Beyond the Gates: Heather’s SNEAKY Plot to PIN Smitty?!

Beyond the Gates considers Heather Armstrong (Ashley Jones) could potentially leave Bradley “Smitty” Smith (Mike Manning)’s life in ruins, starting with putting him in a bright orange jumpsuit and changing his address to the local state prison. Smitty may be setting up to take the fall for Lia Whitmore (Cecelia Specht)’s tragic death.

Beyond the Gates: Ashley Targets Matin Too

This could be not only to take down Smitty. But also to destroy the political career of his husband, Martin Richardson (Brandon Claybon). And of course, Joey Armstrong (Jon Lindstrom) is not going to sit by and watch Heather destroy more lives with violence. But this isn’t violence. And it may be too late once Joey even starts to realize that she’s targeting Smitty in this different way.

Because let’s face it, Joey already knows that Heather came to town with a chip on her shoulder about Smitty. He got all those kudos for writing about her plasma ring and that played a big role in getting Heather’s red market ring in San Francisco shut down. That happened recently. And Smitty is still writing articles because he’s determined to expose the identity of the Impaler. So, of course, Heather is livid over this and she wants to stop Smitty and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Heather already had Lia killed to send a message to anybody else involved with the red market ring. Heather’s message was clear. Keep your mouth shut or this could happen to you. But Smitty’s not going to give up and his investigation could force Heather to do something desperate. So, Smitty’s already gotten two of Heather’s operations shut down and Smitty may do it again.

Heather’s Gotta Play it Smart on BTG

More of them may be on the risk of teetering. So, the psycho in Heather is going to surface and she wants to silence Smitty before she loses more of her illegal but very profitable enterprises. And it can’t be just any plan. Heather has to make sure that she has clean hands when she takes down Smitty because let’s face it, if not, Heather would have already just killed Smitty.

But her biggest roadblock is, of course, her brother Joey. Heather doesn’t want to alienate her brother, and another high-profile death in the DMV would likely do that. But Smitty holds Heather’s future in his hands. So every word Smitty writes about the plasma ring, it brings Heather closer to financial ruin and possibly getting busted. So, obviously she’s angry.

Beyond the Gates: Smitty’s Life on the Line

Unfortunately, Heather promised her brother Joey that Lia’s death was a one and one and said she wouldn’t spill any more blood in the DMV. But Heather could get creative and try to kill Smitty in a car accident, something that she can’t be blamed for. And in fact, Heather might have even gotten inspiration for this by pulling a page out of Joey’s playbook and the way he dealt with Doug McBride (Jason Graham). So Heather could arrange for somebody to cut Smitty’s brake lines. And just like with Doug, a fiery crash could kill Smitty.

That would work out great for Heather. But it puts a lot of chance to it because Smitty could survive. And of course, he’s smart enough to realize if his brake lines were cut, the Impaler may be targeting him. Then Smitty might double down on finding out the Impaler’s identity. That could prove even riskier for Heather, especially because her alias being discovered would be disastrous. And there’s no way that Joey would accept that Smitty’s death or car accident was actually an accident.

Joey on to Heather on BTG

It would be way too much of a coincidence for Joey, even if Heather was with Joey at the time of Smitty’s so-called accident. And if Heather harms Smitty, she knows that would infuriate Joey and there’s no telling how her brother would react. At a minimum, he’d probably sever ties with Heather, and that might hurt her because despite being a psycho, she does seem to legit love Joey.

But Heather’s main reason for being in the DMV isn’t to spend time hanging out with her brother Joey. Because we know that Heather wants into Joey’s business, and she also really wants back into Andre Richardson (Sean Freeman)’s bed.

And of course, the primary reason she came was to tie up all those loose ends from the red market ring blowing up in the DMV. Plus, Smitty might not back down, even if he thinks the Impaler is targeting him. And in fact, he may double down. But if Heather goes after Samantha Richardson (Najah Jackson) and Tyrell Richardson (Jaden Lucas Miller) instead, well, that might have Smitty rethinking his approach. If Heather threatens Samantha and Tyrell, it might actually get Smitty to back down off the Impaler.

Beyond the Gates: Nicole Warns Joey

But since Nicole Dupree Richardson (Daphnee Duplaix) just raged at Joey and said to keep Heather away from Samantha and Tyrell, I think if Joey heard the kids were threatened, he would know that Heather was behind it. You have got to wonder if Beyond the Gates is dropping red flags about what is coming.

Heather talking to Samantha Tyrell seemed very much planned and not a coincidence. So, it’d be a good place for Heather to snap a photo of Tyrell and Samantha for a possible new plan. You know, if Heather got a picture of them, she could send it from a new burner phone and taunt Smitty and pretend, well, she actually is the Impaler. But text as the Impaler and directly threaten Samantha and Tyrell’s safety with a nasty text. So, Heather could even threaten all of Smitty’s happy little family and says, “You better stop your investigation.” and that might actually stop the journalist in his tracks.

Or it could just make Smitty more determined to find out the identity of the Impaler and they just bring in more security. And this could have Martin and Smitty butting heads because Smitty may not want to drop the investigation.

But Martin may insist Smitty has to walk away to keep the family safe. But he’s a good investigative journalist and Smitty is on a mission to uncover the truth. So this whole thing with Heather could rock his household to the core in another way that would stop Smitty in his tracks.

Beyond the Gates: Heather Has Help from the Inside

They kind of handed it out a little bit as a hint when Jacob Hawthorne (Jibre Hordges) showed up to interrogate Smitty. Jacob was asking Smitty all kinds of questions about Lia’s death. And since Smitty was the last person from outside the prison to see Lia alive, the cops were very interested to hear what Smitty had to say. And I’m guessing that Heather has contacts not only inside the prison. But also inside the police department.

So, Heather may know that Elon Hawthorne (Malachi Malik) was having Jacob question Smitty. And Heather may think, why not put Smitty behind bars and let him spend the rest of his life in prison since he’s trying to do that to her. You know, Heather may think, I will frame him as the person who killed Lia.

And that would ruin Smitty’s credibility. And then the cops would stop looking for the Impaler as a possible culprit in Lia’s death. This should be easy for Heather because she has somebody inside the prison walls who killed Lia on her commands. It may be an inmate, maybe a corrupt prison employee. But somebody ended Lia’s life with an overdose and then staged it to look like suicide.

Beyond the Gates: Smitty in Lehal Trouble

So Heather could tap that source again and have them make a statement. They saw Smitty give something to Lia, like a packet of pills. They could even have a witness say they overheard Lia saying that Smitty threatened her if she didn’t give up more information about the Impaler and that he said, “You’re either going to come clean to me or take these pills because I won’t stop.” You know, something like that. That way, Smitty could wind up in prison and that would have his journalistic reputation in shreds and it would put an end to his coverage on the Impaler.

And since Heather wants to silence Smitty, you know, she’s got several options in front of her. But framing Smitty as Lia’s killer would ruin Smitty’s life and it would silence him. And most importantly, it would keep Heather in Joey’s good graces because he told Heather, “Don’t kill Smitty.” And Joey also told her, “We don’t target kids. But if Heather frames Smitty for Lia’s death, then she’ll neutralize him and stay within Joey’s guidelines.