Dynasty recap: 'Company Slut'

Remember that promotion Cristal received, in which Blake named her the new COO a minimally invasive number of hours after marrying her? You’re not alone in thinking perhaps that was just a dream. This week, Cristal finally has a work-related story line to seemingly prove to the audience, “Yes, this is definitely a plot that’s still happening on our show!”

Unfortunately, the board members at Carrington Atlantic aren’t too receptive to Cristal’s new story line. After all, they are sensible people living in a non-sensible world, and it makes sense that the women who work at a company run by a thorough pig are especially reticent to embrace their big boss’s clichéd mode of career bump for their new boss. One woman, Kylie, tells Cristal that she resents how the promotion sets women’s merit achievements back in the workplace (and reminds us of the very important point that Mike Pence won’t dine with any woman without Mother present). Another colleague, Deirdre, goes a different route and expresses concern directly to Blake, sympathetically offering to replace Cristal as interim COO in the interest of upset clients. In what she perceives to be her grand sign of strength, Cristal randomly promotes Kylie to head of PR in honor of how Kylie told the truth to her face, rather than professionally behind her back like Deirdre. Come on, Deirdre, this is Dynasty. There’s no sensible behavior on Dynasty. Also, was Deirdre even lobbying for head of PR? How does a person exist in the same pool of candidates to be either head of PR or COO? Also are these the only two jobs that Carrington Atlantic has?

Anyway, the big drama this week is another schism between successful working women: Atlanta Digest’s upcoming Women in Business spread features both Fallon and Cristal, with both vying for the coveted Woman of the Year title. Fallon is touched when she finds out that Colby submitted her for consideration. Cristal, meanwhile, starts to believe that her recent sex tape might put her out of the running, so she tries to work the knock-off Miranda Priestly editor-in-chief and suggests splitting the award between all ten candidates. When Fallon gets ignored by the EIC, she pulls out her trump card and threatens to call up the publisher’s daughter if she’s not crowned.

So, surprise, Fallon scores the cover — but another cover is blown when she sort of indirectly (and, really, very unbelievably) reveals to Cristal that she leaked the sex tape, causing Cristal to spray her with Cristal (the most poignant this show will probably ever get, if we’re being honest). Fallon can brush off the bubbles and the catfight, yes, but Blake has a far more explosive reaction when he finds out the news later. He actually throws Fallon out of the house, excommunicating her from mansion privileges until at least episode 6.

Distraught, Fallon turns to Culhane, but he’s also benched her, still upset that she only considers him her boyfriend when it benefits her. Fallon tries to apologize and spend the night, but Culhane knows it’s another furtive way of being used — Blake had already called ahead and asked him to help her move out. So the only person Fallon has left is Colby, but he’s also peeved because Fallon selfishly left out his business partner in her Woman of the Year acceptance speech.

The good thing to come out of all of this (other than Kylie’s promotion!): Cristal has a moral epiphany. Her rivalry with Fallon and the other office women has made her realize that perhaps she treats people just as terribly as they treat her. It’s mostly evident when Claudia, Matthew’s wife (who I thought had some sort of amnesia disease in the pilot? ), accosts Blake and Cristal in the Carrington-Atlantic lobby, lightly accusing Blake of murder and pointing a violently wagging finger at Cristal. Once Cristal realizes later that she’s actually pretty guilty of all of these accusations, she decides to go to Claudia’s house and apologize. Claudia, of course, rejects this plea, not the least of which because both Matthew and her friend Willy are now dead under incredibly Carrington circumstances (and Claudia obviously also watched the sex tape on FallonVEVO like everyone else in the Atlanta area). So no, Cristal did not get Claudia’s forgiveness, nor is she likely to since Blake SUDDENLY HITS CLAUDIA WITH HIS CAR. It’s presented as a complete accident, which is somehow even worse than if he premeditated it, honestly, because it just shows that rich people should not be allowed to drive. A universal rule of thumb is that the nicer the car, the worse the driver.

Also, Steven’s former-addict former-lover comes to town and sleeps with Sammy Jo after being rejected by Steven. But of course, Steven forgives Sam, who continues to be the absolute worst character on Wednesday night primetime, and the sick dance begins once more.