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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Knots Blogger" data-source="post: 55889" data-attributes="member: 392">Episode Title:  <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0620919/" target="_blank">#14 With a Bullet</a>Season 06, Episode 14Episode 114 of 344Written by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0242896/?ref_=tt_ov_wr" target="_blank">Peter Dunne</a>Directed by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0786989/?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank">Nicholas Sgarro</a>Original Airdate: Thursday, January 10th, 1985The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Karen's surgery goes well. Galveston tells Greg to tell Mack to stop investigating the Tidal Basin murders, but instead Greg tells Mack to look for a connection between the murders and Galveston Industries. Gary's private detective tells Abby that Val has become Verna Ellers from her book "Nashville Junction" and that she seems happy. He says he'll do a fake report, in exchange for sex with Abby. He tells Gary he has no leads and is dropping the case. Galveston has his men bring him Abby's detective. Galveston threatens him, so the detective tells him where Val is. Then another man brings him all of Scott Easton's papers. Abby waits for the detective, but instead Galveston shows up and tells her that he knows where Val is and all about the babies and unless she comes up with a damn good explanation, he's going to tell Gary.<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OZORmcC06h4/WO1sQm6d9TI/AAAAAAAACNU/gduahtq8Jmc7fSkyGE83xNf-dCL7J-nfgCLcB/s1600/bullet.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OZORmcC06h4/WO1sQm6d9TI/AAAAAAAACNU/gduahtq8Jmc7fSkyGE83xNf-dCL7J-nfgCLcB/s640/bullet.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>                Last week I said how I’m still managing to find each and every ep of KL to stand out as its own special and magnificent little 48 minute movie, and that trend continues this week.  God, how do the people working on this show do it so well?  You’ve got all these long, continuing, epic plots going on all concurrently, and you have to keep everything powering along and going good and exciting, yet they also manage to be artistic and keep each ep special, really standing out.  If our last ep was all about high emotions and a feeling of mounting dread as Karen prepared for her surgery, this episode is almost a religious experience, and I do mean that quite literally, since we open up on Mack entering a church and looking up at that big, creepy Jesus statue that always kept me afraid of going into church as a kid.<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6pfAoy26ZNY/WO1snrkggSI/AAAAAAAACNY/n7I7_nptmkQzcNS1-US8hu1cH_ST_dLhwCLcB/s1600/ick.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6pfAoy26ZNY/WO1snrkggSI/AAAAAAAACNY/n7I7_nptmkQzcNS1-US8hu1cH_ST_dLhwCLcB/s400/ick.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>                Behind the camera this week, we have KL’s most prolific director, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0786989/?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank">Nicholas Sgarro</a>.  I feel like I’ve become so excited by other directors like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0369858/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1" target="_blank">Nick Havinga</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004886/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1" target="_blank">Bill "Green Beret" Duke</a> and, most especially, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0253605/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1" target="_blank">Larry Elikann</a>, that I’m almost failing to give Sgarro his due.  Make no mistake, this guy is great, and he’s definitely got a special place in Heaven for directing more KL eps than anyone ever; I think it’s just the effect of how he’s directed so many that when his name pops up, I don’t generally get all EXCITED like I do when I see Elikann or Duke; I’m more like, “Oh yes, that old trustworthy Sgarro.”  However, let’s go ahead and give him an immediate shout out for how he shoots this scene with Mack in the church and how he cleverly runs audio of Karen’s meeting with her doctor over the footage.  Oh, such style, and all taking place on the small screen on a network show!                