My View From Beyond the Gates: At the end of a fake ass rainbow

Dreaming of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Be careful what you wish for. You might find a fortune… or a crazy ex stalker, a cheating husband and his love child, or a parent you wish you never had.

If you believe legend, at the end of every rainbow lies a pot of gold. If you believe meteorology, every rainbow is actually a circle. So, sorry leprechauns – rainbows don’t have an end and there is no pot of gold for the taking.

The same thing might also apply to our hopes and wishes. That reunion with the children you gave up nearly a decade earlier? It might not be filled with the sunshine and lollipops you’d hoped. Divorcing the husband who stepped out on your marriage and father a child with another woman? That easing of the pain might only be a short-lived feeling of control. Those fun times you shared in the bedroom? They could get very messy when you find out that there were strings attached.

I’m not, like, doing magical thinking

I’ve always thought – and the many writers who’ve written Two Scoops columns for me on Soap Central can attest to this – that these columns should be viewed as a conversation between soap fans. What would I say to a friend who called me and wanted to talk about Beyond the Gates?

I have so many conflicting thoughts and ideas about what I have simply called “the June storyline” that I wanted to reach out social media and find out what other folks think. There were several responses to my query that sum up why I have so many ideas bouncing around.

A lawyer, a cop, and warp speed

There are two things that are causing me the most unease. The first is how quickly the adoption came to light. For months we had June chattering on about her photo. Then, in the course of what seemed like a few days, we found out that the kids in the photo were June’s kids that she gave up for adoption and that the kids were Samantha and Tyrell. Then, in the blink of an eye, June was wearing one of Naomi’s blouses and sitting down in Smitty and Martin’s house to meet the kids.

Fran seems to feel the same way about that as I do, writing, “I was liking it, until it hit warp speed with instantly meeting the kids. The pacing was working until that happened but I think they can get it back on track.” Ramona Coleman echoed that it “seemed to happen too quickly” and Dylan St. Jaymes noted that “there was a missed opportunity for angst… by having the teens agree to meet” June so quickly.

With all the red tape that exists in the world – I once couldn’t send a package because the name on the label provided listed my name as “Dan” and my driver’s license lists it as “Daniel” – I find it hard to believe that Jacob and Naomi were able to get answers so quickly. Did it even take them a full day to get the closed records un-closed?

More than that, I get that Naomi and Jacob feel a certain closeness to June, but I expect that an officer of the court and someone sworn to protect and serve should know better than to invade the privacy of someone who went through great pains to craft a closed adoption. There was a reason it was a closed adoption. Jacob and Naomi didn’t care.

Case not closed

I don’t feel bad for feeling that way because Wilhite592 told me something similar, sharing, “A lawyer and a cop took it upon themselves to find the parents’ names — knowing the adoption was closed.”

Yes, Naomi and Jacob wanted to help June. I applaud that. As we’ve seen recently, there are not many people who give a second thought to those that are unhoused or those who have struggled with addiction. It’s easier to move them “far away” than to try to solve the root causes.

If June really wanted a Burberry scarf, but the store was closed, would Naomi and Jacob throw a brick through the window and go in and take it? It might not be a perfect metaphor, but it’s the same general concept.

What makes me bristle even more is that once Naomi and Jacob knew that members of their extended family were involved, they didn’t even take a moment to think about what they would do with that information. They had a brief, “Well, the guys’ marriage is currently not in a great place” and then raced over to the brownstone to lower the boom. Yes, they claimed that they wanted Martin and Smitty to “think on it,” but of course the kids overheard and that changed the timeline.

Maybe not having kids of their own has created a sort of blind spot for Jacob and Naomi. I’d prefer to think that’s the case because if I don’t, I really just end up hating how they handled this. Jacob comes off hypocritical, as he did when Chief Daddy Elon let him have it last week. Naomi, on the other hand, just seems to be interested in shiny objects. She offered to help the women in the case against Bill’s firm – then she thought about it and didn’t want to do it. Is she going to regret getting the ball rolling in a few days when there’s no way to stop the ball from rolling?

We should be able to get through one crappy night

I was surprised by how June handled things. Since this is a place of honesty, I’ll tell you how I thought it would go. I didn’t think that June was told that a married gay couple had adopted the kids – or that she’d not remember it. I was waiting for her to ask something like, “Where’s the mom?” 

When that didn’t happen and it became clear that it wasn’t going to be a warm and fuzzy reunion between June and the kids, I worried about June’s sobriety. I expected her to spiral on the spot and for the kids to end up being super traumatized. But that didn’t happen. Yes, June could just be putting on a brave face, but I believed her when she said that the kids owed her nothing and that Martin and Smitty had done a good job raising the kids. Things got really, really awkward when June asked if they could all take a family photo.

