Thirteen years after If There Be Thorns, Cathy and Chris arrive at Foxworth Hall, which has been rebuilt by Bart, for his 25th birthday party. Bart has remained obsessed with Malcolm and has an estranged relationship with his mother and uncle due to their incestuous relationship, and even changes his last name to Foxworth to keep his distance from them. Jory and his wife, Melodie, arrive to announce she is pregnant with twins. Everyone but Bart is excited of the news, and Bart is jealous of Jory because he lusts for Melodie.
The next day, Cindy arrives and bart welcomes her with contempt. At the birthday party, Jory and Cindy perform a ballet for the guests but Jory is injured in an accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down and ends his dance career. Melodie is distraught and says she cant live with a husband who cant dance and make love to her again. Cindy suspects that Bart is responsible for the incident due to him upgrading his insurance policy on the day of the accident.
Bart denies this to Cathy and Chris, but they don't believe him. Several hours pass before the police arrive to inform the family of Chris' accident and death. This causes Bart to realize his wrongdoings and how he has pushed people away.
He realizes his love for Cindy and confesses to her when she comes home for Chris' funeral. Bart remorsefully gives a moving eulogy at Chris' funeral and is thankful to Chris for raising him when he did not need to. In the end, Cathy reveals that her children led successful lives away from Foxworth Hall.
Jory thrives in his recovery, has married Toni, and they are raising the twins and expecting a child together. However, Cathy chooses to remain at Foxworth Hall as she continues to mourn the loss of her beloved Chris. One day, she goes up to the attic, sits by a window and, as she envisions yellow paper flowers, there is an implication that she had died of a broken heart. As months pass with Jory hospitalized and Melodie becoming more depressed, Bart takes advantage of her vulnerable state and seduces her.
When Jory comes home, Corrine's will is read and Bart is enraged to learn that he will inherit the Foxworth estate only on his 35th birthday, leaving Chris as the guardian of his money until then. Cathy discovers Bart and Melodie's affair when walking in on them having sex. Bart tells Cathy that Melodie loves him and points out that Malcolm was obsessed with his own mother until she abandoned him and how much he hates seeing his own mother with Chris. Cathy then confronts Melodie and threatens to ruin her life if she does not start supporting her husband Jory. Jory however soon attempts suicide by drowning himself in the pool, but is saved by Chris. Following this, Melodie promises Jory that she will be more attentive to him, but she soon tries to continue her affair with Bart, who having had her, rejects her.
Cindy brings home a new boyfriend, Lance, to meet the family during dinner. However, Bart beats him after catching the two having sex. Despite his hatred towards her, Bart nevertheless starts to lust for Cindy. As months pass, with Jory hospitalized and Melodie depressed, Bart takes advantage of her and seduces her. When Jory comes home, Corrine's will is read and Bart is enraged to learn he wont inherit the Foxworth estate until his 35th birthday, leaving Chris as the guardian of his money until then.
Cathy finds out about Bart and Melodie's affair when she walks in on them having sex. Bart says Melodie loves him and points out that Malcolm was obsessed with his own mother until she abandoned him, and he says how much he hates seeing her with Chris. Cathy confronts Melodie, threatening to ruin her life if she doesn't start being there for Jory, especially after he attempts suicide by drowning in the pool. Melodie promises Jory to be more attentive to him but she attempts to continue her affair with Bart, who ultimately spurns her.
Cindy brings a boyfriend, Lance, to meet the family but Bart beats him after he catches them having sex. Despite his hatred towards her, Bart starts to lust for Cindy. On Christmas Day, Bart deliberately confesses his affair with Melodie to Jory, and the shock causes her to go into labor. She gives birth to a boy and girl named Darren and Deirdre. However, she has no interest in them and Jory, and abruptly abandons them. Bart follows Cindy as she meets with another boyfriend at a bar, and confronts her on her way home in the woods and, in the heat of the moment, has sex with her.
Cindy wants to start a relationship with Bart and admits she does have feelings for him (even admitting she knows about Cathy and Chris' secret) but he rejects her. Corrine is dead and the Foxworth Manor has been rebuilt. It is expected that religious Bart is inheriting the family fortune on his 25th birthday after years of psychiatric treatment and poisoned by Malcolm's journal.
His parents Cathy and Christopher Sheffield have been managing the money for him. His brother Jory is a star ballet dancer and his wife Melodie announces her pregnancy. Adopted sister Cindy overhears Bart talking about insurance on Jory over the phone.
