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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 159593" data-attributes="member: 22">07 Dec 89: KNOTS LANDING: Never Judge a Book By Its Cover v. 08 Dec 89: DALLAS: Cally on a Hot Tin Roof v. 08 Dec 89: FALCON CREST: Merry Christmas, CharleyWhile there’s nothing as graphic as what occurred at the end of last week’s KNOTS, a strong atmosphere of violence continues to permeate this week’s Soap Land. KNOTS picks up where it left off, with a traumatised Amanda huddled on the floor of Danny’s apartment. “You raped me,” she tells him. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t see it the same way. When she threatens to call the police, he mock-calls them himself: “My ex-wife came over and we made love … and she initiated it,” he sneers before telling her to get out. Later in the episode, Paige is violently mugged in broad daylight (“I told him he could have my purse and he hit me anyway”). The mugging is Oakman Industries’ way of letting Tom Ryan know they are unhappy that he has ignored their orders to stop seeing Paige.On paper, the pairing of Tom and Paige is a plot-driven contrivance that serves both as an obstacle to Paige getting back together with Greg and as a way of tying her into the Oakman storyline. On screen, however, the attraction between them feels both genuine and complicated. Prior to reconciling, they have a really good shouting match in her office. “You have no idea about real relationships. In fact, you have no idea about the real world,” she informs him. “Like you do?” he scoffs. “You, with your silk stockings and fancy job and prep school background — you have no idea about the real world. I grew up in it. My mother was a drunk who locked me out of the apartment so she could make it with her boyfriends … I got smacked in the head if I spilt my milk, so don’t go talking to me about the real world.” Paige’s counter-argument is surprisingly strong. “You know nothing about me, nothing,” she insists. “I went to prep schools so my mother could dump me there. You spent Christmas on the streets? I spent Christmas forgotten about in some out-of-the-way hellhole of a school and every year was a different school because my dear mother couldn’t afford to pay the bills. So I was dragged from one end of Europe to the other escaping bill collectors. I never had any friends. I never even knew Mack was my father.”Aspects of this conversation are mirrored elsewhere this week. Tom’s assertion that Paige has been cushioned from the harsh realities of life is echoed by Walker Daniels on FALCON CREST. “To you, there’s no relationship between work and money, and eating,” he tells his wife Lauren. “It’s always been there for you — Daddy, Mikey, me … and let’s not forget Richard Channing. We get handouts from him too now, don’t we?” Paige’s sense of rootlessness is matched by both James Beaumont on DALLAS, another Soap Land kid who grew up without knowing who his father was, (“I was kicked out of three different schools in three different countries … I just always felt like I didn’t belong anywhere”) and FC’s Sydney (“God, I wish I had a life like yours,” she tells Chris Agretti, “friends and high school and going out. Do you know what it’s like to be sneaking out of hotels at four o’clock in the morning, bribing people for passports?”). Sydney also wins the prize for the week’s grimmest tale of childhood woe: “When I was fifteen, I moved to England with my father … He was running from gambling debts … He owed money to this man in London who threatened to kill him. The only reason Ian didn’t kill my father is because my father had something Ian wanted as much as money.” “He paid off a gambling debt — with you?” asks Chris, horrified.The closest DALLAS gets to physical violence this week is JR deliberately driving over Cally’s vegetable garden after boasting to her about a recent affair: “I figured it was open season to have a little fun so I had myself a fling down in Austin — a damn fine one too, I’m here to tell you.” His cruelty stems from the mistaken belief that she has slept with Alex Barton. “I loved you, Cally,” he tells her. “We made a garden of gold here, honey, and you turned it into just plain dirt.” “I loved you and you killed it,” echoes Lance on FALCON CREST, referring to Pilar’s all too real infidelity with Ned Vogel. “I married a damn whore,” he adds for good measure. Upset, Pilar tries to hit him but he grabs her arm. “I should break it off so you can’t touch another man again,” he snarls. Walker makes a similar threat during his fight with Lauren. “It’s everyone’s fault but yours, isn’t it? Who are you gonna beat on now — me?” she shouts. “Maybe I should,” he replies.There is some marital harmony on FALCON CREST, if only fleetingly. Emma is delighted by the effect of her pregnancy on Charley, who suddenly cannot do enough for her and even populates their bedroom with fluffy toys. Alas, her happiness is short-lived when new sister-in-law Sydney drops the bombshell that Emma’s late husband Daniel did not commit suicide after all: “Ian killed him and when I asked why, he said, ‘A favour to Charley'.” Desperate to be free of Ian, Sydney asks Chris to go to Las Vegas and find the gun Ian used to kill Daniel. “Otherwise, he’ll come after us wherever we go. We’ve gotta put him away,” she explains. Chris and Sydney’s love story has been told in big broad strokes — they’ve only shared three scenes prior to deciding to run away together — but it works. In contrast, the story of Michael Fairgate’s unspoken attraction towards his sister-in-law Linda on KNOTS has been gradually