Days: Gabi left Salem

On Thursday, June 12, 2014, Gabi Hernandez (Camilla Banus) left Salem as she paid for her crimes by going to prison. Below I'll go into details of her departure.

Due to her frustration with being blackmailed by her former husband Nick Fallon, she shot and killed him. Nick knew all of Gabi's crimes and was manipulating her to do his bidding. All he wanted was her love, but instead of treating her with respect, he made her stay with him. Nick wanted Gabi and her baby Adrianna all to himself. Due to how he had dirt on much of the town, Gabi wasn't the only suspect. Lucas (Nick's cousin) was interrogated, but he wasn't the culprit. Will nearly signed a confession, and if that happened Adrianna would have continued to have a mother.

Gabi was given a plea deal of 20 years in prison with parole much sooner than that. We also were told that due to what was said in court what Gabi did to Melanie would be revealed to everyone. Gabi paid Andrew, who went too far and stalked Melanie. Once Melanie found out everything she left Salem, never to return even for a visit as she didn't want to deal with Gabi. During her last few episodes, Gabi shared all of her crimes and regrets. She told Abby they weren't really friends due to what happened with Andrew and how that situation underground caused the "death" of Abby's father. (Due to Abby's father being Jack who has come back from the dead so many times, I use the quotes intentionally as on Days --- deaths can be rewritten.) My favorite of Gabi's goodbyes was with T, and they spoke about how if things had been different they may have dated, which would have avoided many of the problems. The only person who seemed to not be okay with Gabi's sentence was Julie. I understand why she was upset as she had no idea of everything that Nick had done wrong. All she saw was that Nick was trying to be a better person, and Gabi cost him that opportunity. I wish Julie had been told the truth just to see her reaction and allow her to understand why Hope and other members of the Horton family were okay with this plea bargain.

Gabi's departure was written to also advance story. Hope came up with the idea that Gabi should speak to Marlena as an informal psychiatric evaluation. Since their talk was protected, Gabi shared with Marlena how Sami and Kate helped her to "kill" Nick, though it didn't stick. Of course, this news would cause strain between Marlena and her daughter Sami. Rafe knowing what Gabi did and not sharing it with Daniel hurts their friendship. Will still has no idea that Sonny knew what Gabi did to Melanie, but hopefully that will be placed into the story also.