Who done it, if Julia did not?

[Falcon Crest I]

If Julia hadn't bludgeoned Carlo Agretti to death (the plot which ran through the 2nd season) then who should have been the culprit? Many confessions were filmed with other characters and reportedly Abby Dalton didn't even know, until a late stage. I suppose the shooting at Vickie's big day could still have occurred. Other possible culprits for the death of Carlo Grape King Agretti; Angela, Philip, Lance, Cole, Chao-Li and Richard.

 

[Angela Channing]

I never would have guessed it would be Julia because she was a major character and a key member of the Channing family. I thought it would be someone a bit more dispensable. I remember at the time thinking it would be Philip or Chao-Li. I would have made it Philip because I think he was the most easily replaceable as was the case later in the series when Greg took over his responsibilities.

 

[Jock Og]

Julia in the clinker and her subsequent escape provided Abby Dalton with substantial material, to showcase her acting capabilities. Season 3 was Julia's/Abby's finest time. In a way she had reached her peak. Anything after the third season was going to get it difficult to surpass for drama and creativity. I also thought it was a shocker when Julia was revealed as the killer of old man Agretti. From the others listed perhaps Philip or how about Lance? Would the latter have went down the insanity route like his mother?


Angela and Chao-Li are discussing their pet, the falcon Apollo, (a scene from season 2, 1982 - '83):

Angela: "Apollo looks so harmless in captivity."

Chao-Li: "Not to me!"

Angela: "Ha! You're right. If we set him free he'll resort to his killer instincts."

Chao-Li: "I'd rather cook him first!"

Angela: "Oh now Chao-Li!"

 

[Angela Channing]

Angela and Chao-Li are discussing their pet, the falcon Apollo, (a scene from season 2, 1982 - '83):

Angela: "Apollo looks so harmless in captivity."

Chao-Li: "Not to me!"

Angela: "Ha! You're right. If we set him free he'll resort to his killer instincts."

Chao-Li: "I'd rather cook him first!"

Angela: "Oh now Chao-Li!"

I don't remember this scene but it so funny. Chao-Li and Angela were such a great double act.

 

[Gioberti84]

If Julia hadn't bludgeoned Carlo Agretti to death (the plot which ran through the 2nd season) then who should have been the culprit? Many confessions were filmed with other characters and reportedly Abby Dalton didn't even know, until a late stage. I suppose the shooting at Vickie's big day could still have occurred. Other possible culprits for the death of Carlo Grape King Agretti; Angela, Philip, Lance, Cole, Chao-Li and Richard.

Lance because he discovered Julia had a few dates with Carlo and also Carlo's planned takeover got him mad.

 

[Arlene Halloran]

Even though he was important in the show I would plump for Lance. His reveal as being the killer might not have been as as shocking as Julia though.

 

[Toni]

This would have been brilliant:

"I did not know...he would be killed by you!!!"
"Moi? For Henri Denault´s sake...I don´t think so...
Sheriff Robbins, I´d say this poor man doesn´t have
his papers in order...Have him arrested and sent to Singapore..."



...Where he became the most famous plastic surgeon in the world
after giving a Steven Carrington a new face. Every man asked him
to do him a "NuSteven"...In this pic we can also see how close the
couple actually was, because they were having an affair, though the
Dienasty writers refused to include this part in their scripts...​

 

[Toni]

Now seriously. I think that Julia being the killer was the typical Dienasty cliffhanger before they started to cook them so badly. It was a perfect season-ending and an awful season-opener. I may be in the minority here (along with Miss Piggy) but I think that anything re Julia in the third season was hilariously bad, including the nun with the gun episode.

"I should have taken these clothes from
the closet that said "clean"..."​

​

The springhouse scene would have worked 1.000 times better if Julia had not been wearing the (probably already stinky) nun habits in it. Come on, what kind of fugitive would have kept wearing the habits after the church scene? Julia was bonkers but not stupid, not even by the Falcon Crest standards. Making her Carlo´s lover was a false move and a bit of a retcon too.

