During its premiere week, Beyond the Gates certainly got off to the races with the drama. Between Dani (Karla Mosley) punching Hayley (Marquita Goings), Leslie (Trisha Mann-Grant) and Eva (Ambyr Michelle) launching a plan of attack so Eva can get closer to her alleged father and the three-ring circus that is Bill (Timon Kyle Durrett) and Hayley’s wedding, the soap certainly wasted no time to unleash chaos.
Of course, one of the other storylines that’s developing is the backstory of golden boy, Martin Richardson (Brandon Claybon). He appears to be the pride and joy of the Dupree clan with aspirations of becoming president, while balancing his duties as a husband and father. However, it was mentioned several times that he’s been having nightmares, which appear to be more like repressed memories. That was one major clue that he may not be so perfect after all.
There’s also the blackmailing stunt Bill pulled to get the Duprees to attend his wedding to Hayley. The family initially had no intention of going to the spectacle event. But once Bill paid Vernon Dupree (Clifton Davis) a visit and made a veiled threat, Vernon and Anita panicked and convinced the entire family to go in order to prevent Bill from outing a damaging secret about Martin.
Furthermore, on the day of the wedding, a conniving Bill approached Martin and shared it would be unwise of the Duprees to think they can just cut him off. Martin was confused as to why Bill would approach him with such a statement, and Bill apologized for coming onto strong, as he didn’t want to be accused of “overkill” (yes, Bill actually made a point to emphasize overkill).
With all that being said, we now believe that Martin killed someone while he was younger, and Bill helped Martin escape prosecution. Given Nicole’s (Daphnee Duplaix) profession, we wouldn’t be surprised if she helped her son repress the memories of the incident, hoping he went on to live a less traumatic life. So the question is, if Martin murdered someone, whose life did he take and why?
We, of course, could speculate about the answer to this all day. If we had to guess, perhaps he killed a friend by accident when they were both kids and the family helped cover it up. Or maybe, Martin was involved in a deadly car crash as a teen and he sustained injuries so severe he forgot what happened. Then since he forgot, Vernon and Anita worked with Bill to ensure Martin didn’t face criminal charges for the incident. The latter scenario seems a little less likely given his sister nor Andre (Sean Freeman) have said anything about a past crash, and they both would assumedly know if he were in one.
Regardless of what the secret is, we have a feeling one person may soon learn of it, and that could present a problem. Given Martin’s husband, Smitty (Mike Manning), was once a journalist and already inquired about Martin’s nightmares, we suspect it may be him. It's possible Smitty unintentionally learns the truth while simply trying to help his husband get to the bottom of what's causing him not to rest peacefully at night.
However, if we’re right, we automatically fear for Smitty’s safety. While we don’t know enough of Martin’s character to believe he’d attempt to get rid of his husband if the truth unravels and Martin fears his husband could become a liability in his political ambitions, we know soaps. And if Smitty’s digging threatens to take down Martin and the Dupree name, we may witness the prestigious family resort to low-level tactics to maintain the status quo.
New episodes of Beyond the Gates air weekdays on CBS, and become available to stream the day after on Paramount Plus.
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