Luckily, Marlena had wrapped for the evening as her latest client had exited for a business meeting — and a pretty important sounding one too.

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John marveled at Marlena already being back at it and taking on new patients so soon after her [fifty hundredth] near-death experience, but she demurred that she’d only taken on one new one.

That led John to ponder exactly how many Salemtites Marlena had treated over the years and, as it turns out, he’s done some rough guesstimating. The number he hit upon? 5,000!

Marlena chuckled that she was certain it couldn’t have been as many as that, but granted that what the number is, it’s “a lot.”

Deciding that such a momentous milestone needs celebrating, John insisted on treating Marlena to a meal and a walk down memory lane.

Marlena Evans Black, DAYS Gone By

At the Brady Pub, John wondered what stands out to Marlena the most when she reflects on her storied career. Luckily that was an easy one: treating Mickey Horton, her first patient. What a tough case that was. And how different things were back then, way back in 1976.

After briefly considering decamping to a decidedly more upscale haunt, the two decided to stay put and continue reflecting on all those that Marlena had offered succor and sage advice.

There was Matt, the street kid whom she literally talked off a ledge before taking an accidental plunge herself. And the Lombards: Roger, the alcoholic who once mowed Kimberly Brady Donovan down with his car, and Stella, the wife who viewed Marlena as competition and wound up throwing her down into a boiler pit. Oh, and who could forget Ben Weston (Robert Scott Wilson), the serial killer whom Marlena helped rehabilitate?

John, who’d been on hand to watch Marlena’s plummet from that multi-story building and who’d occupied that same boiler pit when a rescue mission went shockingly awry, gave Marlena the credit for pulling him out of the dank dark place in which he was trapped when they’d first met [metaphorically speaking, of course] and revealed that he thanks God every day that she came into his life.

Marlena mewed similar endearing terms and decided that, in the grand scheme of things, maybe the number 5,000 wasn’t so crazy after all.

DAYS Recap: Search And Rescue

Opposite Chad, Steve, and Harris located the fishing vessel on which she’s being held hostage and readying to breach — but only after Chad threw a hissy fit and demanded that he be allowed to accompany his trained counterparts — as Kate received a summons to Dimitri’s private quarters.

Upon arrival, she was offered the chance to take her dinner with her captor. Kate’s response? “[That’s] a really lovely invitation Dimitri, but you can shove it up your ASS!” If anything, Dimitri was tickled. He now sees where Billie gets her spunk.

A subsequent offer of lobster, Kobe beef, and fine wine caused Kate to change her mind. But first, a shower and a change of clothes courtesy of Dimitri. And it’s not that he expects her to “put out.” He’s well aware that her days and nights as an escort are well behind her. It’s just that he’d rather his dinner companion smell less…fishy.

Once she was polished up, and despite herself, Kate rather enjoyed her meal — and the company wasn’t as bad as she first suspected.

Still, she wasn’t exactly enamored of being someone’s hostage. But Dimitri had news for Kate. Turns out she’s not exactly the prize he’s made her out to be. In fact, he’s after something — someone? — else. And what it is he’s after is of a more “personal nature.”

Before further explanation could be offered, an armed Chad burst into the room! Elsewhere, Steve found himself cornered by a goon with a gun!

DOOL Recap: Doing The Executive Shuffle

Back in Salem, Alex steeled himself in preparation for his meeting with Yuri (special guest star Josh Flagg). Enter Stephanie (Abigail Klein), followed closely behind by the bombastic businessman himself.

Yuri wasn’t best pleased to see that he was dealing with an underling and not “top dog” Maggie Kiriakis (Suzanne Rogers) with whom he’d been doing business for quite some time, but Alex seemed to win him around — “seem” being the operative word.

Despite assurances from Maggie that Yuri was ready to sign the deal set before him, Yuri instead insisted to Alex that he wanted to discuss matters further. His gut is saying that he should be more aggressive.

In his attempt to salvage the deal and talk up Maggie, Alex really rather stepped in it by revealing how new to the corporate world Maggie was — and that was a serious deal breaker for Yuri.

Her conversation with Roman (Josh Taylor), interrupted by the news that Yuri was walking, caused Maggie to call Alex with news of her own: he’s FIRED!

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