Oh yeah, and one other thing that we gotta mention regarding this ep: It’s written by none other than the landmark television giant <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0242896/?ref_=tt_ov_wr" target="_blank">Peter Dunne</a> (pictured below in the only photo I can manage to find of him in the entire internet world), the man who’s dick I currently want to suck really hard because I’m crediting him with saving the show from cancellation with the brilliant triple whammy of seasons four, five, and six after a rather schizophrenic and sometimes hard to sit through third season.  Maybe I’m mistaken in giving him so much credit, maybe I’m not, and I’ll probably never know since I can’t time travel back to the set of the show at this point (although dear God, how I want to, if for no other reason than to violently sodomize Michael).  Anyway, I’m willing to say maybe <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0242896/?ref_=tt_ov_wr" target="_blank">Peter Dunne</a> isn’t actually a genius in absolutely all regards considering some of the other credits on his IMDb (such as the dream season of Dallas and the rather awful final season of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melrose_Place" target="_blank">Melrose Place</a>, a show that was hardly great art at any point in its run), but he was definitely a genius when it came to writing and crafting and understanding KL and all its characters, and his talents really shine this week with an excellent script full of fantastic character moments.<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mk6suYFSZ60/WO1u4KQ3GSI/AAAAAAAACNk/WzfwR71ijWER26hXtA9X4sBvvLsC2rfTwCLcB/s1600/over%2Bdunne%2Bwith%2Bgone.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mk6suYFSZ60/WO1u4KQ3GSI/AAAAAAAACNk/WzfwR71ijWER26hXtA9X4sBvvLsC2rfTwCLcB/s400/over%2Bdunne%2Bwith%2Bgone.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>                So Karen’s in the hospital and she’s about to have her surgery and all that, but what’s Val/Verna up to over in Shula, Tennessee?  Well, we saw her making kissy with Parker Winslow last week, and now the kissy continues with Parker yet again (Parker Winslow can’t lose!), this time in the darkened back pantry or broom closet or whatever.  Basically Val/Verna goes wandering off into this dark room and is kinda sorta assaulted by Parker, who jumps out at her unexpectedly, and then the two continue to make kissy.  This would all be very romantic aside from the fact that Val/Verna is soul mates with one person and one person only, Mr. Gary Ewing, and it’s also upsetting to watch only because Parker continues to give us viewers a funny feeling.  After all, is his interest in Val/Verna really just stemming from a human physical attraction or is it from something deeper and more lecherous?  Again, we shall have to wait and find out.                That’s about all that Val/Verna is up to this week, but Greg is busy as a bee with lots of different secret meetings, most notably one taking place in the back of a limo between him and Galveston.  We the viewers are definitely starting to get the sense that there’s some sort of crazy past history between these two (like perhaps maybe, just maybe, Galveston is actually Greg’s father) based on the way that they speak to each other, like two guys who have spent time together in the past but don’t really get along much.  This scene is similar to the one from our last ep in which Galveston creepily materialized by Greg’s bedside, although the gist of the scene is a smidge different.  In that scene, Galveston was saying ominous things about how the senate wouldn’t give Greg the power he wants and needs, something like that, but in the back of the limo, Galveston is telling Greg to get Mack far away from the Tidal Basin murders, to somehow encourage him to get off the case.  Greg is like, “Oh yeah, whatever, you’re old and I don’t like you and your guest appearance in a few years on Dallas is gonna suck,” and that pretty much ends the scene.  We kinda assume that Greg will go to Mack and do as Galveston asked, but he surprises us by doing precisely the opposite.  He comes walking into Mack’s office (the one with the ‘80s rowing machine on the floor, you’ll all remember) and My Beloved Grammy was like, “Ah, here’s where he tells Mack to drop the case.”  Instead, he tells Mack to further pursue the case and, indeed, to be even more aggressive in his pursuit.  Because of the way things have unfolded between these two over the last year or so, Mack is understandably a little bit reticent to take any advice from Greg, wondering why he’s suddenly showing up at his door to give him advice on a murder case.  