Dynasty - Season 8, Episode 3

Fallon prepares to greet a non-earthling

"The Aftermath"
Original airdate: 10/8/1987

Episode summary: Fallon tells Jeff about her visitation with an extraterrestrial being, which he assumes is just a hallucination. Blake announces that he's running for governor. Steven glumly broods about his stabbing of Matthew.

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Recap: In the immediate aftermath of Matthew's fatal hostage-taking mayhem, Alexis is being interviewed by the press, while Blake comforts Krystle and coos about how everything's going to be all right. Eventually, Steven spacily emerges from the Lankershim-Blaisdel bunkhouse with Matthew's blood on his shirt and blurts out to Alexis that he was the one who killed Matthew. The police chief informs him that he's going to need to make a statement for the official inquest, then tells Blake it's sure to be routine and that Steven won't be arrested for Matthew's killing...especially considering the utter uselessness of the Denver Police who stood around and did zilch to disarm Matthew and/or help bring the hostage crisis to a safe end. The chief also advises Blake to get Steven some therapy, 'cause he seems really traumatized after having just stabbed a man to death. 

That evening, Steven is sitting in the dark in his mansion bedroom, staring at the bloody shirt that's on his lap. Blake pops in to check on how he's doing, assures him that everything will be OK, and to hand over the bloody shirt 'cause it's weird that he's just sitting there, moodily staring at it. 

Blake takes the shirt downstairs to the study and growls, "Damn it, Matthew. Why?!" before tossing it into the fire. A few seconds later, Gerard enters the room to inform Blake that the household staff is declining to take any time off, 'cause they'd much prefer to spend their lives scraping and bowing before the Carrington family instead of enjoying some much deserved "me time" after suffering the ordeal of being hostages.

Blake wanders over to the vestibule and greets Fallon and Jeff when they happen to arrive at that very moment. When Fallon asks Blake why he looks so stressed, he says he'll tell them all about it over a cup of coffee.

In the next scene, Fallon clucks sympathetically once she's heard the entirety of the hostage story. After Jeff announces that he's off to bed, Blake asks Fallon if she's OK 'cause she seems kinda off, and she assures him that everything in her world is perfectly fine.

Upstairs, Jeff bitchily asks Fallon to tell him exactly what happened in the desert the other night, and she says she'd be happy to reveal all - but only when he's in less of a pissy mood.

Krystle drops by Steven's room to see how he's doing, and he glumly mumbles, "Matthew's dead. I killed him." Krystle tells him she's sooooooo sorry he had to take control of the rescue, and somehow feels responsible for Matthew's unexpected return from the Peruvian jungle. Steven concurs that the nut was unhealthily fixated on her and got it into his head that he was going to take her to a magical fantasy world that probably "only existed in his mind". He urges Krystle to not blame herself, and both agree that Hostage-taking Matthew was definitely not the same as Season 1 Matthew. Krystle reminisces about how he (Steven) was her first friend in the Carrington mansion all those years ago, and then encourages him to seek out whatever psychiatric help he might need in order to move past his stabbing of Matthew. Steven tells her he appreciates her concern, but insists that he doesn't need any professional help.

"You should go to a shrink."

"I'd much prefer to let the psychological trauma fester until it completely destroys my soul."

The next morning, Leslie encounters Fallon in the mansion, gaily introduces herself as her cousin, and suggests they get acquainted over a cup of coffee. A distracted looking Fallon says she can't 'cause she has to go meet a friend, then rushes off while a miffed Leslie mutters, "And hello to you too, Cousin Fallon."

In the next scene, we see that Fallon is aboard a private plane, en route to Los Angeles.

At a Los Angeles medical centre, Fallon tells her shrink about her alien desert adventure, which she realizes is far too crazy for anyone to believe. She's particularly concerned that Jeff will think she's lost her mind...and the doctor concedes that, yep, for most people it is going to stretch the credulity of what is reasonably comprehendible. 

Over at Denver Carrington, Blake is in a lunch meeting with Jeff and a politico named Bill about a possible run for governor. Bill wanks Blake about his awesome vision and the tremendous qualities he'd bring to a governorship - a sentiment with which Jeff whole-heartedly agrees. Blake tells them he'll carefully contemplate the issue...and once Bill leaves and is safely out of earshot, Blake confides to Jeff that he's always dreamed of being the governor of Colorado.