Jory performs for Bart's 25th birthday and is paralyzed by a suspicious accident. An extra clause in the will leaves control of the fortune to Christopher for another 10 years. In the book version of Seeds of Yesterday, Cathy and Chris, who were once the brother and sister with a forbidden love in Flowers in the Attic, travel to their now-adult son Bart's home for his birthday. Chris and Cathy's other children, Jory and Cindy, also make the trip and from the start, things are uncomfortable and sinister with Bart lording his family's sins over them.
As with the other movies in this series and the books themselves, the whole thing is a trashy hoot. Granted, the film's just giving its audience what it wants; without the creepy-yet-titillating incest angle, Flowers in the Attic would be just another gothic horror novel. The younger, "refill" characters in Seeds are clearly following the family pattern, with Cindy exclaiming. "When did Bart get so effing hot?" the moment she lays eyes on her adopted brother, and he returns the favor by spying on her while she swims in her bikini. Thirteen years after If There Be Thorns, Cathy and Chris arrive at Foxworth Hall, which has been re-built by Bart, for his 25th birthday party. Bart has remained obsessed with Malcolm and has an estranged relationship with his mother and uncle/stepfather due to their incestuous relationship.
He has even changed his last name to Foxworth in order to emphasize his distance from them. His anger and hatred is particularly aimed towards Chris, though still showing a deep love for his mother. Everyone but Bart is excited about the news and Bart is jealous of his brother because he secretly lusts after Melodie.
Several hours pass before the police arrive to tell the family of Chris' death. This tragedy causes Bart to realize his wrongdoings and how he had pushed people away. He admits to Cindy that he loves her when she comes home for the funeral. Bart gives a moving eulogy at Chris' funeral and is thankful of Chris for raising him. In the climax, Cathy reveals that her children led successful lives away from Foxworth Hall. Jory is thriving in his recovery, has married Toni, and they are raising the twins and are expecting a child of their own.
Bart had redeemed himself by becoming a televangelist and married Cindy, and together, they spread positive ministry around the world. However, Cathy decides to remain at Foxworth Hall as she mourns the loss of Chris. One day, she goes up to the attic, sits by a window, and, as she envisions yellow paper flowers, she dies of a broken heart. With Christopher at her side, she was finally able to live out her fantasy life with him as husband and wife in the "perfect" family.
But as viewers discovered, their family was far from perfect. Despite Cathy's attempts to protect her children from the troubles of her past, the Dollanganger family history eventually consumed everyone in "Seeds of Yesterday" -- including Cathy. The next day, Cindy arrives and Bart welcomes her with contempt, not even wanting to acknowledge her as his sister due to her merely being adopted. At the birthday party, Jory and Cindy perform a ballet for the guests, but Jory has an accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down and ends his dance career. Melodie is distraught since she is unable to live with a husband who cannot dance, nor make love to her again.
Cindy suspects that Bart was responsible for the incident since he had updated his insurance policy the day before the accident. When confronted with this suspicion, Bart denies this to Cathy and Chris, but they do not fully believe him. The saga of the tormented Dollangangers comes to an end in "Seeds of Yesterday", in which the family continues to coexist miserably. The film follows Cathy's two adult sons, Bart and Jory, half-brothers with little in common whose lives are fueled by deeply troubled relationships, dark secrets and misfortune that come to a head in a way that will haunt the family and its progeny forever. The saga of the tormented Dollangangers comes to an end in "Seeds of Yesterday," in which the family continues to coexist miserably.
By now, everybody knows the giddy grade-school taboo of Flowers In The Attic, the V.C. Andrews classic about Cathy and Chris Dollanganger being locked in their grandmother's attic alongside their younger brother and sister for however many years it takes two teenage siblings to fall in love. From Bible-thumping grandmother to purple prose, the pulp masterpiece inspired four more books about the increasingly off-the-rails antics of Chris, Cathy, and their markedly linear family tree.
Not to be outdone by the Flowers in the Attic and Heaven movies, which are based on their own separate V.C. Andrews book series, the Ruby series is next on the docket. Following Ruby Landry, a poor girl from the Louisiana bayou, the series focuses on the secrets and scandals that tore her family apart before she and her twin were born and separated. It's another family drama (because why wouldn't it be?), and the movie will no doubt give way to others based on the books in the series.
Bart develops a possessive relationship with Jory's caretaker and later, Chris dies in a car accident on the way back from work, much like his and Cathy's father did when they were kids. At the end of the book, Bart realizes how much he cares for his father and Chris's death brings the family together. Even so, Cathy never really recovers and dies of a broken heart in Bart's attic, which is a replica of the one she and Chris had been locked away in as children. The forbidden love that blossomed when Cathy and Christopher were held captive in Foxworth Hall is one the Dollanganger family's darkest secrets.
