Gary/Valene was far more volatile. As well as their deep love, Valene would try to mother Gary a lot in the early Knots seasons, try to get him on the straight and narrow with work/life balance etc., while Gary would be annoyed by this nagging and even bored with it at times. He was like a bomb waiting to go off, when he would crack and run away, or go to the bottle.
J.R. is always worried about Gary's potential. And in J.R.'s mind, a potential threat is an actual threat.
Gary and Ray would have probably got on well, yes. They each have different strengths and weaknesses, and both like ranching. Gary is more chilled out and sometimes lazy, while Ray is a hard worker. On the other hand, Gary is more sure of himself as a Ewing, while Ray has low self-esteem a lot of the time.
Gary was a different type of alcoholic to both Sue Ellen and Digger. Gary's kind of alcoholism was strictly of the non-functioning kind. In other words, if he falls off the wagon, he is going to end up at rock bottom pretty fast. The two-part finale to Season 1 of Knots Landing, called "Bottom of the Bottle" shows this very well.
I think she'd get on well with Pam, despite Pam being a city girl while Val is a rural mountain girl originally.
In Knots, Val went more into improving her education and becoming an author of best selling books.
Yes I remember Gary's drunken rampages very well. You're right he was different.
Capricorn Crude wasn't it? Did JR have a hand in trying to stop it? I can't remember? I recall seeing him in the bookshop when val was signing/selling her book.
Gary tried to stop it being released, because of what Val was saying in it, even though she was using pseudonyms for the characters. J.R. bought the publishing company that released Capricorn Crude, so that he got to profit from its sales, and took delight in showing up for Val to sign a copy of the book for him while he told her the news. This was around the time of Jock's will, with Abby there to support Gary (she didn't go into Southfork) and Val in town to sign copies of her book. Gary had originally asked Val to go to Southfork with him for the reading of Jock's will, but she turned it down.
My pleasure
I think the character of Lucy could’ve greatly benefited from having her parents on the show regularly. Perhaps we would even get more insight into her childhood and how Val was driven away.
Lucy wouldn't have fitted into the early seasons (i.e. first 3 seasons) of Knots Landing, but would have fitted in well in the later seasons.