Morgan Hess tells Alexis he's having difficulty locating her mystery man, who appears to have moved out of his cabin minutes before he (Morgan) got there. Alexis urges him to keep searching...then has a flashback of when she found the mystery man chopping wood during the season premiere. A few minutes later, Blake drops by her office to express his concern that Steven is hiding a lot of pain and refuses to get professional help for his PTSD. Alexis scrunches her face in distaste at the idea of her son going to a psychiatrist, but then agrees to meet up with him to see if he'd be willing to open up to her.  

Fallon tells Jeff she's now ready to tell the tale of her close encounter of the third kind. She narrates the experience during a flashback of her desperately trying to call for help on her car phone - before her car lights abruptly shut off before and the vehicle gets filled with a very bright light. She assumed someone had arrived to help her, so she climbed out of the car, and was drawn to look upwards. She recalls, "What I saw coming out of the sky...no, it couldn't be. But I could see it clearly. It was a spaceship." She tells Jeff she wanted to run away while simultaneously being intrigued to the point that she was paralyzed. As she stared at the descending spaceship in utter disbelief, the panel door opened, and a shadowy figure appeared and motioned at her to enter. She felt helplessly drawn to it...and within a few seconds, she was inside the spaceship, face-to-face with the extraterrestrial being. When the spaceship took off with her in it (!), she recalls, "I was never more at peace." A dumbfounded Jeff mutters, "My God.." and stares back at her with a look of horrified incredulity.

​After the commercial break, Fallon urges Jeff to say something, and he tells her he didn't expect to hear a minute-by-minute account of her boarding a spaceship. Fallon continues recounting her experience, which apparently included the terror of being examined with needles. Jeff looks particularly irked by that tidbit and criticizes that she couldn't have felt at peace and been terrified. Fallon explains that she somehow felt both emotions all at once, insists that it did happen, and that she really really wants to share her otherworldly encounter with him - preferably without his snide bitchitude. Jeff comes right out and says he's pretty sure she must have hallucinated the whole thing, condescendingly urges her to get some rest, and announces that he's off to the hospital to visit Dex.

"Is that a - ?"

Yep

"You think I'm mad as a hatter, don't you."

"Correction: madder than a hatter."

Sammy Jo stops in at Denver Carrington to complain to Steven that she's being harassed by reporters at Delta Rho...and Steven apologizes for the bother and promises to get her some security asap. She explains that she's mostly worried about Danny learning, without any context, that he was the one who killed Matthew, then laments about how devastated she'd be if Matthew had killed him. 

At the hospital, Leslie literally bumps into Jeff while the two are on their way to Dex's room. They flip a coin to see who gets to go in first...and Leslie wins, leaving Jeff to saunter off. She enters the hospital room and finds Dex bare chested as he exercises on a weight machine. She shows him all the paperwork she's been working on for the pipeline project, and he's so impressed with her can do attitude that he appoints her interim project manager while he recuperates from his gunshot injury.

While strolling around a park, Alexis gently asks Steven if he's OK, and he says he can't get his brain around the fact that he killed a man he was once friends with...adding that he didn't even fully realize he had stabbed Matthew until Blake took the knife out of his trembling hand. Alexis points out that he was forced to make a tough decision 'cause the police were clearly not going to do a damn thing...and that since it was the right decision, he shouldn't condemn himself for it. She urges him to face his emotions by talking about the trauma with trusted friends and family - but Steven glumly retorts that he'll never get away from the terrible reality that he killed a man [who badly needed killing] and has to live with it.

Steven returns to the Lankershim-Blaisdel bunkhouse, stares down at the chalk outline of where Matthew's corpse had lain, and has an audio flashback of Matthew's voice warning that he doesn't have the kind of toughness it takes to survive in Blake Carrington's world. 

In the next scene, Steven is in his jeep, barrelling down a winding road while Matthew's audio warning runs through his head in an endless loop. Steven suddenly hits the gas and heads dangerously close to the edge of a cliff - but then abruptly puts on the brakes just in time to avoid certain death and defiantly mutters, "You're wrong, Matthew. I can survive."

