My View From Beyond the Gates: Gatecrashers

It was a week of unwelcome visitors — I’m looking at you, sportsball. Oh, I almost forgot! There was also that whole anniversary interruptus thing. Grab your favorite wig and let’s unpack all of the drama with my view from beyond the gates.

An online dictionary describes a gatecrasher as “someone who enters a party or event without being invited, typically without a ticket or invitation. It’s considered rude and disrespectful to the host.” Boy, is that an understatement. And for once, I wasn’t the one that showed up uninvited!

Before we get into dissecting the dra-ma (there is a pause between the syllables for emphasis) of the past week, I wanted to offer a suggestion to make the show even better. If you are an avid soap watcher, do yourself a favor and find someone who is not a typical soap fan and get them to watch Beyond the Gates with you. I promise it will be worth the effort. I’ve been watching since the launch with someone whose identity I will keep a secret so as not to influence our future viewing. Think of it as the Soapness Protection Program.

What has been fun and refreshing about this experience is that it is absolutely hilarious to watch someone getting their first taste of soap opera. Things that we longtimers take for granted are fresh and new for the newbies. For example, when Beyond the Gates was preempted on Tuesday and Wednesday for soccer, I was asked a lot of naughty-worded questions about why soccer was on in the middle of the day. On Thursday, when Leslie strolled into the shindig and the episode ended shortly thereafter, there was a loud scream and a “WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?!”

Imagine that. Ending an episode of a soap opera with a cliffhanger. I can’t wait for their reaction next week when Ted is suddenly recast. I might try to covertly record some audio to share in my next column. Now, hold on to your wigs because he we go with this week’s column.

Always RSVP yes… but think twice about actually going

In the third of a century or so that I’ve written about soaps, there are some questions that pop up in my mind over and over. One of them is, “Why would anyone agree to go to a gathering where everyone in town will be in attendance?” No soap opera event ever ends well. Okay, most do not end well. It’s like these folks have the memory of a goldfish.

Remember the wedding? It ended with shots fired and livestreamed — and (a bit later) an arrest. Yes, Nicole’s award ceremony went off mostly without a hitch, but that’s the exception that proves the rule. Had it not been for Eva getting Leslie-then-known-as-Sherry yanked from the party, it very well could have gone left, too.

Sure, the folks whose lives aren’t destroyed at these public events get a good show and possibly a meal, but you never know when you will be the one who is caught in the figurative and sometimes literal crossfire.

An aperitif of angst

Most really good soap drama happens because viewers have a yearslong relationships with the characters. As the anniversary drama played out, I had to remind myself that we’ve only known these characters for a little over two months. It is a sign of great storytelling to be able to get an audience that engaged that quickly.

Going into the anniversary party, there were a lot of questions: Would Eva be able to convince her mom not to go through with her plan? Or is “plot” a better word? Would someone or something else stop her from doing it? Yes, I am talking about that suddenly present storage room with the weird outside-only lock. I can’t be the only one that assumed that Eva would lock Leslie in the room and love would win the day. My doomsoaping even had me momentarily believing that Eva might shoot, stab, or clobber Leslie in order to shut her up.

As a quick aside, that’s one of the things that I have really enjoyed about Beyond the Gates. Somehow the show finds ways to catch even seasoned viewers off guard with story switcheroos. Character has a headache? Must be a brain tumor. A woman with an upset stomach? She’s obviously pregnant — especially if she just ended a relationship and started a new one.

I saw a lot of fans lamenting that the Beyond the Gates writing team featured a lot of veteran soap scribes. I think the fear was that it might result in “same old, same old” storytelling. To me, it feels just the opposite. Perhaps having all that experience has made the writers want to do things differently.

All eyez on LSD

I don’t think it was supposed to be funny, but there was a moment of levity as everyone referred to the gatecrasher as Leslie, Sherry, Dana, or Ana. I laughed loudly when Nicole asked, “How many names does she have?” I refuse to acknowledge “On-uh” as one of Leslie’s personas, which is why I refer to Leslie as LSD

A few weeks ago, Eva and Leslie had their first blowout. It was shortly after Ted told Eva that she was a part of his family. Things got ratcheted up even more when Ted and Nicole told Eva that they wanted to set her up with education and an eventual job at Ted’s office because they cared about her. Imagine having a woman who raised you telling you that these people, who have been nothing but kind to you, are monsters. It has to be like a cold air mass and a warm air mass colliding — boom! — instant thunderstorm.

I give Eva credit for trying to stop the slow-moving trainwreck that she knew was coming. She did try to lock Leslie in the storage room. Then she pleaded with Nicole and Ted to leave the party. When that didn’t work, she called for someone to help “unwell” Leslie.

