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Dallas the TV series
Dallas - The Original Series
Dallas Season Reviews
Re-watching Season 7
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<blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 48224" data-attributes="member: 22"><p><u><em>"Shattered Dreams"</em></u> An apt title perhaps as this was, according to Barbara Curran's book, the last ever 'regular' DALLAS episode (i.e. not "Swan Song") to top the US weekly ratings. </p><p></p><p>The first four scenes deal with the aftermath of Miss Ellie's decision to side with Clayton against her sons. First of all, a boozy JR turns up at Mandy's door. "I'm havin' a pretty rough time," he explains. "I don't have anyone I can talk to ... The Ewings always used to close ranks whenever there was trouble from anybody outside the family, but now things have changed. My brothers and I are on one side, and my mama and her new husband are on the other and I tell ya, it's just damn painful." I think we're meant to find this vulnerable side of JR more impressive than we actually do, ("Is this really JR Ewing, the killer in the oil business everyone talks about?" asks a wide-eyed Mandy) but it's nothing we haven't seen before. Larry Hagman seems to find it hard to do vulnerable without doing maudlin and self-piteous at the same time. Mandy is sympathetic towards him - up to a point. "I won't sleep with you," she tells him firmly. (Oh yeah, she's <em>such</em> a tramp.) </p><p></p><p>Back at Southfork, Bobby gives Jenna his perspective on the same situation: "I'm caught right between Mama and the memory of Daddy. What JR and I are doing is ... right on the edge of illegal." While a similar confession provoked a horrified reaction from Pam two years earlier ("The Bobby I love would rather be dead!") Jenna's response is more pragmatic. "Then agreeing to it must be difficult for you," she says. "I would do just about anything to protect Daddy's company, within limits," he admits. "Sometimes I wonder what your father would have thought about the things his sons are doing. Would he approve?" she wonders. "Daddy? Absolutely," he replies, which indicates that not everyone has yet forgotten that Jock wasn't always the whiter than white good guy he's been posthumously painted as. </p><p></p><p>"I know why the boys are fighting so hard," Ellie is telling Clayton in their bedroom. "They need to cling to the one tangible thing that represents Jock." It could just be that I've grown accustomed to her, but Donna Reed doesn't seem half bad in this scene. "I suddenly realised that my priorities have changed," she continues. "I closed a door on the past and I am no longer willing to go any lengths to protect the things that Jock left behind ... What's important to me now is you and our future together." The "new Ellie, new attitude" we see here makes sense for the character's development, and for a fleeting moment, Reed's recast almost does as well. </p><p></p><p>"All of us living together at Southfork may be difficult for the family," frowns Clayton. "Well if anyone feels it necessary to leave Southfork they can, but it won't be us," Ellie replies firmly. So much for keeping the family together, which has been Miss Ellie's #1 priority since the series began. Of course, she and Clayton are precisely the ones who do end up leaving Southfork, and the first indication of a division between Ellie and the rest of the Ewings that could one day result in her sailing away on a never-ending cruise can be detected in this scene.</p><p></p><p> If Pam's was the voice of moral indignation during Season 5's fight for the company, it has now been replaced by Donna's. "Ray, what you're doing is dishonest," she tells her hubby on the Krebbses' new look bedroom set. "I don't like the idea of you working with JR on these illegal deals. Honey, it's wrong!" She even makes the subversive suggestion that no one else in the family has dared to (although Sue Ellen sort of implied it during her "floating head" scene with Miss Ellie) that Jock may have deliberately swindled Jason and Digger. "All of this happened back during the Depression. Times were really tough then. You don't know what Jock might have done," she reasons, perhaps remembering the part Jock played in Jonas Culver's suicide during the same period. </p><p></p><p>This quartet of opening scenes aside, the fight for Ewing Oil takes a back seat in this instalment after dominating the action over the last few weeks. In its place, Bobby and Scotty's investigation into Naldo's murder, which effectively stalled after Jenna was released from prison, gets a new lease of life when they receive a call from a frightened Veronica Robinson ("My own life is at stake") offering to testify for Jenna in return for "round the clock protection until the killer is in jail." Of course, we never find out exactly who or what it is that has Veronica so spooked, but as she doesn't recognise Naldo's actual killer when he later sits next to her on the plane, we might as well assume that she's somehow discovered Katherine Wentworth is behind the whole murderous enchilada. </p><p></p><p>More good news follows as Jenna's trial is relocated to Dallas, leaving Scotty cheerfully anticipating many happy hours of jury tampering. "Maybe I do have a chance!" gurgles Jenna. "Things are finally starting to go our way!" smiles Bobby. Such reckless optimism in soap-land can only mean one thing: disaster is nigh.