My View From Beyond the Gates: Farce weddings and a funeral

While Andre and Dani were impersonating a bride and groom, Vanessa was taking her wedding ring off, and Doug contemplated using his to ante up. All three situations turned out to be quite the gamble. It’s time to celebrate farce weddings and a funeral in My View Beyond the Gates for the week ending September 26, 2025.

A wedding ring, they say, is round because it symbolizes the unending nature of love and commitment. With more than half the marriages failing to make it to infinity, perhaps we need to rethink the whole idea of a ring. Still, weddings and relationships make up the bulk of our entertainment fare, be it storybook romances or naked dating reality shows.

It’s not often that the soap opera fates align and craft a way for nearly all of the show’s storylines to have a common thread. But it happened this past week on Beyond the Gates and it should come as no surprise that the commonality involved marriages.

The way each of the storylines was framed provided a unique storytelling opportunity, but it also gave us an interesting look at the Fairmont Crest residents that we’ve come to know and (mostly) love.

Some habits die harder than marriages

As I predicted in last week’s column, Doug McBride has left us. It isn’t a huge surprise, but that doesn’t mean that his death is any less shocking. I will say that the manner in which Doug died came as a huge surprise to me. That said, I’m not entirely sure that I had an idea of how he’d die. With all his casino winnings, maybe I thought Doug would be set up as another “robbery” victim.

There’s part of me (that part that is the always-skeptical soap viewer) that wonders if Doug is really alive. We didn’t actually see Doug get into an accident and, to date, there has been no body. As the old soap mantra says: No body, no death.

Doug was determined to find a way to take down Joey. What if staging his death is all part of that plan? I haven’t figured out how to explain away Marcel Malone’s involvement and Malone’s remark that Doug wouldn’t need money where he was going. Maybe he meant Witness Relocation?

Even though we all expected Doug’s death was imminent, the setup to the reveal was an absolute masterclass in heartbreak. Joey whisked Vanessa off on a romantic tropical getaway, which clearly was designed more as an alibi for him than it was a romantic getaway. As part of their private time together, Joey asked Vanessa to take off her wedding ring. She initially refused, and reminded Joey that she still loved Doug. Eventually, though, she relented and removed her ring.

An emotional lifeguard

At about the same time, Doug was fiddling with his own wedding ring and presumably getting ready to use it to ante up for another ill-advised hand of cards.

Lauren Buglioli turned in an amazing performance when Vanessa received the call that Doug had been killed in a car crash. Here at Kroll Manor, we said that she was ac-ting. The anguish wasn’t overwrought. I felt every bit of grief, remorse, and guilt that Vanessa was feeling. In a split second, I could see every “what if” that was playing out in Vanessa’s mind. What if she had been back in the DMV? What if she’d tried harder to get Doug into some sort of therapy for his various addictions.

Then came the rage as she turned to Joey and demanded to know if he was involved in her husband’s death. I half-expected Vanessa to step out of the shower and overhear Joey talking on the phone to Malone and revealing his involvement.

Bargain basement Tony Soprano

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t want Vanessa to find out immediately that Joey was involved in Doug’s death. If I had my way, I’d prefer that she not find out until at least 2026. I’ve always been someone who enjoys a slow burn – be it a romance or the reveal of a secret. I think the emotional impact tends to be stronger with the passage of time.

Imagine for a second that Beyond the Gates has been on the air for 20 years. I think the average viewer would have an entirely different reaction to learning about Ted’s affair with LSD (That’s Leslie/Sherry/Dana, in case you’re a new reader of my column.) Yes, I think everyone is already upset that Ted cheated on Nicole, but consider what it would have been like to have known these characters for two decades and then had the affair bombshell dropped.

Something that I’ve noticed on social media – particularly among newer soap fans – is the want or need for storylines and plot points to be wrapped up speedily. If there are any loose ends, these viewers are often quick to blast the writers and claim that the writing team is making things up as they go along.

I can say with absolute certainty that the storylines on Beyond the Gates are not being made up on the fly.

Circling back to Vanessa, I am imagining that she will probably move on with her life in the near future and that Joey will more than likely be part of that future. They’ll grow more and more in love and we’ll see Vanessa becoming ever more intwined with Joey and his “enterprises.” It might cause trouble with her kids, who will undoubtedly see Joey as the reason for their dad’s death.

