Battle Lines (DYNASTY, 07 Feb 20) v The Beating (DYNASTY, 09 Mar 81)
I have travelled many light-years through the DYNASTY-verse this week, first into the far-flung future of 2020, aka New DYNASTY Season 3, which I haven’t actually seen, and then back 39 years to the very beginning of DYNASTY-time, aka Season 1, that primordial period before the opening credits evolved into shots of people spinning round in front of mirrors and angrily pulling off bowties and turning on a light switch while looking a bit sad.
Battle Lines 2020 is my introduction to New New New Alexis who is oddly unremarkable. She kind of looks like a runner-up on American Idol. It’s disconcerting at first, but in a show full of generic rich bitches, her ordinariness becomes kind of refreshing. New New New Cristal, meanwhile, is absent for most of the episode but is really pretty, and New Dominique, despite having been given the same bitchy personality as Fallon and Alexis (Fallon makes the same poly-blend gag in this ep that Alexis made in Season 2) is more effortlessly enjoyable to watch than either of them.
While Battle Lines ends with Dominique moving into the Carrington Manor, to the apparent dismay of New New New Cristal, The Beating begins with Steven moving out of the Carrington mansion with his father's approval. “A young man shouldn’t be confined umbilically to the place where he was born,” Blake declares. By contrast, Battle Lines makes a big thing of C21st Blake being really lonely now that his kids have flown the coup — so lonely, in fact, that he decides on a whim that he wants his company back (the same company that he decided, also on a whim, to sell the previous season). This leads to him playing convoluted power games with Jeff and New New New Alexis who are now married. It’s a business arrangement apparently, but Alexis makes it clear she wouldn’t object if it became something more. It seems she has the same yen for Jeff that ‘80s Adam accused ‘80s Alexis of having in Battle Lines ’83.
Like ‘80s Steven, C21st Fallon also decides to move into her own place, but while he is happy with a three-room apartment, she has decided she wants to a buy a much sought after fifteen-bedroom house and is willing to go to any lengths to get it. This entails lots of gags and slapstick and whatnot to deter other prospective buyers. As is usually the case with this kind of comedic plot, it falls between two stools: it’s not serious enough to care about and not funny enough to laugh at. Thank God for Liam, a believable, grounded character who helps make these scenes almost tolerable. When he finally loses patience with Fallon’s wacky self-absorption, it’s genuinely satisfying.
Things are the other way round in The Beating where it's Jeff who wants him and Fallon move out of the mansion and into their own place, while she has no interest in living independently of her father. “So why did you marry me? Why didn't you marry him?" Jeff yells. This hits a nerve, as incestuous implications are wont do in the DYNASTY-verse, and she goes running off into the arms of Michael Culhane — not the boring patsy version of Culhane from the future who gets seduced and secretly videoed by New Dominique in Battle Lines, but the chauffeur-cum-house-spy version, whom Blake has roughed up when he finds out about him and Fallon. “You just can’t go around beating up every man in Colorado I sleep with!” Fallon shouts. “Try me, Fallon, just try me!” Blake replies.
Back in 2020, Fallon attempts to win favour with the existing owner of the house she’s after by posing as a soccer mom, complete with mini-van. Conversely in 1981, Matthew Blaisdel is bemused when Walter buys him a Rolls Royce to celebrate their oil strike. As they talk, it becomes apparent that his reluctance to accept the car masks deeper concerns, specifically his ambivalence about his marriage. Matthew has two other scenes in this ep that are similarly poignant, as much because of what isn't said as what is. One is with Krystle (“I dreamed about you the other night …”), the other with Claudia whom he surprises with a weekend away. It’s his way of trying to apologise for the affair that he had and which he now knows she knows about, but which neither of them can acknowledge out loud. It’s a very moving scene, partly because Claudia carries her own unspoken guilt over her relationship with Steven.
Trees become a symbol for both Liam and Fallon’s future in Battle Lines, and Steven and Claudia’s future in The Beating. While looking around the house she wants to buy, Fallon gets into an argument with Liam about the fact that he doesn’t want children. Trying to keep up a facade of domestic bliss for the homeowner, they substitute the word trees for babies: “How can you not want trees? Everyone likes trees!” etc. "Next spring, up at the lake, when this tree I planted begins to show off her leaves, prettier and greener than any single leaf in England, I want you to be there,” says Steven to Claudia as they lie in bed in his new apartment in 1981. Yet again it’s about what isn’t said: realistically, there’s no way they’ll still be together next spring. And yet, what's remarkable is how one finds oneself rooting for each of these doomed couples: Claudia and Steven, Claudia and Matthew, Matthew and Krystle, even Steven and Ted.
To be gay in the ‘80s DYNASTY-verse is a very solemn affair. Conversely, to be gay in Battle Lines 2020 is to be automatically hilarious. Fallon’s flamboyant realtor salivating over Liam: what could be funnier than that?
