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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 5935" data-attributes="member: 22">16/Mar/82: FLAMINGO ROAD: Sins of the Fathers v. 19/Mar/82: DALLAS: Blackmail v. 19/Mar/82: FALCON CREST: Heir ApparentOn DALLAS, writer Donna Krebbs has uncovered evidence that, fifty years earlier, Jock Ewing was party to (and profited from) Sam Culver’s decision to commit his Uncle Jonas to an asylum - an action that led directly to Jonas's suicide. On this week’s FLAMINGO ROAD, reporter Sandie Swanson produces documentation suggesting that, twenty-five years earlier, the late and much revered Judge Andrew Carlyle was, alongside Sheriff Titus Semple, involved a profit-making scheme to farm out convicts as slave labour.The question is: how will Jock’s widow Miss Ellie and Judge Carlyle’s son Field react to having their loved ones' reputations tarnished? “It’s like she’s got Jock on a pedestal,” says Donna of Ellie. “You always had this image of the judge as some kind of saint,” Titus tells Field.While Ellie rejects Donna’s allegations outright, ("You came here to get my permission to destroy the reputation of the finest man who ever lived? To tell lies about him when he's not here to defend himself? All for the sake of some cheap book? How dare you?!”) Field wrestles with the possibility that his father might not have been quite the man he remembers. This leads to a particularly good scene between Field and his father-in-law Claude, with whom he is customarily at odds, where they are briefly bonded by their fond memories of Judge Carlyle. It’s remarkable how much a sense of history can enrich a soap opera storyline. This is something that FLAMINGO ROAD, being more about a disparate community and less of a multi-generational family saga, can tap into less readily than some of its contemporaries.Following the most recent episodes of KNOTS LANDING and DYNASTY, which gave Constance McCashin and Pamela Bellwood so many good scenes, it’s interesting that the emotional centrepiece of DALLAS’s hundredth episode - the showdown between Miss Ellie and Donna - should serve as a showcase for Susan Howard’s talents. Like McCashin as Laura and Bellwood as Claudia, Howard is her show’s least utilised, but arguably best, “opening titles" actress.To uncover the truth about his father, Field turns to Wayne Stern, formerly the judge’s clerk now a broken down alcoholic. Mike Kellin gives a sweetly sad performance as Stern, the kind of drunken old-timer that Soap Land does very well. His revelation, that Sheriff Titus was the real slave master while Judge Carlyle was as honest as his reputation suggests, is a bit anti-climactic, but the real interest comes from discovering Michael Tyrone engineered the entire plot as part of his vengeful masterplan: “It won’t be over till we’ve got the whole town pitted against each other,” he tells Sandie. “We’re going to destroy all those people who murdered our father.” So it is that we learn that Michael and Sandie are brother and sister.Similarly, the Jonas Culver story-line on DALLAS is tied to a larger plot as, following Donna’s disclosure, Miss Ellie withdraws from the rest of the family and begins the process of finally facing the reality of Jock’s death.This week's FLAMINGO ROAD and FALCON CREST both suffer from somewhat sappy subplots involving their fair-haired sons, Skipper Weldon and Cole Gioberti respectively. In FALCON CREST, we are introduced to Bill Reed, a river-rafting, poetry writing friend of Cole’s, who delivers a clunky speech about being at one with nature and then promptly drowns in a freak accident with his girlfriend. This brings FALCON CREST’s death count so far this season up to five - as much as DALLAS', KNOTS' and DYNASTY's entire first seasons combined. The plot feels both incongruous and overwrought but is redeemed by a meaty scene between a guilt-ridden Cole and his father Chase, who relates some of the life and death decisions he was forced to make in Vietnam (more history). Meanwhile, on FLAMINGO ROAD, blind Skipper’s dependence on the people around him makes him fear that they’ll eventually abandon him so he decides to push them away first, but then Lane teaches him to have the courage to … blah blah blah.“Death is an inevitable tragedy that all of us must face,” the minister at Bill Reed’s funeral proclaims cheerily. In this week's DALLAS, Bobby faces death when he discovers Jeff Farraday lying face down with a bullet hole in his back. Following Turner Bates on FALCON CREST, Farraday is Soap Land's second extortionist transient of the season to meet a gruesome end. Meanwhile, the blackmail of this week's DALLAS episode title comes from the offer JR makes Bobby regarding the true identity of his adoptive son: "I won't say a word about Christopher to anyone as long as I know you'll vote my twenty shares of Ewing Oil my way, anytime I want.”Blackmail raises its head in this week's FLAMINGO ROAD and FALCON CREST too. “You’re blackmailing me!” exclaims Titus when Field tells him he will suppress the evidence of his slave boss past in return for certain favours, starting with dropping the charges against Elmo Tyson for blowing up his own newspaper office (an explosion which Titus himself arranged). Meanwhile, FALCON CREST’s Lance, after becoming the latest family member to learn how Jason died, threatens to spill the beans to Chase unless his place in Angela’s will is secured. Angela, however, proves a tougher nut to crack than either Sheriff Titus or Bobby Ewing. She responds with an ultimatum, telling Lance he has ninety days to marry Melissa Agretti. One minor complication: Melissa is now secretly pregnant, probably by Cole.FLAMINGO ROAD ends with Michael Tyrone breaking a Soap Land taboo that is also raised and then immediately discounted by JR in DALLAS. “After living with his son, you couldn’t feel that way about Clayton, could you?” he asks Sue Ellen. There are no such qualms for Michael who cheats on his lover Lute-Mae with her daughter, Constance. While Constance knows about Michael’s relationship with Lute-Mae at this point, she has no idea that Lute-Mae is her real mother. Michael, however, does. In fact, that’s precisely the reason he does it.And this week’s Soap Land Top 3 are …1 (3) DALLAS2 (2) FALCON CREST3 (-) FLAMINGO ROAD</blockquote>

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