At some point, Vanessa will inevitably learn that Joey was involved in Doug’s death – and it will shred her heart and soul.

Heads we get married

On the opposite side of the emotion pendulum was the ridiculously, stoopid wedding of Andre Richardson and Danielle Dupree. It has been a very, very long time since I’ve seen a soap pull off something so mindlessly funny.

The minute Andre scribbled down “Vegas” on those two napkins I knew some sort of shenanigans were going to pop off. Foolishly, I believed for a split second that he and Dani really were going to take a photo of themselves by a wedding chapel just to get tongues wagging. The minute the Anita Williams “impersonator” stepped into the Naughty Dreams Chapel I knew we were in for something much more than a photo.

Others soaps might have hired a drag queen to impersonate Anita. Beyond the Gates went another route. Watching Tamara Tunie impersonate herself was hilarious. Dani’s reaction to seeing her “mother” in the chapel also had me laughing. Even Anita’s subsequent reaction was funny when she blasted Dani for not finding an impersonator that actually looked like her.

I like that we were shown the Reader’s Digest version of the wedding. I suspect there may be outtakes of the wedding that get thrown into a future flashback. Seeing Fauxnita mediocrely performing an Articulettes song was pretty much all I needed for my highlight reel.

With this ring, I… do something

Soaps have all sorts of “weird” wedding moments. One of the most common involves staged marriages: Couples who don’t like each other, but get married so that they can make the person (or persons) they really love jealous. Usually, at least one of the newlyweds ends up truly falling for their partner in marital crime.

Here, Dani and Andre already like each other. But they both have someone else in their lives that they’d love to make jealous: Bill for Dani and for Andre it’s Ashley. The fact that Dani decided to push pause on their annulment makes me think that Dani is going to use her Naughty Dreams wedding to push Bill’s buttons.

Will Andre and Dani actually fall in love during this charade? That remains to be seen. I thought it was a bit of an overstep for the real Anita, Nicole, and Vernon to summon Andre to the Dupree home for a scolding about the wedding. Of all the recent Dupree scandals, a quickie Vegas wedding ranks really, really low on the list.

I guess they’re worried about the “Dani marries sister’s nephew” headline. Yes, it’s slightly scandalous, but my hope would be that most people would quickly understand that Dani and Andre are not related by blood.

Nice and good are very different

Being related to someone by blood isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Some chosen families have a stronger connection than biological ones.

That had always seemed to be the case for Martin, Smitty, and the kids… until June came back into the picture. Samantha’s desire to get to know her biological mother is just the latest obstacle that threatens to rip the Richardson-Smith family apart.

June is a wildly unpredictable character. One minute she’s trying to pass off a plot line from As the World Turns as her own life story and the next she’s psychically taking people’s orders at Orphey Gene’s. So imagine my surprise when June actually gave really good advice to Samantha.

I appreciate that June had the wherewithal to know that Samantha needed to take to her dads and that she encouraged Samantha to do just that. For as badly as June wants to reconnect with her kids, it would have been easy for her to trash talk Martin and Smitty or downplay their importance in Samantha’s life.

Come for the psychically ordered omelet, stay for the advice

On top of that, June’s advice was pretty spot on. I’m paraphrasing here, but what she basically said was: boys have cooties so go read a book instead. “Boys can wait,” she added, noting that Samantha had a lifetime ahead of her for love and romance.

June also added two sage nuggets. The first was, “Nice and good are veeeery different, miles apart. Nice is the things you do. Anybody can do that. Good grows from your heart.” The second? A cautionary tale about life’s choices. “Every choice is too important to waste on something you’ll regret.”

Speaking of choices, it was definitely a choice for Smitty to march himself down to the diner and lecture June about meeting in private with Samantha. I fully agree with his assertion that Samantha’s visits with June should be supervised, but somehow the way he approached the matter makes him look like the villain. Martin, on the other hand, is totally laissez-faire on the matter. The two men’s wildly different take on June’s place in the kids’ lives is going to push them even further apart, I fear.

Am I seeing things?!

