Dynasty (CW Reboot): (Episode 1x01 “I Hardly Recognized You”)

Right off the bat, I would like to start this review by saying that I’ve been having so much fun posting my thoughts about daytime soap operas on Twitter/X that I’ve decided to experiment with reviewing episodes of the CW reboot of Dynasty that ran from 2017 to 2022. That being said, here are my thoughts on the first episode of the series, episode 1x01 “I Hardly Recognized You”.

 

For a series opening episode, I definitely felt the episode had a lot going on and a lot to accomplish, both in good ways and in bad ways. The episode definitely felt chaotic in entertaining ways, since it’s a nighttime soap opera, but at other times, it felt like it was being too chaotic in a bad way, having too much going on in the episode.

 

Even though Dynasty is supposed to be an ensemble show, episode 1x01 definitely did a fantastic job of painting Fallon as “the star of the show,” given how well Elizabeth Gillies plays the part. I really loved the back and forth that Fallon had with many of the characters throughout the episode, and I LOVED the conflict between her and Cristal throughout the episode, with the two of them even getting into a rather hilarious catfight at one point during the episode. I think it’s safe to say that the conflict between them is going to continue in future episodes.

 

This series clearly is already bursting at the seams with family drama. Fallon definitely didn’t take the news of Blake and Cristal’s engagement well AT ALL! She was also pretty pissed off when Blake named Cristal the new COO of Carrington Atlantic. There was also plenty of tension between Blake and Steven to last many future episodes; much of it stemming from the fact that Steven is gay. Blake sent Steven to meet with someone about a business proposal because Blake knew that the businessman was gay. Steven was furious with Blake for doing this, of course. When Steven went to meet with a businessman, he ended up hooking up with a guy he found out later on in the episode is actually Cristal’s nephew, Sammy Jo. I personally loved this reveal!

This is probably a good time to talk about the fact that I really enjoyed and appreciate the ways the creators of the reboot have attempted to put their own spin on Dynasty, such as by making Cristal Latino, and doing a gender swap on Cristal’s nephew, Sammy Jo, and making him a guy.

 

It’s definitely really difficult for me to say which character I found the most intriguing in this episode. Cristal really fascinated me in many ways, especially given her clearly shady past, which the Carrington family butler, Anders, is apparently aware of. I also found Fallon really intriguing, due to all of the romantic entanglements that she clearly has going on.

 

Cristal definitely still had some romantic business going on with Matthew, which Blake found out about, so he had Matthew killed in a suspicious explosion. To make things even more complicated, and to end the episode on a dramatic note, Matthew’s mentally unstable wife, Claudia, showed up as Blake and Cristal were leaving for their honeymoon to accuse Blake of killing Matthew. Personally, I thought that was an excellent way to end the first episode of the series and to get the viewers hooked on the show!

 

This episode definitely was full of soap opera-awesomeness. I loved Fallon eating the bride’s head off the wedding cake topper. I also loved the cat fight between Fallon and Cristal, with Fallon even ripping part of what I’m assuming was originally going to be Cristal’s wedding dress for her wedding to Blake. I do think that perhaps the show could have benefitted from a two-part series premiere, if the network had granted them one, just to keep the episode from feeling like the writers were trying to cram so much all into the first episode, such as the conflict surrounding Blake and Cristal’s upcoming wedding, and then having them actually get married all in the first episode; not to mention the other storylines that were featured throughout the episode. I just felt like that could have easily been broken up into two episodes, if not more than that.

 

All things considered, despite its flaws, “I Hardly Recognized You” is a rather solid first episode to the series. It definitely got the soap opera lover in me hooked on the Dynasty reboot, and I’m really looking forward to watching more episodes in the future.

That being said, my score for episode 1x01 “I Hardly Recognized You” is 7 out of 10.