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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 2927" data-attributes="member: 22">14/Feb/80: KNOTS LANDING: Civil Wives v 15/Feb/80: DALLAS: Divorce - Ewing StyleTwo marital-themed episodes, very different in approach, but neither ideally suited for Valentine's Day."Civil Wives" feels like an overlooked gem. Five of the first eight KNOTS episodes involve visits from estranged relatives and this is the last of them. As Sid's snooty, bitchy, neurotic ex-wife, it's easy to see what Susan is meant to represent: she's everything down-to-earth, unpretentious Karen isn't. When they first meet on the kerb outside the Fairgate house, Susan is all tailored chic while Karen's in jeans with her hair in bunches and dirt on her face. It's the same contrast we were given between Lucy and Diana in "Home is for Healing". Susan may be at the other end of the social scale to the "Land of the Free" biker gang, but like them, she covets what Karen, aka the KNOTS Everywoman, aka the audience's representative, has*. She's also a forerunner of Anne Matheson, the snooty, bitchy, neurotic ex of Karen's next husband. (Plus, she's a rehearsal Abby for Richard.) But the character Susan reminded me of most this time around is Guzzler Bennett, Bobby's old college pal from "Fallen Idol" (DALLAS Season 1). Like "Fallen Idol" (and "Let Me Count the Ways" to an extent), "Civil Wives" is an episode that's taken me a long time to really "get". Maybe it's a story that has more resonance as one gets older. Like Guzzler with the Ewings, Susan inveigles her way into the Fairgate family home in a doomed attempt to recapture, however fleetingly, some idealised moment of happiness from her long faded youth. Sure, she's a rich bitch archetype, but she's also pitiful and very sad. Karen's own insecurities, while they may not resonate as strongly as the ones she expressed in "Let Me Count the Ways", are still absorbing to watch: Underneath her open-and-honest, cards-on-the-table exterior lies a whole bunch of hidden motivations for inviting Susan to stay in her house. The inevitable Susan versus Karen scene, when it finally comes, is everything one doesn't expect from an "I'm gonna take your man" soap opera confrontation. It's restrained, intelligent and fascinating. Almost every line comes as a surprise. Throughout the episode, Sid refuses to buy into either wife's neurosis. He remains stoic until the final scene where he delivers a touching little speech to Karen about the first time he realised how much he loved her. Oh and there's a lot of wit in this episode too. The initial reaction of Karen, Val and a gum chewing Laura to Susan is particularly funny. **Susan Philby later shows up in a 1990 episode of DALLAS as trashy talk show host Lizzie Burns. Cally appears on Lizzie's show to discuss her life as the wife of JR Ewing. Ten years earlier, such behaviour would be unthinkable for Sue Ellen, but "Divorce - Ewing Style" takes the tension that has always existed between the "pretty picture" she and JR present to their family and friends, and what really goes on behind closed doors, and pushes it to the max - until it explodes spectacularly in a brilliant cocktails-before-dinner scene at the end of the episode. Sue Ellen physically attacking JR in front of Jock and Miss Ellie?! It's so thrilling as to be almost pornographic. Needless to say, it's all JR's doing. In previous DALLAS episodes, his "scheme of the week" has targeted a black sheep brother, a nitwit niece or a penniless politician. Now he moves closer to home, i.e. his own bedroom, as he matter-of-factly decides that the only way to get Sue Ellen out of his toupee is to send her back to the sanitarium. And the only way he can do that is to make it look like she's fallen off the wagon - and if she should genuinely start drinking again in the process, so much the better. To further his scheme, he enlists the aid of Kristin, recently ousted from Ewing Oil. Eager to claw her way back into favour, and gleeful at the idea of destroying her sister, Kristin agrees - on the strict understanding that she become the next Mrs. JR Ewing. Everything about Kristin is twisted: her behaviour, her body language, her hair, her mouth - even her eyes threaten to turn boss-eyed like Karen Black's but never quite do. She's fantastic and very funny. In spite of all her cunning, her willingness to believe JR's promise to marry her somehow makes her not a fool, but just so wonderfully, comedically desperate. Equally, Jock and Miss Ellie, who remain so incredibly, hilariously gullible throughout the episode, don't come across as cardboard morons, but as cartoon characters worthy of THE SIMPSONS.During the recent scene in New DALLAS where Sue Ellen tells Bum that the last time she saw him was twenty years earlier in her rearview mirror when he was tailing her on behalf of JR, it reminded me of this episode. Here, JR discovers (via his rearview mirror) that Sue Ellen is having him tailed by a detective, and promptly has her tailed by Harry McSween and a couple of cops who then pick her up on a bogus drink-driving charge - another example of the special relationship between the Dallas PD and the "mean old boys" described by Val in "Land of the Free" last week. And the winner is … DALLAS.* Come to think of it, the biker gang don't covet what Karen has. They simply want to f*** with her. Their motive is malicious but not acquisitive; Susan's is the opposite.** Just been in discussion with sunshineboyuk on Facebook regarding the motivation behind Laura's gum chewing. My theory: The chewing gum distinguishes Laura from Susan: Karen has dirt on her face, Val is dressed like a child, Laura has the gum. The irony is that in four years time, they've all become Susan. Kinda sorta.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?