Trisha Mann-Grant was stellar. I sat transfixed in front of the television. I didn’t even want to blink because I was worried that I would miss something, some nuance of this unhinged woman venting her anger. It was riveting to watch it all play out — how Leslie had played cat-and-mouse with the various members of the Dupree family. We knew she did — we watched it happen. But when she recounted what she’d done it just seemed so much more sinister. She even dragged Bill and he wasn’t even at the party.

I have some questions, but no smelling salts

I don’t think it is far-fetched for Bill to have threatened a pregnant woman and her child. Did he, though? I don’t know. I can also see Ted telling Bill to “Take care of” things and Bill taking it upon himself to amp up the threat level.

It would have been so easy for someone to chalk up the obviously unwell Leslie’s rantings as some sort of psychotic break. Had Ted kept his composure, he could have played Leslie’s bombshell news as fan fiction. Why did he crack so quickly?

Are we really sure that Eva is Ted’s daughter? From the previews it seems like Eva will produce a DNA test that “proves” she is. But… didn’t Leslie supposedly have that test run? And didn’t she call someone to request a favor? The favor didn’t have to be the DNA test… it could have been creating a fake DNA test result printout.

Second, are we really sure that Eva is Leslie’s daughter? I mean, I could easily see Leslie donning some sort of nurse-appropriate wig, waltzing into the maternity ward of a hospital, and walking off with a baby. Goodness, I make it sound like one of those Amazon markets were you walk in, fill up your cart with stuff, and it somehow knows what you’ve put in your cart and charges your credit card automatically. No scanning required.

Eva would be devastated if she isn’t Ted or Leslie’s daughter. Ambyr Michelle has also been really strong over the past few weeks. When Eva finally learned that Ted didn’t even know she existed, I felt the whole box of assorted chocolates and emotions. Anger. Heartbreak. That weird maple cream filling that no one wants.

And a few more questions

Do they still make smelling salts? Do “the kids” nowadays even know what they are?

Carlton — this random, handsome man who just happened to show up at the party — is he going to be a man that Nicole has revenge sex with? That seems a little too typical soap to me.

Was anyone surprised that Chelsea and Naomi immediately assumed the worst about their dad? In the midst of an interloper spewing hateful and seemingly outrageous claims, their immediate reaction was to blast Bill for threatening a vulnerable young woman. That isn’t a reaction we’d typically get on a soap. Normally, it would be, “Our dad was fighting for our family! We love our dad again!”

Beyond the Gates Speed Round

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

Oddly timed

I know I said earlier in the column that Beyond the Gates has so far avoided the typical soap tropes. That said, Vanessa’s sudden “food poisoning” is awfully suspicious. Did one of her trysts result in an unplanned pregnancy? I hope not.

Speaking of trysts, my eyes widened when Doug mentioned how surprised he was that Vanessa didn’t understand how someone might cheat on their spouse. I keep wondering if he was going to lower the boom and let his wife know that he knew all about her sextracurricular activities. Does he know? He has to, right?

Some last-minute editing?

Throughout the course of the series, I’ve often felt that some episodes were pieced together than they were originally scripted. There are some scenes that seemingly come out of nowhere or end abruptly. I am further convinced that that is the case because Friday’s show teaser referenced “Ashley and Derek juggle the messy realities of moving in together.” That was nowhere to be seen in the episode, but it did appear earlier in the week.

I think those scenes would have killed the drama that was building in the anniversary party scenes. It was a wise decision to remove them and to give the party more screen time.

How’s your head?

I found it really weird that Derek named his chair. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone to name a piece of furniture — other than pieces that are in a museum somewhere. Even weirder? He did not name the moose head. Hell, even I named his moose head. I call him Edgar.

Serving revenge looks

Leslie’s impromptu fashion show with her many, many wigs was funny. I also chuckled when Kat reasoned that Leslie had to be up to something because she “wears wigs.” Granted, she was right — but I don’t think wearing a wig in an of itself is a sign of sketchiness!

You must be dreaming

I thought LSD’s fantasy sequence where Nicole came in and ceded Ted to her was… really weird. It was pretty clever to have none of the typical “this character is clearly dreaming” setups involved. Still, the fact that Leslie thinks Nicole would give up without a fight is crazy even for her.

Push it real good

I was shocked by the Martin/Ted confrontation. Who knew Martin had that in him? Ted went flying across the room like a rag doll. When Ted flew into the sofa, I wanted to overlay sports commentary from earlier in the week and have someone yell, “Goooooooooooal!!!!”

As you could tell from my “I have some questions” section, I have no idea what’s about to happen next. Ted and Nicole could get things back on track quickly… or things could get even messier. I don’t suspect that LSD is going to take too kindly to Eva’s turncoat ways, but it’s not like the Duprees are going to welcome her into the nest.

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. Check out Liz’s latest GH column, Heartbreak Hospital.

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

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