The Way Bobby Treated Jenna

[Kenny Coyote]

The way Bobby treated Jenna was disgraceful. In season seven Bobby told Jenna that she and Charlie and him had a great future together. Then just a few weeks later when Pam tells Bobby she’s marrying Mark, you can see his face just fall. He sounds so disappointed as he tells her that he guesses he misinterpreted how well things were going between Pam and him.


That shows that this whole time he’s been romancing Jenna and leading her to believe they’re headed towards marriage, he’s just been keeping Jenna as an insurance policy so in case he can’t get Pam back, he’ll still have Jenna! What a horrible thing to do to her! If Bobby and Jenna were just casually dating, it wouldn't have been understandable, but then he proposes to Jenna, while still in love with Pam. Then even after asking Jenna to marry him and her accepting, Bobby still keeps pursuing Pam.


It shows how badly his parents spoiled him, and that apparently, he has never changed in that aspect. He feels like he’s entitled to do whatever will ensure his happiness, no matter how badly he has to mislead women to accomplish that. It’s a great example that it isn’t a story of Bobby being the completely good guy he believes himself to be. That may be his most irritating quality – that he acts so self-righteous to others. He’s so self-absorbed that he either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that what he’s doing to Jenna is terrible.


Bobby lectures others on their ethics, but believes he’s beyond reproach. Dallas was never a story told in black and white of heroes against villains. It’s a story told in shades of gray where all the characters are flawed – some more than others – but all the characters in the main cast have redeeming qualities too.


Bobby has a lot of redeeming qualities and that’s why the audience seems to forgive him for misleading Jenna so badly. People can understand how it’s possible that someone could be in love with two people at once. As unfair as it was for Bobby to tell Jenna they have a wonderful future together and ask her to marry him, all the while going behind her back and trying to reconcile with Pam, it would have been even worse if he’d gone through with the marriage! Jenna was a nice, good woman doing an admirable job as a single mother supporting her daughter and herself, and she deserved better than Bobby – a man who would have been willing to choose to marry her while continuing to love another woman more.

 

[Toni]

Poor, poor Jenna...​

 

[Billy Wall]

He also bended over backwards to keep her ungrateful self out of jail. And for whatever reason that no one understands, she leads Bobby for years into thinking that Charlie might be his daughter.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

He also bended over backwards to keep her ungrateful self out of jail.

I think she was grateful that Bobby helped get her out of jail, but you may be thinking of how she was angry at Bobby shortly afterwards. Bobby asked Jenny to marry him and she accepted. The he proceeded to spend as much time as he could with his ex-wife trying to get her to marry him until she also accepted his marriage proposal. A man can only have one wife. Jenna was angry when she found out Bobby's word was no good.

 

[Toni]

And then there is the fact that Jenna dumped him twice: first, when they were young and she eloped to marry the C*nt Marchetta, and then when she was put into jail. What was he supposed to do, remain chaste in his prime, wonderfully gorgeous? Charlie should have been put to work in McDonalds, or HardRock Café, a la Karen Cellini. Jenna belonged to jail (and she would have probably become the Queen of the Posh Prisoners...).

 

[Kenny Coyote]

And then there is the fact that Jenna dumped him twice: first, when they were young and she eloped to marry the C*nt Marchetta, and then when she was put into jail. What was he supposed to do, remain chaste in his prime, wonderfully gorgeous?

His prime only lasted 3 weeks? That's about how long it took him to get her out of jail.

 

[Toni]

His prime only lasted 3 weeks? That's about how long it took him to get her out of jail.

His prime has lasted 50 years, until he let his ponytail grow. But it took him half a season to "clean" her reputation...if that was possible, because she used to hang around with married senators and drug-trafficking gigolos...oh and Billy Bob´s customers also say other nice things about her...

 

[Kenny Coyote]

His prime has lasted 50 years, until he let his ponytail grow. But it took him half a season to "clean" her reputation...if that was possible, because she used to hang around with married senators and drug-trafficking gigolos...oh and Billy Bob´s customers also say other nice things about her...

If Bobby didn't want to marry her because of that, then that would be understandable. Knowing her past, he chose to ask her to marry him and she said yes. But then while engaged to Jenna, he asked Pam to marry him. What kind of a man asks a woman to marry him while already engaged to another woman? To refuse to break off the engagement, knowing he was still in love with Pam, so he could keep his engagement to Jenna as a type of insurance policy so he could still marry her in case Pam turned down his proposal is something I take a dim view of, just like JR being married to Sue Ellen, and then sleeping with other women, rather than getting a divorce first. If a man wants another woman, he should first end his engagement or marriage.

That's how I see it. To me, engagement and marriage mean something.

Jenna belonged to jail (and she would have probably become the Queen of the Posh Prisoners...).

That's another thing I don't agree with. Jenna belonged in jail for what? I don't care if she had shot Naldo - she still shouldn't have been convicted of anything. If a man kidnapping a woman's daughter and then holding the woman hostage wouldn't justify her shooting him, then what would?

