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On Days of Our Lives, Dr. Marlena Evans is no stranger to drama in Salem, yet even veteran viewers have to be wondering: What’s going on with her? It’s July Fourth on Days of Our Lives, and we have a nameless health scare in the form of Marlena, which raises concerns and debatable speculation all in one fell swoop.
Is it just exhaustion, grief, or something a little darker? With things heating up in the summer stories and returning characters to complicate matters even more, Marlena is in yet another mystery.
Marlena’s puzzling symptoms have Days of Our Lives fans buzzing
At the beginning of Salem's Independence Day party, Marlena slips unexpectedly, causing concern for Belle and several others. The slip is minor in itself, but the collective reaction raises some eyebrows.
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Belle immediately noted her mother’s sudden frailness and wondered if Marlena’s lingering grief from losing John had caught up to her, or if this small fall was an ill-fated sign that she had an undiagnosed health issue.
Fans have to be left wondering if this is specific only to grief fatigue, or is it a buildup for another dramatic medical or psychological event? Marlena also has a history of being possessed, having lost memory, stupors, clinical coma, and being dead; so this could lead to anything.
Marlena also has a storied follow-up with mind control, character rewrites, and villain possession from Stefano DiMera, so it could lead to unlimited options. The discomfort viewers feel is worsened by an unwelcome familiar face, Gwen Rizczech, with her propensity for being a troublemaker.
With the schemers of Salem always waiting in the wings and the DiMeras returning to their usual scheming ways, there could be more to Marlena's current dilemmas than is physically apparent.
More about Marlena Evans on Days of Our Lives
Since her debut in the soap in 1976, Marlena Evans has been one of Days of Our Lives' most storied characters, portrayed by Deidre Hall. Marlena, a psychiatrist treating Mickey Horton, then became embroiled in Salem's drama shortly after.
She was in the midst of a marriage to Don Craig, lost their son DJ, and lost herself in a tense rivalry with her twin sister, Samantha. Through the years, Marlena's storylines redefined what was once considered daytime television. She has been r*ped, stalked, and kidnapped.
Marlena Evans's possession arc in the 1990s had the most current buzz surrounding it, and her possession made the leap from reality-based storylines to fantasy, which sprang some renewing energy into a dying genre of drama on television.
Marlena's 40-year-long love affair with John Black has unequivocally turned them into a soap supercouple. The couple survived fake deaths, brainwashing, and betrayal only to come together again and again.
Marlena, too, was accused of being a serial killer because of the Salem Stalker story, and she, too, was revealed as brainwashed, while in fact, her "victims" were all alive on Melaswen Island.
But beyond the high drama, Marlena has been a source of stability in her role as a mother, grandmother, and confidant. Her background in psychiatry often hurls her into some pretty juiced stories, while serving as both a trigger for someone else’s story and a source of stability within the show.
Fans can watch Days of Our Lives on Peacock.
