I understand that television is a business. There is money that needs to be made, but this year\u2019s sportsball coverage could not have come at a worse time. As I have mentioned in previous columns, there are some viewers who have been critical of the pace of Beyond the Gates<\/em>\u2019 storytelling. Others claim that the show is boring because \u201cnothing ever happens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While I don\u2019t agree with those assessments, for the purpose of the introduction to this week\u2019s column let\u2019s just say that the critics are right. The Monday, April 27, episode featured the most storyline progression in weeks \u2013 and then the show was preempted for the next two days. Just as the show gained some serious momentum \u2013 poof! \u2013 it was put on ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luckily for those of you reading my column or listening to the audio version, I won\u2019t let a little soccer get in the way of talking about all of the action taking place in and around Fairmont Crest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another of the criticisms I\u2019ve seen about Beyond the Gates<\/em> on social media is that the good guys never seem to win. We have marriage-blower-upper-and-part-time-attempted-murder Leslie \u201cLSD\u201d Thomas strutting around Fairmont Crest with a bottomless trust fund. Hayley, also a marriage-blower-upper, has been slowly, eeeeeeeeeever soooooo sloooooooowly<\/em>, trying to kill Bill and take his money and no one seems the wiser. And then there is Joey, who ordered the murder of his money laundering partner\u2019s husband so that he would be unimpeded in getting said partner into his bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did I miss anyone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It looks like the walls are starting to close in on at least one of the do-badders. The list of people suspicious of Hayley is growing and as the pressure rises, Hayley is getting more and more sloppy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I thought the Tomas and Vanessa scenes were great. It looked like things were going one way, and then the writers did a little shuffle, and things took an unexpected turn. Tomas sat down with Vanessa at Uptown and nervously told her that he wanted to talk to her about something. Honestly, I thought she might think he was asking about her escort business. Side note<\/strong>: does Heart Attach have women on its roster or is it strictly geared toward women? And if they only have male escorts, do they also cater to gay male clients?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve gotten off-track. Tomas delicately poked around for details about Vanessa\u2019s dealings with Lynette Wise. He must have gone to the same college as Smitty because his question asking was terrible. Thank goodness Dani came along to add a little pep to Tomas\u2019 step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initially, Dani was disinterested and wondered only if Bill was \u201csmelling toast.\u201d It was funny to see Dani immediately go to her phone and Google Lynette Wise\u2019s name. When Tomas revealed that Hayley was the one who was going to have put up the money for Lynette\u2019s home, Dani became very <\/em>interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tomas was the first to become suspicious of the Hayley\/Lynette connection. Naomi was the next to pick up on things being not quite right. Eventually, Bill sorta almost joined the parade, but he still seems to only be suspicious of Lynette. Now, Dani has jumped on the float \u2013 and even Vanessa might be interested in finding out the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if it appears that Hayley\u2019s attempt to land a whale might be circling the drain, there\u2019s still no absolute certainty that she\u2019ll be exposed any time soon. How much longer can Hayley and her medicine dropper evade capture? And what happens after<\/em> she\u2019s exposed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order for Hayley to remain a viable character moving forward, she needs to have a Plan B. There are no backup love interests. Her job is tied to the man she\u2019s conning. Ditto to her living arrangements. She has no friends. All she has, really, is Randy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will Bill give Hayley a chunk of money to make her go away and keep the fact that he was duped out of the headlines? Will Hayley simply leave town with her tail between her legs or will she sneak off to St. Barts and the house that she has been trying to convince Bill to buy her? Remember, Bill has made it a point to say that he wants the deed to the house to be solely in his wife\u2019s name. Might Hayley repent and realize that there\u2019s more to like about Bill than his top-notch sex game? Or does Hayley end up at the bottom of the Potomac with Lynette?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have a question about this whole blood theft operation taking place at Garland. Admittedly, my mind tends not to work in a criminal manner and this might be a silly question. My question is simple: How are they getting the blood out of the hospital without raising any suspicions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before anyone starts, this is not an indictment of the writing team. I am not claiming that this sort of thing is not possible because I know these sorts of things happen in the real world. What I want to know is how<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The last time I was in a hospital, everything was bar-coded or QR-coded. In order to administer medicine, the nurse had to scan the patient\u2019s ID bracelet and then scan the medicine. I\u2019d imagine that all of the blood has some sort of scannable code on it. Is Grayson not logging some of the donations into the hospital\u2019s system? Might there be a tech genius on the Impaler\u2019s payroll that is able to delete inventory from the hospital’s computer system without anyone noticing? Is Lia moving such a nominal amount of blood that it doesn\u2019t even sound any kind of alarms?