Days: Aiden Isn't Dead

Today (Monday, May 9, 2016) on a very special episode of "Days of Our Lives" we found out that Aiden Jennings (Daniel Cosgrove) didn't perish in a fight six months ago. Instead he was replaced by a "twin" who was killed after a failed attempt at murdering Hope (Kristian Alfonso). Below are my thoughts on these developments.

Hope was saved by her now deceased former husband Bo (Peter Reckell) on the morning after her marriage to Aiden. This wasn't shown during the newly recreated flashbacks, just before Aiden was swapped and then the imposter. Thankfully, Aiden and Hope's marriage was consummated before the fake lookalike took his place. Real Aiden was drugged by Andre (Thaao Penghlis) and dragged to a cell. He was drugged with poison gas, which a bird couldn't even survive. He used the bird as something to talk to, which considering how long he was there a bit disgusting as wouldn't it smell as it would decompose? It isn't as if he had a stuffed bird or another item that was never alive.

While Aiden was in captivity, we saw him find out what was going on in Salem. We saw his horror hearing about his son Chase being a rapist for example. Eventually Aiden was able to escape and make his way back to Salem. Meanwhile Hope moved on to someone else, Rafe (Galen Gering) as they were kissing Aiden returned to where he lived with Hope. 

It is good that Aiden couldn't kill Hope, but it doesn't mean that he didn't plan to hurt her. That is a major roadblock for any pairing: the intent to kill even if it was blackmail over debts. I wonder if Aiden is just back to cause Hope and Rafe to be delayed as she is still married to Jennings. Also this doesn't erase how Chase raped Ciara. Perhaps Hope's murder of Stefano will be finally revealed to all, as she had a legitimate reason to do it unlike the reason she used, which was based on a lie as Bo's death had nothing to do with the DiMeras.

This episode only had the one story, which is a good/bad thing. It is good if you are invested in this plot and wanted to know what happened. It is bad if you aren't, though you could always skip it if you didn't care saving some time. Of course, some may wish Aiden hadn't "died" in the first place or saw him in small portions over the last few months instead of all in one day. (For me, since Daniel Cosgrove was involved all I saw was "Guiding Light" though they aired those episodes on Wednesday.) If Days does these on occasion though I have no problem, but considering how much of the show gets cut on a regular basis, I'd be concerned if they went in that direction.