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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Knots Blogger" data-source="post: 59906" data-attributes="member: 392">CONTINUEDHonestly, that about does it for our other characters this week.  This episode is very heavily focused on Gary and Val/Verna; looking through my notes it’s clear that the majority of the action this week is in Shula as Val prepared for her nuptials.  As I mentioned before, I have some logical problems with this development, most specifically the fact that I’m pretty sure getting married is a smidge more complicated than just showing up at a church and saying, “Hi, I’m ready to get married.”  Pretty sure you need to, you know, prove who you are and where you come from, provide a valid I.D. and social security number, stuff like that.  This week, Parker just sorta shows up while Val/Verna is working and is like, “I got us our marriage license!”  No questions are asked about how he got a marriage license for a woman who isn’t who she says she is and who has no actual proof that she is Verna Ellers.  In any case, it’s just not that big of a deal, and it’s certainly not something I was focusing on upon first viewing; I was just way too enraptured with the drama and nervous about what was going to happen to Val/Verna.Okay, I might have one more little logical flaw in this particular ep, and this time it lies with Gary being the only person in Shula who knows what’s going on and is trying to rescue Val/Verna.  We get some scenes here and there throughout the ep of other characters being like, “I’d better get to Tennessee and see if I can help” and then usually Abs shuts them down for one reason or another.  We actually open the ep with Ben and Joshua saying they’re gonna go there and Abs gives them some line about how Gary has the situation well in hand and doesn’t need outside help.  However, I just kinda don’t believe that a character like Ben, especially, wouldn’t just ignore Abs and go off to do his thing.  The same goes for Lilimae, as well.  When she hears where Val is, she gets very excited and wants to go right away, and then I think Karen or someone says how Val’s not herself and it’s best that just Gary is there.  The problem, of course, is that nobody in Shula is believing anything Gary’s saying and, since he’s the only outsider trying to let the truth be known, he comes across as crazy.  If he had shown up with Ben and Lilimae and Karen to be his support and affirm what he is saying, he wouldn’t look so nutty, but instead he’s going solo and it’s proving to be a bit of an uphill battle.  Again, it’s a little plot flaw that I’m willing to overlook since the drama is this good.  <a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PLSkMHGthmY/WO41MGx7jbI/AAAAAAAACRQ/JDdDyVGEyF0K1M7ESQ-bDEVsMH84IEXhQCEw/s1600/feeble%2Bflower%2Battack%2B2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PLSkMHGthmY/WO41MGx7jbI/AAAAAAAACRQ/JDdDyVGEyF0K1M7ESQ-bDEVsMH84IEXhQCEw/s640/feeble%2Bflower%2Battack%2B2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a> Gary is persistent and pretty smart with his methods of jogging Val’s memories.  First off, he starts with the simple method of sending her flowers and a “Good luck on your marriage” note.  This might seem odd, but really it’s not, cuz he’s serving to remind her of his own existence and of her previous life with him and the two marriages they had (I’m referring to their nuptials in the Dallas ep <a href="http://www.knotsblogging.com/2015/09/a-brief-dallas-interlude-part-4-of-12.html" target="_blank">Return Engagements</a> as their second marriage, but did they ever actually get an official divorce in all those years between the early ‘60s and 1979?  Maybe in reality Gary and Val have only been married once).  The flowers scene is nice because they arrive at the diner and Parker tries to grab them real fast and is like, “Oh, I’ll go put them in water,” clearly not wanting Val to see the note, since she’s assuming they came from Parker himself.  Then she reads the note and sees they’re from Gary and Parker looks rather dejected.  Later he and his two goons show up at Gary’s hotel room and he smashes the flowers against the wall and is like, “We don’t want these!”  This scene interests me because as Parker is being threatening to Gary his two goons are sorta going through the room, looking around, clearly on the prowl for something, but what?  