Days of Our Lives at a Crossroads: As a Huge Story Ends, Who’s Staying, Who’s Leaving and What’s Next?

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Yes, after many, many months of waiting on Days of Our Lives, the truth is finally out! Nicole’s given her rings back to EJ and Eric is sticking around in Salem with Jude, rather than running off to Paris. Everything seems to be heading for a “EJole” implosion and a lasting, (even if not quite) permanent “Ericole” reunion.

At least, it would seem that way, if it weren’t for the elephant in the room that is Arianne Zucker’s exit.

Her last show as Nicole is, she believes, set to happen in just over two weeks on Friday, July 26th. Zucker announced the news a little while back, though more recently, she acknowledged that the exact episode breakdown may not work out that way. Still, exiting on a Friday cliffhanger would make sense.

But the only thing we do know about how Zucker is exiting is that they aren’t killing Nicole. Is she leaving town? Faking her death? Has the show recast her and will Nicole be sticking around with a new face? That last option seems the least likely, considering the ongoing lawsuit about Zucker’s exit and Days of Our Lives would have to have kept that news very close to their chest as we’ve gotten no indication that Nicole’s been recast.

So what does that mean for the rest of her family? Where are Jude, Holly and even Eric going to end up? Thanks to Days of Our Lives’ shooting schedule, it certainly looks like Greg Vaughan and Ashley Puzemis will still be in Salem by the show’s 15,000th episode in November.

Vaughan appears to be in the back and Puzemis up front — so are they still around by the time we reach the big episode milestone at Thanksgiving?

But how? It seems impossible to think that Nicole would run off and leave Jude with Eric after just getting them both back. But it seems equally implausible that she’d just take their baby and run, robbing Eric of being a father once again. And where would Holly go? She did seem remarkably understanding of EJ, but we can’t see her staying at the DiMera mansion, especially now that her crush on Johnny has (thankfully) run its course.

Would Nicole leave her with Eric? Or maybe she’d go live with grandma Maggie — an almost criminally underused family connection — so she can stay in town, finish high school and romance Tate.

There’s always the chance, too, that they all leave town for a bit, and, after a few weeks or months, everyone but Nicole returns. Though that, too, seems hard to imagine. Conversely, maybe Eric and Holly just return for Doug’s funeral, which is the big lynchpin of the 15,000th episode. We’ll be waiting on the edge of our seats to see how this shakes out. There’s still weeks of story left, but as of right now, it seems like Zucker may be the only one leaving.

What are your thoughts? How do you think Days of Our Lives is going to handle her leaving and what’s going to happen to everyone else?