Dynasty - Season 6, Episode 24

"No book deal for you!"

"The Trial, Part 1"
Original airdate: 3/19/1986

Episode summary: Ben contests his father's will in a dramatic court proceeding. Alexis breaks the news to Caress that her trashy tell all book will never be published. Jackie learns that Dominique has been lying to her about the identity of her bio dad.

---

Recap: A negligee-clad Alexis is lounging in her penthouse, reading the day's paper when she spots an article stating that Blake and Ben are about to duke it out in court over Tom Carrington's estate.

​Caress arranges (over the phone) to meet with her publisher - just as Alexis enters the room and says she's assuming they'll head over to the courthouse together to witness Ben's/Blake's trial. Caress shiftily says she has important business to take care of, and Alexis says it's a shame that the Denver press won't get to see the cute Morell sisters out on the town together...and says this as if a court proceeding about an inheritance dispute is the social event of the season. 

Krystle, Steven, and Amanda arrive at the courthouse and ignore the reporters swarming around them, peppering them with questions about the imminent trial. Inside the building, Steven is served with a subpoena...and when he tells Ben he knows absolutely nothing about Tom Carrington's will, Ben non-answers by correctly assuming that Blake avoided this morning's press pack by slipping in through the back entrance of the courthouse.

Steven tells Blake and his female attorney (Mrs. Davis) he was just subpoenaed by Ben's lawyer, and Mrs. Davis tells him not to worry and that it's probably just an old trick to throw her off-stride. Blake, meanwhile, tells Adam they'll need to set aside their differences to focus on this court battle, which could potentially affect Denver Carrington. Adam says he sees the case as open and shut, given that Tom signed his last will and testament in front of three witnesses, and that he can't wait to give Ben the what for while cross-examining him. 

Elsewhere in the courthouse, a distressed Jackie tells Dominique she sent away for her birth certificate, which indicates the sperm donor in her conception as father unknown. She admonishes her mother for lying to her about her non-existent race car driver father, then tearfully races off.

​While on the witness stand, Dominique's testimony is founded on the ridiculous layers of hearsay that her mother told her that Tom told her that he blamed Ben for the death of Ellen Carrington...and haughtily adds that she has no reason to doubt her mother's account 'cause she was the most virtuous, honest woman who ever walked the earth. Ben's lawyer (Crenshaw) asks her when she first met her father...and after some bitchy back and forth about why that detail is important, Dominique is forced to admit that she met Tom Carrington on the day he died, and on that day was named as one of three beneficiaries of his multi-million dollar estate - none of whom included Tom's non-illegitimate son, Ben.

"You do realize that your testimony is triple hearsay, right?"

"Say what?"

Dex arrives at the penthouse to pick up some papers from Alexis...and as her manservant scuttles upstairs to fetch them, Dex stares wistfully at a framed photo of Alexis, has a flashback of when they first hooked up, and mutters, "My God...Alexis."

As Ben is questioned by Crenshaw on the witness stand, he tells the court about how he's been estranged from his family for decades and hadn't met his half-sister Dominique until now. He insists that he was not the one who killed his mother and instead blames Blake, who shouts, "That's a lie!" and is promptly warned by the judge to keep quiet. Crenshaw refers to Dominique's testimony as "triple hearsay" (hee!), and would therefore like to hear an account of the fateful day Ellen Carrington died by someone who was actually in her vicinity. Ben explains that on the day in question, his father Tom was in New Orleans on business and had instructed his sons to not leave their wheelchair bound mother alone. Naturally, there was an emergency in the oil field that had to be urgently addressed, so he raced off to help - while Blake apparently headed into town, got drunk, and seduced a young woman at the very time the Carrington house somehow burst into flames. Ben says he lied to Tom to protect his brother, to which Blake screams, "You caused her death! Admit it, Ben!" and is admonished by the judge that he has no problem tossing him out of the courtroom if he can't keep his yap shut. 