 

[Toni]

If Bobby didn't want to marry her because of that, then that would be understandable. Knowing her past, he chose to ask her to marry him and she said yes. But then while engaged to Jenna, he asked Pam to marry him. What kind of a man asks a woman to marry him while already engaged to another woman? To refuse to break off the engagement, knowing he was still in love with Pam, so he could keep his engagement to Jenna as a type of insurance policy so he could still marry her in case Pam turned down his proposal is something I take a dim view of, just like JR being married to Sue Ellen, and then sleeping with other women, rather than getting a divorce first. If a man wants another woman, he should first end his engagement or marriage.

That's how I see it. To me, engagement and marriage mean something.



That's another thing I don't agree with. Jenna belonged in jail for what? I don't care if she had shot Naldo - she still shouldn't have been convicted of anything. If a man kidnapping a woman's daughter and then holding the woman hostage wouldn't justify her shooting him, then what would?

Kenny, I don´t mean really what I write when I talk about certain characters. I suppose you know that. Perhaps I´m not so articulate as the rest of you because English is not my first language and I turn to humor (even black or slightly bad taste humor) to write my posts. Also, please take into account that a soap character is to me just that, a piece of fiction. I don´t use them to talk about my personal opinions about life and relationships. But that is just my way of doing things here.

Above all, I´m being respectful to everybody and every opinion. I see Jenna as the plot device used to separate what I see as the perfect lovers in the Dallas universe, that´s all. That´s why I vilify her (is that a word, right?). Poor Katherine, on the other side, was a sick person who deserved my compassion. You see, my dumb points of view? By the way, happy holidays from moi and Da Pig!!

 

[Ray&Donna]

One thing I've noticed in re-watching Jenna #3 is that Priscilla doesn't really seem to be comfortable in relationships on the show. She puts Bobby off while working at Billy Bob's, saying she wants to stand on her own. Then the show stops filming in Texas and suddenly she has no problem switching careers to something he approves of, before dumping him over his self-righteousness. When Pam decides to marry Mark, Bobby pretty much wears her down until they get engaged, and even Punk and Mavis are brought in during Lady Montford's party to talk about how "right" they look together. Then Bobby is fitted with those huge sunglasses and doesn't seem to know who he is or is engaged to for a few weeks, and J.R. basically pushes them to set a wedding date with his announcement at the Oil Baron's Ball. Then she foolishly lets Naldo hand around with Charlie, despite his "unscrupulous" past (we were told by Camilla Marchetta that he was a great father), and has to leave Bobby at the altar (again), which leads to her spending much of the season separated from her fiancé as she is either in jail, or serving time in prison. During the small amount of time after she has been vindicated, Bobby has found his way back to Pam. Then he dies and Jenna parades around Southfork as Bobby's widow, having misread his final words, until she has a mental breakdown. The entire time, she is reluctant to get close to Dack Rambo for reasons of mourning, perhaps, when he tries to befriend her. Immediately upon Bobby's resurrection, he dumps her and suddenly she is impoverished, washing windows at her house with righteous anger at having to leave Southfork. Morgan Fairchild's Jenna was much more interesting in her lone appearance, as she seemed like she would do anything to get ahead, even flirt with J.R. Francine Tacker, despite a lack of screen presence, seemed closest to Bobby's halcyon vision of his first love, whereas Jenna#3 didn't have onscreen chemistry with anybody. Charlie seemed more eager to live at Southfork and ride Darius than did Jenna for the purpose of riding Bobby. As everyone knows, I hate Jenna#3 and her terrible pairing with Ray, but I am giving my honest assessment of how things really shook out on the show we watched.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Kenny, I don´t mean really what I write when I talk about certain characters. I suppose you know that. Perhaps I´m not so articulate as the rest of you because English is not my first language and I turn to humor (even black or slightly bad taste humor) to write my posts. Also, please take into account that a soap character is to me just that, a piece of fiction. I don´t use them to talk about my personal opinions about life and relationships. But that is just my way of doing things here.

Above all, I´m being respectful to everybody and every opinion. I see Jenna as the plot device used to separate what I see as the perfect lovers in the Dallas universe, that´s all. That´s why I vilify her (is that a word, right?). Poor Katherine, on the other side, was a sick person who deserved my compassion. You see, my dumb points of view? By the way, happy holidays from moi and Da Pig!!

You explained that very well - you view Jenna as a plot device. Also, I should have known you were being funny. I apologize for not picking up on that this time. Sometimes on the internet it's hard to tell the intended tone of someone's words.

Happy Holidays to you and the pig too, Toni!

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Morgan Fairchild's Jenna was much more interesting in her lone appearance, as she seemed like she would do anything to get ahead, even flirt with J.R.

Do you think it's harder for a soap opera character who is kind and good to be interesting than it is for a character in a soap opera who is neither kind nor good to be interesting?

 

[Lastkidpicked]

Do you think it's harder for a soap opera character who is kind and good to be interesting than it is for a character in a soap opera who is neither kind nor good to be interesting?