</p><p></p><p> There is something decidedly undignified, almost pathetic, about the sight of JR waking up fully dressed in a chair in Mandy's otherwise empty apartment. For a moment he seems confused about his whereabouts, but then chuckles indulgently when he sees seeing the cluster of sexy photos of Mandy on the wall. (Yep, Mandy has sexy pictures of herself on the wall. If JR is looking for clues as to what makes his obscure object of desire tick via a glimpse at her personal surroundings, all he finds are his own lustful desires reflected back at him.) Reassuringly, he reverts from pitiful back to sneaky when he overhears Cliff leave a final ultimatum message on Mandy's answering machine ("If you don't call me back, that's it") and pockets the tape. </p><p></p><p>JR is even more devious when he enlists the aid of Conrad Buckhouser, an all-purpose enigmatic European type, to help him defraud not only Cliff and Jamie, but Bobby too: "With your international contacts, I figure you could help me convert some of my assets into cash ... I have some offshore wells that I wanna sell to a corporation - that I control of course ... I've arranged to have them declared nearly depleted." "But they're not?" prompts the knowing Nordic. "No. The price is $15,000,000 each." "And you would like to me to buy them from this ... corporation for how much?" "$40,000,000 each ..." "And you could like the cash from this transaction played in a Swiss bank account." "Yes, the total oughta come to between 100 and 200 million dollars ... a personal account ... My brother doesn't have to know about this." </p><p></p><p>After following Bobby around like a lost puppy for the first half of this season, it's good to see that JR is still capable of stabbing his baby bro in the back--something he hasn't actually done since Season 5. I'm pretty certain Bobby never learns of this deception, ("You don't think I'd do anything behind your back at a time like this, do you?" JR asks him later in the episode, employing the same injured "Aww, Bob" tone he uses when he's being disappointingly sincere) and slightly less certain that it's the contents of this Swiss bank account that gives JR the start-up money he needs to finance his own company in Season 10. </p><p></p><p> Meanwhile, Pam's search for Mark--also dormant for several weeks--shifts into gear as she and Sue Ellen jet to the Orient for DALLAS's first overseas shoot. "Can you imagine Sue Ellen and Pam tryin' to find Mark Graison in Hong Kong?" sighs JR. "They'll be lucky if they can find their way out of the airport." For the purposes of this trip, Sue Ellen reverts to Nice Woman Linda Gray mode. (How else can she be an attentive sounding board for Pam except by stepping completely out of character?) The plane journey affords Pam her first real opportunity to be candid, as opposed to defensive, about how she feels regarding the search. "I'm beginning to have mixed feelings about why I'm doing this," she admits. "I still care so much about Bobby." "Then why are you going through all this trouble to find Mark," asks Sue Ellen, "the salvage operation to find the plane, the trip to the Caribbean?" "Loyalty, obligation, I don't know. A sense of duty. Mark loves me. I can't turn my back on that." Sue Ellen then makes the point previously expressed only once, by Mandy, that "if Mark staged that accident he didn't want you to find him." </p><p></p><p>We're also treated to a rare titbit about the early days of JR and Sue Ellen's marriage as Sue Ellen complains about how little travelling they've done together. (Lady, no one on this show does much travelling. Whaddaya think this is, DYNASTY?) "When we were first married," she tells Pam, "we made a couple of quick trips to Europe and one to Far East, but JR was always trying to combine business with a little pleasure, a very little pleasure." While I think I understand what she's getting at, the phrasing here seems kinda jumbled - unless "a little pleasure" refers to picking up other women?