There’s a song from the 80s that says seasons change, feelings change. But do they really? Do you ever really get over the betrayal of a loved one? Yes, time marches… but something as simple as an “on this day” photo on your phone can set off a wave of emotions you’d thought were gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a time when it seemed possible that Hayley might reconsider her plan to kill Bill. She hasn’t. She still dislikes him and hates his family. Another thing that hasn’t changed? Her love of all of Bill’s coins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nicole didn’t want to be Chief of Staff back in the day and she doesn’t want to be chief today. She also claimed that relations<\/em> with Ted was always electric and it would appear that she still gets charged up thinking about it. Much like her mother still enjoys the company of her longtime husband — even if they still can’t find a quiet place to make their own sparks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another feeling that hasn’t changed? My frustration with not knowing who the Impaler is! The scream of anguish that I let out at the end of Friday’s show?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I apologize, but I think I spoke this week\u2019s big cliffhanger into existence. In last week\u2019s column, \u201cI Can\u2019t Wallpaper Over What I\u2019m Feeling<\/a><\/strong>\u201d, I wrote, \u201cI honestly expected the Friday cliffhanger to be [Joey] walking in and seeing the Impaler\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast forward a whole seven days and we still<\/em> don\u2019t know the identity of the Impaler. But we do have some clues. Okay, we have one<\/em> clue. Joey knows whoever the person is. I have a handful of theories about who it is and I know that neither of them are going to be popular. I will give you a moment to head to your kitchen to grab tomatoes so you can hurl them at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, are you ready? Let\u2019s dive in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My first theory is that the Impaler is\u2026 Vanessa. Wait what?! Yeah, that\u2019s what I said when the idea popped into my head. How could sweet Vanessa be the big bad blood boss bitch? Easy. She decided that she wanted to show Joey that she\u2019s an equal. So she pulled some strings, made some calls, et voil\u00e0! She\u2019s the Impaler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I realize that this makes absolutely no sense, but that\u2019s what makes it so twisted. How did Vanessa manage to escape from Joey\u2019s home to make it back to the casino for the meeting? She\u2019s also got leverage over Joey\u2019s guard. Or maybe Randy is on her payroll and he lied to Joey about having someone watch her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was interesting how Vanessa and Randy took a little stroll down memory lane. They talked about how Doug finally seemed to be at ease when one of his old pals from Philly showed up in the DMV. There was also a passing mention of how Vanessa didn\u2019t trust Randy back then \u2013 but there was no mention that she doesn\u2019t trust him now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n My second theory is that the Impaler is Grayson. I know, I know. This makes even less sense than Vanessa being the Impaler. Grayson was recruited by Lia. He feared for his mother\u2019s safety. He was stabbed!<\/em><\/strong> What better cover than all three of those things?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a really famous murder mystery \u2013 and I won\u2019t reveal the title in case anyone is in the process of reading it \u2013 where one of the early murder \u201cvictims\u201d turns out to be the actual murderer! Why can\u2019t Grayson have been putting on an act this entire time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It doesn\u2019t really prove my theory, but Ren claimed to know the identity of the Impaler. Ren is also the one that stabbed Grayson and somehow managed to miss all of Grayson\u2019s vital organs. Convenient, much?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A third possibility is that the Impaler is Joey’s missing in action sister, Heather. I have no real reason to suspect her other than Joey randomly mentioning her the other week. If I remember correctly, there were passing mentions of Heather’s relationship with her father. Maybe a second apple didn’t fall too far from the tree and Heather decided to become her own made woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest question now is whether or not we\u2019ll see the Impaler\u2019s face on Monday or if the show will skip ahead to a new day and leave us guessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh! I also have a fourth possible nominee for the office of Impaler, but it\u2019s more of a wishful thinking sort of scenario. You can read all about that in the next section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, it is looking more and more likely that Dr. Monica McCormick will be the new Chief of Staff at Garland Memorial. While I am still on board with the idea, I have to admit that I\u2019ve become slightly less enthusiastic about it. I\u2019m not entirely sure why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seems odd that Monica would leave her work as an oncologist at one of the nation\u2019s top cancer centers to\u2026 craft budgets and approve hirings. Yes, I know that Monica has requested that she still be able to consult on select patients back in Houston and at Garland. But it seems like a substantial reduction of her core skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe she wants to do something more administerial at this point in her career. Maybe she just wants to be closer to her family in the DMV. Either way, it will be interesting to see if her presence on the canvas becomes more pronounced or if she\u2019ll be as unseen as Lia was before the whole blood and theft thing popped off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether or not Monica accepts the position of Chief of Staff at Garland Memorial, in an alternate universe she is the Impaler. No, I have no concrete reason to believe that