"Beyond the Gates" Week 31 Review

As Beyond the Gates progresses, the angles get more and more wild and unpredictable. If you had asked me this time a year ago, before this show was even promoted for a premiere, if I would be into any soap this religiously, I would have shouted a resounding "HELL NO!" I had made my feelings about soap operas very clear, and then Beyond the Gates changed the game. I said many times that the soap genre needed this badly. See how much less over the top this soap is compared to others? There's a reason for that; I'll let you figure that out.

Week 31 fully brought the soap into the month of October, and as MLB was seeing the Division Series play out, BTG was bringing the noise and the fallouts:

October 6

October 6 brought a lot of fallouts from the end of Week 30. The main fallout was from the Kat/Tomas/Eva triangle receiving the ultimate exposure with Kat learning about Tomas and Eva's dalliance. The shot above shows Ted and Smitty conversing, as Smitty's seeing his marriage to Martin slowly dissipating. As for Ted, he's finally, and I mean finally appearing to come to terms that his marriage to Nicole is similar to the Baltimore Ravens' playoff chances: kaput. Yet Ted feels he can actually give advice to Smitty. No wonder Smitty's so messed up. More from him later.

October 7

Speaking of that triangle, we finally saw Tomas vocally make his choice in front of both of the women in his life, and unsurprisingly, Tomas chose wrong. Eva's better for him. Yes, she comes with baggage--the main piece being Leslie, but I think that would have been nipped in the bud by both of them. Plus, Eva definitely would treat him better. The reason why Tomas and Eva happened was because Kat basically ghosted him. This will not end well for Tomas. He just gave Kat a free pass to treat him like shit. Tomas will have to jump through so many hoops for Kat, I just know it.

October 8

I promised more on Smitty, and it's not good. So remember: Smitty's whole thing was Martin keeping secrets about his past; how he actually beat one of those racist fucks to death in self-defense, and the elaborate cover-up that followed. So October 7's episode ended with Martin saying that he's going to turn himself in, and it continued on October 8. You would think that Smitty would be proud of Martin, right? Wrong. Smitty chooses this moment to accuse Martin of being selfish, and even claim that Martin isn't considering other family members involved in the whole cover-up, and that they could also end up locked up as well. Funny how none of that was even mentioned when Smitty was browbeating Martin for "getting away with murder." This is why Martin suggested turning himself in, because Smitty was acting so high and mighty. Yet Smitty continues the browbeating, which followed weeks of toying with Martin's emotions. Good grief.

October 9

How do you know it's a month with a vowel in it? Because Hayley's bitching up a storm at Dani yet again. Hayley's insecurities could fill up AT&T Stadium (aka Jerry World) 100 times over. Jerry Jones would love that; he loves soap operas. Anyway, Hayley crashes Dani's house looking for Bill because she can't seem to fathom the fact that Dani's moved on with Andre. Speaking of Andre, that's where Bill was--confronting Andre over his marriage to Dani. The plot, like my anticipation for the World Series, thickens.

October 10

For the October 10 episode, I just wanted to talk about Pamela Curtis, because I feel she hasn't been mentioned enough. Pamela is Dani's equally fiery BFF, and I love when she appears! Regarding the 10/10 episode, it was to give her thoughts to Dani about the marriage to Andre, and of course, to bash Bill; beautiful. Pamela Curtis is played wonderfully and hilariously by Cady McClain, and I did my homework and found a few things. For one, no surprise, McClain's done her share of soaps: All My Children, As the World Turns, The Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives. I also found another interesting tidbit: McClain was married to BTG co-start Jon Lindstrom, aka Joey Armstrong on the soap. I literally beamed at that. They have yet to do any scenes together, and I doubt Joey and Pamela will ever cross paths, but anything can happen in the world of soaps. McClain has yet to do Lifetime films like a lot of soap actors do; I hope she does one, she would be a spectacular villainess on Lifetime.

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Week 31 gave us a lot of amazing moments and wild occurrences, and I'm very amped to see what Week 32 will bring to the table!