Now, with three grown children and even a new last name, the pair seem to have outlived a twisted legacy. The Sheffield family reveal and go through some home truths as their middle child inherits the Foxworth mansion. The family's ghosts looming over and more tragedies are in store as the curse lives on. The family's ghosts looming over, and more tragedies are in store as the curse lives on. "Seeds of Yesterday," adapted by Darren Stein, continues the saga in a similar vein years later as Bart , a student of Grandpa Malcolm's business and moral acumen, rebuilds Foxworth Hall.
The family fortune will fall to Bart when he turns 35, but until then, Chris is legal guardian. Cathy and Chris, older but still hot for each other, are reluctant to revisit the original house of horrors, but are reunited with now-famous ballet dancer Jory and his wife Melodie , pregnant with twins. Chris decides to find a new house for Cathy, Jory, the twins, and himself after having enough of Bart's attitude. Bart starts pursuing her, which troubles Cathy because she was hoping Toni would end up with Jory. Bart later accuses Toni of being with him for his money and breaks up with her. Bart then forces everyone to attend a baptism for the twins at the Foxworth chapel and almost drowns Deirdre, causing Jory to threaten to kill him.
Jory begs for Cathy to have Bart committed but she is reluctant. They instead decide to leave to get away from Bart, who has a mental breakdown. In a psychotic rage, he accuses Cathy of abandoning him for Chris and blames her for ruining the family.
He is about to kill her with a dagger before he is stopped by Jory, and finally realizing it is hopeless to help him, Cathy decides to leave Bart for good. As he returns home after finding a house for them, Chris pulls over to help a stranded motorist and is struck by a truck, which kills him instantly. The final film of Lifetime's quartet of adaptations of V. C. Andrews' famous Flowers in the Attic series finds the Foxworth family even further down the melodramatic spiral.
The bar was set so high in the first book that the subsequent books really have to leap to top the preceding sets of events. The Sheffield family deals with home truths as their middle child inherits the Foxworth mansion with the family's ghosts ever-looming. Chris decides to look for a new house for Cathy, Jory, the twins, and himself to give Bart his own space. Bart starts pursuing her, which troubles Cathy since she was hoping Toni would end up with Jory instead. Bart soon accuses Toni of being with him merely for his money and breaks up with her. He then forces the family to attend a baptism at the Foxworth chapel for the twins and almost drowns Deirdre in the font, causing Cathy and Chris to decide to leave Foxworth Hall with Jory, Toni, and the twins to get away from sociopathic Bart.
Bart has a mental breakdown and accuses Cathy of abandoning him for Chris, and blames her for ruining the family. He is about to kill her with a dagger before he is stopped by Jory. Finally seeing that it is hopeless to help him, Cathy decides to leave Bart for good. As he returns home after finding them a new house, Chris pulls over to help a stranded motorist and is struck by a passing truck, which kills him instantly. After the success of the first film and its sequel, Petals on the Wind, Lifetime has greenlit Seeds of Yesterday, which, as fans of the books know, is the fourth installment in the series of novels from V.C.
Lifetime had previously set the premiere of the third chapter, If There Be Thorns. Lifetime's final installment in the "Flowers in the Attic" franchise was one emotional roller coaster. "Seeds of Yesterday" premiered Sunday night and finished the tale of the Dollanganger siblings-turned-lovers.
Andrews' 1984 book piled on the drama -- from Jory's accident to Bart's seduction of his brother's pregnant wife. Although the movie had somewhat of a happy ending, viewers discovered in the end that Cathy couldn't escape her past. Over the course of the book, Cathy's son Jory, who was once an accomplished dancer with his now-pregnant wife, becomes paralyzed from the waist down. Bart develops a creepy romantic interest in her, while detesting Chris for being the sole controller of their family's estate and his inheritance. Jory's wife ends up leaving the family and her infants after giving birth to them and from there, things get even more twisted. And now that the Ruby book series is next up to make its Lifetime debut, fans of the books and movies alike are all about revisiting them.
If you started with Flowers in the Attic, you basically need to power through and finish with the concluding Seeds of Yesterday. There's also a prequel novel, Garden of Shadows, but since Lifetime didn't go there, you don't necessarily have to take that trip to appreciate how the story ends before it. The Sheffield family deals with home truths as their middle child inherits the Foxworth mansion with the family's ghosts ever-looming.
