A Drugged DiMera and a Covert Mansion Scheme
A sinister plot unfolding inside the DiMera mansion has taken a dark, memory-erasing turn that could leave all of Salem in jeopardy. On the August 14 episode of Days of Our Lives, EJ DiMera’s miserable, week-long bout of coughing officially became far more than just mild background noise.
After Rita wiped Devlin St. John’s memory using the dangerous drug CRS-17, she apparently decided that one amnesiac man was not enough for the afternoon. She handed EJ his own dose disguised as flu medication, making that stubborn “DiMera flu” look infinitely more sinister.
The wild series of events kicked off when Devlin woke up after being injected with CRS-17. Disoriented and confused, he wandered around the sprawling DiMera mansion with absolutely no clue who he was or why the estate seemed large enough to occupy several ZIP codes.
Rita eventually tracked him down, tased him for good measure, and prepared to stick him on ice inside one of the estate’s infamous cryogenic pods.
Interrogations, Injections, and Convenient Memory Wipes
That is when an ailing EJ arrived on the scene, demanding to know what the devil was happening in his home. Unfortunately, demanding answers from a scheming operative works better when you are not coughing your way through the interrogation.
Calmly taking advantage of his weakened state, Rita informed EJ that she had gotten him some flu medicine. She then handed him a pill drawn directly from a bottle of CRS-17.
This shocking turn of events conveniently wraps up John Oliver’s three-episode guest stint without requiring the soap to permanently alter any set pieces. Devlin can simply vanish into a cryogenic tube, EJ can forget the entire chaotic encounter ever took place, and the Coriseal disaster can easily return whenever the show decides to revisit that narrative thread.
A Seasonal Bug or Something Far More Lethal?
However, EJ’s respiratory illness started well before Devlin ever stepped foot inside the mansion door. Paulina Price previously mentioned a bug going around Salem, EJ spent several episodes coughing and sneezing continuously, and even Rita was actively telling people that EJ was under the weather.
In television and film, characters rarely cough or sneeze unless it serves a specific plot purpose, making it difficult to dismiss EJ’s illness as a throwaway element created purely to accommodate a brief guest appearance.
The most compelling question now is what lies ahead now that the Devlin detour has concluded. Will EJ simply wake up missing a few inconvenient memories, shake off his symptoms, and recover? Or will that persistent cough continue to worsen over time?
Toxic Threats and Looming Outbreaks
The stakes surrounding EJ’s health are heightened by the toxic elements already floating around this storyline, including contaminated Coriseal, arsenic, and poisoned water.
Devlin previously issued a grave warning that contamination could easily reach Salem’s water supply after a single heavy storm. That revelation gives EJ’s illness a considerably darker, more ominous possibility than a simple seasonal bug.
If EJ continues to suffer from his deep cough after Devlin and his over-the-top similes have vanished into cold storage, that lingering symptom may serve as the very first clue that Salem is facing a much broader, highly dangerous crisis.
Will EJ’s wiped memory prevent him from uncovering the toxic threat in time, or will his deteriorating health expose a deadly disaster before it claims the rest of Salem?