Please tell me I am not a crazy person, but I sure did get a little nervous when Ted sat down at the diner and start having a cozy conversation with June. This wasn’t a chemistry test between the two, was it?! If the Duprees were worried about the headlines from Dani’s wedding, imagine these headlines: Former Dupree husband marries biological mother of ex-wife’s grandkids.

Beyond the Gates Speed Round

Tea for two without the tea

I liked that Martin and Eva had a sit-down to catch up on each other’s lives. The scene wasn’t terribly long and could easily have been viewed as filled. To me, though, it was a perfect example of something that I really like about Beyond the Gates. Not every scene has to drive plot. People dine together. It doesn’t have to involve some great scandal or secret.

Trust. We got this.

Beyond the Gates creator Michele Val Jean took to social media to set folks straight this week. As I mentioned in my last column, there are some people that believe that Leslie only inherited $1,000,000 through the trust. No. That was just the first disbursement.

“Okay, you guys dogging us about Leslie & her trust? In episode 117 the lawyer says this is the INITIAL disbursement. In 118, Vernon and Anita discuss how the trust has grown into a ‘veritable fortune’ over time. There’s lots more money than that 1 million,” Val Jean explained.

Still, Leslie sure is going through the money at breakneck speed. She’s offered up twice the asking price on the Jarvis house (and they weren’t even asking for a price), she’s donated a chunk of change to the country club for some sort of sports pavilion, she’s finagled a way to buy her old apartment and gift it to Eva, and she’s cut a sizeable check to Peaches to help pay for her medical care.

With this ring, I thee lie

The Derek/Ashley situation is really messy. I can’t decide yet if it’s good messy or bad messy. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when Derek opened his mouth and said that he wanted to surprise Ashley on their wedding day by hopping out of his wheel chair. That might make for a good Hallmark movie ending or some dumb TikTok video, but this idea is terrible. Terr-rib-bull.

Thankfully, in between muttering “bro,” Jacob made a whole lot of sense. The detective didn’t even need Kat’s help to figure out that Derek is worried that Ashley will leave him if he regains the ability to walk. Can you imagine leaving a person because they recovered from a serious accident? I can’t. But I can imagine someone leaving a person who lied about their recovery.

Meanwhile, Ashley and Andre are equally annoying. Ashley was upset that Andre was suddenly married, but saw nothing wrong with her quickie engagement to the man she said she didn’t want to marry.

Ringless in Seattle the DMV

While Vanessa was taking off her ring for a sex romp and Doug was using his wedding ring to ante up, Andre and Dani were exchanging cigar rings, and Derek was busy trying to give Ashley a ring she’d once rejected, Naomi was freaking out because she misplaced her rings. Jacob wasn’t nearly as upset and reminded his wife that “The ring is just shiny metal holding a pretty stone.”

I understand Naomi’s panic even though it seems quite a few viewers did not. I flipped out because I lost my ring and mine is just one made out of black rubber. It’s the symbolism… the memories. I break with Naomi and her take that her marriage would crash and burn without the ring. That seems a bit overboard, even if she is right about all of the marriages around them seeming to crumble.

I do have to wonder if Naomi’s freak out is a harbinger of things to come.

Quicker than liquor

Am I the only one that thinks that Doug was drinking something more than booze? I guess I have come to expect the worst of Joey Armstrong and his cronies. That’s why I can’t help but think that someone added a little something extra into Doug’s drink to make sure that he was totally out of it.

Of course, Joey yelling out, “You want a Château Margaux with dinner or what?” also pushed Doug closer to the ravine. Joey knew that Vanessa was talking to Doug and that outburst was just inexplicably cruel.

Lines of the Week

“There is no one I’d rather not remember marrying than you.” — Dani to Andre

“Go home to your child bride. I’m sure she’s waiting for someone to slice bananas into her Frosted Flakes.” — Dani to Bill (about Hayley, of course)

“I don’t plan on using my mouth for talking.” — Jacob to Naomi about, well, you know.

“Chemistry gets you into the bedroom, but communication gets you to an orgasm.” — Chelsea dishing out advice about Kat and Tomas’ bedroom fizzle.

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.

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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, Farewell, Monica.

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

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