Peter Reckell Opens up About His “Difficult” Return to DAYS
On the April 28 episode of DAYS OF OUR LIVES, Peter Reckell’s comeback as Bo Brady came to an end when the character — having undergone surgery after his son, Shawn, shot him — lapsed into a coma. The ending of this story arc certainly wasn’t the storybook happily ever after that the soap’s Bo and Hope fans were hoping for for their favorite couple. Especially since the characters didn’t quite get a bona fide reunion in the DAYS spinoff BEYOND SALEM last summer.
“People are having huge feelings,” Reckell acknowledged during a video chat with Michael Fairman. “Which is great, because it shows that the audience is passionate about what they want to see.”
Reckell added that the short return by him and co-star Kristian Alfonso (Hope) to the soap somewhat tied the arms of DAYS’ powers that be to do more with the fan-favorite couple. “The circumstances are rather difficult with us coming back for these short times and it’s so long in between the times we come back,” explained the actor, who currently resides in Alaska. “Obviously the audience wants something.”
His most recent return stint gave Reckell the opportunity to do something he’d always wanted to do with the character: play the bad guy. “This journey was basically Bo’s evil twin,” the actor says of his alter ego’s memory loss and different personality during this visit. “It built up to that moment on the cliff [when his memories returned]. It was a pinnacle moment.”
As viewers know, seconds after Bo’s memories returned, he was shot by Shawn and now lies in a coma in a Greek hospital. Hopefully, Reckell said, he and Alfonso will be able to fulfill viewers’ wishes at some point in the near future. “Obviously, they’re going to be doing something else because you couldn’t leave Bo in cryogenics, you can’t leave him incapacitated,” he mused.
Reckell admitted that he knows that DAYS executive producer Ken Corday has “a plan” to bring him back again — but the timeline is not at all clear amid a pending writers’ strike in Hollywood and various production details surrounding the show’s recent two-year renewal. “Last week, Ken called and said, ‘It’s going to be a while,’” Reckell shared. “Right now, we’re waiting to see when and if they’ll bring the story back.”
It seems that Reckell is focusing on the when rather than the if since he sincerely hopes that his last appearance isn’t the end of Bo and Hope. “It wouldn’t be fair to the fans,” he admits. “To leave it like this… I can’t even think about it. I don’t see how it’s possible because it would be very disrespectful to the fans.”
