Dynasty recap: 'Private as a Circus'

There’s extortion in the air, and everyone’s got something they need from someone else. It’s the first time that’s ever happened on Dynasty, right??

In this week’s episode of ‘daughter tries to screw over father,’ Fallon tries to steal the city of Atlanta’s contract from the hands of Carrington Atlantic and into her own (Morell Corp., named after Alexis). Unfortunately, that contract belongs to a former high school nemesis, Kori, who evidently has the keys to the Atlanta castle but won’t give them to the untrustworthy Carringtons. Jeff Colby steps in to do the heavy lifting on the deal, sweet-talking Kori at a club and setting up the perfect alley-oop for Fallon to do her part — but Fallon blows it all up when she gets distracted at the club with an opportunity to screw over Cristal. The deal falls apart, presumably in the five hours between the end of a club night and the morning, and it’s enough to make Colby and Culhane angry at Fallon’s selfishness, with the latter bedding Kori in an act of frustrated-and-sexy defiance

Elsewhere in the frustrated-and-sexy genre, Sammy Jo overhears Blake freaking out to police chief Stansfield about Matthew’s lost cell phone, signaling that it may be far more important than just as a relic of ancient flip-phone technology. Sammy tries to get it back from his robber friend. Bad move: The robber found a Cristal-Matthew sex tape on it and decides to extort Sammy for $200 grand or he’ll release it. Sammy enlists the help of Steven (who takes the news of Sammy Jo’s casual robber knowledge extremely well); in turn, Steven cuts a deal with Stansfield that pays off the blackmail but also arrests Sammy’s criminal friend.

Innocent and gullible Steven foolishly shows the sex tape to Fallon, who sends a copy to herself (and the world) and gives Steven the terrible advice to extort Stansfield. Wearing a serious face and dad jeans, Steven offers Stansfield the phone in exchange for the cops finding a different suspect to pin Matthew’s murder on…and hours later, jolly Willy is conveniently found dead alongside a suicide note that claims responsibility for the Windbriar explosion. A suspicious Steven, ever the golden heart of the Carrington family, now has another thread to pull.

Meanwhile, the sex tape finds its way around the internet, which Cristal must have known was going to happen sooner than later because of her insistence that she and Blake run away to the woods for the weekend. Even with all this talk of burglary, explosions, and murder investigations, she decides that it’s the perfect time for a surprise honeymoon in the forest. It lasts about one full day before they both get cell service and find Cristal’s sex tape posted online. (I presume this is the rich and scandalous equivalent of turning your phone on after a flight and getting maybe two texts.)

To wrap it all up, Cristal comes clean to Blake about her bad decisions (re: Matthew and the robbery), while Blake digs himself deeper into lying dirt with his latest fib. He claims that Matthew only died because Steven flubbed a safety inspection on the field, and he didn’t want Steven to live with the guilt that he might have caused Matthew’s death. Because, LOL, that definitely sounds like something paragon of truth Blake Carrington would say.