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Ever since the producers of Dynasty revealed they had cast classic primetime soap bad girl Nicolette Sheridan (Knots Landing, Desperate Housewives) as Alexis Morrell Carrington, we have all be anxiously awaiting her return. And as they did with the original series, Alexis made her debut at the end of an episode. Then, it was the season one finale cliffhanger and Joan Collins hadn’t even been cast yet so her face a cleverly hidden by a giant hat as she walked into a courtroom. Now she arrives late to Tom Carrington’s funeral, ready to shake things up. There were some other key moments in the episode including Monica Colby removing their father from Jeff’s care after the whole wedding fiasco and Cesil basically giving Tom a heart attack by waving a gun at him, Steven sleeping with an old girlfriend (the wife of the racist judge, no less) to get Sam’s immigration status taken care of, and the two getting engaged … and ‘celebrating’ in the church where Steven’s grandfather was laid out in a scene that I’m surprised didn’t have the Million Moms up in arms.
But now Alexis is back and no one is happy to see her, even though Steven is trying to be the tolerant one. But after being confronted by all the Carringtons with insults flying back and forth — Alexis calls Cristal Fallon’s friend (oh, if she only knew) — Blake tells her to go home. And she does, straight to Carrington Manor. Why? Because Tom left her something in his will … the house and property. It seems the property was part of the Morrell family farm, Tom bought it, built the house and kept the deed in his name although he had gifted the house to Blake. But no one is going down without a fight and against her best judgment, Fallon attempts to be cordial enough to find out why her mother has really come back.
I’m still not sure we’ve gotten the real story as to why Alexis left her family behind. She still claims Blake sent her away and paid a judge to keep custody of their children so she couldn’t take them out of the country. Blake claims he didn’t have to pay anyone because Alexis easily proved she wasn’t mother material. So there’s still a lot of ‘he said, she said’ to wade through. And putting on the ‘mother act’ for Alexis meant throwing a big party, at the mansion, to make up for eleven years of missed birthdays and Christmases (on the house budget, just to expedite things).
The party is a real she-bang, bang being the operative word. Discovering that Alexis’ chauffer/bodyguard is actually an Uber driver, Fallon pays the guy to give her the address of where Alexis has been staying … and it’s not the Ritz (or the fake hotel Fallon made up to trap the guy in a lie), no, it’s an old, beat up, Airstream trailer in the middle of nowhere. Alexis isn’t back to make amends with her family, she’s back because she’s out of money. And to make matters worse, Steven has secretly been in contact with her.
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Storming back to the mansion, Fallon goes after her mother by the fountain, says everything about her is fake, pulls out some of her extensions and the two re-enact the classic Alexis/Krystal catfight in the fountain from the original series. It does not disappoint, especially when Cristal tells Blake to not interrupt (Cristal may have it in for Alexis who has also named her little rescue dog Cristal … an odd name for a male dog). Then at the actual party, Fallon storms in (again) waving a gun that Alexis gave her as a gift, telling her mother that she’ll never get their home and they will never be one big happy family under one roof again … and she proceeds to shoot the place up just to make sure Alexis gets the message. Fallon’s ‘husband’ comments later that he’s enjoying the live entertainment that came with their sham marriage. (And he has to stick around a bit longer so Alexis doesn’t figure out that arrangement and use it against them.)
After paying a visit to Steven at his apartment (wait, didn’t he move back into the mansion yet?) and getting the news of his engagement (to which she pretended to be happy about even though the fiancé is Cristal’s nephew), Alexis returns to her trailer to find Blake waiting, assuring her she will never get that house or the property.
While all this was going on, Culhane kept getting phone calls from his mother that he ignored because he was caught up in Fallon’s drama — again — but Anders got a call from both Culhane’s mother and sister … his father is in the hospital and he needs to tend to that matter. Offering to take her ‘husband’ car shopping, Fallon is informed that Culhane has tendered his resignation and there’s one other thing …
Alexis has moved into his quarters. It seems that building, her old art studio, was still on one parcel of property owned by her family, so mama’s home, or as close to it as she can get, ready to stir up more trouble for the Carringtons.
All in all a good episode with a lot of really funny, campy moments and a wonderful performance by Sheridan who has already made Alexis her own, very different character from the original. The writers obviously had a good time with this episode and hopefully will continue to write some great material for Sheridan for the remainder of the season. It seemed that The CW was writing the series off by moving it to Friday, but the ratings have actually ticked up a bit, and the studio has a lucrative deal with Netflix to distribute the series outside the US, so with just five episodes left in the season and Alexis now a part of the show (and The CW’s expansion to Sundays come the fall), Dynasty may have gotten the boost it needed to head into a second season.
What did you think of this episode? Did you like Nicolette Sheridan’s Alexis? Tell us in the comments section below!
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