Hey, Days of Our Lives fans. EJ DiMera (Dan Feuerriegel) just found out that Rita Lesley (Maggie Carney) has known Dominic Marino since at least his boarding 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 whole other agenda.
Let’s talk about the coming explosive confrontation between EJ and Rita. And sure, it seems like EJ is about to have a spectacular fall from power. I think Rita is key to his coming downfall. And EJ won’t like that.
Days of Our Lives: Rita’s Long History with the DiMeras
As you know, Rita’s been working for the DiMera family since Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) was alive and making trouble himself. Rita was his longtime personal assistant, so she knows about Stefano’s family crimes and criminal associates, including Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering)’s evil lookalike, Arnold Feniger (Galen Gering).
And Rita has also assisted Stefan DiMera (Brandon Barash), Gabi Hernandez (Cherie Jimenez), Chad DiMera (Connor Floyd), Kristen DiMera (Stacy Haiduk), and, of course, EJ, and she is deeply loyal to the DiMera legacy. Although her backstory is decades of loyal service, we actually didn’t meet Rita until May 2024, when Days of Our Lives debuted her as EJ’s sassy henchwoman.
And Rita’s long-standing role as Stefano’s right hand is why she’s not afraid to put EJ in his place. 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 needed him gone, Rita was integral to getting rid of Arnold.
Rita’s Role in EJ’s Schemes on DOOL
And then in 2025 and 2026, we’ve seen Rita help EJ open the Tom Horton Free Clinic. She oversaw the build of the secret lab. Rita also helped EJ with hospital owner duties and coordinated sneaky lab stuff with Dr. Rolf. She was key to all of this.
Rita also bossed around people at the hospital. Kayla Brady (Mary Beth Evans), Sarah Horton (Linsey Godfrey), and other doctors hated to see Rita walking the halls with her clipboard and her sour expression. More recently, Rita helped EJ kidnap Kristen to ship her off. Unfortunately, Lexie Carver (Nikki Crawford) thwarted that and let Kristen go.
Days of Our Lives: The First Sign of Disloyalty
However, Rita’s loyalty to EJ wavered when Salem‘s chief water inspector, Devlin St. John (John Oliver), came sniffing around about the Coriseal thing. EJ wanted him dead, but Rita had the hots for John Oliver’s character and injected him with CRS17 serum and then shipped him off in a pod. That was in defiance of EJ’s orders, because he wanted Devlin killed, not living 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. So, he’s forgotten he ever even met Devlin St. John. That was the first sign of disloyalty. And we always say that Rita was blindly doing EJ’s bidding up until that point.
And since then, Rita has gotten way more devious. She stole EJ’s prized possession, Stefano’s black Phoenix ring. She shipped it to his secret brother, Dominic Marino. I think all this is on Stefano’s pre-death orders. So, we know Rita hopes she’s making Stefano proud and claims loyalty to the DiMeras, but not to EJ personally, and that’s where he’s shocked.
I suspect that Rita’s been around most of EJ’s life, and Stefano taught EJ to trust Rita implicitly, and EJ has, and now it’s a problem. Later, we found out Rita was dropping clues to Belle Black (Martha Madison) and Chad after Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall) got the chess set from Stefano’s bequest.
Rita Disappears on DOOL
This past 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’m quite confident she left town, took off for Venice, and is working directly with Dominic as he prepares for his big Salem debut. Rita clearly knew Dominic was the real heir apparent.
EJ recently asked Cat Greene (AnnaLynne McCord) to use her ISA skills to help him uncover the truth about Dominic, because EJ is desperate to know if Dominic is indeed his secret brother.
Days of Our Lives: EJ’s Twofold Confrontation with Dante
And this week, EJ confronted Dante Vitali (Franco LoPresti), and it was a twofold confrontation. First, EJ warned Dante, “Don’t hurt Sami.” And of course, Dante acted like EJ was a possessive, jealous ex-husband who couldn’t stand the thought of another man being with Sami Brady (Alison Sweeney). Then EJ wanted info about Dante’s boarding school buddy, Dominic. And we had EJ asking if Dante had ever met Dominic’s parents.
Dante claimed all he knew was that Dominic’s parents lived in Salem, and that a woman whose name started with R, which he couldn’t remember, looked after young Dominic and would drop him off and pick him up from the fancy boarding school for his family. And when EJ said, “Was her name Rita?” and then described her, Dante confirmed, “Yeah, that’s her.”
So now EJ wants to know why Stefano never mentioned this long-lost son he supposedly had with Marlena, because he wasn’t long lost. Obviously, Stefano knew. So EJ feels deeply betrayed by Rita. He’s trusted her forever. And now EJ doesn’t know who he can trust. His own son, Johnny DiMera (Carson Boatman), just ratted him out.
EJ’s Mounting Problems on DOOL
And this is the worst time for EJ to lose Rita. He’s got the George O’Halloran (Michael Rose) crisis. But since Xander Cook Kiriakis (Paul Telfer) shot him on Friday after George shot Xander, that may be a problem EJ can cross off his list. Xander’s a good shot. So maybe George is dead, which would be a gift to EJ, because then he can claim the whole Coriseal thing was cooked up by George, who was clearly bad, since he shot Xander while trying to steal a laptop that contained evidence of all of his crimes.
So we also just found out EJ and Rita are behind the Gabi Chic counterfeit bag ring. That’s a criminal matter surrounding EJ that Rita is not helping with anymore. That might be a problem.
Dominic’s Arrival and Rita’s Loyalty on Days
The good news is all the mystery isn’t going to last much longer, because we know that Dominic Marino arrives in Salem on November 2nd, which is a Monday. But I actually expect a glimpse of him on the Friday, October 30th episode, in a black mask.
And when Dominic comes to town, I’m certain that Rita will be at his side, and then EJ is going to corner Rita and rip her a new one. But since Dominic’s her priority, I don’t expect EJ to get too far with Rita. I’m sure she’ll tell EJ this is Stefano’s agenda. That’s where her loyalty is.
Days of Our Lives: Is Rita Dominic’s Surrogate Mother?
And some viewers wonder if, in a real twist, Rita might be Dominic’s surrogate mother. And rather than Marlena having been pregnant with Stefano’s child, he might have had Dr. Rolf harvest her eggs while Marlena was in a coma, and then made an embryo, and Rita carried it. That would explain the loyalty, sort of like how Vivian Alamain (Louise Sorel) always has a special place in her heart for Philip Kiriakis (John-Paul Lavoisier) after she stole Kate Roberts‘s (Lauren Koslow) embryo.
So, we assume Dominic’s on the way to take over the DiMera family and push EJ aside. I expect him to take over DiMera Enterprises and the DiMera mansion as well. And I expect Rita will have paved the way for Dominic, and that means EJ is going down. And he can’t do much to stop them, since Rita’s got all the receipts on decades and decades of EJ’s shady and criminal deeds, because she aided and abetted him the whole way. Rita is the key to EJ’s downfall that is coming soon.
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