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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Knots Blogger" data-source="post: 59910" data-attributes="member: 392">CONTINUEDHowever, it’s not all laughs this week, because not too long after that scene, we get one that almost made me cry, but not quite (I haven’t cried since Val in the nursery in <a href="http://www.knotsblogging.com/2017/03/knots-landing-episode-109-of-344-we.html" target="_blank">We Gather Together</a>).  To provide some context, when Gary returns home to Westfork, Abs is not pleased about what he’s been up to the last few days or weeks or however long he was over in Shula, and she tells him it’s time for him to make a clean break from Val and stay out of her life.  She points out how he comes running to Val every time she calls, how he’ll drop everything in his own life to go help her and be with her, and she says it needs to stop now.  Gary appears to really listen to her, and he’s also probably having some guilt about Ben getting the short end of the stick and the whole “Gary and I need to get situated,” line from Val earlier.  Because of that, he takes Val out for a walk on the beach and uses the opportunity to be straight with her. <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wO4AW4pS7vQ/WO-W7JhmvOI/AAAAAAAACSA/lUCwF2vZAF40xIoduBzQ7QLhce7Ul2txwCEw/s1600/abs%2Bletting%2Bpaul%2Bdie.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wO4AW4pS7vQ/WO-W7JhmvOI/AAAAAAAACSA/lUCwF2vZAF40xIoduBzQ7QLhce7Ul2txwCEw/s640/abs%2Bletting%2Bpaul%2Bdie.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a> Oh, so much to say about this scene.  First off, it takes place at the beach, which we have seen time and time again to be something of a religious place for Val.  Indeed, she starts to go on during this scene about her deep love affair with the ocean, about the first time she saw it, all that stuff.  I do have one micro criticism about this scene, and that is that Val says how the first time she went to the ocean, she specifically went alone.  However, those of us who remember the <a href="http://www.knotsblogging.com/2015/10/knots-landing-episode-001-of-344-pilot.html" target="_blank">Pilot</a> should remember that when Val first saw the ocean, she was not alone; she was with Sid Fairgate’s wayward and estranged daughter, Annie.  I don’t know if this counts as a plot flaw, because you could argue that Val is still coming out of her Verna state and slowly starting to remember past events, so maybe she just doesn’t remember Annie, but whatever, it’s a tiny little criticism of a great scene. The scene gets really sad when Gary finally tells Val the truth.  He tells her how they used to be married, but they aren’t anymore, that he can’t be hanging around with her all the time.  Rather than a big dramatic performance, Val just makes this kinda sad sound, almost like a squeak, like she has no words to respond, and then she turns her back and goes walking off into the tide for a minute, and it was just a really painful scene to witness.  Again, I marvel at the writers’ ability to keep Gary and Val apart for so long and to keep us wanting so bad to see them back together again.  I’ve never seen another TV couple like this; usually these “Will they or won’t they?” couples leave me bored to tears or you have to deal with a lot of sloppy logic for why they spend the series apart (Ross and Rachel), but in this case, it just works so well.  The fact that Val thought she and Gary were married and now she gets the sad truth also just lends this really painful weight to the scene that made it rather hard to watch; my heart goes out to Val and I just feel so bad for all the pain she’s going through.  Amazing scene with amazing acting by both J.V.A and Shack.After this, Val continues to act, well, a little nutty.  In this case, she seems to go into a sorta manic cleaning mode to deal with her angry feelings, scrubbing the kitchen floor like a madman until Mack comes in to speak with her.  Right here, we get yet another great scene with some more fabulous acting, as Mack has to sorta be rough but sorta be loving all at the same time.  He says something about, “There are a lot of bad guys in the world, but there are also a lot of good guys, like me or Ben,” or something like that, and I think his words help Val slightly in dealing with her feelings, but you also get the sense that this may be a long road ahead, that Val will not just snap back into being her normal self right away.  