</p><p></p><p> "Isn't it beautiful?" Sue Ellen gasps as soon as she emerges from the plane, having apparently never seen a airport runway before. Pam's total disinterest in her surroundings makes a nice counterpoint to Sue Ellen's parochial touristy observations ("I think there are more skyscrapers here than there are in downtown Dallas! ... I think Hong Kong's the furtherest away from JR that I could possibly be!") and helps prevent the location scenes from becoming too traveloguey. "Why can't Dr Matsuda meet us?" demands Pam of Mr Chan, the doctor's emissary. The short answer is, cos Lorimar ain't gonna pony up for an American based Asian actor to fly out to Hong Kong when a local one will do just as well. "I'll arrange to take you to the hospital tomorrow where this Mr Graison, or Mr Swanson as he calls himself, is having treatment," Mr Chan assures Pam. "Mr Chan, are you sure that Mark Graison is in that clinic?" she asks. "Of course," he smiles. </p><p></p><p>Can it really be this easy? Watching these episodes back in 1985, before the invention of spoilers or the internet or pretty much anything other than the wheel, one genuinely didn't know what was going to happen: Is Mark alive? Is Katherine behind Jenna's arrest? Are they both coming back? How will Bobby die? It was all quite exciting. </p><p></p><p>Sue Ellen drops her Nice Woman Linda Gray act just once, when a fellow Texan approaches her and Pam in the bar of their hotel: "'Scuse me, ma'am, I'm forgettin' all my manners. My name's Benjamin Allen Moody. I'm from Waco." He extends a hand which Sue Ellen ignores. "I was wonderin' if you might be related to ol' JR?" "We're distant cousins, but my family hasn't spoken to his family for several years," she replies, before freezing him out. "It amazing," she then observes to Pam with a slightly Mae West swagger. "You have to fly halfway across the world to run into a jerk like that." Thing is, the way the guy plays the scene, the jerk wasn't a jerk at all--he's real bashful and polite. Ah well, perhaps Waco still holds bad associations for Sue Ellen. Wasn't that where Luther Frick and Payton Allen were from? </p><p></p><p>The parallel journeys of Jamie and Mandy, which began when they pitched up more or less simultaneously in opposing camps (Ewing and Barnes respectively) and then swapped sides halfway through the season, continues in this episode as the idea of marriage to a lead character is floated for both of them. First, Cliff cannot resist gloating about his recent good fortune to Jordan Lee: "I'm gonna control two-thirds of Ewing Oil, no doubt about that." "... Jamie's a Ewin'," Jordan reminds him. "How can you sure when push comes to shove, she won't side with her kin? ... Family ties can be very strong ... Cliff, you're gonna have to do somethin' to guarantee Jamie will stay on your side." This is a less blatant echo of a suggestion made by Mandy to Cliff three episodes earlier, ("Why don't you marry Jamie? That way if you win, you can own two-thirds of Ewing Oil!") but only now does the idea take root in Cliff's head. Later the same day, he invites Jamie to dinner. "Cliff, you know what would be nice?" she asks. "I've had this real hankering for Oriental food. Would you mind if we went to a Chinese restaurant?" His delighted expression says it all: this must be love! </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Mandy comes home to find flowers and balloons and "the key to your future". "It's your new home," JR then explains as he shows her around a swish new apartment. "I'm buying it for you." "... And then what?" she asks, impressively unimpressed. "You visit me here once or twice a week, mostly in the afternoon? Or once a while, we have intimate little dinners away from prying eyes? ... I won't be a kept woman. I pay my own way." "Well you did live with Cliff Barnes," he replies. "OK," she counters. "I'll live with you if you want then, at Southfork." Not since Leslie Stewart has a woman challenged JR so directly. Unlike Leslie, however, Mandy has no ulterior motive. "I like you, JR. I like you a lot. I don't know why. I asked around a little. You have a lousy reputation with women ... But you know something? As corny as this may sound, I think you could make me hear bells ... But not this way. Not bought and paid for like a roomful of flowers, or a restaurant you've taken over to impress me, or some expensive box at Texas Stadium ... I don't play games. Not where feelings are concerned." "You know what you're asking?" he asks. "I know you're rich, but I'm not for sale," she replies (echoing Sue Ellen's line from the beginning of Season 2: "You bought me once, JR, and you can't do it anymore. I am no longer for sale."). It's cool to see Mandy so assertive and articulate, before she turns into the breathy, passive and willingly kept woman of Season 8 (the year of "strong" female characters, apparently). </p><p></p><p>You know the Krebbs marriage is in trouble when ... Ray starts hanging out at the Longview Bar (now re-christened Longhorn, for some reason) on his ownsome. He evens gets propositioned by a bimbette version of Season 4's Bonnie before Clayton arrives and suggests they call an end to their JR related bickering. Elsewhere in the episode, Donna turns up at the ranch with what she claims is good news even if her face tells a different story: "We're gonna bring in a new well and it looks like it could be pretty big." "Donna, that's wonderful," replies Ellie, now back to being operated by strings, her earlier good scene an apparent anomaly. "Have you told Ray yet?" Donna admits she hasn't. "Donna, is all of this oil exploration worth it, knowing how Ray feels?" "It's just something that I have to do." Ellie leaves to meet Clayton for dinner. "Looks like none of