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Let’s Talk About ‘There’s No One Around To Watch You Drown’:
- Fallon goes a little overboard moving Stacey into the manor.
- Cristal has to persuade Dominique to attend a family meeting about Blake’s upcoming trial.
- Sam makes peace with Kirby and assumes she also found Alexis’ note of apology, but Kirby panics when she realizes Alexis was in her room unattended.
- Things are going so well with Michael and Geneva that she drops a bomb on him — she’s not mad her husband died.
- Liam’s former professor asks him to tutor his nephew, who needs to turn in a story for a summer writing program in Amsterdam, but the boy has other ideas.
- Kirby enlists Jeff’s help in retrieving her father’s journal from Alexis, and gives him a whole list of ‘what ifs’ if he doesn’t.
- A surprise witness, for Ben, shows up at the trial and turns everything upside-down.
- Steven is back! In a flashback. As a child.
- All of the main cast are present and accounted for this week except for Amanda who is still in the UK getting her green card situation straightened out.
- The episode was directed by Grant Show.
This week’s Dynasty was a marked improvement over the previous episode with a solid A-plot that took up most of the episode and even brought in a couple of the B-plots. Not all of the B-plots had anything to do with the battle over the Carrington will but at least they made some sense. The biggest of the side storylines was Culhane’s love life which was progressing nicely with Geneva. After an outdoor workout, Geneva asked Michael if he’d take her to the Sahara Club to see a jazz artist perform but he told her he didn’t like being at the club when he wasn’t working. He really didn’t want to take her there because he’s still dealing with the guilt of keeping the secret from her that he and Sam had a hand in killing her husband (he offers to take her to New York to see the artist instead). Sam advises Michael to not tell Geneva — and Michael assures Sam he won’t implicate him — and just break it off, even if she is happy her husband is dead. But did she tell that little tidbit to Michael because it’s true or is it a trap? Sam doesn’t think Michael should wait around to find out. But Michael has a change of heart and does bring Geneva to the performance at the club and is prepared to tell her the truth … but he thinks it over again and lies to her, telling her that his ex came back into town a few days earlier and he slept with her so it’s best they don’t continue to see each other. Geneva said she should have turned him down after his first missed date with her and stormed out, and Michael told Sam he thought it was for the best that it ended. And that maybe he’s not meant to be with anyone. Sam is sure love will come when it’s meant to.
The other minor story that may have larger implications involves Sam. While working out in the manor’s gym, he hurt his back and Stacey offered to help him get off of the stationary bike, but with his pulled back muscle he’s also going to need some help getting ready for his date (he told Kirby earlier that he’d signed up for some dating apps). Stacey was more than happy to help, and just as he was about to leave he got a text that his date had cancelled. Stacey said he could join her in watching a movie in the manor’s screening room, some musical that Fallon said she used to watch with her brother, and Adam reveals that the brother she spoke of was Steven. He, unfortunately, was kidnapped as a child and raised in a very different world, and Stacey said that’s why she has a better connection to him than the others, he is more grounded than the rest of them. He says he will join her for the movie and when she leaves, he checks his texts again but his date hadn’t cancelled on him, she was looking forward to meeting him. He cancelled on her. And when Fallon returned home later from the courthouse, she caught Stacey and Adam getting a bit too comfortable with each other in her bed (they were clothed). Fallon is not happy.
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Liam is enjoying his new position at the university, and his former professor asks for a favor before they start working on Liam’s new book — he needs Liam to tutor his idiot nephew Jasper before he enters a summer writing program in Amsterdam in two weeks which won’t take much time away from Liam and his book. Liam agrees and meets with the kid, who is very up front with him about the situation — he knows he’s not a writer, he has no interest in writing, this is just some family rite of passage forced on him, and Liam can just write the story for him and be done with it. Liam says he will not do that, but he eventually does and Professor Kingston congratulates Liam on getting something out of the kid, a feat he never thought possible. He also thought the story was pretty pedestrian but good enough for his nephew … which made Liam feel pretty lousy considering he wrote it. Kingston had no idea and offered to get to work with Liam on his book, but after the insult to his writing on Jasper’s story Liam told Kingston he was going to take a little more time to develop his ideas before discussing anything with him. Unfortunately, Liam now has a six month deadline to complete a manuscript so his new book can be released at the same time as the movie adaptation of his last book. And with only five episodes left, this is something we may or may not see (but considering how time works on this show, six months may pass between now and the next episode).
But the main story of the episode was the hearing to determine if Ben is entitled to half of everything Blake has. Fallon isn’t really too concerned because none of it involves her inheritance, but Blake reminds her that Ben could win the entire manor and she’d be kicked out. Wait, didn’t Fallon buy the compound? I thought she and Liam would end up living there. That seems to be a forgotten plot point. Anyway, Cristal had to sway Dominique into attending a family meeting. At the meeting, Blake is adamant that there was never a note from Ben to look after their mother, and Adam tells Blake he is fully supportive. Blake tells him he’s the one Carrington he doesn’t need on his side right now after having been fired as Chief of Staff at the hospital. Ouch. Dom decides she is in when she hears the media will be in full force, and she plans to use the opportunity to show off her designs for the Nordicstar contract she’s attempting to win. The competition is down to her and a no-talent millennial with 14 million TikTok followers and the contract will be awarded based on public voting. How can Dom compete with that unless she puts herself out there at an opportunity she gets? Kirby, meanwhile, has discovered that Alexis was in her room to leave an apology note but instead took her father’s journal of the Carrington family’s evil deeds which she will certainly use at the hearing, so she enlists Jeff’s help — since he was married to Alexis — to get it back. And if he doesn’t there will almost certainly be a snowball effect that engulfs her, Amanda, and even Jeff and his mother. Jeff agrees and assumes that all Kirby has to do is get into Alexis’ penthouse and get the journal from the safe because Alexis is too wrapped up in herself to have changed the combination after their divorce.