The entire family reunion made me very, very uncomfortable. I felt bad for everyone in the room – except for Jacob and Naomi. Tyrell was notably angry, much in the way that he reacted toward Martin following Martin and Smitty’s separation. Samantha seemed to want to put a Band-Aid on everything and have everyone be happy, which is how she handled her Dad and Pops’ split. You could feel the tension every time Smitty opened his mouth. Both he and Martin were understandably worried that they could lose a part of what they shared with their children.

As I predicted in my last column, this situation does seem to have moved Smitty and Martin closer to together. At least for now.

I stopped being a baby the day you left us

We learned that Tyrell (Ronald) was nine when he and Samantha (Cecile) were adopted. That gives us a better idea of the timeline here. I am not sure why I thought the kids were much younger when they were adopted. That led to a question that Brenda had that I hadn’t even thought about. She said, “I don’t get why they changed the kids’ names. They weren’t infants who didn’t have names yet. And they didn’t go into witness protection. Why confuse a child with a name change?”

There are a lot of weirdly vague or misleading age references on Beyond the Gates. That’s nothing new on soaps, where a middle schooler can go to their room for a nap and come back downstairs a day later as a college graduate.

Since we’re playing fast and loose with ages, here’s something that crossed my mind. The minute that we knew June’s son was a senior in high school, our suspicions were confirmed: Tyrell and Samantha were June’s children. Had that line been omitted or replaced with “Ronald was just a few years older than Cecile,” we all probably would have continued to believe that June’s kids were Tyrell and Samantha. But it would have opened the door for the show’s biggest gotcha yet – as well as a left turn and an explanation to another Beyond the Gates mystery.

What is the gotchaturn (trademark pending)? That June was mom to Hayley. No, the ages don’t quite match up. Jasmine Burke, who plays June, is in her early 40s, if the Internet is to be believed. We also only have a vague idea of how old Hayley is. Hayley is, or was, friends with Naomi. Filling in some other references, Dani Dupree is around 50. She and Bill were married for 20 years, which would put Naomi in her late-20s. We don’t know that Hayley and Naomi are the same age. To me, the math is mathing.

The Articu-Les

Speaking of fuzzy soap math, there is the story of the Articulettes. I can’t make the ages work. If Dani is 50, that would mean she was born in 1975. Unless I am mistaken, Leslie is intended to be older than Dani. You know what, this is too much soapmath for one column. I’ll tackle that in another column.

But boy — LSD (that’s Leslie/Sherry/Dana for new readers) just became a whole lot more interesting – and she has been wildly interesting ever since she ran poor Laura off the road. Speaking of which, has anyone checked on Laura? We haven’t seen her since she and Eva were working together.

I will admit that I didn’t see the Leslie is Barbara’s daughter twist coming. It just wasn’t something that was on my radar until Eva found out about the law office trying to reach Leslie. We’d already found out that LSD was “alone” in the world, so I couldn’t think of who would be leaving her money. Believe it or not, it was my first-time soap watcher watching partner who figured it out first and before it was spelled out on-screen.

Peaches amused me. She was very Benita Butrell: “I ain’t one to gossip, so you ain’t heard it from me.” I suppose she gets a pass since she is trying to clear her conscience while she still has the time on Earth to do so. However, it made me chuckle every time she made LSD “drag” details out of her.

Debt ain’t nothing but a number

Learning more about Leslie’s belief that she was abandoned by her mom explains a lot about some of her actions since we’ve met her. “Adversity. That’s been my constant companion,” Leslie said at one point before Peaches pointed out that Leslie’s own life choices led her to where she was. There was also that unusual mention that Leslie had “seduced a man to save a life.”

Because everything is subjective (remember how Doug’s debt was kept a secret for weeks?), I have no idea how much of a “fortune” Leslie is set to inherit, but let’s assume that it’s a figure over a million dollars. Will she blow through that money as fast as she did the two payments that Ted gave her in the past six months? It’s going to get really messy since all of the inherited money was given to Barbara’s family by Anita, who chose to do so anonymously. Since every outcast inevitably ends up buying a house inside the gates, I’m guessing Leslie will have a Fairmont Crest address by the end of the summer.

Papa don’t preach

There’s something about Barbara being Leslie’s mother that troubles me. Beyond the Gates is very, very good at foreshadowing. When they rebroadcast the first week of shows at the beginning of July, I was shocked at all of the clues that had gone over my head during the first viewing. They weren’t clunky mentions, but clever word choices that didn’t mean anything at the time.