she is<\/em> the head of a \u201cred market\u201d blood and plasma operation. That\u2019s why I said it was in an alternate universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reasons for me anointing Monica \u201cthe Impaler\u201d are actually pretty straight forward. First, since she doesn\u2019t live in the DMV, she\u2019d be the last person that anyone would suspect. Second, I think actress Iona Morris would absolutely excel as a big bad blood boosting boss. There\u2019s nothing like a little alliteration to waken up the senses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we are going down the road of fan fiction, I suppose Monica being the Impaler could also lead to the possibility that Shanice is somehow involved. She\u2019s been on the show since the very beginning, hiding in plain sight. Again, this all just made-up story in my mind. It would explain why Shanice has been hit so hard by Derek\u2019s death \u2013 she\u2019s part of the ring and thereby tangentially responsible for his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t know if it was just me, but I thought it was a little jarring to have an entire episode devoted to Hayley\u2019s past just randomly pop up in the middle of the week. Don\u2019t get me wrong. It was eye-opening to see how everything went down. It just seemed to come out of nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since all of the Hayley moving to town stuff happened before Beyond the Gates<\/em> officially hit the airwaves, all of the flashbacks had to be newly created. Some of those were more successful than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The weird meeting between Hayley and Randy on some random bench didn\u2019t work for me. It felt like something was missing. Was part of the scene edited out due to timing constraints? What wasn\u2019t missing was a callback to Hayley\u2019s previous comments that she had initially wanted Joey Armstrong to be her mark. When Hayley suggested that to Randy in the flashback, he warned her that Joey was dangerous and that he\u2019d see through any con she tried to run on him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hayley then turned to obsessing over Joey\u2019s middle initial \u2013 R. And, of course, now I am, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though I knew Randy was involved in the process, it was a bit surprising to me to see that Randy was the one who had researched and pitched the idea of Hayley targeting Bill. He gave her what looked like an entire dossier on his life. Love her or hate her, Hayley certainly put the info she was given to good use. The show artfully dodged exactly how long it took from Hayley\u2019s first appearance until she was eating Bill\u2019s face in his office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I still haven\u2019t changed my mind about how jarring the episode was, but I did like that we got to see how everything played out from the vantage point of five different people: Bill. Chelsea, Dani, Hayley, and Naomi. There didn\u2019t seem to be any discrepancies in the tale-telling, which is rare whenever more than one person tells the same story. I guess \u2013 at least for now \u2013 we are to believe that everything played out the same way to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something that stuck out to me in Bill\u2019s story was how he mentioned that upon his first meeting with Hayley he felt like he knew her. At the risk of making a Dani Dupree-approved age joke, Bill couldn\u2019t have felt like he\u2019d known Hayley that long because she was a child just a few years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill\u2019s comment seemed like more than just the romcom standard, \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve known you forever.\u201d I just haven\u2019t figured out what that something more is. I feel like maybe it could have something to do with a throwaway line that Ted had while talking to Eva about Derek\u2019s death. He mentioned that when his brother and sister-in-law died, he found solace in an unexpected place: Bill Hamilton. Bill had lost a friend around the same time and they bonded over the loss. This was the first time that this was ever mentioned. Could Hayley be related to this friend that Bill lost?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which leads me to an interesting observation. I saw someone on social media \u2013 and I apologize for not linking to it, but Twitter\/X refreshed the feed before I had a chance to grab the link \u2013 compare Bill\u2019s sextracurricular activities to Ted\u2019s. The gist of the tweet was that Bill was banging every woman in sight and somehow gets a free pass for his behavior. Ted, on the other hand, had an affair with just one woman and he\u2019s trashed at every turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does the fact that Ted\u2019s affair resulted in a child make it \u201cworse\u201d to viewers? We definitely don\u2019t know that Bill\u2019s multiple affairs didn\u2019t produce a child. You know how soaps are. Is it that Ted betrayed Nicole while she was enduring the pain of multiple miscarriages? Is fan reaction saying that it\u2019s okay to cheat on your spouse if they are traveling around the globe and rarely at home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, one more comment about the abruptness of the Hayley origin story. Why now? There has to be some sort of reason. Does this mean that we are about to see the walls close in on Hayley? Is there something looming in the crossover with The Young and the Restless<\/em> next week? Obviously, Y&R<\/em> has been on the air a lot longer than Beyond the Gates<\/em>, so if Hayley tried to con a Genoa City resident it would have had to have been done off-screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Side note<\/em><\/strong>: the scene where Chelsea and Dani returned home unexpectedly and caught Bill and Hayley together were probably the best of the reminiscing moments. RhonniRose Mantilla (Chelsea Hamilton) really stepped up and Karla Mosley (Dani Dupree) has always been great at showing her characters process major life drama.