built up over several episodes. This week, he confesses all. “I have a crush on you and I’m miserable,” he tells her. Her response is unexpected. “Eric and I are getting divorced,” she informs Karen and Mack. As spurned husbands go, Eric is a far less dangerous proposition than Ian St James, and so the stakes are somewhat higher for Sydney and Chris than they are for Linda and Michael.Unaware that Charley has overheard them talking, Chris agrees to Sydney’s plan. He is on his way to Vegas to look for Ian’s gun when he realises he is being followed — and that’s the last we ever see of him. Charley later tells Ian about the scheme and that he “took care of it.” Realising that Sydney has betrayed them and that they cannot sell Falcon Crest to Michael Sharpe while Emma is alive, the St James brothers decide to kill their wives, unborn baby and all — but as it’s Christmas Eve, they agree to wait until after dinner. Then Charley takes Emma upstairs, leaving Ian and Sydney alone. “I shall never forgive you and I shall never forget you,” Ian tells his wife, giving her one last kiss before starting to strangle her. Upstairs, Emma hears Sydney struggle and tells Charley they have to rescue her from Ian: “He is evil!” “He and I are the same person,”  Charley replies chillingly.Frank Agretti proves an unlikely knight in shining armour, crashing through a window and dragging Ian off of Sydney. The two men brawl, overturning a Christmas tree in the process. Ian is in the process of choking Frank when Sydney stabs him to death. Back upstairs, Charley cannot find his gun and vents his frustration by striking Emma across the face. Calmly, she unzips a stuffed rabbit and pulls out the weapon he is looking for. (This is the second bunny/violence juxtaposition in as many weeks. On last week’s KNOTS, Danny surprised Bobby and Betsy with a pair of rabbits and then raped his wife.) “Is this what you’re looking for?” asks Emma, pointing the gun at her husband. “Merry Christmas, Charley,” she adds, pulling the trigger. A Christmas episode with no less than three violent deaths (including Chris Agretti’s offscreen demise)? EASTENDERS would surely approve.Not only is it the end of the road for the St James brothers, but also for Soap Land’s remaining Englishman, Alex Barton. “You’ll never see that limey face again,” JR promises Cally before running Alex out of the country in much the same way as he once ran Alan Beam out of Texas. While Alan was set up on a bogus rape charge by Harry McSween, here Detective Rattigan manufactures evidence of Alex’s “depraved sexual habits” — a bogus sex tape “of you and two underage innocents, both of whom are willing to testify that your sexual tastes are, to say the least, a little bizarre.”So it’s out with the English, in with … the Japanese? There are a couple of enjoyably random references to the Far East this week. “The Japanese are gonna write a management textbook on you, Mr McKay,” a West Star sycophant tells his boss on DALLAS. “They can entitle it Sayonara, Ewing Oil!” McKay replies, chuckling malevolently. Meanwhile, it’s Christmas dinner at Falcon Crest where the show’s new breed of barbarian — the St James boys, Michael Sharpe and Genele — are seated around the same table for the first (and only) time. Michael is delivering his version of McKay’s “there are no more borders, there are no more countries” speech from last season’s DALLAS. “It’s not mom and pop anymore,” he tells Emma. “It’s computers, it’s micro-marketing, it’s targeting your customers on an international level. You’re sitting on the Pacific Rim. When the trade dam bursts, and it will, Falcon Crest had better be ready.” Emma is clearly out of her depth, but gamely replies, “You know, I was thinking that exact thing — there’s lots of people in China and Japan.” An awkward silence follows. “Really? Where did you hear that?” Michael replies dryly.In spite of his Oakman bosses ordering him to stay away from Paige, Tom manages to convince them that they need him to remain close to her: “Her father is back on the case. He is digging into Oakman Industries in a major way and the only way I am gonna be able to find out what’s happening is through her.” The reality is that Mack’s investigation is “at an absolute dead end” and so Tom himself supplies him with the information he needs to reignite it. Meanwhile, the Ewing-verse’s other double agent, Michelle Stevens, also uses her position to her advantage. Having pretended to Cally that she was sleeping with JR, she now finds herself on his bad side. “You interfered in my personal life,” JR tells her, “that’s one line I don’t let anybody cross.” “Don’t threaten me, JR. I’m still your spy in the house of Barnes,” she reminds him. Like Tom, she then proves her worth by furnishing him with a titbit about his enemy. JR’s grateful for the information, but makes it clear that he hasn’t forgiven Michelle. “It’ll be a chilly morning in hell before I let a money-hungry little bitch like you into my bed,” he tells her coldly. The last woman he took such an intense dislike to without sleeping with her first was Pam.While Michelle continues to conceal her affair with James from sugar daddy Cliff (there’s a close shave when James shows up at Cliff’s place to see Michelle, only for Cliff himself to answer the door), FC’s Genele simply can’t be bothered to hide her dalliance with Michael from her sugar daddy. Even as Frank grows increasingly concerned about the disappearance of his nephew Chris, Genele casually licks Michael’s ear in front of him.It’s not just young men like Chris Agretti and Michael Fairgate who are declaring their