DAYS OF OUR LIVES WRITERS FORGOT HUMANS HAVE EMOTIONS WHEN WRITING TATE BLACK BABY STORYLINE
TL;DR: After spending nine months believing he was going to be a teenage father, signing away his parental rights, and obsessively searching for his “adopted” baby, Tate Black (Leo Howard) learned he wasn’t Tesoro’s biological father, and immediately pivoted to chasing after Holly Jonas (Ashley Puzemis) with barely a second thought. The writers clearly forgot that humans who’ve been deceived for nearly a year just might be the recipient of a heapin’ helpin’ dose of good old PTSD!
The Setup: Nine Months of Fake Fatherhood
Let’s recap this mess, shall we? Tate Black spent the better part of a year believing Sophia Choi (Rachel Boyd) was carrying his child. He agonized over the decision to give the baby up for adoption, ultimately signing paperwork that Melinda Trask (Tina Huang) presented to him about adoptive parents in Chicago. He believed he was making a noble sacrifice—giving his child a better life than two teenagers could provide. His father Brady Black (Eric Martsolf) even commended him for his maturity.
But then came the obsession. Tate couldn’t let go. He became fixated on finding the adoptive family, desperately wanting some connection to the child he believed was his. Actor Leo Howard described Tate’s behavior perfectly in interviews, noting how his character would “glom onto certain things” as a way of processing emotions he didn’t know how to handle. Tate was tracking down the family, requesting visitations, and torturing himself over this baby.
The Big Reveal: Wait, What Baby?
On October 13, Brady delivered the bombshell news: DNA testing proved Tate wasn’t Tesoro’s father after all. Sophia had been lying! Or at least, severely bending the truth, the entire time. The baby that Tate had been mentally connected to for months wasn’t his biological child. The sacrifice he’d made? Meaningless. The agony he’d endured? Based on a lie.
So how did Tate react to this earth-shattering revelation? According to one recap, Tate “absorbed the news and said he didn’t know how to feel.” Okay, that’s… reasonable for about thirty seconds. But then? He “suddenly brightened and insisted he needed to see Holly because he could make things right.”
Excuse me, WHAT? That’s the King of pivots!
The Problem: Humans Don’t Work Like That
Dear Days of Our Lives writers: When someone spends nine months preparing for fatherhood, gives up their parental rights in an agonizing decision, and then discovers it was all based on a lie, they don’t just bounce back with a cheerful “Cool, now I can get my girlfriend back!” That’s not how human emotions work. That’s not even how soap opera emotions usually work, and this is a genre where people come back from the dead on the regular.
Tate should be furious. He should be devastated. He should be questioning everything about his relationship with Sophia and his own judgment. He spent months emotionally preparing to be a father, made a massive life decision, and then mourned the loss of connection to that child. The psychological whiplash alone should have laid him out for weeks.
Instead, he’s laser-focused on Holly and he did it within minutes. As one spoiler site perfectly noted, Tate “doesn’t seem angry. He seems excited to be free of the entire burden.” While his priority over being with Holly makes some sense on a surface level – after all, their breakup was partially because of the baby situation – his complete lack of rage toward Sophia is baffling.
What About Sophia’s Elaborate Con?
Let’s not forget what Sophia actually did here. She didn’t just lie about paternity. She constructed an elaborate scheme involving fake adoptive parents, she falsified documents (with an attorney’s help), and she even DRUGGED Holly and staged compromising photos! This girl essentially committed multiple felonies to keep Tate tied to her, and when it all fell apart, Tate’s response was basically “Meh, gotta go find Holly!”
The show even had Sarah Horton (Linsey Godfrey) discover the truth and confront Sophia about it. The revelation came in layers, with multiple DNA tests confirming that Tate wasn’t the father while Sophia WAS the mother. This was a huge, messy, dramatic situation that affected multiple families! Johnny DiMera (Carson Boatman) and Chanel Dupree (Raven Bowens) almost adopted this baby! And yet Tate’s emotional journey lasted approximately five seconds.
The Writers Chose Speed Over Substance
Look, we get it. The show needed to resolve the Holly/Tate breakup and get them back together. But sacrificing basic human psychology to speed-run to that endpoint was a bizarre choice. Even Leo Howard himself mentioned in interviews that Tate “really wants this baby deep down” and that “all these feelings, he just doesn’t know where to put them.” We bet he didn’t guess he’d simply put them AWAY! The actor understood the complexity of what his character was going through. So, why didn’t the writers give him time to actually process it?
Soap operas thrive on emotional reactions and their consequences. That’s literally the entire genre. Giving Tate a realistic response to discovering he’d been deceived for months would have provided rich material for weeks of storytelling. Instead, we got the emotional equivalent of a shrug and a sprint toward his next plot point.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Spoilers indicate that Aaron Greene (Louis Tomeo) is likely Tesoro’s real father, which should create more drama when that truth emerges. Sophia is packing her bags to flee Salem, and multiple characters are lining up to confront her. But Tate’s oddly blasé reaction to being deceived means we’ve lost a crucial emotional anchor for this storyline.
The coming weeks should show Tate “finally absorbing” the fact that he’s not a father, according to spoilers. But that’s the problem. He should have been absorbing it from the moment Brady told him the truth. The delayed reaction feels like the writers realizing they’d short-changed the character and they’re trying to course-correct. But, the damage is done.
Days of Our Lives has provided us with incredible emotional journeys over its decades on air. Characters have dealt with loss, betrayal, and deception in ways that felt authentic and moving. And ridiculous and crazy (but let’s dwell on the positive). Tate deserved that same treatment. Instead, he got a plot development that was treated like a minor inconvenience – the emotional equivalent of a canker sore – rather than a life-altering revelation. And that, dear viewers, was just plain weird.
Fan Prediction Zone: Got a gut feeling about where this is headed? Think you know the REAL reason behind someone’s behavior? Email your theories to [email protected]—your speculation might get featured!