I assume they’re just looking around for either something to damn Gary with or something that proves Gary’s telling the truth, but whatever it is, they don’t find it and end up leaving empty handed. <a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XdFwZHNZBDE/WO41Ksm5l5I/AAAAAAAACRQ/iqdz-8Y_kZgsUmdMrTwVzP9HWtIdnorlwCEw/s1600/feeble%2Bflower%2Battack%2B1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XdFwZHNZBDE/WO41Ksm5l5I/AAAAAAAACRQ/iqdz-8Y_kZgsUmdMrTwVzP9HWtIdnorlwCEw/s400/feeble%2Bflower%2Battack%2B1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a> Next up is a scene that I had forgotten existed, and I don’t know how the hell that could be, because it’s sublime.  It’s the night before the wedding and Val/Verna is all dressed up in her wedding gown, sorta hanging around her cute little apartment and admiring herself in the mirror.  Then, in a very ghostly little appearance, Gary just sorta shows up in the mirror.  She’s looking at herself and then suddenly Gary is there, standing behind her.  This could come off as creepy but instead it comes off as unbelievably romantic, and it only gets more romantic when this really cool and strange music kicks in (it sounds like music coming directly out of a little music box on a nightstand or something) and Gary and Val/Verna start to dance around the room.  She’s in her wedding dress, he’s in his tux, the music is beautiful, the scene is very dreamlike and strange, but not creepy, just loving, and it’s a good long scene that really lets you disappear into the moment, and then it’s very rudely interrupted by asshole Parker, who just sorta comes walking in and sees Val/Verna in her dress, which we all know is bad luck.  Val/Verna gets real upset and yells at Parker and is like, “You knew I’d be in my dress tonight and you know it’s bad luck to see me and you came over anyway,” and she basically shoves him out and slams the door in his face, not hiding her anger one bit.  Of course, I think we all know the real reason she’s upset is not because of a superstitious belief in the groom seeing the bride before the wedding, but rather that she was having this transcendent dream dance sequence with her true soul mate, Gary, and Parker ruined it.  How did I forget about this scene?  It’s totally trippy and cinematic and romantic all at once, and it so aptly demonstrates the cool arty things KL will do regularly that parent series Dallas would never have even bothered to attempt, and I’m willing to bet the other ‘80s nighttime soaps wouldn’t attempt either.  Plus, it’s just beautiful.  The more I watch, the more sure I am that Gary and Val are my favorite TV couple of all time.  During this long, long period in which the two are split up, I just want them to be together so badly; my heart melts during romantic scenes such as this.  It actually makes me believe in the idea of true love and soul mates. <a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cnl0IHiL6Ew/WO41Tj4LY8I/AAAAAAAACRQ/fSc7JuBl9wAh5pglrjEdvwVZ0kucg0X7ACEw/s1600/most%2Bromantic%2Bscene%2Bever%2Baside%2Bfrom%2Bflying.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cnl0IHiL6Ew/WO41Tj4LY8I/AAAAAAAACRQ/fSc7JuBl9wAh5pglrjEdvwVZ0kucg0X7ACEw/s640/most%2Bromantic%2Bscene%2Bever%2Baside%2Bfrom%2Bflying.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a> Gary’s last effort to help Val/Verna see the light is also one of his first uses of anything real or practical to try and snap her out of her stupor.  In this case, he brings a nice hardcover of Nashville Junction (I don’t know if they’ve put it out in paperback quite yet) with a great black and white photo of Val/Verna on the back.  He shows her the cover and says, “Look at this, it’s you.”  Even still, Val/Verna continues to resist, only paying the photo the very briefest of glances before mumbling something about how, “That doesn’t mean anything.”  Gary gets a bit aggressive and grabs her and looks her firmly in the eyes and says, “You look at me and you tell me that you’re getting married this afternoon.”  Then there’s a bit of a dramatic pause and Val/Verna says, “I’m getting married this afternoon.” <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ovlzM2L5exg/WO41pP2nvfI/AAAAAAAACRQ/3J0xmMFcYMAdPKaPtbmfJmmkcjeHOGn7QCEw/s1600/final%2Bplea.