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While Leo’s long been one of Salem’s biggest troublemakers, Days of Our Lives has recently been allowing him to grow a bit more respectable by giving him an actual job and a tenuous moral center. Now, it looks like he may be rehabilitated even further, as he’s begun therapy sessions with the esteemed Dr. Marlena Evans — and just confronted his mother, Diana Colville.
And in the process, she Leo’s mom did something we never thought could happen: She made us feel sorry for her son. The scenes between them were powerful and raw, unlike much of the shenanigans the two have gotten up to in recent years.
We knew Leo’s dad was abusive, but we also learned as he confronted his mom, Diana was no walk in the park, either. In fact, she just made things worse. At the end of their little reunion, Leo’s mom called him a “degenerate” and told him not to visit again. Her reaction shouldn’t be terribly surprising, though. In his first session, Leo opened up a bit about how difficult life has been with a mother like her, which got a whole wave of sympathy from Marlena. She responded that Diana was a very disturbed woman, which is something she of all people should know firsthand.
Then again, when Diana first popped up back in the 1987 (originally played by General Hospital’s Genie Francis) to romance John (back when we all thought he was Roman), she really wasn’t all that bad. Also, Marlena was thought dead at the time, so it’s not like she stole John away.
The two had a tumultuous relationship, complicated by Diana’s war with Victor. She’d come to town to swipe a mysterious computer disk (it was the ‘80s) from Victor. But it wasn’t long before she came into huge sums of money when her father died and left her the Colville fortune — which her mother and Victor schemed to get their hands on.
She and John were on and off as she alternatively turned to him for protection from Victor and was pushed away as she ticked him off with her revenge schemes. Ultimately, they fell apart for good when her ex Cal showed up to cause trouble. That culminated in Diana shooting John while trying to hit Cal as they fought each other. He lapsed into a coma and, horrified, Diana packed up and left town without a word… until Leo showed up 20 years later.
Diana (played in 2019 by The Young and the Restless’ Judith Chapman) followed her son to town and revealed that she still carried a torch for John. Over the years, though, she had grown a bit more twisted, first lying to John that Leo was his son, then trying to get him away from Marlena… by poisoning the doc. She’s been in prison ever since and it’s become clear over the years that Leo’s life with her was anything but idyllic.
Now, though, we know a bit more about how bad things were for Leo growing up. Abuse, gaslighting and cruel indifference were just a few of the things they touched on. And while Diana maintained her cold facade through much of their confrontation, there were moments we did see actual emotion crack through. She may have thrown her son out, but Leo’s words clearly hit his mom right where they were supposed to.
As Judith Chapman shared, Diana is a damaged woman and, like with Leo, there’s always chance for redemption. This could be the start of healing for Leo and his mom, and giving Days of Our Lives a chance to bring Diana back as, if not a good person, at least a better one.
