The Surprising Days of Our Lives ‘Return’ That Helped Steve Through His Grief
Credit: John Paschal/JPI
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As Days of Our Lives celebrated Stephen Nichols’ 40th anniversary playing the legendary Steve “Patch” John, they surprised us with a “return” of sorts that we weren’t expecting — but probably should have! In Monday’s episode, Steve was visited in his dreams by his sister, Adrienne, who promised that John was healed and up in heaven with her and she was watching out for him.
While Steve wasn’t sure of the dream, Kayla insisted that according to her mother, dreams were the places angels could come visit us. This time, it seemed, we really did get to see Adrienne. (As opposed to when Kate, Kayla and Marlena died and went to heaven where Nick Fallon impersonated her while he was working for the devil. Things got weird back then. But that’s neither here nor there.)
Adrienne first popped up back in 1986, a year after Steve, where she revealed she was his little sister. (If you want to revisit that moment, be sure to check out Monday’s episode!) She romanced Justin, the two got together, then left town. She was gone from 1991 until 2007, but Kayla brought her back to town to help her brother Steve. He’d been dead in all that time, and when he showed up alive in Salem, his memories were missing. Adrienne helped Steve, then left town with Justin for a time, returning a couple years later where she remained until her death in 2020. Or was it 2019?
We just celebrated Father’s Day, but it was Mother’s Day of 2019 that we lost Adrienne. It happened in the infamous year time jump, when she was killed in a car crash. Will served jail time for the accident, but eventually, we learned that it was actually a drunk Maggie who caused it after falling off the wagon. Except, it wasn’t really Maggie’s fault (whew!) as we eventually learned that Orpheus caused the accident that took Adrienne’s life and Sarah’s baby daughter, Mackenzie!
Since her death, Judi Evans has stuck around, playing Adrienne’s look-alike Bonnie, who is now married to Justin in her stead. In other words, other than Bonnie’s fashion sense (and occasionally wackiness) not much changed! So far, Adrienne’s death has stuck, and we don’t see that changing anytime soon. (Though we did love her sarcastic comment about how people come back from the dead in Salem so often, it’s usually just another Tuesday.)
But we were happy to see her once again, and with Jack in town for a spell, it wouldn’t have been an anniversary celebration for Steve without her!