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ovlzM2L5exg/WO41pP2nvfI/AAAAAAAACRQ/3J0xmMFcYMAdPKaPtbmfJmmkcjeHOGn7QCEw/s400/final%2Bplea.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a> Before that, however, we get to see Val/Verna hanging around her apartment all alone in her wedding dress, a private moment in which she looks at the photo and, I think, kinda sorta starts to want to accept the truth.  Again, I think her brain is all confused; if she decides to accept the fact of her identity and her long history with Gary, that would also mean having to accept the other horrible things that have happened to her, with of course the most horrible thing being the loss of her babies.  I think it makes sense that her mind would continue to try and block this information out.  As she sits around, we also keep crosscutting to the gatherers at the church, getting nervous about her absence.  I want to give a quick shout out to a character I’ve sorta neglected, Ron Merriwether, the boss down at the diner.  This is a small character who I really warmed up to during the course of Val’s/Verna’s stay in Shula.  In the last ep, he wasn’t very helpful to Gary at all, but now through small details we are starting to see him having a change of opinion.  I noted the way he looks at Parker while they’re at the church, waiting to see if the bride will show up, and I also noted some little snarky things he says to Parker here and there; I get the feeling that he’s starting to smell a rat with this whole operation, starting to think maybe Gary is right and Parker is perhaps holding in some sort of secret.In any case, the suspense lasts for awhile and then Val/Verna does indeed show up, quite a bit late but looking nice in her wedding dress.  She stands up with Parker in front of the preacher guy and then Gary comes bursting in and tries to stop what’s going on.  Actually, he does the cool thing I’ve always wanted to do and waits for the guy to say, “If anyone should have any objection Bob Loblaw,” and that’s when he says how Verna is not Verna, she is Val, and she belongs in California, and so on and so forth.  I’ve always wondered about that little “Speak now or forever hold your peace,” thing.  Do they really say that thinking anybody will stand up and object, or is it just a formality that you do as part of the wedding tradition?  I’ve been to lots of weddings (and they’ve usually been boring and I generally get drunk because I hate weddings) and I’ve never seen anyone object, but there’s always hope. KL knows how to milk suspense and how to keep us coming back for more, so they do the smart thing here and simply end on Gary pleading with Val/Verna and her looking at him, having to make a decision, and then a freeze frame on her confused face, not sure what to do.  Happily for My Beloved Grammy and I, we just took a small pause to make some popcorn and then we immediately jumped into the next ep, but oh man, imagine being in 1985 and seeing this for the first time and having to wait seven long days to find out what Val/Verna will decide.  Oh boy, talk about your agonizing suspense. With season six, I almost feel like I could just copy and paste my final thoughts on the eps for every single one, since it basically just boils down to me saying, “Well, that was clearly brilliant.”  Lead Me to the Altar was clearly brilliant, as well, but why?  Well, I think there’s a real sense of importance and urgency to this ep, a feeling that Gary must rescue Val/Verna and he must do it now, before it’s too late.  I felt legit excited watching this even though, in the back of my mind, I could remember how things were gonna turn out.  Also, the ep has Sumner’s first cigar (OMIGOD!) and of course the fabulous little dance dream sequence between Gary and Val/Verna that is simply the personification of true love captured forever on film, a moment to make even the blackest of hearts lighten a little bit.  Finally, it ended on  a fabulous cliffhanger and it would be actually literally impossible for a person to watch this ep and not tune in for the next ep.  So yeah, overall super solid.Next up we shall see if Val/Verna decides to escape from Shula with Gary or if she’s gonna stick around for a shitty marriage to a shitty man named Parker.  The title kinda gives away what’s gonna happen, but in any case, coming up next is Fly Away Home.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?