<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this is probably crucial to storyline, but I watched Murder, She Wrote<\/em> for years (and still watch reruns before I go to bed). I feel like I need a Jessica Fletcher figure to explain everything to me at the end of the episode. But that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know what is <\/em>sounding alarms? All of these little microaggression threats that DracLia is making to Ashley. Last week\u2019s column<\/a><\/strong> was the first time that I put Ashley on my list of people who could be offed \u2013 or at least seriously harmed \u2013 as a result of this whole red market thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are all walking contradictions. Perhaps that\u2019s why I am so fascinated by how Ashley seems to be able to be okay with the fact that Grayson has clearly been lying to her for however long they\u2019ve been dating. I know that we\u2019re supposed to feel some sort of sympathy for Grayson because he got involved in the blood theft operation because he needed to help pay for his mother\u2019s Parkinson\u2019s care. I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or maybe I do. I just don\u2019t think that Grayson\u2019s mother factors into how I feel about the storyline. Ashley is still furious that former flame Derek \u201cfaked\u201d paralysis when he didn\u2019t fake <\/em>paralysis. He lied about his recovery. He was very much paralyzed at one point. If Ashley is able to forgive Grayson, then I might become a permanent member of Team Derek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know that criminal enterprises and their employees don\u2019t tend to be sentimental and have feelings. It should probably not surprise me that Lia is making these veiled threats toward Ashley as a way to keep Grayson in line. But I can\u2019t help but wonder if she\u2019d really go through with it. I guess if saves her butt, everything is on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of DracLia \u2013 I\u2019ve decided to keep using my nickname for her because I like it \u2013 I still want to know what led her to the dark side. We\u2019ve only just met her, and when we did, she was already part of this criminal enterprise. But she must have been a decent, non-blood-thieving person at some point, right? What caused her to trade her Hippocratic Oath for a Hypocritical Oath? There has to be a story there and I want to know what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve seen a few theories on social media about who Lia might really be. The one with the most traction is that Lia is really Joey\u2019s long-lost sister, Heather. Joey would have to know that she was in town, right? Is he lying about her being lost? Another theory put forward on social media is that Joey is the Impaler, the kingpin of the \u201cred market\u201d operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that we know Lia is evil, I can\u2019t help but wonder if she is somehow involved in the malpractice suit against Madison. I have no hard evidence and it doesn\u2019t really even make any sense, but it was really weird for Lia to Malpractice lawsuits are fairly common. Do the claims against Madison constitute such gross negligence that Madison needs to be prevented from seeing patients? I guess the Garland board of directors thinks so. A more likely scenario would have been the hospital requesting that Madison have mandatory supervision when interacting with patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are some of the thoughts and observations about other things happening on Beyond the Gates<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica might need to take a few more classes in mediation. Her attempts to diffuse the fallout from her secret upstairs smooching with Tyrell were… not so great. While things eventually did seem to get resolved to everyone but Tyrell’s satisfaction, it was a meandering path through misogyny and the patriarchy to get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve gotten to know Vernon a lot better in this second season of Beyond the Gates<\/em>. In 2025, Vernon was very much an also-in-the-scene kind of character. In 2026, he\u2019s become a lot more front burner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, we had his epic smackdown of Leslie at the country club. This week, we got to see him go toe-to-toe with Joey Armstrong. It was kind of a boss move to reject Joey\u2019s invitation to chat with him at the bar by saying, \u201cWe\u2019ll sit over there instead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It didn\u2019t look like Vernon\u2019s assertiveness was going to sway Joey, though, since Joey made it clear that he would collect on the debt that Martin owed him. A stern-faced Vernon insisted that the debt was hit, not Martin\u2019s. That seemed to seal the deal because Joey extended a hand to shake on it. Joey does<\/em> seem to be a man of his word on most occasions, no matter how perverse those occasions might be. I imagine it will be only a matter of time before he proves me right\u2026 or wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I appreciate that Beyond the Gates<\/em> is acknowledging the anniversary of the anniversary celebration from hell. Yeah, the show is only a year old so they are sort of obligated to mine the past that we\u2019ve actually seen<\/em>. But I\u2019ve seen soaps blatantly ignore significant events because they either wanted to move on from them or simply forgot. It was also nice to show that everyone<\/em> remembered the day, even those characters who were not on-screen in the episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Beyond the Gates<\/em> debuted the locker room set a few weeks back, I wondered if it was a one-off or something that we’d get to see more often. That answer was revealed this week when we got to see a half-naked Smitty probing his father-in-law. That sounds far dirtier than intended, but I am