us are too comfortable eating at home these days," murmurs Donna sadly. </p><p></p><p>As nicely acted a moment as this is, it feels like we're missing a few beats of the Ray and Donna story that have led us to this point, not least because Donna's oil field hasn't been even mentioned since the Krebbses' barbecue spat ten episodes earlier. However, the glimpses we do get of the couple carry a strong emotional weight, (even the heavy winter coat Donna wears in this interior Southfork scene helps to conjure up a sense of melancholy and bleakness) suggesting that the non-specific ennui that seemed to exist between Ray and Donna during the first half of the season has been slowly eating away at the core of their relationship without them even realising it. </p><p></p><p>Perhaps surprisingly, in such a varied episode, the best scene of all is Lovely Betty's visit to Lucy at the ranch. As Betty, Kathleen York puts all her acting skills to work in order to appear awed as she surveys the cardboard Southfork set and painted backdrop. (Casey Denault has to do something similar when he sees the ranch for the first time, again with Lucy, at the end of Season 10.) "Some place you got here," she tells Lucy. "I understand things a lot better now ... I wanted to see what the big attraction was. I couldn't believe it was just you ... But now that I've seen Southfork, I can understand why Eddie's doin' what he's doin'. If someone asked me to share in all this, I don't think I could turn it down." Not having seen Betty since their Hot Biscuit days, Lucy takes a while to figure out what's going on. "I'm talkin' about you and me and Eddie, and all that Ewing money," explains Betty. "Anyhow, I'm goin' back to El Paso so you got a clear shot at getting Eddie. I won't be in the way. I may be fun in bed, but that's not enough for him. Eddie has ambitions ... I tried to keep it real cool, but I can't anymore. So he's all yours." "Are you telling me that Eddie's been seeing both of us all along?" Lucy asks. "I kept his bed warm while you weren't there," Betty replies, "I thought I could live with it. Eddie even promised me that I'd share in the profits he'd make from that building company, but I couldn't do it anymore. I was in love with him!" </p><p></p><p>Just as Betty's situation has always closely resembled that of her Season 2 namesake Betty Lou (Alan Beam's other woman), the two Bettys' exit scenes also share a similar bittersweet quality. Each has turned her back on the man she loves and her share of his Tilton-related get-rich-quick scheme and decided to leave town, with her self respect intact and her heart broken. Both the Bettys are minor characters, sub-supporting roles really, made memorable by good actresses and nice writing. Indeed, Lovely Betty's parting words to Lucy make for one of the best final lines of any DALLAS character: "I just came out here to see if you rich girls hurt as much as us poor ones, and I am damn pleased to see that you do." </p><p></p><p>As Betty and Eddie, I've always thought Kathleen York and Fredric Lehne made a really interesting contrast to the rest of the DALLAS actors. There's a kind of naturalism (or do I just mean mumbliness?) to their performances that we're not used to seeing on DALLAS. (During her confrontation with Lucy, for instance, Betty doesn't just hit her mark and stick to it like a good little TV character should; she fidgets and moves around throughout the scene.) </p><p></p><p>After playing a total heel for most of the season, Lehne gives good remorse when Lucy confronts Eddie over what Betty has told her. (So good, in fact, that the writers give him a further two good-bye/apology scenes in subsequent episodes when this could easily be the last time we see him.) As for Lucy herself, every other time a man has does her wrong, she has dissolved into a puddle of tears and hair. For once and once only, she stands her ground and lets Eddie have it. This is probably one of her best written scenes in years. (Credit goes to Arthur Bernard Lewis, who gives some easily neglected female characters--Mandy, Lucy, Betty--some good dialogue in this episode.) </p><p></p><p>"Tell me somethin', Eddie," Lucy begins. "You like Southfork? ... You were planning on living here, weren't you? I mean, that was part of your little scheme, wasn't it? ... Maybe we could just stick Betty in the stable and you could sneak out at night to her after you'd made love to me ... I thought you liked me!" "I do like you, Lucy," he tells her. "Oh right, and you like Betty too, and who knows who else? Good Lord, how do you find time to work??" "... I don't want Betty!" "Of course you don't, because she can't set you up in your own building business. All she can do is sling hash and make love! ... You can fire your crew, cancel your concrete, get off my land and get offa Southfork!" </p><p></p><p> The episode ends with an airport scene which, unusually for DALLAS, includes no extras dressed as nuns or facially altered characters being met off planes. Even more unusually, it does include a dead woman falling out of an airplane toilet. "That's not Veronica. It can't be!" exclaims Jenna. