Salem’s winter air tastes of iron and fear as a storm of secrets gathers strength above the town. The NBC update channel invites us to peer into the ominous spoiler pictures and the peril that Tuesday, December 16, 2025, has in store. If you thought the Days of Our Lives roster had cornered the market on shock, brace yourself—this episode promises moral collapse, haunted memories, and devious bargains struck in the shadows.

At the very center of this maelstrom are Johnny De and Chanel DePri, a young couple pinned beneath the weight of a rumor that could crack their world open. Inside a panic room, they move as if the walls are closing in, their breath quick, their nerves tension-wired. But the terror isn’t merely fear itself; it’s a fear born from being the central characters in a story where everyone else holds the keys to their fate. Johnny, a filmmaker with an eye for drama, and Chanel, a baker who turns life’s rough edges into something sweet, suddenly feel the ground shift beneath their feet. They suspect they’re marked by some unknown purge, convinced they’re the next targets because they see themselves as the axis upon which a hidden power hums. It’s not vanity that drives them, but the trauma of a family legacy—a dearonymous surname that brands its bearers as targets at birth. The cruel arithmetic of Salem’s power brokers makes them feel expendable, even as they cling to the illusion that they—and only they—hold the story’s center.

Enter Paulina Price, a figure who appears to cradle Johnny and Chanel in a comforting glow. Yet every smile seems cunning, every touch calculated. Look into her eyes, the spoiler whispers—not fear, but a plan. Paulina may be wrapping the couple in a cocoon of warmth to keep them from digging deeper, to shield them from discovering a thread that could tug them toward a past Paulina would rather vanish. Is she the guardian angel or the puppet master, guiding the couple away from danger while guarding a darker secret she refuses to reveal? The resonance of her presence hints that Salem’s shadows are closer than they appear, and that the warmth she offers may be a gilded cage designed to keep Johnny and Chanel from uncovering truths that could unravel her own carefully woven fabric of secrets.

From the surface’s calm to the lab’s clinical chill, the plot skews toward the ultimate betrayal: a deal with the devil. Mark Green stands opposite the infamous Dr. Wilhelm Rolf in a lab that glows with sterile neon, where metal instruments gleam like teeth in a predator’s smile. Rolf, the architect of unthinkable experiments, holds a power so absolute it feels almost mythic. His extended arm and the cold, clinical certainty in his eyes command the room, while Mark—disheveled, hollow-eyed, bearing the weight of a conscience pushed to the edge—teeters on the brink of moral surrender. The contrast between their faces is the heartbeat of this episode: Rolf’s chilling authority versus Mark’s crumbling humanity. What is the price of salvation, and who will supply the currency? There may be a “safety” for Mark, some shadowed bargain involving a loved one, a cure, or a threat that makes defiance seem impossible. In this lab, every decision carries a cruel consequence, and the line between healer and accomplice dissolves as easily as a breath exhaled into a cold room.

The Tuesday narrative pivots on a boardroom battlefield where love collapses under suspicion. Gabby Hernandez and Javi stand in opposition, a relationship once built on loyalty now dissected as if under a surgeon’s scalpel. Javi’s instincts are sharp, his memory of promise and trust dragging him toward a truth that Gabby—crafted by the fires of Dearra drama—refuses to yield. To those watching, Gabby may appear defensive, yet beneath that shield lies a strategist’s mind, a woman who understands how to wield pain as a weapon. If the rumors point to Gabby as the culprit, she will seize the moment not to defend herself, but to pivot to a more dangerous form of power: manipulation. With Gabby, love has become a weaponized force, and in Tuesday’s reckoning, she will either prove loyal to herself or transform into a predator who uses fear to bend outcomes to her will. The scene promises the end of Javi and Gabby as a romantic unit and the birth of a sharper, more fearsome Gabby who wields truth as a blade.

Meanwhile, the siege around EJ—now tagged as a missing victim—looms large over the investigative front. Kat and McCord, relentless at the gates of hell, surveil the Death Lab with a pair of eyes that see what others overlook. Rafe, weighed down by the gravity of evidence and procedure, trudges through a labyrinth of warrants and questions, his body carrying the fatigue of someone who has chased shadows until daylight seems a distant memory. Cat (Catherine) Briggs embodies a different temperament: instinct over procedure, a voltage of intuition that threatens to blow open locked doors. Where Rafe trails the path of rules, Cat rockets toward truth with the ferocity of someone who understands that timing can be everything. The duo’s dynamic—one cautious, one impulsive—hints at the season’s turning point: a moment when following the book could become a trap, and breaking it could reveal something far more dangerous than anyone anticipated.

Tension tightens around Gwen Rizahan and Leo Stark, a pair whose bond was already fragile yet potent with its own brand of peril. Gwen’s actions grow bolder, threatening in a way that seems to bend reality itself. Leo holds secrets about EJ’s disappearance, a weapon or shield he might wield as he can, and Gwen, with a blend of calculative calm and ruthless resolve, could use Leo’s knowledge to her advantage or to shield a fraud of her own making. The air crackles with the possibility that Gwen would go to any length to guard EJ’s secret, even if it means turning Leo into a casualty in a game where loyalty is merely a strategic currency. The question remains: is Gwen acting out of love, or is she being pulled toward a darker force that desires to resurrect old ghosts, perhaps even Rita’s return as a specter to haunt Salem?

As the storm approaches, a chorus of voices asks the audience to weigh motive against opportunity, truth against deceit. Rita’s rumored return lingers like a ghost at the edge of vision, while Mark’s descent into “doctor or accomplice” territory echoes the broader question: what will Salem do when the line between science and conscience dissolves completely? And when we glimpse the death lab’s glow, we’re reminded that power here is not just dangerous—it is existential. A life is at risk, a secret could be the weapon that unlocks the truth, and a single decision could tilt the city into full-blown war.

The preview suggests a Tuesday where every alliance is tested, every alibi scrutinized, and every vulnerable heart left gasping for air. The janus-faced city of Salem reveals its true self: masks slipping, loyalties bending, and the bravest—those who refuse to surrender their humanity—standing at the threshold of a revelation that could redefine their fates. Are you ready to watch the dominoes fall? To witness the moment when the lab’s lights reveal more than bodies—they reveal truths that have slept too long in the shadows? The answer will come soon enough, but the anticipation is already a high for thrill-seekers and watchers of Salem’s darkest hour.

Share your theories, because in this town of shifting tides, every guess could be a clue. Will Paulina’s secrets surface and topple a carefully balanced web? Can Johnny and Chanel survive a world that treats fear as a script to be rewritten? Will Gabby’s cunning outpace Javi’s caution, or will Leo’s loyalties explode in a chorus of revenge? And most crucially, what truth does that ominous lab door hold—another corpse, a cloned copy, or the key to EJ’s disappearance? The Tuesday countdown has begun, and Salem promises not to disappoint. Stay tuned, stay skeptical, and stay hooked as the days grow darker and the truth grows louder.