My View From Beyond the Gates: Sex as a weapon

They say you have to hustle and grind to make your dreams a reality. But using sex as a weapon isn’t part of the dream. It’s a nightmare — just ask Pat Benatar. Chaining someone to a bed is not a hustle. A quickie against the wall of a casino isn’t a grind — it’s a bump and grind. Then there’s mixed messages sex, pretend sexual interest, and using the birds and the bees to get some an A. It’s time for a little sex ed, Beyond the Gates style.

After what seems like an eternity, Beyond the Gates returned with all-new episodes this past week. I’m not thrilled that the show has been airing these encore episodes, but at least I understand why.

The first season of Beyond the Gates only had a 200-episode order. I’m not sure if that had something to do with not knowing when the series would premiere or if it was just a general business decision.

If you’ve noticed, the show has made zero reference to any holiday or season so far. There was no Easter bunny, Fourth of July cookout, or mention of summer vacations. The closest we’ve gotten has been Vernon mentioning that college was almost back in session.

Oh, as an aside, I can promise you that there will be evidence of Christmas on the show in a couple of months.

Whatever the reason, the show needed to make up about three weeks of episodes (approximately 15 shows) to make it to the end of 2025 based on the number of episodes in the season. It was smart to air the repeats over holiday weeks. As was the case with the skipped Fourth of July week, the show was on fire when it returned. It’d have been a shame to have people miss the action because they were off on a family getaway.

The highlight of the week for me was the Wednesday, September 10, episode. If anyone is keeping track of such things, it has a lot of material that would look good on next year’s Emmy reels.

Your perfect, devoted follower

The creepy saga that was Allison’s kidnapping of Chelsea is over, but I suspect that Allistan (that’s my nickname for her) will loom large over Chelsea’s life for some time.

Because this is the Internet and you now have to say things that used to be a given, I do not condone violence. However, a loud cheer erupted here at Kroll Manor when Chelsea finally used the chain to strangle Allistan. Luckily for Allison, the cavalry arrived in time.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Brianna Roberts has been phenomenal as Allistan. Yes, Allison has been over the top, but Allison is nuts. N-U-T-S nuts. From humming the “Wedding March” to randomly citing stats from Chelsea’s Instagram feed, Roberts played the part of an obsessed fan to a tee.

Total and complete obsession

Where the acting and the writing really meshed was in Allistan’s twisted logic about why she’d kidnapped Chelsea. According to Allison, she kidnapped Chelsea to give her fans something to talk about. “Content is content,” Allison explained, noting that Chelsea was probably trending worldwide. “I just gave you what you were working so hard to get – clout,” Allistan continued. Allison went even further by accusing Chelsea of having an entirely fake persona on social media – one that was just designed to sell products of land endorsements.

Here’s the thing: we all know that Allison is a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but what she said made sense in a weirdly twisted and perverse way. “Congratulations, Chelsea. You made me who I am today,” Allistan continued. “Your perfect, devoted follower.” Is Allison really that far out there or is she smart enough to lay the groundwork for an interesting legal defense?

I struggled with being the face of Soap Central. I was perfectly content to be a faceless name that created text-based content. When social media started to become an important factor in the success of businesses, I knew that the site needed a face and personality. So, I sucked it up and put myself out there. Admittedly, I kind of had to because it is hard to do Red Carpet interviews and not show your face. Even now, if you check out my socials (Bluesky, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and TwitterX) it’s mostly photos of my gardens, projects I’ve done around the house, or my bunny.

The same, but different

Once again, though, Beyond the Gates has set itself apart from other soaps. All soaps have had some sort of kidnapping story. This one has a message. It has shown the dangers associated with living life in public. It’s great to interact with other people, but there is a dark side. Now, Chelsea is second-guessing her entire life because of the incident with Allistan. “I could have died because I needed the engagement,” Chelsea said as she tried to fight off tears.

As a viewer, I find that absolutely riveting, but also incredibly important. When the news reports on crime, they’ll usually give cursory updates on the victims with phrases like “is expected to survive” or “should make a full recovery.” The broadcasts then move on to the next story and we never again hear about the physical and emotional pain that the crime victims endure.

Kidnapping loose ends

Who thought it was a good idea to throw Chelsea a “Yay! You’re home from being kidnapped!” party? The Duprees have made quite a few questionable decisions since we met them back in February, but this might have been their flat-out dumbest decision.

I liked that Bill had a chance to talk to Chelsea about how she’d hid part of her life from him. It was a really nice father/daughter moment to have Bill tell Chelsea that he was happy that she had Madison in her life. Bill giving Dani the “box of memories” from Chelsea’s childhood was a really sweet moment. I didn’t peg scrappy Bill as the sentimental type, but I guess I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

I do have something to gripe about. When Kat phoned the Dupree gang to let them know that Chelsea had been found and was (mostly) unharmed, why didn’t she lead with that? “We’ve found her! She’s safe” is a lot better than starting the call with, “Don’t freak.”