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid it is," replies Bobby. Still, it's not the first toilet related death Priscilla Presley's been associated with. And on that crass note ...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James from London, post: 48224, member: 22"] [U][I]"Shattered Dreams"[/I][/U] An apt title perhaps as this was, according to Barbara Curran's book, the last ever 'regular' DALLAS episode (i.e. not "Swan Song") to top the US weekly ratings. The first four scenes deal with the aftermath of Miss Ellie's decision to side with Clayton against her sons. First of all, a boozy JR turns up at Mandy's door. "I'm havin' a pretty rough time," he explains. "I don't have anyone I can talk to ... The Ewings always used to close ranks whenever there was trouble from anybody outside the family, but now things have changed. My brothers and I are on one side, and my mama and her new husband are on the other and I tell ya, it's just damn painful." I think we're meant to find this vulnerable side of JR more impressive than we actually do, ("Is this really JR Ewing, the killer in the oil business everyone talks about?" asks a wide-eyed Mandy) but it's nothing we haven't seen before. Larry Hagman seems to find it hard to do vulnerable without doing maudlin and self-piteous at the same time. Mandy is sympathetic towards him - up to a point. "I won't sleep with you," she tells him firmly. (Oh yeah, she's [I]such[/I] a tramp.) Back at Southfork, Bobby gives Jenna his perspective on the same situation: "I'm caught right between Mama and the memory of Daddy. What JR and I are doing is ... right on the edge of illegal." While a similar confession provoked a horrified reaction from Pam two years earlier ("The Bobby I love would rather be dead!") Jenna's response is more pragmatic. "Then agreeing to it must be difficult for you," she says. "I would do just about anything to protect Daddy's company, within limits," he admits. "Sometimes I wonder what your father would have thought about the things his sons are doing. Would he approve?" she wonders. "Daddy? Absolutely," he replies, which indicates that not everyone has yet forgotten that Jock wasn't always the whiter than white good guy he's been posthumously painted as. "I know why the boys are fighting so hard," Ellie is telling Clayton in their bedroom. "They need to cling to the one tangible thing that represents Jock." It could just be that I've grown accustomed to her, but Donna Reed doesn't seem half bad in this scene. "I suddenly realised that my priorities have changed," she continues. "I closed a door on the past and I am no longer willing to go any lengths to protect the things that Jock left behind ... What's important to me now is you and our future together." The "new Ellie, new attitude" we see here makes sense for the character's development, and for a fleeting moment, Reed's recast almost does as well. "All of us living together at Southfork may be difficult for the family," frowns Clayton. "Well if anyone feels it necessary to leave Southfork they can, but it won't be us," Ellie replies firmly. So much for keeping the family together, which has been Miss Ellie's #1 priority since the series began. Of course, she and Clayton are precisely the ones who do end up leaving Southfork, and the first indication of a division between Ellie and the rest of the Ewings that could one day result in her sailing away on a never-ending cruise can be detected in this scene. If Pam's was the voice of moral indignation during Season 5's fight for the company, it has now been replaced by Donna's. "Ray, what you're doing is dishonest," she tells her hubby on the Krebbses' new look bedroom set. "I don't like the idea of you working with JR on these illegal deals. Honey, it's wrong!" She even makes the subversive suggestion that no one else in the family has dared to (although Sue Ellen sort of implied it during her "floating head" scene with Miss Ellie) that Jock may have deliberately swindled Jason and Digger. "All of this happened back during the Depression. Times were really tough then. You don't know what Jock might have done," she reasons, perhaps remembering the part Jock played in Jonas Culver's suicide during the same period. This quartet of opening scenes aside, the fight for Ewing Oil takes a back seat in this instalment after dominating the action over the last few weeks. In its place, Bobby and Scotty's investigation into Naldo's murder, which effectively stalled after Jenna was released from prison, gets a new lease of life when they receive a call from a frightened Veronica Robinson ("My own life is at stake") offering to testify for Jenna in return for "round the clock protection until the killer is in jail." Of course, we never find out exactly who or what it is that has Veronica so spooked, but as she doesn't recognise Naldo's actual killer when he later sits next to her on the plane, we might as well assume that she's somehow discovered Katherine Wentworth is behind the