That’s why three things said over the past five episodes have me concerned. The first was an innocent remark that Vernon made. He felt that he was a failure to his daughters because, according to him, women tend to seek out men that remind them of their dad. Anita was quick to say that Vernon wasn’t like the men that Dani and Nicole had chosen because he had never strayed. The second line was something that Sharon said in passing about how Vernon could have had his choice of any woman had he not have met Anita. The third thing that made my ears perk up was Peaches stating that Barbara had refused to mention who LSD’s father was.

Add to that Anita’s sudden rage toward Ted and “men who don’t believe in the sanctity of marriage” and… Do you see where I am going with this? What if Vernon is LSD’s dad?! The horror! There was no camera pan to Vernon after Anita’s declaration that he was a faithful man, so there was no nervous expression on his face to dissect. I’m just looking for trouble, right? Maybe not. What if Vernon had a relationship (or something less than a relationship) with Barbara before he became involved with Anita? He wouldn’t be a cheater then and he wouldn’t have known Barbara was pregnant.

Of course, a cleaner option here is to have Dante Green be the dad. Is Maury Povich going to need to make a trip to the DMV?! He might need to since I am still not sure I believe the alleged DNA test that was produced to show that Eva was Ted’s daughter.

To moving the hell on

Since I invoked the Dupree daughters’ names, I guess I need to address them.

It’s kind of fun to me that the show’s biggest piece of male eye candy can’t keep a woman – even when he wants to. Andre wanted something with Dani. She wasn’t ready and was honest about that. Andre then developed feelings for Ashley, who wanted him until she saw him pawing Dani in his apartment. Now Ashley, too, has rejected Andre. It seems like Ashley and Andre are over for good because a freak accident has made Ashley realize that she’s still in love with Derek. Dani seems to have a renewed interest in Andre, but that it probably only because he’s unavailable. Messy. Meh-see.

Dani and Bill’s tender moments and walk down memory lane seems to leave open the door for a reconciliation if and when Hayley’s fake pregnancy is exposed. Circling back to Andre for a moment. He told Dani that he was looking for someone to settle down with. I really felt it when he asked her, “But my someone was never gonna be you, was it?”

Minor detour to Ashley. She has said that both Derek and Andre don’t share the “same values” as her. I don’t know what that phrase rubs me the wrong way, but it sure does. I’m not sure that Ashley is grown enough to fully know what “same values” even means. I’m Dani Dupree’s age and I am still learning things about myself every day.

Is strong really the right word?

Then there’s Nicole. We’ve only known her for six months, but her behavior over the past week or so seems very un-Nicole-y. I don’t believe that she is not sad that her marriage is over. I’m no psychiatrist, but I play one in these columns. I think Nicole is divorcing Ted because it is the one thing in her life that she can control. I don’t believe she wants to, but after being lied to by nearly everyone in her life, Nicole is doing this to regain control of her life.

The divorce party was amusing. Having Nicole declare that Vanessa was the only one in the group whose marriage was strong nearly made me choke on my Fiji water. I liked the way that Nicole, Dani, and Vanessa’s happy celebration contrasted with Ted and Andre’s pity party.

You’re dancing salsa, not filing your taxes

Life isn’t much better for the next generation of Dupree women either. One of the funniest things of the entire week was when, after sexytimes with Tomás, Tomás expressed his desire for another round and Kat replied with, “You wanna do that again? Already?!” How bad is Tomás at “horizontal hijinks of the highest order” that Kat is this underwhelmed? Are his legal briefs not, um, packing the punch they should?

I liked that Chelsea asked what I consider to be appropriate questions of her cousin. Well, question – singular. Chelsea didn’t even get the words out of her mouth before Kat emphatically dismissed any possibility that she was lesbian. “Good. Less competition,” Chelsea quipped before asking if Kat might be asexual. This all struck me as very current and very real.

Allistan Wonderland

Chelsea, on the other hand, has two women that are madly in love with her. The problem is that one of them is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

I’ve decided to rename another Beyond the Gates character. First, I dubbed Leslie “LSD” for reasons I explained earlier. Then I dubbed the country club busboy KKKenneth for obvious reasons. Now, I give you… (insert drum roll here)… Allistan. Allison has two cups of crazy behind her eyes and has now moved to full-on stalker.

As me and my first-time soap watcher was watching this past week, when Madison and Chelsea popped on on-screen, I said (and this is an exact quote), “Guess who’s coming. Oh wait, she can’t get in.” And milliseconds later, there she was: Allistan.

