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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 17270" data-attributes="member: 22">20 Mar 85: DYNASTY: The Crash v. 22 Mar 85: KNOTS LANDING: The Forest for the TreesTwo of Soap Land’s most formidable and ambitious mothers, Ruth Sumner Galveston and Alexis Colby Dexter, have each succeeded in convincing their stubborn and suspicious offspring to accept a life-changing proposition with possible worldwide implications. Ruth’s son Greg has given up his political career to take over Galveston Industries and Alexis’s daughter Amanda has abandoned her dreams of a future with Dex in order to marry a Moldavian prince. However, not everyone is as enthusiastic about Greg’s and Amanda’s decisions as their mothers. Blake tells Prince Michael he will withhold his approval of the engagement, "until I’m convinced that Amanda is happy, that the marriage is based on love and not merely on convenience." Meanwhile, Mack Mackenzie suspects Greg is part of the cover-up surrounding the Tidal Basin murders and poisoning of Wesphall. Ruth’s solution is to invite the Mackenzies to dinner at the Galveston ranch so that Mack and Greg can air their differences. Factor in Ruth’s sly digs at Laura and you’ve got an even more enjoyably awkward gathering than the Carringtons' dinner in honour of Luke Fuller during last week’s DYNASTY. There’s further social awkwardness at the two Soap Land parties thrown this week. The first, on DYNASTY, is a surprise affair for Dominique at the Carrington mansion to mark her recovery from surgery. The second, on KNOTS, is a celebration at the Ewing ranch in aid of Joshua and Cathy’s engagement. There are hidden motives attached to each gathering — Blake and Ashley are secretly hoping to jolt Dominique out of the depression she’s been since her operation while Abby is co-opting Joshua and Cathy’s betrothal partly as a PR exercise and partly as a method of getting close to John Coblentz, Greg’s right-hand man at Empire Valley. As is often the case with Soap Land parties, both events provide plenty of opportunities to put characters who might not otherwise choose to interact in the same place at the same time. So it is that Krystle returns to the Carrington mansion for the first time since leaving Blake, Cathy returns to Gary's ranch for the first time since he ended their affair, and Claudia and Steven come face to face for the first time since their quickie divorce earlier in the same episode. The biggest conflicts at both parties, however, are caused by the shows' newly engaged couples. On DYNASTY, Prince Michael finally loses patience with Amanda’s coldness towards him and announces to the assembled guests that the wedding is off. Meanwhile, Joshua and Cathy argue in front of Val and Laura after he informs her that her singing career will be over as soon they are married.Line of the week: “She faked you right out of your shorts!” That’s Greg Sumner’s reaction when he realises Abby has tricked John Coblentz into telling her the truth about Empire Valley. It’s not stated directly, but the implication is that Abby has slept with Coblentz in order to lower his defences. There was a similar ambiguity during Alexis's recent visit to Moldavia over how far she went with King Galen to persuade him to sanction a union between their children. Coblentz and Galen share a similarly distinguished, aristocratic air. Where Galen's authority is regal, Coblentz's is professorial. (That said, I’ve always been slightly confused by the casting of Coblentz. We’re told that he was a professor of Greg’s at law school and Greg seems to regard him as something of a mentor, yet the two actors appear to be roughly the same age.) This week’s KNOTS closes with a shot of a scared-looking Margery Wilson, one of the delivery nurses on duty when Val’s babies were supposedly stillborn. This is only the third time in Soap Land history, following Dominique Devereaux’s two freeze-frames earlier in the season, that an episode has ended on a black character. Skin colour aside, Dominique and Margery have little in common — one's a billionaire diva residing at La Mirage while the other's a care home nurse living in a trailer park. The scene does, however, parallel the “resurrection tease” that ended DALLAS two weeks ago. Their search for Mark having reached a dead end, Pam and Sue Ellen flew out of Hong Kong leaving Mr. Wong to report their departure by phone to an unknown party. Karen and Lilimae are the ones playing detective on this week’s KNOTS, but after they find Nurse Wilson, she refuses to discuss Val’s delivery with them. By the end of the ep, she has evidently had a change of heart and calls the number Karen has given her — only for Val herself to answer the phone. When Nurse Wilson realises who she’s talking to, she hangs up in shock.The last scene of this week’s DYNASTY is very different. Daniel Reece steps aboard his private plane to find a jealous Blake Carrington waiting for him. The two men get into a midair brawl, inadvertently knocking the pilot out cold in the process. Their frantic attempts to pull the prone pilot off the controls before they lose altitude are laugh-out-loud funny — we’re back in AIRPLANE/NAKED GUN territory here — but thanks to some perilously up-close footage of the Denver Rockies, it’s not entirely unexciting either.And this week’s Top 2 are …1 (-) KNOTS LANDING2 (1) DYNASTY</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?