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Dynasty returned to some form of coherent storytelling this week but sort of wasted the great Harriet Sansom Harris, seen just recently as a member of the Church of Satan on American Horror Story, as a psychic brought to Atlanta to help the Carringtons regroup and get their lives back on track. But before we get started, we have to address the elephant in the room … or actually no longer in the room.
After this week’s episode aired, it was revealed that James Mackay, who plays Steven, is no longer with the show … and not by his choice if his social media post is to be believed. At the end of the previous episode, Steven did tell Sam that he was going to go back to Paraguay, alone, but he’d be home before Christmas. There wasn’t even a big farewell for him as this week Mackay’s name wasn’t even in the opening credits. At this point we don’t know if the Powers That Be are toying with us, but it would have been nice for them to let Steven and Sam have just a bit of happiness before splitting them up so unceremoniously. If Mackay is out, are they going to go the same route as the original series and recast the role after Steven suffers some kind of tragic accident? And why go through all the drama of revealing Anders as Steven’s father if they’re just going to ship him off the show? (And for that matter, why is Alexis just roaming freely around the mansion if she was banished back to her trailer?) It just seems like a weird move five episodes into the season in which one major cast member had already been dumped. After the last episode, it was really the writers who needed to get the ax.
There was a lot going on this week, mainly centered around a psychic, Adriana, whom Cristal 2.0 recommended to Sam to help him find purpose in his life. Instead of just calling her on the phone, Sam flew her to Atlanta to give the entire family a reading. When I saw that Adriana was played by Harris, I was hoping she’d be given an opportunity to chew the scenery but she kept the whole thing rather low key because she’s a ‘real’ psychic, not that Alexis is buying any of it.
For Fallon, her cards said there would be a powerful betrayal by a bare-chested man and only the ultimate kiss would tell her whose love was true. This played into the divorce party Fallon was planning as photos of her and Culhane were leaked to the press, and while there was no danger to the Carringtons’ side of the deal with Liam’s family, the shareholders could get worried if a deal built upon their marriage is derailed by an affair. So the best way to put that to rest is to assure everyone they are still friends, and will dissolve their fake marriage at a fake divorce party where they will untie the knot.
But as Fallon orchestrated the business deal, Liam wanted to have a say in the ‘divorce’ and she allowed him to do what he wanted at the party. Culhane was also supposed to be a part of the whole thing but he was busy trying to set up a fake poker game with Jeff in Monica’s club (where the divorce party was also taking place) to try to set up Ada Stone in the same way she set Culhane up at the last poker game. But she showed up in person and when Fallon saw Culhane and Ada getting a little too close via security camera, she assumed he was having an affair and then she found her feelings for Liam may be a bit more real than she thought. At the ceremony, Liam read some ‘vows’ to Fallon that really made her second guess her decision, and being a little tipsy led to her giving him a ‘final kiss’ that complicated her feelings even more and the two ended up almost having sex until she sees Culhane with Ada on the monitor and Jeff walks in on them. She begs Jeff not to tell Culhane, but still doesn’t know what’s going on with him. Jeff is very stern with Fallon telling her that Michael is doing right by her. She later learns that Liam is the one who planted the photos of her and Culhane and while she thought Michael was the one betraying her, she realized the psychic was talking about Liam.
Adriana told Sam he is going to experience growth — which he feared meant he was going to get fat — and that Anders would play a large role in his journey. Which Sam took to mean that he and Steven were destined to have a baby and he would start auditioning surrogates with the help of Anders. They all turned out to be trash though, but a brief conversation with Kirby made Sam realize she is who should carrying their child since she’s Steven’s half-sister. Kirby was a little taken aback but when she realized there would be a large sum of money involved, she seemed open to the idea.
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Blake’s future reveals a path forward with peace, forgiveness and a new chapter. Alexis thinks this is with her but it’s obviously with Cristal Lite, who confided in Blake that she’s actually been staying in Atlanta because she lost her job and had nowhere else to go. She was worried that he’d be upset with her for lying to him but he was remarkably calm … because, as we later learned, he bought the clinic she worked at and had it shut down so she would stay in Atlanta. Yikes! That may not go over well when she finds out.
Alexis learns a past mistake will come back to haunt her and a man is a great danger to all the Carringtons. We assume the mistake is Hank, who decided to try and sell the Rembrandt Alexis gave him as collateral. But he was IDed by an art dealer and the police and Blake were alerted, and Blake hoped to set up a sting operation and confront Hank in person. But Alexis needed to put a stop to all that for several reasons, one being she didn’t want Hank to implicate her in the theft — and the death of Cristal — and two, because the Rembrandt is actually an artful forgery. She hopes to intercept Hank before he goes to sell the painting, but when the hooded figure enters the gallery, he’s immediately beseiged by the police and Blake and when the hood is pulled back it turns out to be Alexis, who sells the story that she hired someone who looks like Hank to sell the painting for her because she needed the money.
Furious, Blake is about to storm out of the gallery but he pauses, seeming to clutch his chest in the area of his heart, but he turns to Alexis and in a very calm manner basically absolves her of everything, proving that being around New Cristal is making him a changed man. Back at the mansion, Alexis finds Cristal in the kitchen making Blake a sandwich and calls her a gold digger. Unphased, Cristal takes the snack to Blake where she admits her lie and he tells her she’s right where she belongs, calling her his destiny while Alexis looks on.
The episode ends on a couple of interesting notes. Alexis goes back to see Adriana, even though she was the most skeptical of all, and is given a new reading in which she is told a man, someone Alexis wants very much, is full of passion but no fulfillment. She sees deceit and that the man is going to ask Alexis to marry him … but he will expire. Hmmmm. One would think Blake, of course, and that little moment where it seemed he may be having a heart attack at the gallery would be the answer to the reading. But, come on, they can’t dump Grant Show from the cast as well. So who could it be? In the original series, Alexis married Cecil Colby, who famously had a heart attack in the throes of passion with Alexis desperately trying to slap his face back to life. We don’t know if Alexis and Cesil Colby in this Dynasty universe have a past which could lead to a marriage, of convenience of course. I don’t think it would be Anders. And there’s been no metion of a Dex Dexter yet, another of the original Alexis’ husbands. So who could it be?
The final scene finds Hank making baby talk to a baby. Whose baby? Crazy Claudia’s! She’s back! I wondered what happened when the two of them sped off during the fire in the first season finale, and now we know — he’s been working with her to scam Alexis for that money but since he’s failed, Claudia is taking things into her own hands from now on (which, I guess, means that Matthew Blaisdell really is dead).
What did you think of the episode? Tell us in the comments section below!
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