While cross-examining Ben, Adam asks him why he waited so long to tell "the truth", and Ben sourly retorts, "Because my father waited so long to die." He explains that he told his father it was Blake who got drunk and left their mother to die - but Tom refused to buy that nonsense 'cause of the closeness he and Blake shared. To that, Adam retorts that it's nonsensical for him to imply that Blake asserted undue influence over his father, given that the two men hadn't seen each other for years...and only reunited when Tom was on his deathbed. 

Dex arrives in Logan (Colorado) and enters a seedy watering hole filled with flannel wearing laborers. He spots the deadbeat he's looking for - Hawkins, aka the foreman at Lex-Dex's pipeline construction site - and tells him he has a lot of explaining to do regarding missing equipment and a generally poorly managed jobsite. He promptly fires Hawkins and tells him to collect his work gear from the jobsite and get lost.

Over at La Mirage, Caress is meeting with her editor, who assures her her book will be an instant bestseller. Caress pours two glasses of champagne to make a celebratory toast, but the publisher declines and says he has to rush off to get her manuscript mailed to New York, but will be right back. 

Alexis arrives at La Mirage and runs into Dominique, who calls the Ben/Blake court battle "a sick sideshow". She angrily accuses Alexis of orchestrating this "violation of graves" and having to listen to Crenshaw dare to suggest that her angelic mother wasn't telling the truth when she passed along a second hand assumption of what Tom Carrington thought probably caused his wife's death. Alexis snorts, "What? The truth hurts?" and Dominique gets so enraged that she has to restrain herself from lunging at Alexis and indulging in a rough-and-tumble Alexis-Krystle style catfight. 

"I'm soooo down with leaping into a pond with you and slapping you silly."

"Sorry, that's more my/Krystle's thing."

​A former Carrington oil field laborer (Mr. Franklin) testifies that the day Ellen Carrington died, he was on the Carrington oil field, rescuing a man (who'd had some kind of dangerous mishap) with the aid of one of Tom's sons. Crenshaw asks him to identify which son that was by dramatically pointing at him, so Mr. Franklin points at Ben, while a stunned Blake is all, "Wha-a-a-a?!" and loud tittering noises break out among the courtroom spectators.

Alexis enters the La Mirage suite where Caress is lounging and gleefully says she's come to ask for her autograph. When Caress scrunches her face confusedly, Alexis congratulates her on her "wonderful piece of fiction", then drops the bomb that as the new owner of Creighton Publishing, she holds the rights to her unauthorized piece of trash of a biography and will see to it that it never gets published. An enraged Caress growls, "I'll see you dead for this", then looks startled when she suffers a sudden bout of weakness.

Claudia testifies about what a douchewad Blake is, then cites as proof his firing of her from La Mirage without cause and his refusal to give her ownership of the oil well she inherited from Walter Lankershim. When Crenshaw wryly asks her what she did to piss Blake off, she replies that she married Adam...who, in turn, lied to her and also refused to help her get her oil well back, aka her one chance to be financially independent. Blake instructs Adam not to bother cross-examining Claudia 'cause he doesn't want to dignify her whiny accusations...and a few seconds later, the judge mercifully calls a recess.

A miffed Krystle asks Claudia how in blazes she could turn against the man who's helped her the most, and Claudia snappishly retorts that she can't defend a man who would kill his own mother. 

Blake is in the courthouse bathroom when Ben enters...and is about to turn around and leave when Blake snarlingly orders him to face up to his corrupt courtroom shenanigans. He says he remembers helping Mr. Franklin rescue the man on the oil field that day and accuses Ben of paying him off to lie in court...and when Ben sneers, "That's more your MO", Steven has to restrain his father from lunging at Ben [and does this as though the old goat would have a prayer of not getting his ass kicked by his much younger and fitter brother]. Blake shoots Ben the stink-eye, then calmly exits the bathroom.

"I no longer accept you as my brother."

"It's little wonder, considering I look about 25 years younger than you."