<\/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 Speaking of The Young and the Restless<\/em>, it looks like next week is going to be eventful on Beyond the Gates. <\/em>Victor Newman and his gang of merry men and women will be descending upon the DMV for Martin\u2019s big fundraiser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, let\u2019s address the elephant \u2013 or the donkey \u2013 in the room. Apparently, Victor was one of Vernon\u2019s earliest backers. According to Vernon, Victor stood up for him with party bosses when the establishment thought Vernon was \u201ctoo Black\u201d to run for office. It\u2019s been an unspoken thing, but we\u2019ve all assumed that the Duprees are Democrats, right? I don\u2019t know that I thought of Victor as a Democrat. I guess, technically, he doesn\u2019t have to be. Anyone can support any candidate they want. It\u2019s just fun to watch the show tightrope walk over the pit of identity politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not saying Martin\u2019s campaign is in trouble, but the person doing the seating charts for the fundraiser did not know that one should not seat Victor Newman and Jack Abbott together? This would usually be the point of a commentary where I\u2019d mention all the character profiles that are posted on \u201cthe soap site,\u201d but since I no longer own \u201cthe soap site,\u201d she didn\u2019t think to Google or Wikipedia the keynote speaker to see if he had any enemies? Tsk tsk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poor Anita and Vernon Dupree. All they want to do is have a little sexytimes in their own home and they are thwarted at every attempt. Last week, Kat and Martin got an eyeful of the grands. This week, it was Nicole getting an earful of her parents\u2019 amorousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve seen a lot of folks on social media grumble about Vernita not having a bedroom set. If we didn\u2019t get one when Anita was going through chemotherapy, I don\u2019t see us getting one anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And why do they need a bedroom anyway? The Dupree manse has wings. Surely there are other places that Vernita can get it on. I\u2019d suggest the kitchen, but we\u2019ve never seen that set either. Maybe Rowena caught the Duprees getting frisky in there at some point and she chased them off with a whisk and banned them from ever returning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I suppose Anita and Vernon could always go visit Cousin Emerson again if they really wanted another three-day, um, \u201cvacation.\u201d It amused me that whatever-age-she-is-now Nicole just learned that she has no Cousin Emerson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I thought it was\u2026 let\u2019s call it \u201cinteresting\u201d that Vanessa encouraged Nicole to tell Ted that she\u2019s been having sex dreams about him. It was even more\u2026. let\u2019s continue to call it \u201cinteresting\u201d that Nicole thought that was good advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are we supposed to contact everyone we\u2019ve ever had an errant sex fantasy about? Is there a specific checklist that we need to complete to determine if we do or do not need to notify someone about our naughty fantasies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, Nicole decided not to go through with the confession. At least for now. Will the truth set her panties free? Will Ted ultimately tell her that her sexytimes dreams are TMI and unwelcome? Is Nicole going to double-book and have two of her male partners show up at the same time? Only time will tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Nicole, I am very sex-positive. That said, is it normal — or rather common — to talk to you mom about having sex fantasies? I’m not implying it’s weird or wrong. It’s just something that I’ve never experienced or heard about firsthand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have to say that I really, really like how everyone has stepped up over the past few weeks to remind Samantha that she is and will always be a Dupree. Her insecurity seemed to have started around the same time that Anastasia hurled those hateful comments about Samantha not being a \u201creal\u201d Dupree. It\u2019s possible, though, that Samantha\u2019s teenage angst had her feeling that way long before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than having people tell her to \u201cget over it\u201d or simply \u201cforget\u201d what Anastasia said, everyone has been taking conscious and concerted steps to ease Samantha\u2019s fears. It might seem like a really small or unnecessary story moment, but I think the importance of chosen family has long been overlooked. Samantha and Tyrell are Smitty and Martin\u2019s children no matter what a DNA test might say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forget about the UFC fight on that other<\/em> lawn in the DMV, the fight I am itching to see is the Ultimatum: Fairmont Crest<\/em> smackdown between Leslie \u201cLSD\u201d Thomas and Darlene \u201cChocolate Cakes\u201d Hawthorne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t condone violence, but these two women are seemingly headed toward some sort of confrontation. Honestly, I thought that there would be cake thrown during Jacob\u2019s commendation ceremony \u2013 especially since Beyond the Gates<\/em> has had a history of vile anti-dessert rhetoric over the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am not sure who would win in a battle between LSD and Darlene. Leslie looks like she would fight dirty, so I think<\/em> she would get the edge. Darlene, however, seems scrappy, so I am not ruling her out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do need some additional information about Darlene\u2019s chocolate cake. Everyone referred to it as her \u201cfamous\u201d chocolate cake. I can\u2019t tell if they were praising the cake or just being shady. Is her cake not that great but no one wants to tell her? Are people just caked out because she makes it all the time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been so focused on Jacob\u2019s mental health in the aftermath of Derek\u2019s death that I\u2019ve not been as tuned into what