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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 2878" data-attributes="member: 22">31/Jan/80: KNOTS LANDING: Home is For Healing v. 01/Feb/80: DALLAS: Sue Ellen's Choice I enjoyed re-watching "Home is for Healing" more than I was expecting to. No doubt about it, Lucy Ewing's a problematic character. I've said it before and I'll cut and paste it again: "The televisual equivalent of a hothouse flower, she could only ever truly make sense as part the original DALLAS ensemble. She didn't survive on KNOTS LANDING, nor would she on a 21st century DALLAS, God bless her." But actually, her inability to fit in on the cul-de-sac is what this episode is all about. I've always assumed the way Lucy goes completely and totally gaga over her poky new bedroom and a couple of childhood keepsakes - a moth-eaten stuffed rabbit ("Flopsy!!") and a crinoline toilet holder - was down to Charlene Tilton's ridiculous over-acting, and maybe it is a little bit, but it's also Lucy trying to turn back the clock and recreate the idyllic childhood she never had. She spends the whole episode trying on different guises: Mama's little girl cooing over her dolls, spoilt rich bitch maxing out Jock's credit card, Cosmic Steeple gang banger, even a teenage protestor against the transportation of nuclear waste. That last one was never gonna fly, but I love the exchange between her and Diana where Diana has to explain that the reason she and her friends are protesting against nuclear waste is because it's dangerous. There's a lovely fragility between Gary and Val in this episode - as Laura says, they're like china dolls - and a touching uncertainty between the two of them and Lucy. "H4H" also introduces us to Sylvie, Knots Landing Motors and Richard's roving eye ("Who's the nifty little blonde?" he drools re Lucy). We get a bigger slice of the Wards than previously: Kenny's enjoyably sleazy, Ginger's enjoyably dumb, and that's all that's really required of them here. The crossover with DALLAS isn't exactly seamless: Lucy's engagement to Alan Beam is temporarily forgotten as she plans a new life with her folks in California, while the early scene where Val nips over to Dallas to explain herself to an upset Lucy (basically a retread of their first encounter in "Secrets") feels like it's taking place around the corner from Seaview Circle. Oh and Cosmic Steeple remain the biggest bunch of KNOTS knob heads this side of Benny Appleman. The end of the episode - Gary, Lucy and Val running in the ocean - is hokey, bonkers and glorious all at the same time. In hindsight, knowing that Lucy never made it back to KNOTS after this ep, makes this fleeting moment between them all the more precious. This was as good as it ever got between them and that it happens in slow motion and ends in a freeze frame makes it kinda poignant."Sue Ellen's Choice" feels like the first proper serialised instalment of DALLAS, and as such offers a template for all the other '80s soaps: it picks up the morning after the episode before, no single plot dominates the hour, and it has unrelated storylines rubbing up against each other in the same scene - the nighttime scene where Pam and Sue Ellen, each wrapped in their own private torment, pass each other on the fake patio while JR looks on unpityingly is a great example. Other soap tropes pioneered in this episode include: women in love with the same man barging into each other's offices to throw down ultimatums (Jenna v Pam) and chance encounters where characters vow to destroy one another while stunned bystanders look on (Donna v JR). Plus we're gearing up for the end of the season now, so there's that soapy equivalent of a train hurtling inexorably towards its destination - but in this case, as Katzman, Marchetta and co are practically inventing the genre as they go along, there's no thought of how to preserve the characters for the next however many seasons. Instead, they're pushing them hell for leather, leaving nothing in reserve. Little wonder this was always my fave season.Foreshadow alerts: 1. During a scene with Pam, Cliff has some clearly dubbed on dialogue establishing that he is the only Barnes sibling to have displayed symptoms of neurofibromatosis thus far - and even then there's only a 50% chance of him passing on the disease to his offspring. This is a far more optimistic diagnosis then we were given initially.2. Donna compares Jock's bond with Ray to a father/son relationship. 3. Dusty refers to his father and the Southern Cross for the first time.Donna and Ray's good-bye scene is killer, (even when you know it ain't a permanent good-bye) while Donna's first and only scene with Jock remains a series highlight. Watching someone as dignified as her go begging to Jock, only for him to gently refuse to intercede with Ray on her behalf - wow, it's a powerful moment.While the heart of the episode belongs to Ray and Donna, its intoxicating thrills are supplied by JR and Sue Ellen. The background music swells when Sue Ellen accepts Dusty's marriage proposal, then sizzles and snaps when JR tells her, during another great nighttime nursery scene, that he'll give her a divorce but will never let a drunken tramp like her take his baby. The look on Sue Ellen's face at the end of the episode, when she returns to the psychological prison that is Southfork after breaking up with Dusty, is one of the best freeze frames ever.Watching these scenes, I get the same ridiculous sense of euphoria as I do when watching New DALLAS: it's like I almost can't bear how much guilty fun this is. Sure, there are other soaps I've been emotionally invested in, probably even more so: KNOTS, DYNASTY Season 1, '80s BROOKSIDE, EASTENDERS on a good day, where the writing's brilliant and the acting's so good you find yourself empathising and identifying with the blah blah blah - but when DALLAS is at its most intoxicating, those conventional considerations don't (necessarily) apply. It becomes a rush all its own - a guilty, giddy thrill ride with no redeeming qualities beyond its own unrefined DALLASness. There's no reference to Lucy's visit to California in "Sue Ellen's Choice", but she does seem less interested in Alan Beam all of a sudden - maybe her all-nighter with Cosmic Steeple made a bigger impression than we realised.And the winner is … DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?