Could Jock have returned in the series finale?

[Willie Oleson]

Dallas ended with a bit of the supernatural but I think they could have done more.
What if the episode starts with a car (a big one, with the horns on the front and the number plate AN63L) heading for destiny unknown (but probably Dallas), and every 10 minutes they show the car on the road.
Then finally, a few moments before JR shoots himself, the car stops in front of the house. The chauffeur opens the door of the passenger seat and someone comes out, crutches and cowboy boots first.
We only see the person from behind, a man with white hair in a light-blue suit, and he holds his head upwards to look at the first floor of house.

Then, for a moment, the screen becomes the iconic three-way split: Bobby, the mystery man and JR.
Bobby hears a shot and runs upstairs in slow motion, opens the door in slow motion and "oh-my-gods" in slow motion.
And all the while the man doesn't move and doesn't look away, but he mutters the words "the boys are not swimming in the pool".
Who is he? Is it Jock, the Angel Of Death or a dream-character from Twin Peaks?
We'll never know because he doesn't return in the reunion movies, just like Dynasty's mystery woman will never be mentioned again.
But I think it could have enhanced the ending in a more tantalising way.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

With Donna Reed om his arm.

 

[Rove]

Well, stranger things were happening with Dallas by 1991 so anything could have passed muster in the writers room. I wonder if The Duffer Brothers were fans of Dallas hence the title of their mega hit on Netflix. Perhaps we've been viewing Dallas incorrectly all these years. Maybe this was Amanda's bizarre world she had conjured up...

...it could explain a lot of things

​

 

[DallasFanForever]

Who is he? Is it Jock, the Angel Of Death or a dream-character from Twin Peaks?

I don’t know who it would be but that final episode was so bungled that I don’t see how your scenario could’ve been any worse than what we got.

 

[Jock Og]

I like your idea @Willie Oleson. The way in which it was done would have been sink or swim, from a viewability perspective. The more ambiguous the better. An interesting twist would have been if Adam (tour guide/angel and then turned devil) was an older man.

The older man was infact Digger but J.R. was too drunk to recognise him. The other man who would've appeared towards the end of Willie's alternative 'Conundrum' is either Jock, Ben/Wes or ....... We will never know but there is enough of a 'carrot and stick' there to suggest daddy may well have been back, to the place he loved.

J.R. feels that he has fully recovered after a near death encounter, courtesy of sister-in-law Kristin. He talks to Jock about going back to Ewing Oil, (a scene from season 3; DVD-4, 1980-'81):

Jock: "Look J.R.! Bobby didn't want to take this job. He did it because I asked him. I agreed to let him run the company, the way he saw fit. He did just that!"

J.R.: "Dad!"

Jock: "Now just bear me out. Bobby did a damn fine job. Don't you think I owe it to him, to run the company a while longer."

J.R.: "Well, where does that leave me? It's my company. I want it back!"

Jock: "I can't do that!"

J.R. grinds his teeth and walks off the Southfork patio, not pleased at all.

 

[Willie Oleson]

The more ambiguous the better.

When a soap ends -especially on a cliffhanger - it has nothing more to lose, that's why the UFO provided the OTT thrills but without the chance to ruin The Colbys.
And Dynasty did have the option to ignore it the way Knots ignored Bobby's "resurrection".
Go out with a bang and give people something to talk about.
Since soap is all about continuation, the unnatural state of "ending" doesn't even have to be considered canon.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

When a soap ends -especially on a cliffhanger - it has nothing more to lose, that's why the UFO provided the OTT thrills but without the chance to ruin The Colbys.
And Dynasty did have the option to ignore it the way Knots ignored Bobby's "resurrection".
Go out with a bang and give people something to talk about.
Since soap is all about continuation, the unnatural state of "ending" doesn't even have to be considered canon.

Krystle and Alexis hovering over Dennis Grimes' body in the ball room.

The Ewings dropping down into the bowels of hell when the platform at Section 40 collapses.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Diana Fairgate's return as a NASA top dog who informs everybody in the final scene that KSC will be relocated to California, with Knots Landing being the specific location.
Karen, exasperated, asks her daughter "do you really expect us to pack our stuff and just leave?" and then Diana says, I'm afraid I can't let that happen, mother. You all know too much about this place". Men in black come out of the other limousine and open gunfire, Gary and Valene die in each other's arms.
Diana grabs a mic and performs a coverversion of Patrick Juvet's "I Love America" while the men in black (losing some of it) doing a gay dance routine, carefully but not always successfully stepping over the dead bodies.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Despite the overall week send off of the final episode I did like the fact that they left J.R.’s fate open ended. Did he shoot himself? Did he not shoot himself? As bad a final episode as that was at least it ended on something Dallas did best; a cliffhanger.