The week of December 15-19 opens with a shocking, yet chilling, event: Alex Kiriakis opens an envelope sent to his house, and inside is white powder.

That single detail is enough to turn the living room into a crime scene, as white powder implies it’s harmless.

Stephanie Johnson reacts instinctively: panic, trembling, her mind racing with a host of worst-case scenarios.

Alex is both scared and angry, because this feeling of being invaded is humiliating: someone knows their address, their daily routine, and is bold enough to directly approach them without a face-to-face confrontation.

And with Salem having delivered such a “mail-style attack,” no one feels safe anymore.

Interestingly, DOOL doesn’t use this envelope incident as a simple scare tactic. It was more of a structured message, like “I’m watching” rather than “I want to have fun.” And that’s where Steve Johnson came in. Steve entered the vibe of someone who had handled too many crises: no yelling, no panic, just observing the situation and immediately asking, “Who wants to send what signal?” Steve would be the one to pull things away from the emotional state and shift to strategy. But the problem is, when the danger is invisible, strategy is just a way to buy time.

The white powder could be bait to lure Alex and Stephanie into revealing their weaknesses. Who did they call? Who did they trust? Who did they tell? The mastermind might not need real poison; they just need fear. Fear makes people talk more, text more, run more, and thus reveal things they would normally never let anyone know.