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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 13661" data-attributes="member: 22">05/Mar/84: EMERALD POINT N.A.S.: Pandora’s Box v 07/Mar/84: DYNASTY: Steps v. 08/Mar/84: KNOTS LANDING: Finishing Touches v. 09/Mar/84: DALLAS: Fools Rush In v. 09/Mar/84: FALCON CREST: Little Boy Blue v. 10/Mar/84: THE YELLOW ROSE: Sacred GroundWith characteristic perversity, this week’s YELLOW ROSE blows half a season’s worth of cliffhangers in its opening scene: Rose Hollister (Jane Russell) arrives unannounced at the house of her despised brother Jeb whom she hasn’t seen for forty years, informs him that she is Chance McKenzie’s real mother, that Chance is in line to inherit half the Hollister fortune and that she has incontrovertible proof that Jeb murdered their father. Jeb then spends the rest of the episode trying to kill her.There’s another decades-old murder revelation on DYNASTY as Alexis informs Kirby that the mother she always believed died when she was two years old in fact ran off with her lover "and when he didn’t satisfy her anymore, she killed him.”A third violent crime involving a long-dead parent is unearthed on EMERALD POINT where Celia, in Soap Land’s first hypnotherapy session since Dr Elby put Sue Ellen under the influence so that she could relive the events leading up to the shooting of JR, travels back to her tenth birthday and a mysteriously traumatic event involving her mother and a strange man in a gazebo. Her mother's screams and torn clothing are familiar Soap Land signifiers of rape but Celia comes out of her trance before the man’s identity can be revealed (though it isn’t hard to guess). Her wildly overwrought response to her childhood memories made me laugh out loud. In contrast, Val’s equally hysterical reaction to the news of Gary’s death in the opening scene of this week’s KNOTS LANDING never fails to chill me, in spite of several viewings and the advanced knowledge that things aren’t quite as terminal as they seem. This is in part due to Joan van Ark’s performance of course, but also how the scene is shot (we observe Val's break down from a distance) and the way her raw emotions are set against the strangely matter-of-fact behaviour of everyone else around her. (Mack even cracks a little joke to Karen when he speaks to her on the phone.) Directed by David Jacobs, this is one of those exceptional episodes of KNOTS where close attention has been paid to every detail.As the body bag containing Gary’s corpse indicates, ranches can be dangerous places. Similarly, on EMERALD POINT, bad girl Hilary pulls an Alexis and arranges a horse-related miscarriage for good girl Kay in her father's stables. In both instances, there is a twist: the body in the bag is not Gary’s and Kay was never pregnant in the first place. However, there is nothing fake about the two dead bodies on THE YELLOW ROSE this week, casualties of yet another shoot out on that ranch.Random trend of the week: Mothers trying to prevent their children from falling in water. A paralysed Fallon is convalescing poolside on the grounds of the DYNASTY mansion (last seen masquerading as a Paedophile paradise on THE YELLOW ROSE) when Little Blake wanders dangerously close to the water’s edge. Her mother’s instinct kicks in as she instinctively rushes to save him, regaining the use of her legs in the process. Meanwhile, on KNOTS LANDING, Abby finds Olivia in a rowboat on the lake of Gary’s ranch. Distraught over her stepfather’s death, Olivia stands up in the boat, loses her balance and falls into the water. Abby jumps in fully clothed to help her. There are echoes of Pam and Ray in the lake in the DALLAS pilot, only this time Olivia and Abby end up crying instead of laughing.On this week's DALLAS, Charlie Wade follows the example set by Olivia after Gary and Abby’s split a few weeks ago. Where Olivia skipped school to walk from Gary’s ranch to the cul-de-sac, Charlie independently catches a bus from her school to the Ewing building to ask Bobby whether she is to blame for his break up with Jenna.Who-should-attend-which-function is a topic discussed on four of this week’s soaps. On EMERALD POINT, Octopussy follows Soap Land convention by insisting that Admiral Mallory’s treasonous sister-in-law Tiffany Case be invited to their wedding for the sake of family unity. For the same reason, DYNASTY's Blake invites arch enemy Alexis to a formal dinner at the mansion to celebrate Fallon’s recovery. Surprisingly, Alexis declines the offer. ("The last time I saw Fallon at the hospital, she made it clear that she didn't want to see me.”) Greg Sumner also decides against attending Gary’s funeral on KNOTS. (“I’m not very good at funerals. I never know what to say.”) Equally conspicuous by their absence at the