You almost need both to write a good story. A story with all good or all bad isn't as compelling as the struggle between the "good guys" and the "bad guys".

With Jenna, as with Lucy and a few others, they just didn't know what to do with her character so she just kind of fizzled out.

 

[kenneth]

Take a lesson from Sue Ellen. Even she finally realised that if you do not like how a man is treating you, don't let him.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Do you think it's harder for a soap opera character who is kind and good to be interesting than it is for a character in a soap opera who is neither kind nor good to be interesting?

I think it's a combination of writing and acting--DALLAS had pretty darn good writing for its first seven years, give or take a few episodes. After Bobby was shot, and BBG disappeared from the opening credits. things were never the same. There was an ambiguity to the original incarnation of Jenna that wasn't there for the 83-84 version. In some instances, as we discussed on the thread about Katherine, actors add more to their roles that what is written on the page. But in Jenna's case, she became far less interesting as time passed. Of course, one could argue that by the time Priscilla showed up at Billy Bob's, much of the moral ambiguity of the original characters had been lost to the necessities of writing a weekly serial. We knew that J.R. and Cliff would do anything possible to take each other down, and that Pam and Bobby were still in love despite the wedges that had been driven between them (partly their own fault, due to lack of communication). Perhaps the most ambiguous story of the season, aside from the retread of Charlie's paternity, was the one involving Edgar Randolph.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

I think it's a combination of writing and acting--DALLAS had pretty darn good writing for its first seven years, give or take a few episodes. After Bobby was shot, and BBG disappeared from the opening credits. things were never the same. There was an ambiguity to the original incarnation of Jenna that wasn't there for the 83-84 version. In some instances, as we discussed on the thread about Katherine, actors add more to their roles that what is written on the page. But in Jenna's case, she became far less interesting as time passed. Of course, one could argue that by the time Priscilla showed up at Billy Bob's, much of the moral ambiguity of the original characters had been lost to the necessities of writing a weekly serial. We knew that J.R. and Cliff would do anything possible to take each other down, and that Pam and Bobby were still in love despite the wedges that had been driven between them (partly their own fault, due to lack of communication). Perhaps the most ambiguous story of the season, aside from the retread of Charlie's paternity, was the one involving Edgar Randolph.

Ambiguity allows several different interpretations. Making a character has no specific effect on how interesting the character is; it's just one style of doing things. "

"We know JR and Cliff will do anything to take each other down." - So there is nothing ambiguous there; it's very explicit. When you have an enemy who will do anything to take you down, there are no rules and anything goes because you are in a fight for survival.

Edgar Randolph you list as being an ambiguous storyline. I guess it's because Randolph was a former child molester, but that was a long time ago and he had changed himself and become a good man. So do you like him or not? I'm sure it varies from viewer to viewer. I found that storyline interesting. It was also ambiguous because JR blackmailed Randolph by telling him he'd give the story of Randolph's past to the media of Randolph didn't give JR the bids. So JR got the bids, but he didn't use them to win a bid on anything. So how bad was it? He wasn't going to lie about Edgar; he was just going to tell the truth about him. JR didn't unfairly make money off of getting the bids, and the government didn't lose any money by JR getting the bids. It did help Cliff win, so Cliff gained from the blackmail scheme, but that wasn't the intent; it was an accident. So I see what you mean by it being ambiguous and yes, that was a great storyline - the best of the season.

 

[Chris2]

Bob Bay couldn’t have handled the breakup of his engagement to Jenna any worse. I agree with the post above - you do NOT propose to your ex-wife while you’re engaged to another woman. Zero class. Jenna had given him an out earlier in the episode. He should have broken up with her without even bringing up Pam. Then, Bobby and Pam could have seen each other quietly and then gone public with their relationship many months later.

 

[Toni]

In my perfect world, Jenna would be released from prison and tell the Bobster: "Honey, I´ve been thinking a lot in there, and I realized I never loved you. I miss the big time living in Europe and being the Morgan Fairchild I always was. So kiss Charlie goodbye and bye-bye baby!"

So Jenna gives Bobby what he wants, and leaves the SF at last. She would prove to have a bit more of pride and character, just like the two previous incarnations. Besides, if Bobby was going to be killed, who wanted Jenna still in the show? Also this:

​

I wanted to post this particular scene but didn´t find it online. As many of you must remember, it was Jenna herself who noticed that Bobby didn´t seem to be too excited by the idea of marrying her. So she broke their engagement after Lucy´s departure in the "Swan Song" episode. Aside from being (probably) Presley´s best scene ever, it sort of implied that Bobby was allowed to do what he wanted the most: proposing to Pam again, which he did. So I think that he was morally ok with it. But it´s just my 2 cents. Of course, in real life everything might be different, but "Dallas" is not real life. It´s much better.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

"Dallas" is not real life. It´s much better.

What a great line!

 

[Chris2]

Besides, if Bobby was going to be killed, who wanted Jenna still in the show?

That is one of the best questions to ever be posted to this forum.