feelings this week. “I could love you,” Richard Channing says suddenly while looking at Lauren. She is so startled, she pretends she’s misheard him. “Oh, everybody loves Christmas,” she replies hurriedly. However, the boldest romantic claim of this week is made by Val during KNOTS’ pre-title scene. She is talking to Karen about Danny when she says, “I have never loved anyone this much. Not Ben, not even Gary” — a statement as controversial as JR’s recent description of Vanessa Beaumont as “the love of my life.”Just as JR is inextricably linked with Sue Ellen in viewers’ minds, so Val is with Gary. And so Bobby is with Pam. Therefore, following Val’s unabashed declaration about Danny, it’s interesting to hear Bobby choosing his words more carefully when describing his feelings for April. “April is a wonderful person,” he tells Kay Lloyd. “I trust her. She’s loyal and she’s always been there for me … As old-fashioned as it may sound to you, there’s something real nice in knowing I’m April’s number one priority — before ambition, money, anything.” “And is she your number one priority?” asks Kay. He changes the subject.Right at the other end of the Soap Land scale from April is Genele, who this week lays out the terms of her relationship with Michael. Whereas April fears Bobby might not want to marry her as much as she does him (“I don’t want you back here until you really, really want me, until you want me like I want you,” she tells him tearfully), Genele has zero interest in the subject. “Wife? God, that’s a horrible word!” she shudders. Whereas April is all about loyalty, Genele is more concerned with royalties. “What I won’t be is your girlfriend — a girlfriend is even worse than a wife because there’s no backend,” she explains to Michael. It’s as if Genele has studied all the Soap Land gold diggers that have gone before and learned from their mistakes. “I know what I’m good at and I’m more than happy to oblige, but the return has to be worth it,” she says. “You are so refreshing,” Michael tells her. “As of today, you are on the payroll — ten gees a month. Apartment, car, clothes come out of that. You can keep them when we’re done.” “… Oh come on, Michael,” she replies, “a man of your calibre deserves more than a ten-thousand-dollar-a-month mistress! … Twenty-five-grand-a-month and we’ve got a deal.” “This is not about sex,” he clarifies. “It’s about convenience … and combat. I am constantly at war. You have to understand that.” “I do and I can help you,” she assures him, “but for me, it is about money.”Now that Cally’s Svengali is out of the picture, where does that leave her painting career? JR seems to think the two are indivisible: “You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you, Barton? Telling my wife she’s got talent then luring her up to this little love nest.” Karen Mackenzie’s new career, meanwhile, receives a boost when she is offered the job of OPEN MIKE’s full-time host. Meeting her predecessor on his way out, she is struck by his cynicism. “If you have so little regard for the content of talk shows, why on earth did you choose this profession?” she asks. “Do you have any idea how much Oprah Winfrey is worth?” he replies. This reference to Oprah feels unusually blatant — almost like an on-screen acknowledgement that she now occupies the same space in American pop culture that the ‘80s soaps once did.As chance would have it, the subject of Karen’s first show is rape — nothing like throwing the new girl in at the deep end. Her guest is a psychiatric expert whose description of yer average rapist (“These men look perfectly normal, behave like anybody else on the street … they’re consummate conmen and manipulators, that’s why they can be so charming”) plays over a shot of Danny strolling up to Val’s front door. Needless to say, the profile fits him like a glove.This somewhat didactic approach to the subject is in contrast to previous depictions of rape in Soap Land where the word itself is never mentioned (such as Blake’s attack on Krystle), or where the characters involved, and sometimes even the shows themselves, don’t quite seem to realise that a rape has taken place (Laura in “The Lie”, JR’s encounters with Holly Harwood and Laurel Ellis), or where the act is treated as an almost abstract event, only revealed to the audience some time after it has occurred (Lucy Ewing and Maggie Gioberti during their kidnapping ordeals). Although the closest Danny gets to acknowledging his guilt is squirming uncomfortably while watching Karen’s show with Val (“what a depressing subject,” he murmurs), neither Amanda, who is also watching in her apartment, nor KNOTS itself is in any way hesitant in identifying what occurred between her and Danny at the end of last week’s episode as rape.At the very end of the episode, in a pleasingly knotty way that brings the “social issue” tone of this storyline back into the world of soap, Gary is also drawn in. He too is watching OPEN MIKE, and his ears prick up when he recognises a caller’s voice during the phone-in section of the show. It’s the same voice that called his number looking for Sally at the end of last season and that he listened to helplessly as she was being attacked at the beginning of this one. Here, he listens just as helplessly as she describes being raped by someone she knows. (“I thought he was gonna kill me.”) Ted Shackelford is really, really good at these “Holy shit, it’s …” moments of realisation — which is probably why they keep giving them to him.And this week’s Top 3 are …1 (3) FALCON CREST2 (2) KNOTS LANDING3 (1) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?