Back at the mansion, Blake tells Krystle how pensive he is about The Steven Situation, along with the challenges of running for governor. Krystle urges him to brush his worries aside, and enjoy tonight's celebratory dinner party and the comfort of so much familial togetherness. Blake concedes that he's thankful to have so many friends, family, and the love of a good woman...especially since he came so close to losing them all. He then "jokingly" suggests that the two of them take Kristina and run off to some sort of earthly paradise together...and Krystle says she loooooves that idea - but also knows that he harbors a dream of becoming Colorado's next governor and urges, "Just do it."

Newly returned from the Hawaii honeymoon, Adam wonders aloud what on earth Jeff and Fallon are doing in Denver...and worries that they were somehow angling to get closer to Blake while he was out of town. Dana chides him for overreacting about his sister's return...then looks icked out when he starts nattering about the two of them starting a very large family. After he exits the room, she immediately gets on the phone and leaves Dr. Davis a message to return her call.

Leslie returns to the mansion and runs into Jeff...and the two look surprised to discover that they're both living under the same roof.

At Delta Rho, Sammy Jo is yelling at a reporter who somehow got inside of her home - just as Steven arrives. Steven bitchily admits that, yeah, he's the one who killed Matthew Blaisdel, stupidly adding that he'd stab the freak again under the same circumstances. After he orders the reporter to get out, he turns his attention to Sammy Jo and tells her he now realizes how much he needs her and Danny in his life on a daily basis. He offers to move back to Delta Rho...and Sammy Jo brightens at that prospect - but then visibly deflates when he firmly states that there'll be no hanky panky and that he wants his own bedroom. He tells her to speak up now if she's unable to handle a platonic relationship, and she just stares back at him in mute contemplation.

"I don't want you to be my beard-wife, like Claudia once was."

"It'd be no bother, given that I seem to have no better prospects on the horizon."

Alexis, who's decked out in a very puffy silver '80s dress, drops by Dex's hospital room with get well soon balloons and a gift basket, and explains that she's on her way to Blake's dinner party. Dex thanks her for the visit, loves that they're being so civil to one another, and remarks on how radiant she's looking. When he cheekily asks, "What's his name?", she coyly checks her watch and avoids answering by remarking that she's running late for the party. Dex warmly urges her to take care of herself, and she smilingly assures him she will and heads out.

Alexis makes her grand entrance at Carrington manor, telling Blake and Krystle, "I wouldn't miss your pot roast for the world." Lol.

As the family mixes and mingles, Alexis gushes to Fallon about how wonderful she looks, and Fallon assures her mom that she's A-OK. Steven arrives with Sammy Jo in tow, happily greets everyone, and proposes a toast to the entire Carrington clan, who's alive and well [after coming so dangerously close to being blown up by dynamite].

Dana and Alexis are informed that they each have a phone call...and Alexis deliberately eavesdrops on Dana's call with Dr. Davis as they arrange a 2pm appointment for tomorrow. Alexis then takes her call, which is from Morgan Hess, informing her that he finally found her handsome rescuer. She's all, "Yippee!" and tells Blake and Krystle that she has to run off.

Fallon steps away from the party to pensively stare out the window, and a few seconds later, Jeff follows her and urges her to rejoin the party. Fallon insists that they need to talk more about her spaceship encounter - but Jeff flatly says he really really doesn't want to, and outright says he thinks she's gone nutso-cuckoo. When she stares back at him with a crestfallen expression, he throws her a bone by sighingly asks her to describe the alien, so she says his skin was leathery, and that he smelled of cinnamon. Jeff jokingly asks if he was baking [a cinnamon loaf perhaps?], and Fallon angrily accuses him of making fun of her alien visitation and flounces back to where the party is in full swing.

Blake asks for everyone's attention for a special announcement: he's decided to officially run for governor. Everyone squeals happily and gathers around to give him a congratulatory hug.

The handsome young man who rescued Alexis is in a screening room, watching a video about a trial (which I can only assume involves a Carrington) when a couple of waiters wheel in a fancy looking dinner. He stares at them confusedly and asks what the hell this is...but they remain mute before hastily exiting the room. Alexis then steps in, still wearing her silver '80s party dress, and clutching a bag of popcorn. She stares at him all seductive-like before sashaying over and asking him if he'd like some champagne and popcorn, aka "the perfect appetizer" ... and he responds by looking haplessly intrigued by her brazen flirtiness.

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