So what if she got her wig a little ruffled?

I was tickled by Ted’s sneaky plan to get LSD (that’s Leslie/Sherry/Dana for new readers) to withdraw her offer on the Jarvis house. If you recall, in my last column I admitted that I had no idea what Ted was up to. I am not sure why Leslie didn’t wait to pull out of the Jarvis deal until she knew that Ted’s offer was legit, but that’s neither here nor there.

What I am puzzled by are the reactions that Leslie and Eva had to Ted’s double-cross. People on social media have tried to explain it to me… and I still don’t get it.

Let’s start with Leslie. Okay, she got played. Did she really think Ted was just going to give her a house? He hates what she did to his life, but… he’s going to gift her a house? Leslie wanted to believe it. She wasn’t thinking. It reminds me a bit of a scam that recently bilked a soap fan out of tons of money. The scammer(s) created an AI-generated video of a soap actor asking a fan to basically give him all of her money. She did. Why would a celebrity hit up a fan out of the blue and then ask for money?

Ted pulling the rug out from under Leslie gave Trisha Mann-Grant (who portrays LSD) some really great emotional scenes, but I don’t see this simple trick as being that devastating to Leslie. Unlike the soap fan, LSD suffered no harm. She still has her money just maybe with a bit of a bruised ego. To me, Leslie’s reaction was completely over the top.]

Like dramatic mother, like dramatic daughter

Then there’s Eva’s reaction. What Ted did to Leslie and what LSD (and Eva) did at the anniversary party are apples and oranges. Yes, Ted made a fool out of Leslie – but it was in front of an audience of one: Nicole. LSD, on the other hand, dropped her bombshell in front of Ted and Nicole’s friends and family. On top of that, one of the partygoers recorded the chaos on his mobile phone.

Someone on social media told me that Eva was just shocked that her loveable, huggable dad could do something so mean. I say it was about damned time. For the past several months, Ted has been moping around town like a castrated, constipated Eeyore.

That’s also why I was happy for Ted when he went off on the entire Dupree family (plus Bill) when he dropped by to tell them all of his scheme to prevent Leslie from buying the Jarvis home. For the first time in a long time, Ted spoke the truth. Ted admitted he was wrong by cheating on Nicole, but he also correctly pointed out that he never strayed again and had recommitted himself to his wife and kids “for the better part of three decades.”

That wasn’t all. Ted contrasted his infidelity to that of Bill’s – and how Bill had flaunted that infidelity by moving himself and his “younger model” bride into Fairmount Crest. In spite of that, the Duprees had no problem sharing “fancy cookies” with Bill.

I think it is important to note that I want to know more about these fancy cookies. Were they homemade? Imported? What flavors were they? These may be unimportant details when it comes to plot points and such, but these are the things that I need to know.

Place your bets

There are three other points from the Ted versus the Duprees (plus Bill) showdown that also need a mention.

I really, really loved that Ted expressed his love for Chelsea. He could very easily have been blinded by his rage and forgot the real reason he had stopped by the Dupree home. But he didn’t. He had started to ask that they pass along a message to Chelsea, but then he stopped and said that he would deliver the message himself. “I am her uncle forever and I will love her forever,” Ted said defiantly.

The other notable moment was everyone placing their bets on who would win in the Ted and Nicole squabble. Who needs Joey’s illegal backroom betting parlor when you can place wagers in the comfort of the Dupree parlor?! There was not a single cent placed on Ted until he ponied up his own cash. Just watching everyone drop their money on the table and take aim at Ted was really quite funny.

Nicole has the absolutely best shade for Ted when he announced that he wanted credit for getting Leslie to give up on buying the Jarvis house. Nicole mused that they could throw Ted a parade or, perhaps, name a road after him. “How does ‘Bare Minimum Boulevard’ sound?” Nicole zinged. Ooh, I laughed and laughed.

I want your sex… and for you to sleep on the sofa

I have given up hope on seeing any sort of intimacy between Martin and Smitty. When their marriage was on solid ground, they barely touched each other. And when they kissed? Well, that was like the kiss you gave your Aunt Gladys when she gave you a birthday or Christmas card with $5 in it.

Now that their marriage is strained and they aren’t even sleeping in the same bed, I figured the chances of them doing the do were slim to none. Honestly, I also was starting to wonder if there were some reservations about showing intimacy between two men on the show. Daytime (and even primetime, to be honest) has always seemed to have an easier time showing two women displaying affection than men.