Naomi is going through. This week, she basically said that when she married Jacob she didn\u2019t sign up for having him put his life on the line. I\u2019d counter that police put their lives on the line every day, but I think she was specifically talking about the danger Jacob faced working undercover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I worry that Jacob\u2019s determination to bring down the Impaler is going to cause irreparable harm to Jacob, Naomi, or their marriage \u2013 possibly all three. I don\u2019t think that nabbing the Impaler is going to be the heal all that Jacob believes it will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naomi, meanwhile, in her attempts to \u201chelp\u201d Ashley decided that it would be a good idea to speak ill of the dead. Paraphrasing here, yes Grayson did some bad things, but Derek lied about being paralyzed and because of that Ashley needs to stop mourning Derek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In case you are wondering what in the world this week’s header image is all about, you’re in luck. I have the answer and I won’t make you wait until next week to find out. The “connect the dots” image comes from a conversation between Randy and Joey. Randy said Joey had a way with words while he was more of a connect the dots kind of guy. The connect the dots makes an apple, which was inspired by Kat mutilating the principles of law. Instead of “fruit of the poisonous tree,” Kat came up with “poisonous apple on a tree.” The coffee mug is the gift that Marcel presented to Jacob. The blue ribbon came up when Leslie was dismissive of Jacob’s commendation. Hayley mentioned “grippie” socks when she showed up unprepared at her first Pilates class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kat is mulling the idea of doing a podcast. It seems everybody has a podcast. Yes, I realize that I am saying this as someone who has a podcast. I would note that I had first had a podcast some 20 years ago before it was cool. That said, I really hope Kat’s podcast doesn’t become a storyline. Another soap did a podcast story and it was b-o-r-i-n-g-zzzzzz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe feelings really do<\/em> change. It was a bit wild to hear that Anastasia was donating to Martin’s campaign. She’s been snotty and snooty since we met her, but politics does make for strange bedfellows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The canned applause during Jacob’s commendation ceremony was weird. They couldn’t get the cast and crew to make real applause? And if it was<\/em> real applause, it sounded very unreal.<\/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 \u201cHe was all procedures, chain of custody, poisonous apple on a tree.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cThey are not fantasies. They are intrusive thoughts.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cIt’s just filing papers, girl. Calm down.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cThings that may never happen happen all the time.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cYou were born listening.\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 And I don’t only post feedback where people agree with me. While the idea of a podcast scares me, this is proof that there could be a fun way to do it.<\/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>Dial K For Killow<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr *deep breath* rrrrrrrrrrrrrrghh!!!<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
You’ll Never See Them Coming<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Hiding In Plain Sight<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Gone, But Not Forgotten<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Hail to the Chief<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Garland Memorial: The Bizzarro World<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
When Hammy Met Vally<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How It All Started<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Same Game, Different Rules?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Beside, Behind, and Beyond The Gates: The Speed Round<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Beyond the Restless<\/strong><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Cousin Emerson<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s Talk About Sex, 2.0<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
We Are Family<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
UFC: Let Them Eat Cake<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Happy Wife, Happy Life<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
BTG: Behind the Graphic<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Quick Takes<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Beyond the Gates: Lines of the Week<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Kat grumbling about how Jacob basically took all the fun out of her Leslie Thomas attempted murder investigation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
That’s how Nicole is describing her lurid daydreams of Ted.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Chelsea’s reaction to then-friend Hayley’s excitement over being hired at Bill’s law firm.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Andre’s somewhat depressing take on how life sometimes sucks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Monica’s polite way of calling Shanice nosy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nGatecrashers: Reader and Viewer Feedback<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260605-btg-comments-03.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260605-btg-comments-02.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260605-btg-comments-06.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260605-btg-comments-04.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260605-btg-comments-01.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260605-btg-comments-05.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFollow my Random Acts of Dan<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Life outside the gates<\/h5>\n\n\n\n