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Identity Heft: Jack and Chad move forward with efforts to determine if the mystery woman (AnnaLynne McCord) is Abigail.
Kayla takes DNA swabs from Jack and the mystery woman after she agrees to be tested to see if she might be Jack’s daughter and Chad’s believed-to-be-dead wife, Abigail Deveraux DiMera.
Blood Ties
“I kept laughing with Billy [Flynn, Chad] about this,” recounts AnnaLynne McCord (the mystery woman). “I was like, ‘Chad should really lead with the private jet.’ Because he slips in later that he has a private jet. I was like, ‘The mystery woman would be like, “Oh, you have a private jet? Sure, I’ll do a DNA test. Sure, I’m your wife.” ’ ”
On screen, however, the mystery woman far from eager to submit to the test. “She doesn’t know who these people are,” points out McCord, referring to Chad and Jack. “She’s been in this scary, creepy, enclosed, small apartment, and she is out of touch with the outside world. So she’s suspicious of everyone and everything. She’s suspicious when Jack and Chad arrive and start wanting to claim her as their own. So she’s curious, but she’s definitely reticent.”
While waiting for the results, Chad takes the woman to the DiMera mansion in hopes of triggering her memory and proving that she’s Abigail. “I believe there’s a moment where Chad is suggesting that she actually come with him to the Horton home, that that’s where the children are,” recalls McCord. “That’s the first time you see her kind of get really protective. She’s like, ‘Wait, that doesn’t feel right to do so quickly.’ Then it’s decided, as a backup, to go the DiMera mansion, even though Chad’s relationship with his family is slightly strained and the last time he saw Abigail was there. So going back there for Chad is confronting where he lost her. It’s kind of a last resort that he offers [they go to the mansion], but the mystery woman/is-she-or-isn’t-she-Abigail says that makes the most sense, because she doesn’t want to be faced with talking to the children before she knows who she really is. She wants her memories to come back first.”
Unfortunately, the trip to the mansion doesn’t spark anything for the mystery woman. So all she can do is wait for her test results along with Chad and Jack, who are hoping she’s their beloved Abigail. But, according to McCord, her character has no preference one way or the other.
“Not in the early moments,” contends McCord. “She might be neutral on it. More than anything she just wants to know who she is. That’s what’s coming across in these early episodes. She’s like, ‘I just want to know who I really am.’ But there are moments where she’s aware that Chad wants this so badly, and she’s like, ‘I want him to be happy.’ She has feelings like that arise, and they kind ebb and flow in between her resistance to having a story put onto her that she doesn’t feel is true.”
Finally, everyone gathers as Chad has the DNA results in hand and reads them to everyone….