whole murderous enchilada. More good news follows as Jenna's trial is relocated to Dallas, leaving Scotty cheerfully anticipating many happy hours of jury tampering. "Maybe I do have a chance!" gurgles Jenna. "Things are finally starting to go our way!" smiles Bobby. Such reckless optimism in soap-land can only mean one thing: disaster is nigh. There is something decidedly undignified, almost pathetic, about the sight of JR waking up fully dressed in a chair in Mandy's otherwise empty apartment. For a moment he seems confused about his whereabouts, but then chuckles indulgently when he sees seeing the cluster of sexy photos of Mandy on the wall. (Yep, Mandy has sexy pictures of herself on the wall. If JR is looking for clues as to what makes his obscure object of desire tick via a glimpse at her personal surroundings, all he finds are his own lustful desires reflected back at him.) Reassuringly, he reverts from pitiful back to sneaky when he overhears Cliff leave a final ultimatum message on Mandy's answering machine ("If you don't call me back, that's it") and pockets the tape. JR is even more devious when he enlists the aid of Conrad Buckhouser, an all-purpose enigmatic European type, to help him defraud not only Cliff and Jamie, but Bobby too: "With your international contacts, I figure you could help me convert some of my assets into cash ... I have some offshore wells that I wanna sell to a corporation - that I control of course ... I've arranged to have them declared nearly depleted." "But they're not?" prompts the knowing Nordic. "No. The price is $15,000,000 each." "And you would like to me to buy them from this ... corporation for how much?" "$40,000,000 each ..." "And you could like the cash from this transaction played in a Swiss bank account." "Yes, the total oughta come to between 100 and 200 million dollars ... a personal account ... My brother doesn't have to know about this." After following Bobby around like a lost puppy for the first half of this season, it's good to see that JR is still capable of stabbing his baby bro in the back--something he hasn't actually done since Season 5. I'm pretty certain Bobby never learns of this deception, ("You don't think I'd do anything behind your back at a time like this, do you?" JR asks him later in the episode, employing the same injured "Aww, Bob" tone he uses when he's being disappointingly sincere) and slightly less certain that it's the contents of this Swiss bank account that gives JR the start-up money he needs to finance his own company in Season 10. Meanwhile, Pam's search for Mark--also dormant for several weeks--shifts into gear as she and Sue Ellen jet to the Orient for DALLAS's first overseas shoot. "Can you imagine Sue Ellen and Pam tryin' to find Mark Graison in Hong Kong?" sighs JR. "They'll be lucky if they can find their way out of the airport." For the purposes of this trip, Sue Ellen reverts to Nice Woman Linda Gray mode. (How else can she be an attentive sounding board for Pam except by stepping completely out of character?) The plane journey affords Pam her first real opportunity to be candid, as opposed to defensive, about how she feels regarding the search. "I'm beginning to have mixed feelings about why I'm doing this," she admits. "I still care so much about Bobby." "Then why are you going through all this trouble to find Mark," asks Sue Ellen, "the salvage operation to find the plane, the trip to the Caribbean?" "Loyalty, obligation, I don't know. A sense of duty. Mark loves me. I can't turn my back on that." Sue Ellen then makes the point previously expressed only once, by Mandy, that "if Mark staged that accident he didn't want you to find him." We're also treated to a rare titbit about the early days of JR and Sue Ellen's marriage as Sue Ellen complains about how little travelling they've done together. (Lady, no one on this show does much travelling. Whaddaya think this is, DYNASTY?) "When we were first married," she tells Pam, "we made a couple of quick trips to Europe and one to Far East, but JR was always trying to combine business with a little pleasure, a very little pleasure." While I think I understand what she's getting at, the phrasing here seems kinda jumbled - unless "a little pleasure" refers to picking up other women? "Isn't it beautiful?" Sue Ellen gasps as soon as she emerges from the plane, having apparently never seen a airport runway before. Pam's total disinterest in her surroundings makes a nice counterpoint to Sue Ellen's parochial touristy observations ("I think there are more skyscrapers here than there are in downtown Dallas! ... I think Hong Kong's the furtherest away from JR that I could possibly be!") and helps prevent the location scenes from becoming too traveloguey. "Why can't Dr Matsuda meet us?" demands Pam of Mr Chan, the doctor's emissary. The short answer is, cos Lorimar ain't gonna pony up for an American based Asian actor to fly out to Hong Kong when a local one will do just as well. "I'll arrange to take you to the hospital tomorrow where this Mr Graison, or Mr Swanson as he calls