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Everything You Need to Know About ‘Dynasty’

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at FSU chapter.

Dynasty is the brand-new show that just aired last week on the CW and if you’ve watched any of the previews then you most likely have gotten some serious Gossip Girl vibes. The show is a remake of a show of the same name and concept that was on ABC in the ‘80s, following the lives of the fabulously wealthy, one percent of the one percent, Carrington family.

The Carrington family owns the company and has made their fortune through their power company, Carrington Atlantic. Blake Carrington (Grant Show) is the CEO of the company who calls all the shots. Blake has two kids, Steven (James Mackay) and Fallon (Elizabeth Gillies). He originally wanted Steven to take over the company, but after visionary disagreements about the future path of the company Steven left and has been actively holding protests against his father’s attempts at fracking. On the other hand, Fallon is here to fill the Blair Waldorf-shaped hole in your life and is completely ready to be in charge of everything, including her dad’s company.

In episode one, Steven and Fallon are both coming home for the first time in a while after receiving a phone call from their father, completely unaware of the others’ homecoming. Fallon came back on the assumption that Blake was calling her home so that he could give her the recently vacated position of COO for the company. Steven came home from doing volunteer work in Haiti on the assumption that his father was finally going to give him an apology for what occurred last time he was home. What exactly was the argument about? We have no clue, but it’s hinted that it may have something to do with Steven’s sexuality. What we do know is that it ended up with Steven getting kicked out.

And how exactly were Steven and Fallon greeted by their father? By the sight of him about to do the nasty with a pretty young woman on the desk of his home office. On top of that, he also announced that this woman, Cristal (Nathalie Kelley), who neither of them has met until this moment, is his brand-new fiancĂ©e. Cristal happens to be the real reason that either of them even got a call home: she wanted to announce the news of their engagement in person instead of them finding out through a third party. She told Steven that family is important to her. Later this night, as Cristal is out getting drinks with some of her friends it’s revealed to the audience that she and Blake have only been together for three months. And, either right before or during the very beginning stages of this three-month long relationship, Cristal may have still been seeing her married ex-boyfriend, Matthew (Nick Wechsler).  Speaking of Matthew
 Cristal went to visit him that night in order to give him a final goodbye and tell him that she loved Blake. Did this show make me believe for a second that Cristal was going to cheat on Blake with her ex? Yes, 100 percent. Am I upset by this? As someone that lives for the drama, a little bit, yes.

Courtesy: The CW

However, despite all the sexy times that never occurred that night between the two, Michael (Robert Christopher Riley), Blake’s chauffeur, still got a picture of the two looking a little too close for comfort when he followed Cristal for Fallon. The next morning Fallon emailed the pic to her dad in order to stir up trouble, which trouble it did stir. Blake called Matthew to come crash their engagement photo session for a fun moment of confrontation, which ends up momentarily backfiring on Blake when Cristal explains why she went to see Matthew in the first place. This leads to a momentary pause in her and Blake’s engagement.

The pause is almost immediately fixed with their wedding not only being back on, but moved to the day of their engagement party to the surprise of all of the guests who just came for a party. In addition to the surprise wedding, there was another surprise in store for Fallon when she was told that Cristal was taking over the COO position. Not only that, but Cristal also originally turned down the job offer because she didn’t want to upset Fallon, but after actually meeting her Cristal decided she didn’t care anymore. This led to a good old slap fight between the two and Fallon literally tearing apart Cristal’s wedding dress. This ends up not being as heart-wrenching as you would think because it allowed for Cristal to come out in an ICONIC white jumpsuit.

Courtesy: The CW

Even more drama is happening at the same time as the wedding, but off away with Matthew. As Matthew’s last job for Carrington Atlantic, he’s surveying the land for a wind energy company that Blake and Fallon have both been looking at acquiring through the course of the episode. As a part of this survey, Matthew has to check to see if the ground has anything under it worth fracking. However, a little problem happens with one of the trucks that are checking the ground and after Matthew tries to fix it the truck literally blew up on him. If that wasn’t enough, the explosion of the truck hit a windmill that caused the windmill to break into bits and rain down on Matthew’s already injured body. This turn of events causes someone to dramatically crash the tail end of Cristal and Blake’s wedding and ruin the special day for a few people. So far, Dynasty has been full of catfights, steamy affairs, lies, family secrets, and backhanded business deals. Essentially, if you’ve been craving some rich people drama since the end of Gossip Girl this show is here to fill that void for you.

New episodes of Dynasty air at 9 p.m. on The CW every Wednesday after Riverdale!

Elizabeth is an Editing, Writing, and Media and Media/Communications double major at Florida State University who has hopes of working in the publishing or journalism field in the future. When she's not stressing over school or the future she likes to play Stardew Valley and listen to NPR podcasts.
Her Campus at Florida State University.