Imagine my surprise when not only did Martin and Smitty share a spicy kiss, but they also scurried off to their bedroom for a little shirt shuckin’ lovin’.

On top of that, we even got a racy comment from Martin post-sex. When Smitty turned cold and pulled away from Martin, Martin suggestively replied, “When you did your thing like that, I mean, you can’t blame a man for wanting seconds.”

Red light, green light

I get very annoyed with mixed signals – and there are a lot of them on the soaps. Martin was good enough when Smitty had an itch that needed to be scratched, but… immediately afterward he was reminding Martin that their marriage might not make it? That seems not right to me.

I haven’t forgotten all of the things that Martin did to get them to this place, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. (Let me just say that I rewrote that last sentence so many times because what I originally wrote was a little too spicy for the column.) If you know that someone wants to be with you, but you don’t want to be with them (or aren’t sure if you do), it’s wrong to do things that would give the other person hope.

Cuckoo for cuckold, Pops

There’s something similar going on between Vanessa, Joey, and Doug, but it’s far more twisted than what’s going on in the Richardson-Smith marriage.

What’s interesting about Beyond the Gates is that they don’t spoonfeed us plot details. When the Thursday show ended with Doug walking in on Joey and Vanessa in the middle of having sex, I fully expected the action to pick up the next day and show what happened next. It didn’t. The last image we have is of Joey smirking as Doug watched his wife do… dirty things to Joey.

Does Vanessa know that Doug was there? We have no idea and probably won’t for a few more episodes. I actually prefer scenes to end with an ellipsis or question mark rather than a period or exclamation point.

Is Joey’s empire about to bust?

I do want to revisit a comment I made in a past column about the future of Joey Armstrong. This week when Doug and Randy met, there were numerous references made to Doug’s desire to take down Joey. Doug claimed that he was going to back off, but that was before Vanessa let her tongue do the walking on Joey’s naughty bits.

Couple that with a post from Jon Lindstrom (who plays Joey) about taking time off from Beyond the Gates to work on another project and I can’t help but wonder if maybe Doug does off Joey.

And here’s another twist that I want to put into the universe. We’ve never met Ashley’s biological father. All we know is that Jan, Ashley’s mom, twisted herself into a pretzel to try to keep the man in her life. What if that man was Joey?! Obviously this could be a reach, but we have no evidence that Joey isn’t her dad. Joey’s death would upend Vanessa’s life, but it could also really do a number on Ashley’s life, too.

Or has Doug dug his own grace?

There were also a lot of mentions about Joey possibly doing harm to Doug. Joey sorta kinda promised Vanessa that he wouldn’t hurt Doug, but can you really trust the word of a mobster casino operator? I’d have to imagine that Joey would forget that promise if he sensed that Doug was trying to do him harm. What size cement shoes do you think Doug wears?

Always bet on black

I thought that it was a weird flex for Leslie to say that she’d paint Vanessa as a racist if she didn’t help her buy the Jarvis property. I am not sure how LSD thinks that she could paint Vanessa as a bigot. Then again, in the era of social media it doesn’t take much to ruin someone’s life – and you don’t even have to be telling the truth in order to do it. While LSD was going on her tirade, it would have been nice to have had Doug saunter up to the table and give his wife a kiss.

What could possibly go wrong?

Something else that doesn’t make sense to me is Hayley’s plan to make Bill jealous. There is no planet in any solar system where this plan can go any way but wrong. Help me make it make sense. She and a co-worker have decided to enlist an unwitting associate at Bill’s law firm to make Bill jealous? Yeah, this is a horrible idea.

Hayley has always been annoying, but it’s been more in the way that a fruit fly is annoying when you find it in your kitchen. Throughout the entire Chelsea kidnapping, Hayley seemed to want to be the center of attention. Chelsea is her stepdaughter, so… the kidnapping is all about her. No, ma’am. It’s not.

I am sure if wasn’t easy for Hayley to see Bill and Dani being so close throughout the ordeal. I mean, it raised my eyebrows. The hand holding. The hugs. The walks down memory lane. Heck, everyone in the Dupree family noticed what was going on.

Wait… do you hear that? What’s that sound. Is it… it is! It’s the hypocrite alarm!

I have said in this column a couple of weeks ago that when someone shows you who they are you should believe them. Or rather, I repeated the sage words of Maya Angelou. Bill was a cheater. He inflicted unnecessary pain upon his wife and kids. He showed the type of man that he is. Somehow, though, I really liked seeing Dani and Bill be loving to each other. I don’t know that I would want them to ever be a couple again, but I do like the idea of the pair at least getting to the point where they can be civil.