himself, is having treatment," Mr Chan assures Pam. "Mr Chan, are you sure that Mark Graison is in that clinic?" she asks. "Of course," he smiles. Can it really be this easy? Watching these episodes back in 1985, before the invention of spoilers or the internet or pretty much anything other than the wheel, one genuinely didn't know what was going to happen: Is Mark alive? Is Katherine behind Jenna's arrest? Are they both coming back? How will Bobby die? It was all quite exciting. Sue Ellen drops her Nice Woman Linda Gray act just once, when a fellow Texan approaches her and Pam in the bar of their hotel: "'Scuse me, ma'am, I'm forgettin' all my manners. My name's Benjamin Allen Moody. I'm from Waco." He extends a hand which Sue Ellen ignores. "I was wonderin' if you might be related to ol' JR?" "We're distant cousins, but my family hasn't spoken to his family for several years," she replies, before freezing him out. "It amazing," she then observes to Pam with a slightly Mae West swagger. "You have to fly halfway across the world to run into a jerk like that." Thing is, the way the guy plays the scene, the jerk wasn't a jerk at all--he's real bashful and polite. Ah well, perhaps Waco still holds bad associations for Sue Ellen. Wasn't that where Luther Frick and Payton Allen were from? The parallel journeys of Jamie and Mandy, which began when they pitched up more or less simultaneously in opposing camps (Ewing and Barnes respectively) and then swapped sides halfway through the season, continues in this episode as the idea of marriage to a lead character is floated for both of them. First, Cliff cannot resist gloating about his recent good fortune to Jordan Lee: "I'm gonna control two-thirds of Ewing Oil, no doubt about that." "... Jamie's a Ewin'," Jordan reminds him. "How can you sure when push comes to shove, she won't side with her kin? ... Family ties can be very strong ... Cliff, you're gonna have to do somethin' to guarantee Jamie will stay on your side." This is a less blatant echo of a suggestion made by Mandy to Cliff three episodes earlier, ("Why don't you marry Jamie? That way if you win, you can own two-thirds of Ewing Oil!") but only now does the idea take root in Cliff's head. Later the same day, he invites Jamie to dinner. "Cliff, you know what would be nice?" she asks. "I've had this real hankering for Oriental food. Would you mind if we went to a Chinese restaurant?" His delighted expression says it all: this must be love! Meanwhile, Mandy comes home to find flowers and balloons and "the key to your future". "It's your new home," JR then explains as he shows her around a swish new apartment. "I'm buying it for you." "... And then what?" she asks, impressively unimpressed. "You visit me here once or twice a week, mostly in the afternoon? Or once a while, we have intimate little dinners away from prying eyes? ... I won't be a kept woman. I pay my own way." "Well you did live with Cliff Barnes," he replies. "OK," she counters. "I'll live with you if you want then, at Southfork." Not since Leslie Stewart has a woman challenged JR so directly. Unlike Leslie, however, Mandy has no ulterior motive. "I like you, JR. I like you a lot. I don't know why. I asked around a little. You have a lousy reputation with women ... But you know something? As corny as this may sound, I think you could make me hear bells ... But not this way. Not bought and paid for like a roomful of flowers, or a restaurant you've taken over to impress me, or some expensive box at Texas Stadium ... I don't play games. Not where feelings are concerned." "You know what you're asking?" he asks. "I know you're rich, but I'm not for sale," she replies (echoing Sue Ellen's line from the beginning of Season 2: "You bought me once, JR, and you can't do it anymore. I am no longer for sale."). It's cool to see Mandy so assertive and articulate, before she turns into the breathy, passive and willingly kept woman of Season 8 (the year of "strong" female characters, apparently). You know the Krebbs marriage is in trouble when ... Ray starts hanging out at the Longview Bar (now re-christened Longhorn, for some reason) on his ownsome. He evens gets propositioned by a bimbette version of Season 4's Bonnie before Clayton arrives and suggests they call an end to their JR related bickering. Elsewhere in the episode, Donna turns up at the ranch with what she claims is good news even if her face tells a different story: "We're gonna bring in a new well and it looks like it could be pretty big." "Donna, that's wonderful," replies Ellie, now back to being operated by strings, her earlier good scene an apparent anomaly. "Have you told Ray yet?" Donna admits she hasn't. "Donna, is all of this oil exploration worth it, knowing how Ray feels?" "It's just something that I have to do." Ellie leaves to meet Clayton for dinner. "Looks like none of us are too comfortable eating at home these days," murmurs Donna sadly. As nicely acted a moment as this is, it feels like we're missing a few beats of the Ray and Donna story that have led us to this point, not least because