"Oh my Dionysus! That Agretti guy´s
got a really fat ugly ass..."​

The prison scenes were an absolute filler and Angela´s ghost "appearance" seemed out of an episode of "Soap". I did like the Lucas subplot but everything else was over-the-top even for a supersoap aired after "Dallas" every Friday...I find surprising that the show was renewed after that season and I disagree with everybody who thinks Season 3 was the last good season (!!).

​

Of course, without Julia being the killer there would have been no plane cliffhanger and no cast firings...and Jacqueline would have probably been still around, planning dirty things with nazis, baby-traders and aliens. Not a bad thought though. I could have done without the boring Dr. Ranson who turned the show into a "St. Elsewhere" spin-off. But at least Terry became a rich beech when he died...

Therefore, I consider that, right from the plane accident on, everything went on to improve on "Falcon Crest", until the very climactic car accident in the San Francisco Bay...This makes 2+3= 5 great seasons of a supersoap, almost the same number of "really good" seasons of "Dallas" and "Knots Landing". Lorimar had a special touch with its shows...I´m not sure the fans of the Spelling-produced soaps can say the same thing about them...

 

[Willie Oleson]

Maggie, but the sheriff would consider it an "obvious act of self-defense".

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

Turner Bates. On Emmas request.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I recall at the time that Abby Dalton was watching the show that Friday and she said her jaw just dropped when she saw them run her confession scene (they all shot one, naturally) and that she was the killer. She was stunned. I wonder who she thought the killer had been.

If you pay close attention, it appears that even the writers didn't decide who'd dun it until midway through the season. So it's possible they came up with the idea of "Who Killed Carlo?" before arriving at the killer's identity.

Who else could it have been? Maybe Carlo committed suicide, and then Cole attempted suicide in the garage. So the big reveal in the FC living room was "who is the most suicidal"?

Season 5 needed a mysterious killer to focus things.

 

[Julia's Gun]

Re-watching the start of Season 3, I am shocked by how everyone excepts that Julia is suddenly a psychotic killer, as if this is an everyday occurence. The Channing household just carry on, Lance and all, as if this revelation is nothing particularly shocking and hasn't really affected them at all. Why is there no scene with Lance and Emma hugging each other, and wishing they could have spotted the signs, for example?

Poor Chase has been shot and his mother murdered, but Angela offers no apologies to Maggie for her daughter turning out to be an unhinged murderess, but seems to have no issue with the fact that Julia tried to suffocate her son Cole, and also tried to finish off (with shoving those barrels) her and Chase as well!

Wouldn't the Falcon Crest name have become a shocking liability, if one of the daughters had been revealed as a psycho murderess? Would this not have affected sales just a bit?

It's so ridiculous that Angela is allowed to function as the matriarch with no apparent distress or humility that her daughter has been revealed as a devious murdorous scoundrel, and instead she tries to blackmail the local doctor in order to force him to declare Chase is unfit to continue in the business. If anyone is unfit to run a winery, isn't it a control freak brutal matriarch, whose daughters have already killed one family member, and now openly murdered (and tried to murder) several others? Yet nobody seems to think this is slightly unusual.

Was it something to do with the 1980s that we just accepted this dross as somehow watchable and plausibly real?

I am shocked that not even Emma seems that bothered that her sister has turned into a serial killer. She's more interested in courting Richard and letting him write more articles for The Globe.

We think things are bad now, but just how messed up were people (and viewers in the 1980s?)

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Really??

 

[Jimmy Todd]

Re-watching the start of Season 3, I am shocked by how everyone excepts that Julia is suddenly a psychotic killer, as if this is an everyday occurence. The Channing household just carry on, Lance and all, as if this revelation is nothing particularly shocking and hasn't really affected them at all. Why is there no scene with Lance and Emma hugging each other, and wishing they could have spotted the signs, for example?

Poor Chase has been shot and his mother murdered, but Angela offers no apologies to Maggie for her daughter turning out to be an unhinged murderess, but seems to have no issue with the fact that Julia tried to suffocate her son Cole, and also tried to finish off (with shoving those barrels) her and Chase as well!

Wouldn't the Falcon Crest name have become a shocking liability, if one of the daughters had been revealed as a psycho murderess? Would this not have affected sales just a bit?

