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Knock, Knock: Leo (Greg Rikaart, r.) has to decide whether to tell all to EJ (Dan Feuerriegel) and Nicole (Arianne Zucker).
Leo shows up at the DiMera mansion, having decided to tell Nicole and EJ that their baby is alive.
He is not met warmly by the grieving couple. “Nicole has a couple of different feelings about Leo,” sets up Arianne Zucker (Nicole). “One is that his partner [Dimitri] is the reason why her baby [didn’t survive]. And two, Leo was there at that special moment [when her baby was born]. So she’s torn.”
Nicole is taken aback to find Leo on her doorstep. “When Nicole and EJ open the door, it’s like, ‘What? Why are you here?’ ” recounts Zucker. “Because they’re not friends. They don’t hang out. They don’t talk to each other.”
Once he arrives at the moment of would-be truth, Leo has second thoughts spilling his big baby secret. To stall, he begins rambling on to the couple. “He’s the one that’s torn,” observes Zucker. “EJ and Nicole are just on the receiving end. They’re confused about why Leo is there and why he’s telling them all this [random] stuff. But he doesn’t do or say anything that makes them suspicious at all. From their point of view, it’s just weird.”
Ultimately, Leo leaves with his secret intact, leaving EJ and Nicole to try to make sense of his odd visit. EJ opines that Leo was somehow trying to use their tragedy for his own gain. “EJ is putting his opinion on it,” notes Zucker. “They’ve had this tragic thing happen to them, and they don’t need Leo in their face. EJ is just trying to take control of everything and make Nicole feel better.”
According to Zucker, Nicole isn’t focused on trying to get to the bottom of Leo’s drop-in; she’s got bigger fish to fry. “Nicole’s trying to move on,” the actress states. “She’s trying to heal.”