burial are any of the DALLAS Ewings. Mark St Clare, however, is an unexpected attendee, arriving at a crucial moment — just as Abby is about to spill all to Mack about her involvement with the Wolfbridge Group. The sight of St Clare is enough to intimidate her into remaining silent.There are no such formal occasions on DALLAS this week (although Clayton twitches nervously when Miss Ellie cheerfully informs him that she’s invited his sister Jessica to stay at Southfork prior to their wedding: “What better way to find out all your deep dark secrets?") but Peter Richards does accept an offer from JR to work with John Ross at Southfork. “My my my, there goes the neighbourhood!” jokes Lucy in her only Soap Land appearance of the week in which her father is buried on KNOTS. JR does at least pay tribute to his “late” brother, albeit ironically when he refers him on DALLAS as “my brother Gary, who I’m particularly fond of”.DYNASTY’s Alexis and KNOTS LANDING's Abby both display uncharacteristic vulnerability this week. While the rest of the Carringtons and Colbys gather for Fallon’s party, Dex finds Alexis alone in her apartment having had "a lot too much" to drink. He urges her to call Fallon and make amends. She picks up the phone but then cannot bring herself to go through with it. (“I can’t, I can’t!” she cries.) It’s a long time since Alexis has seemed so identifiably human. Indeed, when she talks about her relationship with Fallon ("We've never been really close. Maybe it's because we're alike in so many ways. We've tried. She's tried and so have I, but it's never lasted”) she sounds a lot like KNOTS LANDING Everywoman Karen Mackenzie describing her problems with Diana.Abby, meanwhile, struggles to keep her emotions in check following the news of Gary’s murder. When Val pays her a visit and attempts to reach out to her, it looks as if a cessation of hostilities is about to take place, as occasionally happens in Soap Land between two female rivals (the brief moment of understanding between Pam and Sue Ellen after their husbands’ plane went down in DALLAS Season 1; Alexis’s fleeting gratitude towards Krystle when she brought her the news that Steven was still alive in DYNASTY Season 3). But Abby refuses to let Val in. "I won't let you share my pain,” she tells her coldly (echoing her niece Diana's equally defiant “I cherish the pain” line from earlier in the season). “I’m his widow, not you,” she adds. This is not mere Soap Land bitchery, it runs deeper than that somehow.Ironically, when Abby does let her guard down to express her feelings about Gary, it is to Mark St Clare of all people — a man as far removed from Val on the emotional scale as it’s possible to get. "He counted in my life,” says Abby of Gary. "I don't care that he counted,” St Clare replies. "I don't care that he's dead. I have no sympathy for you.” At least when Alexis cries for her daughter on DYNASTY, she has Dex to comfort her. But while there’s no rapprochement between Abby and Val, there is one between Abby and Karen at Gary’s funeral, when Karen reminds Abby that “we’re family” and Abby tells her how helpful Diana has been with all the arrangements. “She loves her Aunt Abby,” Karen replies. “She loves her mother too,” adds Abby with surprising generosity.In an effort to console Val at the funeral, Laura tells her the real reason Gary stood her up on their date at the beginning of the season was to spare her any more pain. “He married Abby not because he loved Abby, but because he loved you,” she explains. With equally good intentions, Sue Ellen informs Bobby on this week’s DALLAS that Pam “has decided not to marry Mark Graison … because of the way she still feels about you.” However, if Laura and Sue Ellen were in possession of the facts shown to us at the end of this week’s KNOTS and DALLAS — that Gary Ewing is alive and Mark Graison is dying — it is unlikely they would have shared these confidences with Val and Bobby.The reveal of Gary alive and well in the final moments of this week’s ep echoes the reveal of Ciji drowned and dead thirteen months earlier. Instead of those quick, jarring cuts to Ciji’s washed up body on the shore during Ginger’s song, there are sudden, fleeting close-ups of Gary’s face during the funeral ceremony. Is this Abby flashing back to her dead husband? Or Val? It gradually becomes clear that no, this is happening now: As his funeral is taking place on the ranch, Gary is simultaneously alive somewhere else. Not only that but after spending the past hour focusing on the contrasting reactions of Abby and Val to his passing, the episode now ends with him happily kissing that other formerly dead character, Ciji/Cathy/Lisa Hartman!Two enjoyably unsympathetic characters return to the Ewing-verse this week: grouchy cop Morrison is back