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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 125420" data-attributes="member: 22">07 Apr 88: KNOTS LANDING: With a Heavy Heart v. 08 Apr 88: DALLAS: Last of the Good Guys v. 08 Apr 88: FALCON CREST: Key to AngelaBobby Ewing having reminded the audience of the three Bs — booze, broads and booty — a couple of weeks ago, Sue Ellen now introduces her own “formula for living with JR” known as “the three Ds … Drink, divorce and doing unto him what he’s done to me.” “I take it drink and divorce didn’t work for you?” ventures Kimberly Cryder.Drink hasn’t worked for Maggie Channing when it comes to living with Richard either and so this week she tries a separation. “If I stay … I am going to end up either hating Richard or drinking again,” she explains. “She needs to be in a caring environment,” best pal Emma decides. “She needs love and support and friends.” And so she naturally invites Maggie to move into Falcon Crest.While Emma has suddenly acquired a rose-coloured view of life at Falcon Crest, Clayton Farlow has developed a cynical opinion on life at Southfork. “I really appreciate the ‘spirit of the Ewings’,” he tells Miss Ellie, “how the whole clan just gathers around when one member’s in trouble, but obviously, that is nothing but a show for the people of Dallas because, inside this house, I’ve felt like a pariah, an untouchable.” It’s always interesting to see the Ewings’ double standards exposed, especially Ellie’s, even if it does turn Clayton into the injured party. “It was lovely of you of you to dine publicly with me at the Oil Barons' … like I was a discredited presidential candidate,” he continues. This is an even more direct reference to the Gary Hart scandal than Gordon Wales’ “digging up dirt on candidates may be hot right now” line to Alexis on DYNASTY a few months ago. “I am not going to live a sham,” Clayton concludes self-righteously. “I have to know if we are genuinely together or not.” Ellie capitulates meekly. “I want you here … for me,” she tells him in a small voice, and so it is they are reconciled.Elsewhere on DALLAS, drink still seems to be working for Ray Krebbs and Connie whose unexpected fling appears to be fuelled as much by alcohol as by desire. However, KNOTS LANDING’s Olivia, whose fiancee Harold has been banished to Miami, refuses to assuage her heartache with cocaine. “Drugs wouldn’t do any good,” she declares. Meanwhile, Cliff Barnes’ pill-popping continues. This has yet to have any major dramatic consequences, only an amusing effect on his speech patterns — during a business meeting with Casey Denault, his voice sounds like a warped cassette tape, first getting slower and slower and then suddenly speeding up.Like Maggie, Jill Bennett is back on the mineral water, but her relationship seems to have improved as a result. Meanwhile, a curious thing has happened to her hair. During her scenes with Gary, and any others in which she appears bubbly and cheerful, it is curly and untamed. During the scenes where her behaviour is calculated and secretive, such as when she is splicing together recordings of Ben’s voice to make a fake phone message for Val, it is dead straight. It’s almost as if she were Krystle and Rita combined in one person.Like Miss Ellie, Bobby is also accused of double standards this week — by loyal secretary Phyllis, of all people. To counter Senator O’Dell’s demand for a Scottish castle, he asks her to look into his past dealings with Jock and JR so he can find something to use against him. “I don’t see the difference, as far as morality goes, between blackmail and bribery,” says Phyllis. Bobby concedes her point and gives into O’Dell — well, sort of. Instead of buying him the castle, he presents him with a ninety-nine-year lease for it, only to be activated “the day Ewing Oil is mine again.” For some reason, Bobby seems to think this means he’s scored some kind of moral victory over O’Dell, but I’m not sure what it is. Still, O’Dell plays along and tells him what he wants to hear: “Nice touch, Bobby Ewing … I think you’re almost as smart as your daddy.”Over on FALCON CREST, Lance also has a meeting with a senator in Washington. (For all we know, he and Bobby are in the same government building at the same time.) While Bobby wants help getting the Ewing Oil name back, Lance has a different kind of favour to ask. “I am not gonna let Richard Channing get away, but I need your help. Together we can nail him,” he tells Senator Ryder. Whereas Bobby tried and failed to find dirt on O’Dell, Lance already knows Ryder’s secret: “You’re John Remick’s brother.” When Ryder, like O’Dell, appears reluctant to get involved, Lance appeals not his greed but to his conscience: “You’ve got a choice, Senator. You can help me, help your brother and maybe help your country, or you can sit there behind your desk.” Later in the episode, Ryder confirms that “Richard Channing made an illegal arms shipment to an African dictator my brother’s been fighting against.” He assures Lance that the FBI has been informed and an arrest is imminent. But then right at the end of the ep, Richard himself contacts the FBI. “I’d like to spill my guts if it’s not too late,” he says. Likewise, at the end of this week’s DALLAS, JR also appears to have turned over a new leaf — but we, the audience, know better. True, he does prove Clayton innocent of David Shulton’s murder (it was the future Charley St James whodunnit), but only as a means of getting Laurel Ellis into bed.The interest JR takes in what is really a B-List storyline gives this ep the feel of a stand-alone instalment from DALLAS’s early days. Indeed, one could imagine the whole Clayton/Laurel/Shulton/Lomax/JR plot being edited rather neatly into one hour-long episode.Ostensibly to shield her from the media scrutiny surrounding Clayton’s arrest, JR instals Laurel in the Ewing condo — more of a penthouse these days than when Kristin and then Mitch and Lucy lived in it. Laurel is grateful, even more so when JR tells her he can prove Clayton’s innocence. But then he drops the other cowboy boot. “If Harry doesn’t get a call from me,” he explains, pressing himself up against her, “he’s gonna put Lomax on a nonstop plane to London … Clayton’s fate is in your hands.” “So now the payoff,” she realises. “sex in return for freeing Clayton … You bastard!”JR’s rape of Holly Harwood five years earlier had a similar dynamic: the woman makes her position clear (Holly: “Take your hands off me, JR — I don’t want this”; Laurel: “Don’t touch me —  I can’t stand you”), JR persists, not by using physical violence but a different form of coercion to force her into submission. The main difference between the two events is that this is not part of a bigger narrative for JR. Having dominance over Laurel isn’t tied to his season-long quest to take over West Star in the way that teaching Holly a lesson was a part of his ongoing efforts to win control of Ewing Oil. He rapes Laurel simply because he wants to. The show doesn’t refer to it as rape, of course. Instead, the episode ends on an ironic note with Clayton and Miss Ellie thanking him for saving the day. “My only motive was to help the family,” he insists (evoking the same ‘Spirit of the Ewings’ ideal that Clayton was so cynical about earlier). As far as everyone onscreen is concerned, it’s a happy ending. However, there remains a complicity between JR and the viewer — we alone understand the double meaning of his final line: “Oh Mama, you have no idea what getting Clayton off the hook meant to me.” And it’s this very complicity that first drew us to this man, this show, this genre nearly a decade earlier and kept us coming back week after week, season after season. A lot has happened since then, of course — characters have grown older and softer, the spectacle of Rich People Behaving Badly has lost most of its shock value and the genre as a whole has become increasingly familiar, even cosy at times. But as the frame freezes on an unrepentant JR chuckling, it’s almost, almost as if the episode is reminding us of those early days and saying, “This is what you fell for back then. This is the monster you created.”And this week’s Top 3 are …1 (4) DALLAS2 (2) KNOTS LANDING3 (3) FALCON CREST</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?