He’s right to be suspicious since Greg has behaved questionably in the past, but in this case we get the sense that Greg is doing something he believes to be ethical and right, not listening to the orders of Galveston even though Galveston has a distinctive deep voice and a cool moustache.<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LiyEJ28xnuY/WO1vlycSDOI/AAAAAAAACNs/KP4ppjsUPyoN484WlcMBRkd5ytdO2-OFACLcB/s1600/howard%2Bduff.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LiyEJ28xnuY/WO1vlycSDOI/AAAAAAAACNs/KP4ppjsUPyoN484WlcMBRkd5ytdO2-OFACLcB/s400/howard%2Bduff.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>                This episode kicks into action movie mode during a delightfully unexpected car chase involving Mack and Jessick and, um, some other guy.  I can distinctly remember that there were three guys in Mack’s jeep, but damn it all, I can’t remember the third guy, and I’m not all that sure it’s too important anyway.  See, Mack’s driving along, everyone’s happy, he’s like, “Who wants to go get McDonald’s?” and Jessick is like, “McDonald’s makes my ass look fat and I’ll  look like that really disgusting fat chick from that super shitty sitcom with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0416673/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1" target="_blank">Kevin James</a>,” so they decide not to go to McDonald’s and instead have a violent high speed car chase.  I love how this comes so wonderfully out of nowhere, how Mack sees this car and is like, “Oh shit!” and then immediately spins his jeep around and goes chasing after this other car, a car with two random dudes inside.  The whole time, Jessick is like, “Jesus, why are we having a high speed car chase?” but he gets no response from Mack, who manages to corner the car and then goes running out to violently assault the driver.  Seriously, Mack goes to town on this guy, really kicking the shit out of him for something like 72 minutes, even throwing him down against the hood of the car.  The guy is quickly abandoned by the other random dude in the car, who goes running off in pants-wetting terror, but just before the scene concludes, as this random dude lies all beat up and bleeding against his car, Mack points at him and says, “Wolfbridge hired him to beat me up!”                Ah yes, this brings me to a flashback from around, I think, mid season five, in which Karen was waiting for Mack to meet her for her drug rehab counseling and he instead got assaulted in the parking lot by Wolfbridge thugs.  Don’t you just love how that can happen so long ago but still play into the plots of the show now?  This is a type of storytelling that I have to think was pretty unique to this era of television, something we’d be more used to nowadays with the cable shows and the whole idea of binge watching TV.  Seriously, who in 1985 would see this scene and be like, “Oh yeah, I remember that scene!”  It feels like it happened so long ago, but it still plays into the plots now, and I like it that way.  On another, more base level, I also just enjoy whenever Mack gets really randomly angry and beats people up; it keeps his character so wonderfully unpredictable and, again, so manly.  F***, I’m starting to get really turned on by Mack at this point in the series, which is a new feeling.  The first time I watched the series, I obviously loved him and cherished him and respected him, but I don’t remember ever finding him sexy upon the first viewing and I’m starting to feel that way about him now.  Does this mean I’m growing and maturing or does it just mean I’m really horny?  I suppose that’s an issue for me to deal with on my own personal time, preferably with a good psychiatrist.                Meanwhile, Abs is up to her wicked ways again this week, helping to keep her character fully fledged and fascinating.  See, we’ve been watching Abs desperately try and figure out what happened to Val’s babies as well as what happened to Scott Easton, running around in bad hats and acting like a little amateur detective.  We have seen that she is not completely cold and heartless, that she does understand the maternal instinct and that she feels awful about what has happened to Val and her babies.  Now, on another show, this might lead to a “Abs turning good” storyline in which she goes to the join the rebels like the end of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Jedi" target="_blank">Return of the Jedi</a> or something, but KL is more complex than that, and this week we see her still up to her duplicitous ways.<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-de21zXiB2VY/WO1wp__kdbI/AAAAAAAACN4/RHeHzq9le_Mowus8yleatf0INRnUw1WEgCLcB/s1600/abs%2Bon%2Btv%2Bscreen.