I am really enjoying Brianna Roberts, the actress portraying Allison. Admittedly, I have a certain fondness for the women who play soap opera wackadoos. Brianna acts with every part of her body. Every head position and every eye movement is intentional.

Allistan is equally good. When her social media kickstarter didn’t land with Chelsea, Allison quickly turned things around on Chelsea. She accused Chelsea of not caring about the torment that Craig has been inflicting upon her. It’s “perfect” abusive stalker behavior. When nothing seemed to work, Allison disappeared for a bit only to resurface with a warning – for Madison. Allistan warned Madison that Chelsea was a player and would hurt her.

Chelsea did have two great zingers that are worthy of an in-column mention. When Allison pitched the bogus social media startup, Chelsea said, “You are clearly not ready to operate at this level.” Later, she fired off, “I am not your emotional support human.” Even Madison got into the action by diagnosing, “Allison’s a hurricane of crazy.”

Beyond the Gates Speed Round

Here are some rapid fire thoughts about some of the other action from the week gone by.

Crash course on parenting

I thought the intersection of all of the storylines at the end of Thursday’s episode was really smart writing. “I will always be there for my children. It’s what a parent does,” Anita said to Nicole as the screen split into quarters with Peaches and Leslie, Martin and Smitty and the kids, and Noami and June.

The Young and the Gateless

The visit from The Young and the Restless’ Devon Hamilton was an interesting choice for a first crossover with another soap. First, it proved that all of CBS’s soaps exist in the same universe. It’s the transitive property. Sorry – more soapmath! If The Young and the Restless and Beyond the Gates are in the same sphere, and Y&R and The Bold and the Beautiful exist in the same realm… that means Beyond the Gates and B&B must co-exist as well.

Second, it made sense from a story perspective since Devon owns a record label and would understandably want to jump on singing an artist that was a viral sensation. It also clears the way for Anita to perform on Y&R (or at least show up). There was no seismic shift in story that will need to be cleaned up or addressed at a later date… or was there? The interaction between Devon and Dani made me wonder if these two might know each other in some interesting way.

Are you a doctor? No, really… are you a doctor?

I was confused by Hayley’s visit to the doctor. I was convinced that the doctor real, but I am not sure how Hayley would be able to make that happen. And Bill went into the exam room with Hayley, so it’s not like she faked being seen by the doctor. I still don’t believe that Hayley was ever pregnant, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how a real doctor wouldn’t be able to tell that Hayley had lied about the miscarriage. I honestly expected the doctor to tell Hayley that she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant again.

Concussion: The sequel

I was oddly fascinated with Derek when he suffered his on-the-job accident and suffered temporary amnesia. Now that he is injured again, I can’t help but wonder if he might engage in a little soap staple: faked paralysis. If he believes that he has won Ashley back, he might worry that recovering from his accident will result in Ashley realizing that her expression of love was made under duress.

Daddy dearest

I’ve already mentioned that mention that Leslie seduced a man to save a life, which I think opens the door for future story. There was another mention of a man we’ve yet to meet that might also come into play at some point. Bill talked briefly about his dad. Dani praised Bill as being a better father than his dad was to him. “That’s a hell of a low bar,” Bill responded. I wonder if we will get to know more about Bill’s past once the Hayley and Randy/Sammy connection comes to light.

Speaking of which, shouldn’t Bill have recognized “Sammy” from the times that Bill interacted with Joey?

Lines of the week

The Beyond the Gates writing team is once again having a little too much fun. Here are some of the lines of dialogue that tickled my funny bone or that I found memorable over the past week (and haven’t already been mentioned in this column).

“At the risk of sounding like a caveman, is there any such thing as a rational woman?” – Ted.

“If we can’t drown our problems, as least we can briefly submerge them.” – Also, Ted. I am hoping we can blame his previous statement on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.

“And I’m still in the way, so slow your roll, sis.” – Anita after Sharon mused that Anita had stood in the way of other women trying to talk to a young Vernon.

“You put less effort into saving your marriage than you did into building a relationship with the child who tried to destroy it.” – Vernon to Ted.

“At this point, arguing is your love language.” – Bill to Dani.

That’s all I have for this week’s My View From Beyond the Gates column.

I’ll be tuning in and I’ll continue to share my thoughts on Beyond the Gates as long as you’re interested in reading them. Thank you for reading and, as always, please feel free to share your thoughts on my column or Beyond the Gates in the Comments section below.

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Life outside the gates

My former Two Scoops columnists Liz Masters and Tamilu have joined me here on my personal web site — and they are still writing about General Hospital. Tamilu is on deck with week with a new column called, Drew Cain is a royal pain.

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