Donna's oil field hasn't been even mentioned since the Krebbses' barbecue spat ten episodes earlier. However, the glimpses we do get of the couple carry a strong emotional weight, (even the heavy winter coat Donna wears in this interior Southfork scene helps to conjure up a sense of melancholy and bleakness) suggesting that the non-specific ennui that seemed to exist between Ray and Donna during the first half of the season has been slowly eating away at the core of their relationship without them even realising it. Perhaps surprisingly, in such a varied episode, the best scene of all is Lovely Betty's visit to Lucy at the ranch. As Betty, Kathleen York puts all her acting skills to work in order to appear awed as she surveys the cardboard Southfork set and painted backdrop. (Casey Denault has to do something similar when he sees the ranch for the first time, again with Lucy, at the end of Season 10.) "Some place you got here," she tells Lucy. "I understand things a lot better now ... I wanted to see what the big attraction was. I couldn't believe it was just you ... But now that I've seen Southfork, I can understand why Eddie's doin' what he's doin'. If someone asked me to share in all this, I don't think I could turn it down." Not having seen Betty since their Hot Biscuit days, Lucy takes a while to figure out what's going on. "I'm talkin' about you and me and Eddie, and all that Ewing money," explains Betty. "Anyhow, I'm goin' back to El Paso so you got a clear shot at getting Eddie. I won't be in the way. I may be fun in bed, but that's not enough for him. Eddie has ambitions ... I tried to keep it real cool, but I can't anymore. So he's all yours." "Are you telling me that Eddie's been seeing both of us all along?" Lucy asks. "I kept his bed warm while you weren't there," Betty replies, "I thought I could live with it. Eddie even promised me that I'd share in the profits he'd make from that building company, but I couldn't do it anymore. I was in love with him!" Just as Betty's situation has always closely resembled that of her Season 2 namesake Betty Lou (Alan Beam's other woman), the two Bettys' exit scenes also share a similar bittersweet quality. Each has turned her back on the man she loves and her share of his Tilton-related get-rich-quick scheme and decided to leave town, with her self respect intact and her heart broken. Both the Bettys are minor characters, sub-supporting roles really, made memorable by good actresses and nice writing. Indeed, Lovely Betty's parting words to Lucy make for one of the best final lines of any DALLAS character: "I just came out here to see if you rich girls hurt as much as us poor ones, and I am damn pleased to see that you do." As Betty and Eddie, I've always thought Kathleen York and Fredric Lehne made a really interesting contrast to the rest of the DALLAS actors. There's a kind of naturalism (or do I just mean mumbliness?) to their performances that we're not used to seeing on DALLAS. (During her confrontation with Lucy, for instance, Betty doesn't just hit her mark and stick to it like a good little TV character should; she fidgets and moves around throughout the scene.) After playing a total heel for most of the season, Lehne gives good remorse when Lucy confronts Eddie over what Betty has told her. (So good, in fact, that the writers give him a further two good-bye/apology scenes in subsequent episodes when this could easily be the last time we see him.) As for Lucy herself, every other time a man has does her wrong, she has dissolved into a puddle of tears and hair. For once and once only, she stands her ground and lets Eddie have it. This is probably one of her best written scenes in years. (Credit goes to Arthur Bernard Lewis, who gives some easily neglected female characters--Mandy, Lucy, Betty--some good dialogue in this episode.) "Tell me somethin', Eddie," Lucy begins. "You like Southfork? ... You were planning on living here, weren't you? I mean, that was part of your little scheme, wasn't it? ... Maybe we could just stick Betty in the stable and you could sneak out at night to her after you'd made love to me ... I thought you liked me!" "I do like you, Lucy," he tells her. "Oh right, and you like Betty too, and who knows who else? Good Lord, how do you find time to work??" "... I don't want Betty!" "Of course you don't, because she can't set you up in your own building business. All she can do is sling hash and make love! ... You can fire your crew, cancel your concrete, get off my land and get offa Southfork!" The episode ends with an airport scene which, unusually for DALLAS, includes no extras dressed as nuns or facially altered characters being met off planes. Even more unusually, it does include a dead woman falling out of an airplane toilet. "That's not Veronica. It can't be!" exclaims Jenna. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid it is," replies Bobby. Still, it's not the first toilet related death Priscilla Presley's been associated with. And on that crass note ... [/QUOTE]
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