Dynast Episode 9
I didn’t think Dynasty could top its Thanksgiving episode, but the show really turned up the heat this week. It seems Dynasty used the first half of the season to put the pieces on the board. The initial mystery of Matthew’s death set up in the pilot was far less engaging than it should have been, but it has since given way to much more fraught dynamics between Blake and Steven, Cristal and just about everyone, and now Jeff and the Carringtons. The idea that Jeff is actually playing both Carrington kids right now is so much more interesting than just about anything he’s done all season. He now knows about how Steven’s lack of experience led to a death, which Matthew covered up on Blake’s orders. He also knows about Stansfield taking care of Willy and other Carringtons business, and was responsible for sidelining Steven’s go-to bender buddy in jail on Christmas. This family is so damn screwed. I’m looking forward to learning more about the circumstances of Jeff leaving Blake’s tutelage, and Jeff’s master plan. Steven and Blake’s relationship, never altogether strong but tested recently by Blake’s corruption, is tested once again. This time, it’s Blake’s father who causes the trouble, which Blake steps away from with uncharacteristic restraint. If I were Steven I wouldn’t believe Blake either, but we’ll see. Steven’s substance abuse makes his character more complicated, since his compromised decisions while using force him to consider crossing lines that a sober Steven never would. The idea, though, that this is the reason Blake finally turns on Cristal is a bit far-fetched. Yes it’s murder (except that it’s not!), but protecting your sister from her abusive partner seems like one of the times accidentally killing someone is a regrettable but acceptable outcome. I’m hoping Cristal will start finding out more truths about Blake, since his record is far from spotless. The dynamic of him bestowing jobs, marriage, money and forgiveness upon a grateful Cristal is very 1980s, and unlike Fallon’s plaid power skirt suit, it has worn out its welcome in 2017. One of the unexpected highlights of the show so far has been the begrudging camaraderie between loyal, upright butler Anders and newcomer Cristal. The relationship is still tenuous, but for the last few episodes, Anders has gone out on a limb for Cristal over and over again. When these two scheme together, it’s for the good of the Carrington family as a whole, and usually is for the greater moral good, even if they’re doing something illegal to get there. My only real complaint is that at no point in this episode did Fallon and Steven’s mother appear. There have been so many hints about this woman and then a casting announcement was made. Sammy Jo and Grandpa Carrington spent so much time talking about the value of family that I kept waiting for her to walk through the door, with a slow pan up starting at a great pair of Louboutins, or whatever is more expensive than Louboutins. Alas, we’ll have to wait until 2018 to meet Mama Carrington. Part of why her absence was so disappointing is that Grandpa Carrington was a bit of a bore. He stirred things up a bit, but mostly he served to make Fallon and Blake look like halfway decent people, by virtue of being an older, more heartless, and more racist asshole. Fallon is certainly selfish, but she puts Steven first and the rest of the family not too far after that. She’s not a bigot in the outright sense, just in the casual way that she pretends not to know Sammy and Cristal are not Argentinean but Venezuelan, which is actually much more insidious in a real life person. Let’s just say that after a couple of elections in a row, the national tolerance for not-that-racist white ladies is at an all-time low. This episode confronted race more directly than any other before it. I loved the use of Spanish in this episode, both with subtitles and without, as well as Kreyol. It’s only natural that family members would converse in their native language together, following in the steps of fellow CW show Jane the Virgin. Monica called Fallon’s subtle racism out directly, in an exchange I was pleasantly surprised to see. I’d love to see the writing on the show to back up Monica’s assertion that she doesn’t exist to make Fallon feel better. Unfortunately, Monica’s only qualities so far fall squarely in the black best friend trope. That may change, though, as a hookup with Colhane could pull her more centrally into the story. And we top it all off with Iris’s very much alive ex, taking a meeting with an unsuspecting Blake. Iris has to know, right? Perhaps the two are up to some corporate espionage? If so, that makes Iris a pretty crappy mom to not only lie to Sam but to ream Cristal out for doing the same thing. How far down will Steven go? How long until Anders’s loyalty to Grampa causes problems for the younger Carringtons? We’ll have to wait until 2018 for the answers.
