The
deaths of Santa Barbara Singapore 1990 : Lionel Lockridge's false death
|
|
|
|
At the instigation of the
new executive producer John Conboy, the Lockridge clan, rival of the Capwells
for generations, slowly becomes reformed during the year of 1990 after its
members left one by one, over the years, the city of
Santa Barbara
.
Augusta
is the first one to come back to
Santa Barbara
, to find Julia, her sister. A while earlier, she attended, powerless, at the
fire of the Lockridge family's ancestral mansion; the fire was lit by Laura
Asher, mad with jealousy. If the fire did not have victims, the villa and the
pieces of art which it contained disappeared fo ever.
During the year 1990,
slowly, the other members of the family are going to make their return: Laken
will be the first one to come back on the occasion of the death of her father,
and then Minx will be back a few months later. And it will be necessary to wait
for 1991 to find
Warren
(at the same time of his return, we shall see Laken leaving towards other
horizons).
One of the most curious
comebacks regarding the members of this family is without a doubt Lionel's. In
this year of 1990, he comes back with the firm intention to deceive his forever
rival, C.C. Capwell: the un-avowed objective is to steal his paintings and to
resell them afterwards.
It is together with her new
young devoted admirer, Mack Blake, that
Augusta
learns by a telegram the terrible news: Lionel Lockridge, her ex-husband, died
in
Singapore
in a car accident (episode 1471) in very vague circumstances.
Augusta
, although divorced for years, is really annihilated by this news. A part of her,
throughout these years, did not manage to forget the madness of these moments of
common life with Lionel (even if she married Anthony Tonell meanwhile).
Apparently helpless by the
information,
Augusta
collapses when she learns the terrible news. Incapable to get in touch with the
Singapore
official services (selfishly or by sadness),
Augusta
asks her sister Julia to take care of all the formalities for the repatriation
of her deceased husband's body to the
United States
. She then learns that Lionel was cremated. Disorientated,
Augusta
becomes enraged with everything and everybody, and it is Mack who brings her
some comfort and support.
A little later
Augusta
receives the ashes of her ex-husband, at the same time Laken comes back to town,
on the occasion of her father's death.
Warren
, as for him, will not find this as a motive enough to return to
Santa Barbara
: we shall learn later that he was also in the
Middle East
, together with Cassandra Benedict. With Laken's return (episode 1475),
we learn that
Augusta
lied to her sister to justify her absence at Julia's wedding with Mason
Capwell: Laken has never had a baby. In reality,
Augusta
did not attend her sister's wedding, preferring to go to Greek islands together
with Tonell. Laken
does not succeed in realizing her father's death, as far as she spoke to him a
few months earlier, by phone.
It is Julia, who belongs by marriage to the Capwell
clan, who tells C.C. and Sophia about Lionel's death. Sophia is visibly upset by
the death of her former lover, who knew how to become over the years a true
friend. She has to, because of her sadness, again and again justify herself to
C.C. on her friendly relationships, devoid of any ambiguousness, with Lionel.
Augusta
quickly sees Lionel's ashes arriving from
Singapore
, which curiously are accompanied with a box and with a note from Lionel who
asks her to give it to C.C. Capwell. After learning the news, C.C., quite as
Augusta
, is very intrigued, wondering about the nature of what Lionel was able to hand
down to him. He eventually discusses it with Sophia. And, it is together with
his daughter Kelly that C.C. opens the box. It contains two letters. In the
first letter, Lionel implores their respective children to make peace between
their families, in spite of all the actions which occurred and which can make
their parents still today. The second letter is much more personal, because it
is a very old letter from Sophia, written when she decided to put an end to
their affair to marry C.C.. In her letter, Sophia writes that her heart always
belonged to C.C. and never to Lionel.
Certainly touched by Lionel's letter, or avid to please
Sophia, C.C. proposes to
Augusta
to lend her his mansion, so that she can offer a ceremony in Lionel’s memory.
This ceremony cannot be held in the Lockridge villa, because of the fire which
completely destroyed it a few months earlier. To attend this ceremony,
Augusta
invited Lionel's friends from four corners of the Earth (and in particular from
very remote places, memories of places of a life of adventure and exploring):
they appear as most improper to the Capwell mansion, because we see black men
painted with all colors. During the ceremony, as an omen of what is going to
follow,
Augusta
accidentally knocks down the urn containing Lionel's ashes. His ashes find
themselves scattered here and there on the ground of the Capwell mansion!
At the end of the ceremony,
Augusta
leaves the Capwell villa. She gets in the limousine which waited for her (episode
1479). Seeing the chauffeur,
Augusta
faints. Her chauffeur turns out to be Lionel! After the big moment of
astonishment,
Augusta
, as usual, gets angry with Lionel, blaming him for his behavior. It is
necessary to wait for a moment before
Augusta
calms down, and before Lionel can explain his plan. Because Lionel Lockridge
has an idea in mind, an idea which has to allow the Lockridges to find a part of
their fortune back, to the detriment of the Capwells, naturally.
The project invented by
Lionel is of the simplest form: to steal C.C. Capwell's paintings and to resell
them to a collector in
Macao
. Lionel reminds
Augusta
that years ago, he sold paintings to C.C.. These ones being only copies, Lionel
intends to steal them, to be able to use the originals afterwards which are
hidden in the tunnel connecting the Capwell villa with the Lockridge villa.
Augusta
eventually accepts Lionel's
return, and she even agrees to assist him with his project. Of course, to be
able to lead his project full-term, Lionel needs to still remain dead to the
world.
It is in the middle of the
rubble of their former house that Augusta and Lionel discover the sad reality:
they cannot reach the tunnel by the secret entrance located in the cellar
anymore, because of the works. The only possible access is in the Capwell
mansion.
Augusta
helps Lionel to discreetly edge his way into the villa so that he can pursue
his plan: to get back the Lockridge name the past fortune and glory.
Naturally, nothing happens
as Lionel had imagined it. Gina and her mother Phyllis are the first ones to
thwart Lionel's plans. Then, C.C. discovers very fast Lionel and Gina's curious
ploys around his masterpieces. He then has the idea to start a new plan to get
rid of Gina and Lionel at the same time. In the end, Lionel's plan turns around
against him: he loses the Lockridge mansion to the benefit of his worst enemy,
further to the payment of the ransom to free
Augusta
from the hands of the collector of
Macao
.
If Lionel's false death allows the Lockridge clan to re-form
and to restore the life to the most eccentric couple of the city, it does not
allow Lionel to change the course of the fate and to deceive his forever rival,
as J.R. Ewing was able to do it in J.R. Returns: he uses his false death to receive his life insurance
and to take back the control of his oil company... In spite of his resurrection,
Lionel always remains Lionel… He fails in his conquest of glory. And again,
C.C. Capwell has the upper hand over him, almost annihilating this time his
rivals by taking up the title deed of the Lockridge mansion, title deed which he
desired for years...
Text
written for this site by Lilian