The Unanswered Questions of Beyond the Gates, Part 4: Who's Ashley's dad?

Hang in there, lovers of Beyond the Gates! We're coming to the end of this latest rerun week, and that has us just four days out from new episodes on our screens of choice. We'll learn if Allison sliced up Chelsea like her wedding cake, if Ted (nuTed, not the original you're watching now in repeats) played Leslie by giving her his house, and if Jacob, Kat, and Madison really got up close and personal with a truck on their way to Virginia. In the meantime, since it's hard to look forward, many of us are looking back over this new successful sudser and making queries and observations about details that might have slipped by in day-to-day viewing. Ashley Morgan is one of fans' least favorite characters (through no fault of portrayer Jen Jacob, who in each episode dedicatedly gives us what's on the page) – but what if the reason Ash is bland is because she's involuntarily fighting back darker genetic impulses? After all, we don't know who her father is...or do we? Let's go beyond the gates of Ashley's DNA!

Sugar and spice and maybe not nice on Beyond the Gates

As character histories go, we know precious little about Ashley's. We are privy to the fact that her mom is the turquoise-loving Jan Morgan, and she's giving hippie in every scene. Maybe the flower child thing isn't just fashion – maybe she was more of a free spirit coming up, and that's why Jan taught Ashley to be more rigid and to be a seeker of stability. Did Jan not, just a few weeks ago, encourage Ash to take Derek back after that relationship was dead, dead, dead, mainly because of his reliability?

Now, there is only an assumption there that Jan's last name is Morgan. We don't know if she was married, if she gave her daughter a boyfriend's last name, or if that's the maiden moniker she goes by. An important clue, because it tips the scale of Ashley's paternity in one way or the other. The only additional major detail we've been told about Jan is that she worked within Fairmont Crest at one point (doing what was not made clear). Oh – and that there was once a man in Jan's life who rejected her, despite Jan changing herself to earn the man's love.

Yeah, it's understandable why Jan might not have wanted to pass on that particular codependent trait. And it's not to say that this dude is the cad who fathered Ashley. The man whose child Jan carried could have been the sweetest, the nicest – but if that's so, why didn't he stick around? On-screen tellings have also let us know that Jan largely raised Ashley as a single parent. Did this dude beef it?

If Jan subscribed to the free love aspects of hippiedom, her daughter's father could be anybody. (Talking to you, B&B's Poppy, though she got around her promiscuity by bedding down with her adoptive nephew. As you do.) Yet what if the opposite is true – that Jan's heart was broken into so many pieces by her paramour that she just has never been able to bring herself to get involved again? Jan's single, we know that – and the surface level impression is that she's been flying solo for quite some time.

Here's a working theory: suppose Ashley's father...is Joey Armstrong?! (I'll wait a minute while you clean up your spit take.) Hey, nothing says it couldn't be – especially with the only specific man in Jan's past to be mentioned is the one she pointlessly reinvented herself for. And doesn't Joey seem just like the kinda guy who could hit it and quit it? Maybe Jan toiled as a waitress at the casino or worked one of the gambling tables, then took a shine to the big boss. Vanessa can tell you he's charismatic as hell. And how about, after a brief fling, he just decided he was done with Jan? Either he could have dumped her for being pregnant, or he could have been so awful that she never bothered to tell him he was going to be a father.

This would also track because of just how goody-two-shoes Ashley is. Think the pre-Thomas Hope Logan, again of B&B, who for years was saccharine as all get out in contrast to daddy Deacon Sharpe's reprobate corpuscles pulsing through her veins. It's not absolutely established that Ashley knows who her papa is; she could be unwittingly compensating for having a dark side – aided by Jan concealing a desperate attempt to not have her (presumably) only child turn out like that rotten escort service proprietor.

If there's merit to this line of family tree tracing, wouldn't it be a kick for Ashley to discover just how murky her gene pool is? Maybe she mouths off to Shanice one time too many and gets fired from the hospital, and, out of desperation, she takes a job at the casino. Even falls into the clutches of Heart Attach just because it makes more money. Joey, of course, not knowing he even has a daughter, doesn't take notice of the name Ashley Morgan being in his service. But then he has to rescue her from say, a rough customer, and it leads to them finding out they're related! Imagine the shocktastic drama! And it could very well jolt Ashley out of her Pollyanna personality.

What do you think, y'all? Did Joey and Jan git jiggy wit it? Is Ashley the secret love child of this show's version of a mob boss? Or do you think pop is somebody completely different? Fill out the Father's Day card known as the comments below!

Trending

Come back tomorrow as Soap Central explores another unanswered question about Beyond the Gates!

Beyond the Gates is currently rerunning episodes from May on CBS, but all episodes are available for streaming on Paramount Plus. New episodes will resume Monday, September 8th.

×

Was this article helpful?

Thank You for feedback