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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris2" data-source="post: 330195" data-attributes="member: 495">Anyone here read “Misery,” by Stephen King? For those who haven’t, “Misery” focuses on the plight of Paul Sheldon, the author or a series of romance novels about a woman named Misery Chastain. Paul is in a bad car accident during a Colorado snowstorm. He is rescued by Annie Wilkes, and deranged nurse who happens to be a devoted fan of the Misery series. Annie holds him captive and forces him to write a novel called “Misery Returns,” even though Paul had killed the character in the last book in the series, where Misery died during childbirth and was buried.Paul’s first chapter of “Misery Returns” involves a rewrite of previous book’s ending, where the doctor who was trying to save dying Misery now gets to her bedside  in time to save her, and writes off her death and funeral as not having happened. But Annie declares this new chapter to be “a cheat.” She recalls a movie serial where the hero’s stagecoach went over a cliff at the end of one episode. But the next episode recapped the previous version and showed new footage of the hero actually opening the coach door and jumping out before it left  the road. She also declared that a cheat. She reminds Paul that the last Misery book ended with her dead and buried and orders him, “Start from there!”Paul realizes that Annie is correct from a narrative standpoint. He recalls an old campfire game he played as a child called “Can You,” he and his friends would make up stories and whoever was telling the story would end his chapter with the hero in a difficult predicament. The next person to pick up the story would be asked “Can You” get the hero out of the predicament. Paul realizes he has to play “Can You” with Misery’s return, and writes a new scenario where Misery is accidentally buried alive, one which Annie declares to be “fair.”Stephen King wrote Misery in 1987. I wonder if the business of reviving Misery was inspired by the dream scenario on “Dallas.” Annie Wilkes would certainly have declared Bobby’s return “a cheat.” And perhaps the “Dallas” writers would have been better off with that input. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?