Nicole Learns Martin’s Story on the July 18 Beyond the Gates – Can the Duprees Repair the Damage Done?

One of the things that makes Beyond the Gates so great is its ability to provide deep conversations that are often painful and devastating but truly satisfying. That’s what happened between Nicole and Anita during the Friday, July 18 episode.

Nicole Finally Finds Out

Nicole (Daphnée Duplaix) wanted the truth from Martin (Brandon Claybon), but Martin didn’t have the bandwidth to tell his mom. He had just split up with Smitty (Mike Manning) and learned about Kenneth’s (Jason Vendreyes) death, and he was done. So Anita (Tamara Tunie) took it upon herself to lay it all out for Nicole.

And the talk didn’t go well. Nicole listened to everything that happened. Granted, she had to learn about what happened two years ago from someone who wasn’t there. It wasn’t Anita’s firsthand experience here. But the matriarch did her best to convey the horror of what happened the night that Martin, Nicole’s son, killed a man and disfigured another.

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READ THIS: Here’s what’s coming up next week on BTG.

Nicole was understandably hurt and devastated over what happened to her son. She knew it was a traumatic experience that caused invisible scars. What she didn’t understand was how nobody told her. That her husband, Ted (Keith D. Robinson), knew and even performed reconstructive plastic surgery on the man that Martin disfigured. And she didn’t know.

Being a psychiatrist, she was the one with the tools to help her son cope with what happened. And before Nicole left her parents’ house, she couldn’t come to terms with it. She compared the Duprees to some sort of mafia-like family who lived by their own rules. And she wondered whether they kept quiet to save face. Anita attempted to make her understand that it was never about how their family looked, that it was about protecting Martin.

READ THIS: Check out what’s happening on the Monday, July 21 episode of BTG.

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And Nicole left things in such a bad way. This scenario, plus Ted keeping secret about his affair with Leslie, has shaken Nicole to her core. She wondered what it was about her that made her family keep all these secrets from her. She tried to analyze what was wrong with her to explain being kept out of the loop. It frustrated her because she knew she could have helped.

And now Nicole is going to get more answers. She will have to talk to Martin and get his perspective. And she’s going to confront Ted, who, with this, shows that keeping secrets from Nicole is a pattern, not just a one-off. Nicole feels blindsided by this. Plus, she’s still probably feeling a type of way after learning about Dani (Karla Mosley) and Andre (Sea Freeman), who kept their relationship a secret from her.

Will the Duprees be able to repair the bonds that are currently stretched to their limits? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

READ THIS: Got a soap prediction that’s too good to keep? [email protected] spark our upcoming discussion.s in the comments.