on KNOTS after a few months while slimy banker Vaughn Leland returns to DALLAS after a few seasons. Each made a sufficient enough impact the first time around for Diana Fairgate and Afton Cooper to recoil at the mere sight of them. However, both comebacks contain a last minute twist. After playing the heavy towards Cathy Geary for the entire ep, Morrison and she turn out to be part of the same conspiracy and when he hauls her off for questioning at the funeral, he is in effect playing cupid for her and Gary. Meanwhile, on DALLAS, Vaughn Leland appears to be the answer to Cliff’s prayers, offering him the loan that he so desperately needs … but then we learn it’s all a part of JR's elaborate scheme to bring Cliff to his knees. “I always thought I’d be back on this ranch someday,” sighs Morrison, “Not in my wildest imagination did I ever dream you and I would be working together again,” Vaughn smirks to JR.Like Gary on KNOTS, Kirby’s mother on DYNASTY turns out not to be as dead as was originally thought. According to Alexis, she’s in a similar sounding institution for the criminally insane to the one Julia Cumson recently escaped from on FALCON CREST. This week, a bewigged Julia navigates the same familiar cross-country landscape of gas stations, diners and roadblocks that Chip and Diana did when they were on the lam at the beginning of this season’s KNOTS. While on her travels, Julia manages to find a guy both trusting enough to swallow her down-on-her-luck sob story and kind enough to offer her refuge on his conveniently secluded ranch. However implausible this story-line may be, there’s something very satisfying about it. Julia might be an unhinged murderess but we’re definitely rooting for her to prevail.Meanwhile, no one's quite sure how dead KNOTS LANDING’s Ben and DYNASTY’s Matthew Blaisdel are supposed to be. Both are lost in the jungles of Soap Land. "I'd go there myself if I thought it would help,” insists an unnamed government official on KNOTS to whom Karen has been unnecessarily harsh — and we believe him. (In this episode, even the bit players — like this guy and the never-before-seen cowboys who commiserate with Cathy at the funeral — are given a significant emotional beat.) At the end of this week’s DYNASTY, meanwhile, Claudia decides that she will go to Peru, after receiving yet another package from a beyond-the-grave Matthew.Eventually, viewers at home are granted a glimpse of Ben in this week’s KNOTS, alive and delirious in some sort of makeshift hospital in Central America. Ben’s DALLAS equivalent Mark Graison also makes a brief overseas appearance, calling Cliff from the Middle East and complaining of a bug.Where last week’s FALCON CREST ended with the news of Maggie Gioberti’s inoperable brain tumour so this week’s DALLAS finishes with the revelation of Mark’s irreversible blood disease, “a form of leukaemia”. In each case, there’s an only-in-Soap-Land breach of medical ethics. While Mark’s doctor (aka Abby Ewing’s first husband) breaks the bad news to Pam as gently as he can, (“Mark’s gonna need all the love you can give him in the next few months …”) FALCON CREST’s Dr Michael tells Terry about Maggie’s condition in the coldest way possible. "Your sister's dying,” he says without even looking at her. "She's got a tumour in her brain the size of a golf ball.” There’s also a terminally ill character in this week’s YELLOW ROSE. Shortly after introducing herself to Chase, the son she never knew, Rose Hollister also tells him she is dying of cancer. This plot point becomes somewhat moot when brother Jeb succeeds in having her shot dead before the end of the episode.Following a fantastic, almost biblical showdown between Jeb and Chase, Jeb is arrested for murder by the very sheriff he has had in his pocket since the series began. This really feels like the end of THE YELLOW ROSE. God knows where it'll go from here.Elsewhere, Angela Channing forces Melissa to trade her infant son to the Giobertis for half of Falcon Crest. I’m not sure how much logical sense this all makes, but it certainly feels like a momentous chapter in FALCON CREST history — more in keeping with "mythological” Soap Land baby losses like JR's snatching of Lucy away from Val or Jacqueline Perrault's sale of Richard to Henri Denault or Rose Hollister's loss of her son Chance than the comparatively lightweight occasions when Sammy Jo and Rita Briggs tried to sell their offspring on screen. That Angela can comprehend the awful price Melissa is paying yet does nothing to stop it simply because it is not in her own interest is what really sells the scene and gives it its power.And this week’s Top 6 are …1 (2) KNOTS LANDING2 (-) THE YELLOW ROSE3 (-) FALCON CREST4 (1) DALLAS5 (4) DYNASTY6 (3) EMERALD POINT N.A.S.</blockquote>

Verification: 6 + 4 =