Beyond the Gates Recap, September 25, 2025: What happened in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas and Marcel widowed Vanessa

Here's what went down Thursday, September 25, 2025 on Beyond the Gates when Jacob's nose worked overtime, Bill had a fit of the conniption kind, and Marcel confirmed that he had cashed Doug out.

What happened on Beyond the Gates

On Beyond the Gates, Anita was deep in thought as Vernon described an Entertainment Tonight piece that explored who should play The Articulettes should there be a biopic about the group. Vernon finally noticed his wife's distraction and learned she was thinking about making sure someone paid for hurting one of their girls. Nicole entered and assured her mother that Ted had done nothing new to pain her; she wasn't the daughter who needed worrying about. “What has Dani gone and done now?” Anita asked, exasperated.

“Lord, have mercy,” Vernon exclaimed as Nicole showed her parents the photo that the Anita impersonator who had performed Andre and Dani's marriage had posted. The former senator wondered if someone had created a deepfake, but Nicole recognized Dani's outfit, while Anita sniffed that the doppelgänger looked nothing like her. “Thinking before she acts out has never been Dani's strong suit,” Nicole offered, agreeing with Anita that Dani had once again done something rash in response to Bill and predicting that Dani would stay stuck in that cycle unless she made a conscious effort to break it.

Vernon made a call to the Duprees' “kick-ass publicist” and announced that the man would keep Dani's marriage out of the press. Nicole felt it was too late, since the wedding photo was on social media and had already scored 10,000 hits.

Dani rolled her suitcase into her house, wondering to the equally hungover Andre if the room was spinning. Andre didn't answer her question about needing Alcoholics Anonymous, instead wanting to collapse on her couch; she objected, pondering what they were going to do about the fact that they were married. Dani moved to call her lawyer to invalidate their union before the press – or her family – found out about it.

Andre agreed to keep quiet, sharing Dani's contention that the family didn't need any more chaos. “Could you not refer to my sister as 'Aunt Nicole' until after our marriage is annulled?” Dani winced. She knew the media wouldn't care if there was no blood relation between them; they would hype it anyway. After Dani also anguished over what Chelsea and Naomi would have to say, Andre intuited that Dani was more concerned about Bill's reaction. Dani wouldn't deny it but turned things around on Andre, curious how Andre would handle it when Ashley clued in to their nuptials.

As Dani and Andre went over how real they could be with each other, they each noted that being married to each other wasn't actually so bad. However, when Nicole summoned Andre without giving him a reason why, Dani worried that her sister might have been altered to their ceremony; Andre reckoned the visit would have something to do with Ted. “Go before I marry you again,” Dani cracked.

“Hi, Auntie,” Andre greeted Nicole as he walked into the Dupree mansion. “Don't you mean 'sister-in-law'?” the psychiatrist corrected. Anita showed him her double's post; Andre was upset that “Anita” hadn't gotten their permission to post a photo of him and Dani, let alone take one, which confused Vernon. The patriarch frowned that Andre should be more bothered by the fact that he had married his daughter while drunk. Anita and Nicole were both disappointed in Andre, having expected better from him.

Andre insisted that he cared about Dani, that there had been no coercion, and that neither he nor his new wife owed anyone an explanation. The photographer said that the wedding was on him, but Nicole felt that Andre was covering for Dani and her legendary spontaneity. The soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. Richardson boiled that Dani wasn't the only family member going through something and that they would all appreciate not being further pulled into Dani's drama. Andre expressed his regret and tried to soothe the Duprees by letting them know that Dani was working on an annulment.

Once Andre left, Vernon felt that Dani's immediate action to invalidate her marriage showed growth, but Nicole was sure there would always be a new Dani crisis over the horizon. Nicole had to admit it bothered her that Andre had just shown more loyalty to Dani than Ted had shown to her.

Hayley called Caroline to inform her she was working from home, with Bill walking in as she mentioned how he'd said it “wasn't true” about Joey and Vanessa. Bill commented that Hayley hadn't liked it when she had been the subject of gossip, but Hayley remembered that there had been truth in the rumors about their relationship. The lawyer lied that Vanessa and Joey weren't involved, adding that she and Doug were solid as far as he knew.

After Hayley took note of Dani's days-long silence but assumed it was the calm before another storm, Bill was certain that Dani had heard him loud and clear about there being no chance for a reunion between them. Hayley hoped that meant Dani would find a relationship of her own. Bill didn't put stock in Dani moving on in the immediate future. “Because you're just so hard to get over?” Hayley sassed. Bill told Hayley that his marriage to Dani had been over long before he had served her with divorce papers; he had most assuredly loved her for a time, but Dani's emotional connection to him had always been intense.

The Hamiltons sparred over Mars/Venus approaches to breakups and compartmentalizing; Hayley couldn't dispute it when Bill predicted that Dani may never be completely over him. As Bill packed up his briefcase in preparation to head to the office, Hayley grabbed her phone and read a text from Caroline, which included a link to the post about Dani marrying Andre. Showing it to Bill, Hayley said that Dani had been able to move on a lot quicker than he had theorized.

Bill was annoyed when Hayley cheered, “You go, Dani!” Hayley said there was no need for her to be as petty as Dani had been and took Bill to task when he referred to Dani as “family.” To her mind, Dani was Bill's former family, and Andre's current one. When Bill continued to fret, Hayley became animated and called his response a red flag. “You mean your two grown-ass daughters?” she huffed as Bill claimed he was worried about how Chelsea and Naomi would cope with the development.