sure it feeds into a fan fiction tale that is floating out there somewhere on the Internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then — and you can correct me if I am wrong — it looked like the benches were shifted slightly to repurpose the men’s locker room as the women’s locker room where Chelsea was teaching Madison the basics of boxing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are wondering what this week’s header image is all about — you’re in luck! I know the guy who made it, and you don’t need a burner phone and conspicuous headphones to get an explanation. Yes, I made it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is obviously a Michael Jackson theme this week. A bunch of Beyond the Gates<\/em> cast members have been celebrating the release of the MJ biopic, and I am getting in on the action, too. So that explains the sparkly glove. The sleeping dog came into play because Vernon asked Joey to let sleeping does lie. The cookie was mentioned flippantly by Shanice when Smitty was asking about blood donations at the hospital. The burnt toast got a shout-out when Dani was jokingly asking if Bill’s actions were brought on by another stroke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Beyond the Gates<\/em> writing team seems to be 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 mentioned in this column).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat is geriatric. Put it on a ventilator.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cThe color is red and the texture is wet.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cSomething stinks, much like Hayley’s abysmal perfume.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cTrust me. I have never hated adulting as much as I have this part year.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cGirl, get some cholesterol in you. You are no longer a model.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cShe got a slice of cake, not a peace treaty.\u201d<\/strong> I love interacting with other Beyond the Gates fans. So I thought I\u2019d create a section to share some of the comments I\u2019ve received on my columns and social media posts. If you\u2019d like to see your comments shared here, you can scroll down to the Comments section below this column and post away. You can also chat with me on Bluesky<\/strong><\/a>, Instagram<\/strong><\/a>, Threads<\/strong><\/a>, Facebook<\/strong><\/a>, and\/or TwitterX<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of readers took aim at at least one of the criminals I mentioned in this week’s column. Apparently we all had criminals on the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em> in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’ve enjoyed my column this week and want to see what I have written about Beyond the Gates<\/em> in previous weeks, you can check those out in the My View From Beyond the Gates<\/a><\/strong> archive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have a penchant for gardening, interior design, or fixing up old houses? Check out my Manor Makeover series<\/a><\/strong> where I write about all of the things I’ve been up to here at Kroll Manor in Allentown, PA, over the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To keep up with all of the shenanigans I engage in on social media, please consider giving my a follow on Bluesky<\/strong><\/a>, Instagram<\/strong><\/a>, Threads<\/strong><\/a>, Facebook<\/strong><\/a>, and TwitterX<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two of my former Two Scoops columnists from Soap Central, Liz Masters and Tamilu, have joined me here on my personal web site — and they are still<\/em><\/strong> writing about General Hospital<\/em>. Liz is on deck with week with a new column called, <\/a><\/a>Cruel Summer<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDirty
Diana<\/s> Hayley<\/h3>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/BTG_278_SG_0007b-1920x1080.jpg\")
Beyond The Gates | Photo: CBS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBlood on the Dancefloor or Beat It?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Blood On the Dancefloor<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Annie<\/s> Ashley Are You Okay?<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/BTG_278_SG_0009b-1920x1080.jpg\")
Beyond The Gates | Photo: CBS <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWanna Be Startin’ Somethin’<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
demand<\/s> strongly suggest that Madison take a sabbatical while the malpractice lawsuit plays out.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBeside, Behind, and Beyond The Gates: The Speed Round<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Heal the World<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
In the Closet<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Remember the Time<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
I Wanna Be Where You Are<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
HIStory<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Beyond the Gates: Lines of the Week<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Leslie’s way of saying that something is “old news.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Shanice providing her professional expertise for Smitty’s article about blood.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Dani realizes something is rotten in Denmark, er, Lynette-land.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Nicole to Ted on their noniversary.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Dani, objecting to Chelsea ordering a healthy breakfast as Orphey Gene’s.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Kat explaining that the cold war between her and Eva was not over.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nGatecrashers: Reader and Viewer Feedback<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFollow my Random Acts of Dan<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Life outside the gates<\/h5>\n\n\n\n