Again, I like that deliberate pacing; I don’t want to see Val instantaneously change overnight into the same woman she was before she had her babies taken away; I want to see the steps that lead to her returning to normal. <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-48SMf_JIWck/WO-XDgoaGFI/AAAAAAAACSA/VjT8s2Q1sSslRvBU1PB3KjXlQhZxyt3OACEw/s1600/Val%2Bcleaning%2Bfloor.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-48SMf_JIWck/WO-XDgoaGFI/AAAAAAAACSA/VjT8s2Q1sSslRvBU1PB3KjXlQhZxyt3OACEw/s400/Val%2Bcleaning%2Bfloor.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>The last big important storyline for this week involves Paul Galveston, who continues to hold the threat of the truth about Val’s babies over Abby’s head.  Frustrated at the current state of things, Abs busts into his home office late at night to search desperately for any evidence of her own wrongdoing.  Fortunately, she finds a handy little notebook in Galveston’s desk which has all the incriminating evidence against her.  Perhaps it’s a plot shortcut that all this information is nicely contained in just one notebook and that all Abs has to do is take the notebook, but I’m willing to go with it, especially since the excitement of the scene immediately cranks up to a thousand when Galveston catches her snooping around.  He sits down in his chair and says something about how he’s gonna expose Abs and all that, but then he starts to act sorta funny, mentioning how he has this really bad headache and it doesn’t feel normal.  We can all smell what’s coming, since just an episode or two ago we saw him pull a Father Merrin and pop some sort of pills.  Now, he doesn’t have his pills and Abs is certainly not helping.  When Galveston asks her to call his doctor and have him sent over, Abs gets the fabulous last line of the episode when she says, “Call him yourself, Cookie,” and then she just walks out, leaving Galveston to, well, die, I suppose.  Or is he going to die?  Watching this ep, I had that fabulous experience where I had completely forgotten all these developments and couldn’t honestly remember what would happen in the coming eps.  Watching the scene now, I just assumed Galveston was dying, but as we move forward, we’ll see that perhaps it won’t be all that easy.  <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mn5zfBXIfCk/WO-W5T0ZNtI/AAAAAAAACSA/p3PaMuvsYYkW9ps9h-9EvPt8Kw7nutiygCEw/s1600/paul%2Bdying%2Bcuz%2Babs%2Bis%2Bletting%2Bhim%2Bdie.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mn5zfBXIfCk/WO-W5T0ZNtI/AAAAAAAACSA/p3PaMuvsYYkW9ps9h-9EvPt8Kw7nutiygCEw/s400/paul%2Bdying%2Bcuz%2Babs%2Bis%2Bletting%2Bhim%2Bdie.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a> As usual, this was an absolutely fabulous episode of KL directed with style and class by one <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004886/?ref_=ttfc_fc_dr1" target="_blank">Bill “Cooke” Duke</a> (and I am very upset to peek at his IMDb and see that he only has a mere two more eps of KL on his resume!).  I found that a lot of the best joys of this ep came not from the big stuff, but from the small stuff, little lines or scenes that I appreciated.  Obviously I already mentioned the hilarious scene with everyone praying to God, but we also had some funny dialogue from Ben when he gets his flat tire, not to mention the great final line from Abs towards Galveston.  I liked that Val does not simply return home and immediately resume normal life, but rather that we see it’s going to take some time to get her back to normal, and I also liked all the good drama flying around, most especially that cliffhanger ending with a possibly dying Paul Galveston.  Last of all, this episode really hits hard on emotions with the scene of Gary and Val at the beach, which honestly makes my heart break a little.  Overall, an exceptionally solid 48 minutes of KL. <a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xVAAks03ylo/WO-XK7yy8YI/AAAAAAAACSA/e5N6FNzqXl4aeGXEdWTGNrc7vcqD6UBAwCEw/s1600/abs%2Band%2Bgalv.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xVAAks03ylo/WO-XK7yy8YI/AAAAAAAACSA/e5N6FNzqXl4aeGXEdWTGNrc7vcqD6UBAwCEw/s400/abs%2Band%2Bgalv.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a> Next up, we shall see Val continue her slow process of returning to the Val we all know and love with Rough Edges. <a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6hj0268SxDw/WO-XRQz8VcI/AAAAAAAACSA/OF7jeWwTswUQoASi5-weu8YPw0vtvjdAgCEw/s1600/abs%2Band%2Bsumn.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6hj0268SxDw/WO-XRQz8VcI/AAAAAAAACSA/OF7jeWwTswUQoASi5-weu8YPw0vtvjdAgCEw/s400/abs%2Band%2Bsumn.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></blockquote>

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