New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 40235" data-attributes="member: 22">“Brothers & Sisters”“My only wish is that you and Pam get back together again. If there's anything, anything at all I can do to bring that about, will you ask me?" - Katherine Wentworth to Bobby Ewing, February 1983. The year-long contest between JR and Bobby for control of Ewing Oil is just past the halfway stage, with The Bobster, thanks to a couple of recent manoeuvres, edging into first place. Not only did he make a small fortune out of the Wellington land deal, but he also has succeeded in having his brother's oil variance rescinded, thus putting an end to JR's cut-rate gas stations. JR remains confident, however, that Pam's recent departure from Southfork (following the death of her mother) will distract Bobby from the fight long enough for him to regain the lead. To that end, he has taken the highly illegal step of selling oil to Cuba, a country on the United States' embargo list. An initial "test run" - a shipment of 50,000 barrels of crude from Harwood Oil (the company that JR secretly owns 25% of) - has been successful. Holly, his unsuspecting partner, believes that the oil has been shipped legitimately to Puerto Rico. Nonetheless, she is unhappy that they have undercut their competitors: "If word gets out that I sold oil for twenty dollars a barrel [$14 less than the current market value], I'm gonna be boiled alive in my own crude!"  The emphasis in this episode, as with most of Season 5, is very much on business. This leaves the Southfork ladies with only limited screen time: Miss Ellie and Sue Ellen each appear in three scenes, Donna in two, and Lucy in one. In comparison to the high drama of recent episodes (the Wentworth plane crash, Miss Ellie's court fight), this episode perhaps feels a little anti-climactic on first viewing. Indeed, there is no direct conflict between any of the characters until the final ten minutes. JR and Bobby avoid each other for the most part ("our paths crossed, we didn't say anything," as JR puts it), and on the two occasions that they do meet, they are coolly polite, with JR exhibiting mock concern over the state of his brother's marriage.  JR: Boy I tell ya, it's gettin' to be so there's no one havin' dinner around here anymore. Mama dines with strangers, Lucy's off somewhere, Pam's gone - sorry, Bob. Didn't mean to rub salt in the wounds." Bobby: JR, your concern is very touching. Viewed in retrospect, however, each scene of this episode is slowly but surely moving the action closer and closer to the awesome finale of this excellently structured season. In her one scene, for instance, Lucy takes another tentative step towards romance with Mickey ("You're not ready?" he tells her, "I'll wait till you are"), while Miss Ellie draws nearer to Clayton in her scenes, offering him moral support over the sale of the Southern Cross.   Like Clayton, Katherine announces her intention to relocate to Dallas in this ep, much to the delight of sister Pam. Katherine wastes little time in sneakily arranging for Bobby to see Pam and Mark Graison together at the Summerhill Restaurant. In keeping with the non-confrontational feel of the episode, Bobby flees the restaurant unseen, instead inviting Katherine to watch him drown his sorrows at the Cattleman's Club. She now has Bobby exactly where she wants him, lost and lonely: Katherine: You are going back to Southfork tonight - aren't you? Bobby: ... Maybe I should, but I don't want to. C'mon, Katherine, stay and finish your drink. This is as close to a proposition from the man of her dreams as Katherine will ever get, but curiously she turns him down.  Why?  Well, it occurs to me that, as beautiful as Morgan Brittany is, there is something repressed, even sexually cold, about Katherine. Compared to Dallas's other ruthless sister-in-law, Kristin, she's almost prim. She maybe one of the most glamorously dressed women on the show (particularly during Season 6), but it's a hat 'n' gloves, blouse-buttoned-up-to-the-neck kind of glamour. She rarely gives it any cleavage. If she' a vamp, she's a cerebral, non-sexual one. True, JR manages to get her engine running briefly during Season 6, but Katherine only agrees to sleep with him as part of a deal, and afterwards can't even bring herself to admit that she enjoyed it. Her obsession with Bobby seems to be based on a Prince Charming type fantasy she has of him. When faced with the possibility of actually sleeping with that fantasy in this episode, it becomes too real for her and she instead retreats to the privacy of her hotel suite where she can scheme and scheme till her heart's content, without actually having to take her bra off.  With JR and Katherine furtively plotting against their respective siblings, the pivotal "brother and sister" scene of this episode belongs to Pam and Cliff. The reason behind Pam's meeting with Mark at the Summerhill is to come up with a business deal that might entice Cliff out of the depression he has been in since Rebecca's death. This deal (for an oil service company in El Paso) marks both the beginning of Pam's involvement in the oil business, which will continue for her remaining four years on the show and a turning point in her relationship with Cliff.   Up to this point, an unspoken estrangement has existed between Pam and Cliff that dates back to the end of Season 2, when Pam began searching for Rebecca after Digger's death. (Cliff: "In the beginning, when you first found each other, I was the one who didn't accept her.") Even after reconciling with Rebecca, he and Pam seemed to keep each other at arm's length, appearing together on screen only once during Season 4. ("You were worried ... that I was only after her money. Well, maybe you were right because the first chance I got I embezzled from the company.") Rebecca's decision at the beginning of Season 5 to take her son's side against the Ewings did little to improve matters.   "All those times I disappointed [our mother] when she was alive," Cliff laments, in one of those Ken Kercheval rants that remain poignant even as it teeters on the edge of hamminess. "Doesn't anybody hear me?? Doesn't anybody understand?? I was supposed to be on that trip that she died. She died, and I lived ... I wasn't even at the hospital when she died! Do you think she forgave me that?" Pam: Cliff, she didn't blame you. All she ever did was love you ... She wanted you to continue what the two of you had started together, and she asked me to take care of you, and I'm trying if you'll just let me.  With Mama now out of the picture, Pam and Cliff are now free to regain their former closeness. Pam and Bobby, meanwhile, seem to be moving further and further apart. In the last ten minutes of the episode, it is finally time for some plain speaking. Bobby: I wonder whatever happened to those words, "for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse"? You remember any of that? Pam: I wonder what happened to the Bobby Ewing I said those words to."It's no secret that JR is pleased about the problems you and Pam are having," Sue Ellen tells Bobby on his return to Southfork, far more sympathetic (i.e. dull) here than when she last sided against him, back in Season 3. "I want JR to win Ewing Oil ... but I don't want him to beat you this way." Bobby: You give your lovin' husband a message from me - if the fight for the company is gonna cost me my wife and child, then I don't have anything left but winning Ewing Oil!JR attempts to shrug off these fighting words ("Last gasp of a drownin' man, honey!") but is clearly unnerved. Bobby also has some words of wisdom for Holly Harwood, who suspects that JR might not be telling her the truth about the Puerto Rico deal: "Be real careful in your dealings with JR from now on. His back's against the wall, and that's when he's the most dangerous." Holly does not need telling twice and informs JR that "from now on, there'll be no more blank authorizations. I wanna see everything I sign!" Feeling the pressure, JR realises he will have to move quickly. He asks his middle man, Walt Driscoll, how much oil the Cubans are willing to take in one big shipment.Driscoll: The Cubans are prepared to buy all the oil you wanna sell at forty dollars a barrel ... So what are we talking about - 100,000 barrels? JR indicates that he has a higher figure in mind. Driscoll: 300,000? Higher. Driscoll: What have you got in mind, JR? JR: One million barrels!  By putting the squeeze on JR, Bobby and Holly have unwittingly contributed to a situation that could put all three of them out of business, or even send them to jail.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?