Ben heads over to the nearest pay phone to call Alexis and ask her whaddup with her not sticking around the courthouse to give him some much needed emotional support. Alexis breezily says she's not into spectator sports, then chides him for not having more of a backbone, both on and off the witness stand. She urges him to appear stronger while under questioning if he's ordered back on the stand, barks, "Give 'em hell!", and hangs up the phone. LOL.

Steven is called to testify about his acrimonious custody battles with Blake, along with Blake's manslaughtering of Ted Dinard. As the courtroom spectators loudly titter, Steven is forced to admit that, yep, Blake was convicted of killing Ted Dinard in a court of law, and that he (Steven) was only too happy to testify against his father during the trial. A smug Crenshaw announces that the plaintiff rests...and Steven quietly apologizes to Blake for the damaging but fairly irrelevant testimony.

Blake takes the witness stand and testifies that, yes indeed, his father was in New Orleans on that fateful day, and that an oil field emergency made it necessary for him to leave his mother's side. Ben had been the one who stayed behind, but then abandoned his mother in her time of need to go into town, get loaded, and hit the sheets with some hussy. His irresponsibility, Blake insists, was the reason Tom Carrington disowned his youngest son...and Blake adds that his father's brain appeared to be in proper working order up until he died. Under cross examination, Crenshaw gets Blake to admit that he called his father Tom, and that they too were estranged for years until he conveniently became an heir to his estate. Blake insists that he had tried to locate Ben after their father expired...and Crenshaw sneers that he didn't try hard enough, then dramatically calls Alexis as his next witness. 

Back at Yokel Headquarters, Hawkins gets all in Dex's face, so Dex moves towards him to shove him out of his orbit when he accidentally bumps into a hot blonde woman who introduces herself as Jennifer. As Dex ogles her, she tells him she's a construction worker who's actually under his employ...and he perks up at that and offers to buy her a beer. As the two smittenly chat at the bar, Hawkins marches over, taps Dex on the shoulder, and punches him in the face...and Jennifer looks on in fascination as the two idiots roll around the bar, overturning tables as they fake wrestle each other. Dex emerges victorious and literally throws Hawkins outside, then struts over to where Jennifer has been watching the ridiculous display of testosterone fueled idiocy. She flirtily offers to tend to Dex's black eye, but he declines and says he's going to need to stay away from beautiful women for awhile.

"Just FYI: I'm throwing the first of many punches that are about to be thrown."

"All of this superfluous bar brawling is really turning me on."

Alexis testifies that Ben Carrington was the one telling the truth about the day his mother died...and when Crenshaw asks her how she could possibly know that, she poutishly reveals that she was the innocent young maiden Blake was doinking at the same time his mother was burning to a crisp. As the courtroom spectators titter excitedly at that dramatic revelation, Alexis adds that she was engaged to "a very ardent Blake" (OMFG), and was so deeply under his spell that she agreed to keep quiet about the great lie that it was Ben who had cruelly abandoned their mother and left her to burn to death. Blake yells, "She's lying!!" - but Alexis insists that her version of events is true, and that Blake knew how to get what he wanted from her. 

Adam confers with Blake and Mrs. Davis, and the three determine that Mrs. Davis should face off with Alexis in as tough a manner as possible. Mrs. Davis starts off by asking Alexis how many husbands she's had, and accuses her of being "a black widow" in reference to Cecil's death a few seconds after their wedding ceremony. She then moves on from that pointless line of questioning to ask Alexis why she found it necessary to fly all the way to Australia to fetch Ben, then gets all in Alexis' face as she asks if it was to get vengeance against Blake for rejecting her recent sexual advances. Alexis denies that and insists that Blake was with her while his mother was dying...and the weary looking judge orders a recess and says he'll deliver his verdict in a few days. The camera then pans across the courtroom to capture the smug grins of Alexis and Ben, along with the concerned scowls of the Carrington clan.

Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!

---