These “Gates” Need More Rattling

Marlena says: In all my decades in the daytime industry, there’s never been a soap as controversial as the almost year-old “Beyond the Gates.” A landmark in daytime television, it appeared at a crucial time when it looked like soaps were about to become extinct. Many viewers adore “Gates,” but there are others who have reservations about it. Marlena is proud to showcase an analysis of the current show by a keen professional writer, Tom Lisanti who has written books about other soaps and is a noted author of books on films and movie history. I’ll let him introduce himself.

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By Tom Lisanti

For the many folks who don’t know of me, I am an author who specializes in writing nonfiction books about film and television of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. I recently wrote “Texas: An Oral History of Daytime TV’s Answer to Dallas,” and “Ryan’s Hope: An Oral History of Daytime’s Groundbreaking Soap.” In 2026, I will hopefully have a new book out titled “Another World: The Drama Behind Daytime’s Only 90-Minute Soap.” With that said, I dipped my toe in and wrote a brief review of “Beyond the Gates” on my “Remembering ‘Ryan’s Hope’” Facebook fan group page. One of our foremost soap opera journalists, Marlena De Lacroix, read it and asked me to expand upon it for this website. Who could turn Marlena down?

Full transparency: I have not watched a traditional daytime soap opera religiously since “One Life to Live” went off the air in 2012. Between then and 2025, I watched and loved many “soap opera-ish” streaming programs with deeply dysfunctional families, such as “Shameless,” “Animal Kingdom,” “Yellowstone,” and “Kingdom.” So, this is where my head was and may have jaded me going into “Beyond the Gates.” I was very happy and excited that a new soap was being launched. I truly like the show and watch it religiously.

My favorite character is Nicole, who had a lot of adversity to deal with this first year. It is rare for me to love a soap’s heroine so much (Siobhan Ryan on ”Ryan’s Hope” was a rare exception) but the beautiful Daphnee Duplaix is so wonderful in the role, Nicole can do no wrong in my eyes.

Leslie/Dana is the ultimate villain. I love how she sticks it to the Duprees. However, her barging into homes, offices, and hotel rooms is a bit much. I am waiting for someone to toss the newly rich Leslie out on her Chanel-clad keister. I love, though, when she joins with her daughter, Eva, and tag teams on insufferable rich bitch Kitty Kat (she is the character I love to hate most even more than slimy Joey and petulant black widow Hayley). Kudos to Colby Muhammad, who plays Kat so skillfully, keeping her on the edge of having the viewers either root for or against her.

Smitty and Martin make a loving couple to root for, but c’mon, can’t they have some sort of gay social life? I would love to see them cut loose and shake those booties at a dance club with some gay friends. Also, where are the homophobes? You cannot tell me there was not one Dupree family member who had no issues with Martin being gay? I thought for sure Ted did due to the lack of scenes together at the beginning, but it seems it was just lazy writing that kept them apart.

Izaiah is a great new addition as the Hawthorne black sheep, and his portrayer, David Lami Friebe, has the sexiest voice in daytime. Finally, kudos to the wonderful Jasmine Burke as sweet, troubled June, the only one on the show who has made me tear up twice.

With that said, I have one major pet peeve with “Beyond the Gates.” I record it daily and watch it nightly, but my declining recent interest let episodes pile up. I realized why after catching up and sitting through the Christmas episode. It had the entire Dupree family gathered at Vernon and Anita’s home and there is absolutely no conflict between them. No infighting, no homophobia, no backstabbing. Currently, all disputes come from the outsiders who surround them. I want wealthy family dysfunction like with the Spauldings on “Guiding Light,” the Abbotts on “The Young and the Restless,” the Ewings on “Dallas,” or the Carringtons on “Dynasty.” Hell, even the loving, Irish Catholic Ryan family on “Ryan’s Hope” had its members battling each other at one time or another, i.e., sisters Mary vs. Siobhan; patriarch Johnny vs. sons-in-law Jack and Joe; bastard son Dakota vs. half-brother Frank; everyone vs. daughter-in-law Delia, etc.

For me, the year’s most enthralling storyline delved into the coverup of Martin killing a white racist who attacked his grandfather. When the truth came out, it pitted Nicole, Smitty, and Jacob against their spouses, and Vernon and Anita whose self-righteousness and hypocrisy were truly brought to light. This came closest to having long-term repercussions within the family dynamic.

The writers need to shake that Dupree family tree again and let the bad fruit fall to the ground. Enough with only the white folk, ex-sons-in-law, long lost daughters, crooked cops, and former mistresses being the bad guys with all the faults. Let the Duprees take the gloves off and go at each other!

We do not even get a Dupree black sheep or ne’er-do-well family member. I thought pistol-packing, self-centered Dani was heading in this direction to be the constant thorn-in-the-side side of the Duprees, but they softened her and toned down her impetuousness too fast.

There is a path to “redeem” Dani and return her to the flawed character we loved with the almost certain breakup of her ex’s marriage to Hayley. A Dani and Bill reunion would be so delicious with Dani breaking Andre’s heart the way that Bill broke hers. This would put a much-needed divide in the Duprees (who finally came around and accepted Dani’s impulsive marriage to Andre) creating potent new drama.

On fan sites, the mere mention of breaking up Dani and Andre or some of the other couples sends the fans into a tizzy. As “Ryan’s Hope”’s eight-time Emmy Award winning co-head writer Paul Avila Mayer wisely said of writing a soap, “The course of true love runs dull.” Happily-ever-after does not a soap opera make.

In my opinion, the show needs a storyline like that to divide the family. Hearing about Anita’s cancer storyline, I had no hopes for that to cause family conflict. So far, it is a touching story, excellently acted by Tamara Tunie as Anita, about a type of cancer I was not familiar with, and it is schooling the audience, as these social issues plots tend to do. However, I am surprised and delighted that this storyline is bringing some strife to the Duprees, despite them rallying around their matriarch, with Dani running to Bill before her daughters, angering them, and Kat’s refusal to be tested for the hereditary gene. We shall see where this storyline goes.

That aside, for me the show in its second season still needs a good down and dirty battle (after Anita recovers, which is most likely) that will pit the family members against each other like never before. How about business savvy Kat vs. designer Chelsea for control of their ever-expanding company, ChelseaKat. This would certainly divide the family with Vernon and Anita caught in the middle. I have no plans to give up on “Beyond the Gates” but want to see this family shaken to its core again with infighting instead of the Duprees vs. everyone else. It is a soap opera for goodness’ sake, not “The Waltons”!

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An afterword by Marlena: Tom Lisanti’s fresh insights and meticulous research have filled the pages of no fewer than eleven books on delightful off-beat pop culture subjects. Titles include “Carol Lynley: Her Film and TV Career in Thrillers, Fantasy& Suspense” and “Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave 1959-1969.”  He won the Independent Publishers Book Awards Silver Medal for Best Memoir/Autobiography for co-authoring Gail Gerber’s memoir “Trippin with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember.” He appeared on Turner Classic Movies as co-host with Ben Mankiewicz of a week of spring break movies. I can’t wait to read what he has to tell us about “Another World” in his forthcoming book on that classic soap. His publisher is BearManor Media.