Hayley relented regarding Chelsea, acknowledging that her step-daughter was still processing the trauma of her kidnapping – though Hayley didn't think the news would impede her recovery. Bill fumed that Dani needing to be the center of attention threatened to upend the normalcy Chelsea was starting to feel again and that the news coverage was going to be hellacious. Hayley wanted to be sure that was the only reason for Bill's upset, but he was tired of continually having to reassure Hayley of his devotion. Bill left for the office without his briefcase. “You better not compartmentalize me,” Hayley seethed to herself.

Dani realized the Anita impersonator had exposed her and Andre and got on the phone to her lawyer in an attempt to contain it while the annulment was being processed. Bill stormed in, asking, “Who was that? TMZ looking for a quote?” Dani frowned when Bill said she had lost her mind by marrying a man half her age.

After Dani ordered Bill to leave, Bill put the Vegas photo in her face. Dani smirked about its lighting and composition, then smoldered that her days of explaining herself to her ex were over. Hayley had to deal with Bill now, and Dani advised him to run home because his “child bride” was probably waiting for him to “slice bananas into her Frosted Flakes.” Bill railed at the hypocrisy of Dani mocking Hayley's age, given Andre's, commanding Dani to grow up and start thinking about how her actions affected their daughters – she needed to have the marriage invalidated before Naomi and Chelsea found out about it. “Score,” Dani grinned to herself after Bill left, steaming.

Bill returned to Hayley to retrieve his briefcase, but she was extremely displeased that he hadn't remembered it on his way to the office – he had remembered it after leaving Dani's. Meanwhile, Andre went back to Dani's and was puzzled to see her reacting so calmly to his news that her parents and sister were aware of their marriage. “What's done is done,” Dani said, circumspect. Andre conveyed how he had stood up for her and apprised her relatives that their union was being terminated. Dani smiled. “How would you feel about staying married a little longer?” she asked Andre mischievously.

At the police precinct, Marcel overheard Jacob leaving the latest of several messages for Vanessa, whom he was anxious to talk to. Malone speculated on how “the wife” would take “the news.” Jacob found the question insensitive and predicted that Vanessa's world was about to fall apart.

In Puerto Rico, Vanessa moaned in orgasm, prompting Joey to deduce that she had enjoyed their latest round of lovemaking. Joey wanted to have another go; Vanessa paused just long enough to check her phone for messages. She saw the string of notifications from Jacob and called him, afraid something had happened to one of the twins. As Joey watched, Jacob sadly advised her that Doug had been killed in a car accident.

Vanessa was struck dumb as Jacob relayed how Doug had apparently been driving under the influence and had perished in a car fire after he'd gone off the road into a ravine. Mrs. McBride was stoically glad to hear that Doug hadn't suffered and agreed to return to D.C. as soon as Jacob asked her to come to the station to make a positive ID. Joey seemed troubled as Vanessa cried to him that her husband was dead.

Joey told the nearly hyperventilating Vanessa that the police wouldn't have given her such news if it wasn't based in fact. “Doug died thinking I was mad at him,” Vanessa sobbed, recalling their final conversation. Joey was positive that Doug loved his wife until the end, but Vanessa railed that Doug hadn't thought about her or their children by driving drunk – and she needed to call them. Vanessa was sickened that Doug had burned to death in a fire, causing Joey to ask what else she had learned from Jacob; Vanessa couldn't answer.

Vanessa was inconsolable as Joey swore that she and her kids would come out of the tragedy intact. She screamed that she knew Joey and everyone else thought that she was a terrible wife – and she could hardly argue the fact since she'd been having sex with another man while her husband was lying dead in a ditch. “What kind of person does that make me, Joey?” Vanessa asked, glassy-eyed. Joey held Vanessa not responsible for Doug getting intoxicated and driving when he shouldn't have been. His death had been an accident.

“Did you have a hand in this, Joey?” Vanessa put to the casino owner, who replied that while he'd had no respect for Doug, that didn't mean he wanted Doug dead. Vanessa stiffly recognized that Joey had been pushing Doug's buttons, but Joey stated that hurting Doug would mean hurting Vanessa, which he added he would never do. Armstrong affirmed that he “unequivocally” had had nothing to do with Doug's demise.

Vanessa apologized for her suspicion, looking to hindsight to determine if pushing Doug into recovery for his addictions would have spared him his life. Joey didn't think that what-ifs would help the widow, especially with her having to face telling Donnell and Deanna that their father was gone; Armstrong recommended that Vanessa take a hot shower while he packed for the return trip home. Vanessa quietly thanked Joey for taking care of her and remarked that she couldn't get through the adversity without him.

Marcel told Jacob that breaking news of death never got easier but was indifferent about the McBrides' “so-called marriage.” “Karma's a bitch,” Marcel decided as he and Jacob discussed the whispers about Vanessa cheating on Doug. The detective also felt that Doug had sealed his own fate by getting behind the wheel drunk. As Jacob finished up his report, he couldn't rationalize why the drunken Doug had taken his car in the middle of the night instead of calling a rideshare service. “Because drunk makes you stupid,” Marcel scoffed.

Doug was a lush, Marcel said, calling the man's case “a simple DUI.” Jacob, however, felt something was off. After Jacob was called away to a crime scene, Marcel phoned Joey and reported that everything had gone as planned – Doug's death would be viewed as an accident by everyone.

Beyond the Gates airs weekdays on CBS and streams on Paramount Plus.