At the hearing, the judge informs everyone that there is no jury, they just have to convince her with evidence that Ben is entitled to overturn his father’s will. He takes the stand and explains what happened the night he left the note. In a flashback we see Blake and Alexis preparing to leave for some function but Blake gets a call about an oil rig incident that needs his attention. Alexis leaves and while Blake is on the phone, Ben tries to get his attention. Blake waves him off and Ben writes a note, points to it, takes a decanter and leaves. Blake still insists there was no note, but Alexis testifies that when she returned home she was poked with something in Blake’s pocket that turned out to be the note, which he just tossed away. And to prove that Blake is lying about not seeing the note, Ben has a surprise witness to confirm his story — former babysitter Heather, who testifies that there was no Carrington Atlantic emergency that night, it was all a ruse to get Alexis out of the manor so she and Blake could have some time to themselves. Not something Fallon wanted to hear since she just moved Stacey into her favorite nanny’s old room. Now she learns the nanny was screwing her daddy. Ick. It wasn’t easy for Cristal to hear about Blake’s philandering either, and the stunt quickly turned Blake’s family against him. But Dom was able to use all the drama to show off her outfits, which she wore to the hearing — one uniform for each season — and reminded viewers that voting was open.
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But Blake found a couple of unlikely saviors. When the note was presented as evidence, Fallon snatched it from the judge. Ben assured her it was real and she could have it forensically tested if she wanted. But looking it over and feeling the back of the note, Fallon had her own flashback to that night of her and Steven needing their father — there was a monster in the manor that they were afraid of. Fallon remembered Steven writing on the back of the note and putting it in Blake’s jacket pocket so he would find it there, unaware that Blake had spilled coffee on the white jacket and had not put it back on. But there was no writing on the back of the note. Fallon proved there was. Steven was into being a spy and wrote notes with wax crayons that could only be seen in a certain way. Fallon took the note and the judge’s highlighter and revealed the writing in wax from Steven. Okay, so this proves that there was a note, but it still doesn’t prove Blake didn’t see it. Blake’s second savior came in the form of Kirby. While at Alexis’ penthouse while she and Dex were both out, she found that the safe she was looking for had been removed from the wall. While she was trying to find it, Dex came home even though the tracker on his car showed he was nowhere near the building (he left it at the restaurant since he’d had a few drinks with a client). Kirby managed to hide on the couch and as she tried to sneak across the room, a floorboard creaked, alerting Dex that someone was there. Kirby told him Amanda had given her a key and asked her to retrieve her AirPods. Dex said to let them know the next time she was coming over because they are usually clothing optional when they are home alone — not anything she or Jeff, who was guiding her by the use of said AirPods, wanted to know. But she somehow did get the journal and confirmed Fallon’s story about the note. Her father had written about it. He found the note in the jacket in Blake’s den and kept it, fearing that it would prove Blake guilty of negligence. That prompted the judge to remind Alexis that if this was true then she may have committed perjury, and Alexis quickly admitted that she may have embellished some — or all — of her testimony. With all of the evidence and corroboration, the judge decided that while there was indeed a note, the testimony proves that Blake never saw it therefore he was not responsible for their mother’s death and Ben cannot overturn the will.
With that threat taken care of, there are just a few pieces left to pick up. Cristal visits Dom, having a hard time hearing all of that stuff about Blake and the nanny. Dom gives her a really good talking to, telling her that she can’t hold Blake to his past. Her own relationship with her children is better than ever because they let go of her past and see her for the person she is now. People change. Blake has changed, and Cristal needs to look at the now and the future. While they were talking, Dom received a call from Nordicstar, and it sounded like it was not the results of the voting she wanted to hear. Hanging up, she told Cristal that there was a surge in voting for her after the hearing and she won the contract! Back at the manor, Blake was celebrating his victory with Kirby, not mad at all about Anders keeping notes of all the Carrington ills. He was surprised that Alexis willingly handed the journal over to her, but she explained that if she didn’t then Amanda would be informed of all of Alexis’ dirty secrets so it was a no-brainer. And for all the help she received in finding the journal, she agreed to burn this one (which was a copy since she had burned the original to appease Culhane) as well, putting all of the Carrington family secrets to rest once and for all (at least the ones in writing).
A jubilant Blake invited Ben to the manor — summoned to the castle, as Ben put it, so Blake could gloat? No, with all of this bitterness and misunderstanding behind them, Blake wants to rebuild the relationship they once had, and he asks Ben to move his family back to Atlanta so the Carringtons can all be in one place, Ben’s baby growing up with Fallon’s baby, having that close relationship the brothers once had. Ben, however, is still ‘bitter, party of one’ and tells Blake he doesn’t need his charity. He may have won this round but he hasn’t yet seen what Ben can do. Uh oh. Blake looked truly terrified. And what exactly that is … we won’t find out until the next episode on August 5. The question is, with only five episodes left before the series ends, will they be able to wrap up any of these storylines or will we be left with a big, fat, unresolved cliffhanger (just like how the original series ended)?
What did you think of this episodes? Tell us in the comments section below!
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