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-de21zXiB2VY/WO1wp__kdbI/AAAAAAAACN4/RHeHzq9le_Mowus8yleatf0INRnUw1WEgCLcB/s640/abs%2Bon%2Btv%2Bscreen.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>                See, that P.I. guy that Abs hired found Val/Verna last week, right?  When he found her, she was in the diner kissing Parker and he made the assumption that she had chosen to disappear into Shula and a new life with some new man, which is what he’s told Abs.  This week, Abs gives him orders to write a nice, tidy little report that says he failed to find Val and he’ll be moving on to a new case.  Abs declares, “I want the case on Valene Ewing closed.”  Later, she and the P.I. have a nice little meeting at her office at Lotus Point (where Abs mentions that she was an English major, just like me!), in which he starts to get, well, a little Trumpy.  I feel like it’s been a long while since Trumpy rape made its way into KL (I honestly think season one’s <a href="http://www.knotsblogging.com/2015/10/knots-landing-episode-004-of-344-lie.html" target="_blank">The Lie</a> might have been the last rapey episode we’ve seen), but now it’s back.  See, the P.I. holds up two files and says, “This one brings Val home, and this one keeps her away.”  Abs sorta sighs and clearly makes the assumption that this is all about exploiting her out of money, so she starts to pull out her checkbook and scribble something and is like, “Okay, how much?”  However, things get creepy/rapey when the P.I. walks over to her and starts to slowly stroke her face while moaning, “Money isn’t everything, Mrs. Ewing.”  Then he goes walking off, leaving both Abs and myself with a genuine feeling of disgust.<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4BH6qZUDSZk/WO1xJ57KTNI/AAAAAAAACN8/3glkejWKWGcA_mGOo88ZHIeHK3-APuT2gCLcB/s1600/trumpy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4BH6qZUDSZk/WO1xJ57KTNI/AAAAAAAACN8/3glkejWKWGcA_mGOo88ZHIeHK3-APuT2gCLcB/s640/trumpy.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>                Ugh, let’s talk about rape for a minute.  It’s one of those subjects that is a horrible thing but that is sadly a part of our world, something that happens all the time and is very hard to digest.  Back in <a href="http://www.knotsblogging.com/2015/10/knots-landing-episode-004-of-344-lie.html" target="_blank">The Lie</a>, I didn’t enjoy seeing Laura get raped, but I respected the episode for being well crafted and incredibly acted and exploring the subject in a complex way.  Here, as that horrible P.I. started to stroke Abby’s face, I honestly couldn’t remember if Abs was gonna get raped, either later in the episode or right here in front of me.  As it was happening, I kinda thought we might cut to commercial just as the P.I. started to rape, sorta like the two times J.R. raped people on Dallas and they would just cut to commercial as it was happening (yes, J.R. raped twice, I’m not making this up; once he raped Dr. Goodhead and once he raped that boring British chick that Clayton was obsessed with).  All I knew is that I did not want to see it.  There is something about the idea of Abs being raped that is just too horrible for me to deal with, and I don’t know if I would have been able to handle it happening to her.  She may be wicked and she may be duplicitous, but she’s also really strong and she’s sharp and smart and she’s my girl and I just don’t want to see her get raped.  Happily for me, that does not happen.  Again, if this was another show, like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melrose_Place" target="_blank">Melrose Place</a> for instance, I have no doubt that Abs would get raped and the writers would be like, “We need a rape to create good drama!”  On KL, the drama comes from continuous unexpected avenues, from the curveballs the writers constantly throw at us and the characters.  For instance, the next day, the P.I. shows up to show Abs and Gary his report, and it’s the report that ends with his failing to find Val at all.  Also present in the scene (and this is significant for the latter portion of the ep) is Galveston, sorta watching proceedings like a hawk.  The P.I. hands the file over to Abs and when she opens it, she sees a little post-it note inside saying, “Meet me at your office at 8:00PM so I can rape you.”  I don’t know if Galveston actually sees this note or what, but I think he does, because he gets this sharp look in his eye and we can tell wheels are in motion in his head.TO BE CONTINUED</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?