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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 3399" data-attributes="member: 22">04/Dec/80: KNOTS LANDING: Remember the Good Times v. 05/Dec/80: DALLAS: The Venezuelan Connection When I was a kid being taught by priests, groovy-but-earnest Father Ray (thinking back, he wasn't particularly groovy, just a bit younger than all the other priests) lent me a book. It was a true life, first person account of a Puerto Rican boy who ran away from his abusive parents and became a New York gang leader. It was dead gritty and exciting and full of violence and drugs and it pulled me right in, and when it got to the part where the gang leader had a religious experience which he literally fought against until he could resist it no longer, it was hard not to be moved. I hadn't thought about this book for years, but watching Earl Trent, the alcoholic Gary attempts to help in "Remember the Good Times", I kept being reminded of it. Clearly Earl, a somewhat effete failed novelist, is no Puerto Rican gang leader, but there's something about the force of his anger, his utter contempt for sobriety combined with his desperate need for it, that has some of the same power as that story (while at the same time feeling ever so slightly like a text-book-case-study). I had a look on the internet and found out the book was "Run Baby Run" by Nicky Cruz. Further googling revealed that Cruz's conversion was depicted in a film called THE CROSS AND THE SWITCHBLADE, written and directed by … our very own Sid Fairgate. Wow. Could be this … A Sign? And once you connect Don Murray with Christianity, so much about his portrayal of Sid falls into place: the unabashed goodness; the martyrdom of Sid in "Hitchhike", which Murray wrote; Sid's outstretched arms à la Christ on the cross when he dies on the operating table … (I mean Sid on the operating table, not Christ. Or maybe it's both.) The focus of "Remember the Good Times" is on Gary's newfound sobriety. Apparently, it's not been as smooth an adjustment as the happy ending of Season 1 and his crossover appearance on DALLAS after JR's shooting might have suggested. At AA meetings, of which he's obliged to attend five a week, he's cynical and bored. When presented with the opportunity to help an alcoholic in need, he's reluctant and scornful. But Val insists on befriending Earl and his weird wife Judy anyway. Ah, Earl and Judy. What a pair - brittle, disillusioned, terminally sniping, they're what the Averys might have become had they stayed together another ten years. Earl sneering about Southern California ("a haven for the insincere") sure sounds like Richard when he's on a roll. But are Gary and Val any less fragile a couple than the Trents? Almost a year after moving to Knots Landing, Val feels like they're finally starting to fit in. She marks the occasion by buying some dishes, the first she's ever owned brand new. Halfway through the episode, the dishes are smashed. Guess there's a metaphor in there somewhere. ("We're all china plates" perhaps?) My favourite scene of the episode is where Gary, Earl and Judy are in the motel room, a neon light flashing red, the colour of Hell, through the window. As he lies in bed going through alcoholic withdrawal, the depth of Earl's suffering, his sweating, contorting and howling, is very moving, as is the patience with which Gary tends to him, even as Earl throws up coffee all over his shirt. Meanwhile, Judy looks on, expressionless and unmoving. There's something oddly religious, almost biblical - and, as Gary and Judy grow closer, a little bit illicit - about the scene. Cut out of this picture is Val, waiting anxiously at home in a darkened cul-de-sac, alone with her broken crockery. This is the episode where we first begin to glimpse the extent of her co-dependence. When Kirk Douglas's ex-wife suggests in a later scene that she start thinking about her own needs, Val looks bewildered: "All I've ever really wanted to do is what's best for Gary." At the end of the episode, we learn that caring for a fellow alcoholic has had a profound effect on Gary. "It was like I loved the guy," he marvels, all trace of cynicism vanished, as he and Val walk smiling out of shot. On one level, this has been a tale of salvation, of redemption - not necessarily Earl's, but Gary's. However, soaps in general, because of their open ended structure, and KNOTS in particular, by dint of its own knottiness, cannot be morality plays. There can be no happy endings because the story never ends. They're a bit like life in that respect. A few years after Father Ray lent me that book in the earnest hope that it would bring me closer to the Church, he left the priesthood to shack up with a woman. Story-lines bubbling under in this episode: Gary mumbles something to Sid about cheap parts, Michael's excess energy manifests itself (and is erroneously diagnosed by Sid as an indication of good health) and Abby flirts with Richard. Well, to be honest, she flirts with everyone, including her own nephew. There's also some on-again, off-again stuff with Kenny and Ginger - and the first glimpse of Abby's devious side. To be sure, it's amusing, low-level domestic deviousness: she manages to manipulate the rest of the women into cleaning and arranging her new house while she suns herself by the pool - but it's a sign of things to come. Over on DALLAS, "The Venezuelan Connection" introduces us a brand new television archetype: the '80s super soap businesswoman. While we've been previously assured that Donna Culver and Marilee Stone were the real powers behind their late husbands' thrones, Sally Bullock, wife of good ole Mr Eugene, is the first one we've seen in action. Like many that will follow in her path, including Abby, she's overtly sexual and completely untrustworthy. Unlike Abby, she's also entirely one dimensional. Still, in spite, or perhaps because of her habit of rubbing herself up against whomever she's negotiating with (in this case, Bobby) and speaking mostly in clichés, (during a secret meeting with JR, she describes them as "birds of a feather" and tells him how much she enjoys "mixing business with pleasure") she's quite good fun. While Lucy subjects Mitch to some pool-party culture shock, the rest of the Ewings continue to serve their own interests. Determined to prove to his daddy that selling off $100,000,000 of Ewing assets to buy a refinery wasn't a mistake, Bobby speedily cuts a couple more interconnected deals, the details of which my brain is just about able to grasp. Meanwhile, JR joins forces with Sally to sabotage Bobby's efforts, going so far as to sink a tanker carrying $18,000,000 worth of Ewing crude. However, it's Sue Ellen's bad behaviour that stands out. During the previous season, via her sessions with Dr Elby, viewers had been privy to her hard won transformation from neurotic mess to slightly less neurotic mess, and it's kind of shocking to see her revert so readily to the cold bitch she was when the series began. And by turning against Bobby - the one person who has supported her unquestioningly throughout the series - it's almost as if she's turning her back on the viewers as well. "I don't need any of you anymore," she seems to be saying, "not now I'm back with JR." It's a brave and fascinating choice for the writers to make with arguably their most sympathetic character (although it's entirely possible they just didn't know what else to do with her). So with Bobby dealing, JR scheming, Sue Ellen bitching, Miss Ellie threatening, ("If Bobby leaves Southfork, I'll never forgive you," she tells Jock) and Pam off in search of her own identity, (.i.e. her possibly-not-dead mother) who is left to provide the moral compass at Southfork? Weirdly, it's Jock. Trying to figure out a way to do right by both his sons and his wife, he's the only Ewing in this episode with a conception of anyone's needs but his own. This doesn't stop him bunking off to a cattle auction in Fort Worth with Ray, however, which is where he bumps into Punk Anderson. Despite having been referred to as Jock's buddy since "Winds of Vengeance", this is the first time he's appeared on screen. The two men greet each other as if they haven't spoken in months, or even years - yet only five episodes ago, Jock was apparently at Punk's house when JR was shot. Hmmm, suspicious. And what's that swampland Punk's talking about developing …? And the winner is … DALLAS.</blockquote>

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