It's so ridiculous that Angela is allowed to function as the matriarch with no apparent distress or humility that her daughter has been revealed as a devious murdorous scoundrel, and instead she tries to blackmail the local doctor in order to force him to declare Chase is unfit to continue in the business. If anyone is unfit to run a winery, isn't it a control freak brutal matriarch, whose daughters have already killed one family member, and now openly murdered (and tried to murder) several others? Yet nobody seems to think this is slightly unusual.

Was it something to do with the 1980s that we just accepted this dross as somehow watchable and plausibly real?

I am shocked that not even Emma seems that bothered that her sister has turned into a serial killer. She's more interested in courting Richard and letting him write more articles for The Globe.

We think things are bad now, but just how messed up were people (and viewers in the 1980s?)

In the scene in which Julia confesses to killing Agretti,Argentina, before she shoots Chase and Jacqueline, the camera pans to Angela and Phillip. Their expressions are as nonplussed as if Julia is talking about doing laundry. It must have been a spliced in scene because they are both too good as actors for that. Still, it looks odd.

 

[GillesDenver]

In the scene in which Julia confesses to killing Agretti,Argentina, before she shoots Chase and Jacqueline, the camera pans to Angela and Phillip. Their expressions are as nonplussed as if Julia is talking about doing laundry. It must have been a spliced in scene because they are both too good as actors for that. Still, it looks odd.

The explanation : http://www.falconcrest.org/english/master.php?path=show/episodes/ai/bts/2/040
"There were nine different versions of the confession scene filmed for the cliffhanger"...

 

[the-lost-son]

The Cliffhanger is one thing, the follow-up is quite another.
"The Moldavian massacre" was great, its follow-up desastrous. "Who shot JR" was great - it's follow-up also.

Climax was breathtaking, not only because of the Agatha Christie-like setting, but we got a revelation and a new mystery (Whose funeral is it?) What a Rollercoaster of emotions, what a ride.
The revelation was well done as well, although Julia turning crazy was happening quite quickly, but it worked nonetheless. It was thrilling because Julia was such a major character.

It would have been easy to pick a secondary character (Diana, Philipp or chao-li).
I can't think of a good follow-up (which again is the hardest) but Cole or Lance seem like an interesting choice.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I recall at the time that Abby Dalton was watching the show that Friday and she said her jaw just dropped when she saw them run her confession scene

"It's not going to be me"

It was thrilling because Julia was such a major character.

I agree.

Why is there no scene with Lance and Emma hugging each other, and wishing they could have spotted the signs, for example?

There's at least one scene that shows a very distressed Lance.
I think they can show these outrageous plot twists but it's hard to put them in discussions as it would emphasize the wackiness of it all.
Ironically, it worked in Dynasty when Jeff and Fallon discussed the UFO.

It's so ridiculous that Angela is allowed to function as the matriarch with no apparent distress or humility that her daughter has been revealed as a devious murdorous scoundrel, and instead she tries to blackmail the local doctor in order to force him to declare Chase is unfit to continue in the business.

I think we could write a book about all the details that don't make sense e.g. Jacqueline's vulnerability when she's supposed to be some kind of Super Villain.
But Falcon Crest had the bravado to pull if off.

Was it something to do with the 1980s that we just accepted this dross as somehow watchable and plausibly real?

Was it not watchable, was it not exciting and wonderful? I think it was.
Julia's motives for the murder seemed a little tacked on, but looking back it's easy to see that she was often teetering on the brink of something.

 

[Angela Channing]

The explanation : http://www.falconcrest.org/english/master.php?path=show/episodes/ai/bts/2/040
"There were nine different versions of the confession scene filmed for the cliffhanger"...

This is fascinating. I love Angela's unapologetic version. Chao-Li's confession was also interesting as it gave viewers some of his back story.

 

[Gioberti84]

Maybe Nick Hogan should have got shot by Julia, setting up a showdown in the S#3 beginning between his two wives Vickie and Shelia.

 

[retrosonic]

I don't remember this scene but it so funny. Chao-Li and Angela were such a great double act.

Yep, the Abbot and Costello of nightime Soaps.