Dynasty recap: 'Guilt Is for Insecure People'

Steven’s cliffhanger arrest doesn’t last long — he’s out on bail, but eyebrows are still raised since Steven gave millions to an ecoterrorist group that could have had the means and motive to blow up Revenge star Matthew. Steven asks Sammy Jo to go on record as his alibi the morning of the murder, but Sammy Jo won’t testify because of his criminal past. Steven then turns to Culhane, who similarly won’t testify but offers his friend some murder-adjacent intel: Blake has Matthew’s phone and there’s a probable certain definite chance that there’s some incriminating evidence on it.

Steven angrily tells Fallon about the phone, which is super convenient because Fallon has been looking for this week’s dose of dirt on Blake (inspired to do so, evidently, by Jeff Colby ordering an “extra dirty” martini, because that’s just the type of deep motivation this show utilizes). Blake’s latest anti-Fallon move is throwing a bogus cease-and-desist on Carrington Windbriar until the firm changes its name — partly for the litigious target that he can put on Fallon’s back, but mainly because he’s just a selfish sack of caviar. Fallon thinks that finding Matthew’s lost phone is the perfect way to score dirt on Blake, but unfortunately, she gets distracted from her mission by sex with Culhane, which is completely understandable. She then decides she doesn’t even want the Carrington name on her company anyway (next week: Carrington Windbriar is now Spectrum!) while Steven remains in the exact same alibi-less position he was in when he got arrested.

Meanwhile, Cristal’s endlessly cryptic and similarly-aged nephew Sammy Jo has received a hysterical call from his mom/Cristal’s sister, who needs help, which translates in most soap operas to “she needs money.” But Anders is watching Cristal closely, taunting her about changing her name, calling her Gollum (!), and forcefully merging her checking account with Blake’s so she can’t secretly dip into the family funds. So Cristal pins her hopes on the Very Expensive Necklace she’s modeling for auction at the annual Carrington Foundation Gala. She debates pocketing the necklace and having Sammy Jo pawn it off, but Venezuelan flashbacks to a 12-years-younger Cristal show us that she once stole a huge sum of money from a nondescript office and tried to use the cash to bring her sister Iris and little nephew Sammy Jo to America. The plan went awry, though, and only Cristal made it to the U.S., with half the money but all the guilt.

The memory impels Cristal to abandon her necklace scheme, and she chooses to remain loyal to Blake and transparently ask him for money instead — but Sammy Jo screws all that up when he takes matters into his own hands and straight-up robs the Carrington house. While masked, he gets into a physical altercation with Steven and Blake (who did an impressive amount of stunt work this week, having already gotten into a passive-aggressive and then aggressive-aggressive war with Colby during the auction). After the robbery, Sammy Jo makes off with some key pieces of jewelry…but as Blake later discovers, Matthew’s definitely problematic phone is also gone, just like the Carrington name might be if anyone discovers what’s on it! Dun dun dun.

Shout out to Fallon for this week’s choice line, “You know what else is bad? Underprivileged kids’ educations getting ruined because you were too stressed to get yourself a blowout.” And an even bigger shout-out to Alexis Carrington for having the audacity to teach Steven how to play “Tainted Love” on the piano.