And the winner is ... The Beating
BONUS BEATS:
I have travelled many light-years through the DYNASTY-verse this week, first into the far-flung future of 2020, aka New DYNASTY Season 3, which I haven’t actually seen, and then back 39 years to the very beginning of DYNASTY-time, aka Season 1, that primordial period before the opening credits evolved into shots of people spinning round in front of mirrors and angrily pulling off bowties and turning on a light switch while looking a bit sad.
Battle Lines 2020 is my introduction to New New New Alexis who is oddly unremarkable. She kind of looks like a runner-up on American Idol. It’s disconcerting at first, but in a show full of generic rich bitches, her ordinariness becomes kind of refreshing. New New New Cristal, meanwhile, is absent for most of the episode but is really pretty, and New Dominique, despite having been given the same bitchy personality as Fallon and Alexis (Fallon makes the same poly-blend gag in this ep that Alexis made in Season 2) is more effortlessly enjoyable to watch than either of them.
While Battle Lines ends with Dominique moving into the Carrington Manor, to the apparent dismay of New New New Cristal, The Beating begins with Steven moving out of the Carrington mansion with his father's approval. “A young man shouldn’t be confined umbilically to the place where he was born,” Blake declares. By contrast, Battle Lines makes a big thing of C21st Blake being really lonely now that his kids have flown the coup — so lonely, in fact, that he decides on a whim that he wants his company back (the same company that he decided, also on a whim, to sell the previous season). This leads to him playing convoluted power games with Jeff and New New New Alexis who are now married. It’s a business arrangement apparently, but Alexis makes it clear she wouldn’t object if it became something more. It seems she has the same yen for Jeff that ‘80s Adam accused ‘80s Alexis of having in Battle Lines ’83.
Like ‘80s Steven, C21st Fallon also decides to move into her own place, but while he is happy with a three-room apartment, she has decided she wants to a buy a much sought after fifteen-bedroom house and is willing to go to any lengths to get it. This entails lots of gags and slapstick and whatnot to deter other prospective buyers. As is usually the case with this kind of comedic plot, it falls between two stools: it’s not serious enough to care about and not funny enough to laugh at. Thank God for Liam, a believable, grounded character who helps make these scenes almost tolerable. When he finally loses patience with Fallon’s wacky self-absorption, it’s genuinely satisfying.
Things are the other way round in The Beating where it's Jeff who wants him and Fallon move out of the mansion and into their own place, while she has no interest in living independently of her father. “So why did you marry me? Why didn't you marry him?" Jeff yells. This hits a nerve, as incestuous implications are wont do in the DYNASTY-verse, and she goes running off into the arms of Michael Culhane — not the boring patsy version of Culhane from the future who gets seduced and secretly videoed by New Dominique in Battle Lines, but the chauffeur-cum-house-spy version, whom Blake has roughed up when he finds out about him and Fallon. “You just can’t go around beating up every man in Colorado I sleep with!” Fallon shouts. “Try me, Fallon, just try me!” Blake replies.
Back in 2020, Fallon attempts to win favour with the existing owner of the house she’s after by posing as a soccer mom, complete with mini-van. Conversely in 1981, Matthew Blaisdel is bemused when Walter buys him a Rolls Royce to celebrate their oil strike. As they talk, it becomes apparent that his reluctance to accept the car masks deeper concerns, specifically his ambivalence about his marriage. Matthew has two other scenes in this ep that are similarly poignant, as much because of what isn't said as what is. One is with Krystle (“I dreamed about you the other night …”), the other with Claudia whom he surprises with a weekend away. It’s his way of trying to apologise for the affair that he had and which he now knows she knows about, but which neither of them can acknowledge out loud. It’s a very moving scene, partly because Claudia carries her own unspoken guilt over her relationship with Steven.
Trees become a symbol for both Liam and Fallon’s future in Battle Lines, and Steven and Claudia’s future in The Beating. While looking around the house she wants to buy, Fallon gets into an argument with Liam about the fact that he doesn’t want children. Trying to keep up a facade of domestic bliss for the homeowner, they substitute the word trees for babies: “How can you not want trees? Everyone likes trees!” etc. "Next spring, up at the lake, when this tree I planted begins to show off her leaves, prettier and greener than any single leaf in England, I want you to be there,” says Steven to Claudia as they lie in bed in his new apartment in 1981. Yet again it’s about what isn’t said: realistically, there’s no way they’ll still be together next spring. And yet, what's remarkable is how one finds oneself rooting for each of these doomed couples: Claudia and Steven, Claudia and Matthew, Matthew and Krystle, even Steven and Ted.
To be gay in the ‘80s DYNASTY-verse is a very solemn affair. Conversely, to be gay in Battle Lines 2020 is to be automatically hilarious. Fallon’s flamboyant realtor salivating over Liam: what could be funnier than that?
And the winner is ... The Beating
BONUS BEATS:
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