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Hi, Days of Our Lives followers. EJ DiMera (Dan Feuerriegel) has just discovered that Rita Lesley (Maggie Carney) has known Dominic Marino since at least his school days. So EJ is on fire, because the woman he thought was blindly loyal to the DiMeras is not blindly loyal to him. Rita has a completely different agenda.
Let’s talk about the upcoming explosive confrontation between EJ and Rita. And sure enough, it looks like EJ is going to have a big fall from power. I think Rita is key to his downfall. And EJ doesn’t like that.
Days of Our Lives: Rita’s Long History with the DiMeras
As you know, Rita has been working for the DiMera family since Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) was alive and making trouble for himself. Rita was his longtime personal assistant, so she knows about Stefano’s family crimes and criminal partners, including the bad-looking Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering), Arnold Feniger (Galen Gering).
And Rita has also supported Stefan DiMera (Brandon Barash), Gabi Hernandez (Cherie Jimenez), Chad DiMera (Connor Floyd), Kristen DiMera (Stacy Haiduk), and, of course, EJ, and is very loyal to the DiMera legacy. Although her background is decades of faithful service, we didn’t actually meet Rita until May 2024, when Days of Our Lives she outed her as EJ’s sassy old hen.
And Rita’s longtime role as Stefano’s right hand is why she isn’t afraid to replace EJ. Rita has been a big help, like when EJ had to deal with Arnold’s return. When EJ used him for a scheme and then had to leave, Rita was essential in getting rid of Arnold.
Rita’s Role in EJ’s Scheme on DOOL
And then in 2025 and 2026, we’ve seen Rita help EJ open the Tom Horton new clinic of charge. She was in charge of building the secret lab. Rita also helped EJ with hospital owner duties and coordinated sneaky lab stuff with Dr. Rolf. She was important to all of this.
Rita was also in charge of people at the hospital. Kayla Brady (Máiri Beth Evans), Sarah Horton (Linsey Godfrey), and other doctors hated to see Rita walking the halls with her video board and her pained expression. Recently, Rita helped EJ kidnap Kristen to send her away. Unfortunately, Lexie Carver (Nikki Crawford) interfered and Kristen let go.
Days of Our Lives: The First Sign of Infidelity
However, Rita’s loyalty to EJ was felt when SalemThe chief water inspector, Devlin St. John (John Oliver), snooping around him Corysal thing EJ wanted him dead, but Rita had the best of John Oliver’s character and injected him with CRS17 serum and then sent him away in a pod. That was against EJ’s orders, as he wanted to kill Devlin, not live on a private island.
And then, when EJ caught Rita doing it, she told EJ she had flu medicine for him and tricked him into taking CRS72. Therefore, it is forgotten that he never met Devlin St. That was the first sign of unhappiness. And we always say that Rita was blindly doing EJ’s bidding up to that point.
And since then, Rita has become much bolder. She stole EJ’s prized possession, Stefano’s black Phoenix ring. He sent it to his secret brother, Dominic Marino. I think this is all on Stefano’s pre-death orders. So, we know that Rita hopes to make Stefano proud and pleads loyalty to the DiMeras, but not to EJ personally, and that’s where he’s shocked.
I suspect that Rita has been around most of EJ’s life, and Stefano taught EJ to trust Rita wonderfully, and EJ has, and now it’s a problem. Later, we found out that Rita was letting Belle Black (Martha Madison) and Chad know after Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall) received the chess set from Stefano’s legacy.
Rita disappeared on DOOL
Last week, Marlena confronted Rita about Dominic’s parentage, but Rita denied knowing anything. And Rita issued the same denials to EJ when he was asking her about Dominic. And after that, Rita disappeared. I am very confident that she left town, she left Veniceand he works directly with Dominic as he prepares for his big Salem discussion Rita clearly knew that Dominic was the true heir apparent.
EJ recently asked Cat Greene (AnnaLynne McCord) to use her ISA skills to help him discover the truth about Dominic, as EJ is desperate to find out if Dominic is indeed his secret brother.
Days of Our Lives: EJ’s Double Duel with Dante
And this week, EJ faced Dante Vitali (Franco LoPresti), and it was a two-way conflict. First, EJ warned Dante, “Don’t hurt Sami.” And of course, Dante was involved as EJ was a possessive, jealous husband who couldn’t stand the idea of another man being with Sami Brady (Alison Sweeney). Then EJ wanted information about Dante’s boarding school friend, Dominic. And we had EJ asking if Dante had ever met Dominic’s parents.
Dante said he only knew that Dominic’s parents lived there Salemand that a woman whose name was R, whom he did not remember, was looking after young Dominic and that he would let him go and pick him up from the fancy boarding school for his family. And when EJ said, “Was her name Rita?” and then he described her, Dante confirmed, “Yes, that’s her.”
So now EJ wants to know why Stefano didn’t mention this long lost son with Marlena, because he wasn’t long lost. Obviously, Stefano knew. So EJ feels very betrayed by Rita. He trusts her forever. And now EJ doesn’t know who to trust. His own son, Johnny DiMera (Carson Boatman), just believed it.
EJ climbing problems on DOOL
And this is the worst time for EJ to lose Rita. He has a George O’Halloran (Michael Rose) crisis. But since Xander shot Cook Kiriakis (Paul Telfer) on Friday after George shot Xander, that could be a problem EJ can cross off his list. Xander has a great attitude. So maybe George is dead, which would be a gift for EJ, because he can claim the whole Corysal the thing was cooked up by George, who was obviously bad, because he shot Xander while he was trying to steal a laptop that contained evidence of all his crimes.
So we also found out that EJ and Rita are behind the Gabi Chic false bag ring. That’s a criminal case involving EJ that Rita is no longer helping with. That might be a problem.
Dominic’s Arrival and Rita’s Loyalty on Days
The good news is that the whole mystery isn’t going to last much longer, because we know that Dominic Marino will arrive in Salem on November 2, which is Monday. But I really expect to see him on the Friday, October 30th episode, in a black mask.
And when Dominic comes to town, I’m sure Rita will be by his side, and then EJ goes to Rita’s corner and rips her a new one. But since Dominic is his priority, I don’t expect EJ to get too far with Rita. I’m sure she will tell EJ that this is Stefano’s agenda. That’s where her loyalty lies.
Days of Our Lives: Is Rita Dominic’s surrogate mother?
And some viewers wonder if, in a real twist, Rita is Dominic’s surrogate mother. And instead of Marlena being pregnant with Stefano’s child, Dr. Rolf could have harvested her eggs while Marlena was in a coma, and then made an embryo, and Rita carried it. That would explain the loyalty, how Vivian Alamain (Louise Sorel) always has a special place in her heart for Philip Kiriakis (John-Paul Lavoisier) after she stole Kate Roberts’ (Lauren Koslow) embryo.
So, we assume that Dominic is on his way to take over the DiMera family and push EJ aside. I expect it to take over DiMera Enterprises and the DiMera mansion Apart from. And I expect Rita to have paved the way for Dominic, which means EJ is going down. And he can’t do much to stop them, because Rita has gotten all the receipts for decades and decades of EJ’s shady and criminal activities, because she supported him and supported him all the way. Rita is the key to EJ’s impending downfall.
