Putting all the storylines together, Salem this week is like a giant pressure cooker.

On one end, Jada and Theo just want to have a normal evening like any other couple, only to be torn apart by a phone call, a kidnapping, and the heavy door of the DiMera crypt.

On the other, those who promised to protect the town—from Abe to Paulina to Gabi to Philip—watch what they hold dear get pushed closer to the abyss.

The DiMera crypt is the physical center of it all: where the family’s children are locked away, where Leo is at risk of being cast down, where one sacrifices the other, where escape plans are whispered in the dark.

But symbolically, the crypt is something else: it’s where Salem buries secrets it doesn’t want to see. Every time the stone door is opened, not only are people dragged in, but the past spills out, clinging to clothes, haunting the voices of everyone who passes by.

EJ is caught between those two worlds. On one hand, he is focused on dealing with the crypt, the DiMera capture, the shaky seat of power. On the other, he is dragged back to a night of fire by Cat, a burn he dares not touch.

When Susan catches him and Cat in a shady situation, EJ understands that he is about to lose the most precious thing in all of war: the right to tell his own story the way he wants. From now on, he is no longer the only one holding the narrative – the past and others have taken back the microphone.