When Beyond the Gates debuted back in February, there was no question in my mind that Bill (Timon Kyle Durrett) was the new big bad villain of daytime.
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He left his longtime wife, Dani (Karla Mosley), for the best friend of his daughter, and then strong-armed the Duprees, including Dani, to attend his wedding. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s constantly making sure to throw Hayley (Marquita Goings) in Dani’s face, bringing her to the country club and moving her into a home near Dani’s house. For all of that, Bill didn’t start the show off as my favorite person.
However, as he’s been “nicer” to Dani, has made strides to repair his relationships with his daughters, suffered a stroke and the emergence of Leslie (Trisha Mann-Grant) as the real villain of Fairmont Crest, Bill has become less problematic for me. However, you wouldn’t know that the way Ted (Keith Robinson), Martin (Brandon Claybon) and the Dupree clan have been blasting him lately.
First, Ted and the Duprees unloaded on Bill for his role in trying to make Leslie disappear and hide Ted’s affair. I thought that was a bit unfair, as they acted like Bill had the affair on Nicole (I mean, he’s definitely cheated on Dani, but this moment was not about that).
Bill was only doing a favor for Ted, his brother-in-law and friend at the time. Additionally, it may sound like an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think he was required to tell Ted’s secret to the Dupree family, so him keeping tight-lipped for decades wasn’t problematic.
Now this brings me to this whole ordeal with Martin. Years ago, when Bill stepped in to help cover up Martin’s crime, he was doing so on Vernon’s (Clifton Davis) orders. Vernon is the one who launched this whole cover-up scheme. And to his credit, we can understand him wanting to protect his grandchild from facing a potential murder trial for defending him from a racially motivated attack. However, it was also Vernon, along with Ted, who decided to keep Nicole (Daphnée Duplaix) out of the loop.
Fast forward to the recent developments of the Martin saga, and all the Duprees blame Bill for Kenny’s (Jason Vendryes) demise, as if Ted pulled the trigger. Kenny was the one blackmailing Martin, and Vernon, Martin and Ted voiced their concern to Bill to handle the situation, knowing Bill had close ties with mobster Joey Armstrong (Jon Lindstrom) and he’d rely on Joey’s services to deal with Kenny.
I should also note, Bill didn’t give Joey a kill order, but stressed that Joey handle the situation. Legally, he has plausible deniability. So again, not a fan of Martin, Vernon, Ted and now Nicole blasting Bill for fixing the problems the Duprees keep bringing to his doorstep. After all, they seek him out knowing he may color outside of the lines to make things go away.
It’s also not lost on me that Bill now feels hurt by Vernon constantly viewing Bill as just some fixer or attack dog. Bill admitted he used to look at Vernon as a father figure and sought his approval. So he finds it painful to come to this unfortunate revelation.
With all that being said, I’m a firm believer that the Dupree/Richardson clan will again be in need of Bill’s services, and I can’t wait to see him decline their request for help. He should let them fend for themselves since they have such a problem with the way he does business.
New episodes of Beyond the Gates air weekdays on CBS and become available to stream the day after on Paramount Plus.
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