estimated reading time: 17 hours and 33 minutes:
I like the idea that Blake's mother, Ellen Lucy Fallon Carrington, originated from Colorado, a descendant of the powerful Fallon family dynasty who ruled over Boulder for 200 years (which explains why Adam asserts that he belongs "to one of the oldest, most respected families in Colorado," despite Blake and the Carringtons only having been there for a couple of generations). Angry over how his father, Tom (although "Tom" always confuses me with Audra Barkley's dad), treated Blake's mother, Ellen, after WW2 the eldest Carrington son migrates from his Philadelphia home (where his father was a ne'er-do-well varmint of a Presbyterian preacher, causing Ellen's wealthy Catholic family in Boulder to disinherit her for marrying him) to his mom's home state, to begin his wildcatting days, attending the Colorado School of Mines, determined to make something of himself.
Wanting to mend fences, Tom Carrington approaches his son with resources attained during the war, in order to assist Blake with the infrastructure costs of his start-up company in the early-'50s (which will be re-christened "Denver-Carrington" in 1958). Blake knows his father well enough to be wary of the origins of these financial supplements (they will turn out to be derived from The Collection which Tom received in exchange for shipping Nazi war criminals down to South America). Reluctantly, Blake takes this assistance, giving his father a small percentage of future Denver-Carrington stock, which turns into a
huge windfall for Tom once the company (which specializes in oil and military hardware) explodes into success -- which is how Blake was essentially 'self-made' yet Tom wound up wealthy in his own right (living in Sumatra for the final twenty years of his life).
In fact, Blake does so well, that his mother's family is impressed enough to reinstate Ellen into the will, resulting in her inheriting The Crater just before she died in that horrible, scandalous housefire, circa 1955, a fire which drove Blake, Alexis, baby Adam, and that uptight majordomo into the mansion -- built in 1904 but sat fallow for 23 years since it was abandoned in the depths of the Depression, around 1932. (Blake lies for years, later telling Fallon & Steven that his mother died when he was only four years old, to spare his children from the naked horror of the truth of how their paternal grandmother met her grisly end).
Okay, so where does Cecil and the Colby clan come into this?? Aloof from his siblings in Los Angeles (who would later become convinced that Cecil had their mother, the Coby matriarch, murdered, stabbed in the back by a vagrant on the steps of Denver's new opera house during a trip to Colorado, leading to Cecil inheriting her entire timber division just when ColbyCo was almost faltering, her will oddly changed only days before her tragic demise and saving Cecil from bankruptcy), and friendly only with Phillip (once believed to have fathered Jeff before allegedly dying in Vietnam), Cecil's ColbyCo was in a huge business deal in the '40s with the Fallon dynasty to supply materiel to the war effort in Europe. But when the Fallon family realized the federal government was selling military hardware to The Third Reich -- which indeed happened -- the Fallons, appalled, pulled out of the deal (not necessarily due to any affection for the German jews, but due to the family's patriotic concerns that American soldiers would be maimed or killed by the munitions they'd be providing).
Young Cecil Colby is enraged by the massive financial hit ColbyCo took as a result of the deal falling through, and then schemes behind the scenes to obliterate the Fallon family and their business empire --- using the political Fallmont clan and their connections in Washington, D.C. and on Wall Street to do it. Hence, the bad blood between Blake and Senator Buck Fallmont and his family for many years. (Blake unaware of Cecil's treachery in this matter until almost the very end).
The irony being that Blake rose up on the back of Nazi plunder and his mother's family
collapsed as the result of their
refusal to deal with those Nazis. (A point not elucidated until Season 10, I would think).
Add to that "the three-headed hydra that will not die!" as Cecil sums up the Carrington/Fallon family lineage, and losing Alexis to Blake (Alexis' mum, Minx, one of the most delicious power-sluts in Europe infamous for sleeping with captains of industry and politics across The Continent, prefers Alexis pair off with Blake, because even though he's not as rich as Cecil, Mr. Colby is clearly "less reliable" husband material than solid, monogamy-inclined Blake)... Where did Blake & teenaged Alexis meet? Was it at a seminar in Moldavia, Alexis fresh off her rejection from the royal family, King Galen's father refusing to allow his son to marry "a commoner" like Alexis?
Who introduced whom to who? We're never quite sure, the stories are muddy.
But all of that could inspire a forty-year contempt for Blake and his family, Cecil pantomiming "best friend" status as he plots against and sabotages Blake from the shadows whenever he can.
And Cecil does something about it ... every day.