So maybe that doesn’t make me a full-on hypocrite. Did I sound the alarm for nothing? Well, you can tell me in the Comments section at the end of the column.

No más Tomás

While I am talking about Tomás, let me just say that he doesn’t deserve Kat or Eva. With each passing week, Tomás gets slimier and slimier. It’s weird because he does have moments when he seems genuinely sincere, but I am 100% convinced that Tomás would bed both Eva and Kat in the same day and not think he’d done anything wrong.

I suspect that Bill is going to give Tomás the heave ho when he sees how Hayley is fawning over him. That will free up Tomás to represent Eva and Leslie.

Beyond the Gates Speed Round

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

Unexpected development

When Vanessa told LSD that the Jarvises could no longer sell her their home, she gave an interesting reason as to why they couldn’t. Vanessa claimed that “several rare specimens of trees” had been found on the property. Among them, she said, were “sycamore maples.” Turns out those trees are not rare. In fact, they are considered invasive, and most municipalities would be thrilled to have them chopped down.

That led me to wonder: was this the highest of highbrow shade? Was Vanessa low-key calling Leslie an invasive species?!

Do you think there are other universes out there?

The Derek and Ashley coupling took another strange turn this week. I can’t be entirely sure, but it seemed to me like Ashley said it was great timing that she and Andre had called things off because it freed her up to be there to tend to the injured Derek. Only later (and after Derek stopped his eavesdropping) did Ashley maybe imply that she loved Derek.

Thankfully, Jan espoused more pearls of wisdom, but I don’t think Ashley was really listening. She heard what she wanted to hear and ran with it. Moments later, she was kneeling by the side of Derek’s bed and asking him to marry her. I believe that Ashley loves Derek, but this proposal was ill advised and I don’t for one second believe that the relationship is going to last.

I was a bit surprised by Madison’s examination of Derek. A few quick touches and she was off to the next patient. I expected her to take a look at Derek’s legs and notice lots of weird bruising, which Derek would have presumably gotten from the way he was pounding his legs to try to regain some feeling in them. Ashley naturally would have assumed that she’d caused the bruising when she fell on Derek’s legs. She’d have had Meredith Grey-esque guilt and gone off and done something stupid.

Sex ed: 101

I am already over this Samantha and her unnamed classmate storyline. She’s enamored with the boy and pretty much did all of the work on a project that was supposed to be a joint effort. It took zero-point-three seconds for her to practically jump his bones. Thank goodness Kat showed up when she did.

When unnamed boy said that he had a side hustle as an “event planner” and then basically said that the events were house parties, I chuckled. Sir, that is not an event planner. You are Kid. Or maybe Play. Either way, if Samantha goes to this party, I am certain something not good will happen. Just say no to boys. They have cooties.

Worth a thousand words

I appreciated the camerawork on Tuesday’s episode when Bill and Dani were talking on the right staircase (the one we usually do not see) at the Dupree home. The shot kept the balusters in the frame, rather than angling the camera in a way to get an unobstructed view of their faces.

Also of note was the lighting when Jan and Ashley were talking at Orphey Gene’s. It wasn’t “perfect” lighting, but rather a dappled light through the blinds on the window. It made the scene more realistic through its imperfection.

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).

“So downtrodden woman appeal to your Captain-Save-A-Ho instincts?” — Kat, reading Tomás for the way he stands up for Eva.

“If it doesn’t cost as much as a week’s salary, the apology wasn’t sincere.” – Bill (with an assist from Dani) explaining how much he had to shell out when he needed to apologize to Dani.

“Sorry is not an erase.” — Kat, when Tomás asked what Eva needed to do beyond saying she was sorry.

“You always wanted to burst out as a fully formed butterfly in your eye-popping glory” — Naomi when suggesting that Chelsea needed a “cocoon” period before deciding to call off social media for good.

“I am not bending for the Duprees, acting like they have a patent on breathing Black and bougie.” — Leslie

“Hey! I said you have the right to remain silent. Try it!” — Jacob, in an attempt to get Allison to stop talking, humming, and whistling.

Follow my Random Acts of Dan

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

If you’ve enjoyed my column this week and want to see what I have written about Beyond the Gates in previous weeks, you can check those out in the My View From Beyond the Gates archive.

Have a penchant for gardening, interior design, or fixing up old houses? Check out my Manor Makeover series where I write about all of the things I’ve been up to here at Kroll Manor in Allentown, PA, over the past decade.

To keep up with all of the shenanigans I engage in on social media, please consider giving my a follow on Bluesky, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and TwitterX.

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, Only murderers in the building.

To read more thoughts, opinions, rants, and raves about daytime television, be sure to check out our Editorial section.

dan