Jock's lake Caddo and lake Takapa according to Wes.

[Count Jockula]

There was a big boo boo in Wes Parmalee's 'is he Jock or not' storyline i.e. his mixup about the Ewing boys going to Takapa, for a hunting trip. DALLAS was reasonably good on continuity. However it was Caddo not Takapa, Wes. That's an awful mistake to make in front of the oil portrait of Jock. You would think....tut tut!

The Southfork barbeque is underway. Ray (Jock’s illegitimate son) is drinking at the entrance bar, with his buddies. Wes Parmalee (Jock’s impersonator) appears for the last time; (a scene from season 9, DVD-10, 1986 – ’87):

Ray: “I just can’t believe you coming out here again. Especially knowing how people are feeling.”

Wes: “I need to see Miss Ellie.”

Ray: “I cannot believe the hurt you are causing this family.”

Wes: “Nobody is hurting any worse than I am.”

Ray: “Maybe but you’re the one that’s causing it. You’ve got Miss Ellie’s head all twisted around. You turned her sons against her. You put Clayton Farlow one of the finest men in the world through the ringer.”

Wes: “Move aside Ray. I need to see her!”

Ray: “You know at first I prayed that you were Jock. But now even if you are I don’t think even I care anymore. You’re not the man I loved. He would have disappeared off the face of the earth before he broke a family up like you have.”

Wes: “You’re a good man Ray. Any man would be proud to have you as a son.”

Parmalee struts away into the crowd and eventually into the mansion, to see Ellie.

 

[lbf522]

Again I ask if he Wes Parmalee was not suppose to be Jock, then what was the point of the storyline? He passed all of the tests given to him and knew things that only Jock would know like what happened at Lake Tapaka and his telling JR about his first wife Amanda. Why go through all of that if he was never suppose to be Jock Ewing?

 

[Spooky Owl!]

There was a big boo boo in Wes Parmalee's 'is he Jock or not' storyline i.e. his mixup about the Ewing boys going to Takapa, for a hunting trip. DALLAS was reasonably good on continuity. However it was Caddo not Takapa, Wes. That's an awful mistake to make in front of the oil portrait of Jock. You would think....tut tut!

I must confess, I never caught it.

Again I ask if he Wes Parmalee was not suppose to be Jock, then what was the point of the storyline? He passed all of the tests given to him and knew things that only Jock would know like what happened at Lake Tapaka and his telling JR about his first wife Amanda. Why go through all of that if he was never suppose to be Jock Ewing?

The actors were apparently told different things (a not uncommon practice). Paulsen later said Wes was not supposed to be Jock, but the brilliance of the storyline was that they threw enough red herring out there that the audience came to their own conclusions as to whether Wes was or wasn't really Jock, and assumed that those varying conclusions were the self-evident fact.

The ambiguity was the point. (Although Parmalee's sudden departure was a bit jarring at the time).

Wes Parmalee, even if he wasn't Jock, certainly represented the Ghost of Jock. And the family's reaction to him, and the possibility of who he might be and how it might affect them, was the motive for the tale.

So the Wes Parmalee plotline was at the epicenter of All DALLAS Was All About. The patriarch had been, one way or another, séanced. And DALLAS was soon put to bed (even though it continued on for four more years, by now an anachronism).

(As an aside, I always want Ellie to pass away at the end of her final season, and to have Clayton & Ray having a beer in a local Braddock tavern a few episodes later, Clayton depressed over the loss of his wife, during which Ray shows him a clipping of an obituary listing from an obscure Canadian newspaper, citing the death of Wes Parmalee (dying the same way Ellie did -- I always envision a throw from a horse) which Smithfield & Bennett located. Farlow scoffs about "oh, that old faker...!" and the subject changes. Most viewers probably wouldn't notice much the reference to this long-gone character who hadn't been mentioned for years, but more astute fans might pick up on the weird synchronicity... "I'll see you again someday").

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

Again I ask if he Wes Parmalee was not suppose to be Jock, then what was the point of the storyline? He passed all of the tests given to him and knew things that only Jock would know like what happened at Lake Tapaka and his telling JR about his first wife Amanda. Why go through all of that if he was never suppose to be Jock Ewing?

I tend to think that Wes was supposed to be Jock with the physical exam being the decisive event, IMHO
The producers seemed to change their minds later.
Too bad. I wanted Wes to be Jock
The show was never the same without Jock IMHO

 

[Piggyrella Sanderson]

Re-watching the original "Anastasia" made think of Wes Parmalee, and how the only right way (to me) of closing the storyline would have been to have him psychoanalyzed and tested for a possible amnesia / personality conflict. So he was in the crash with Jock, whom he had met (and listened to his ranting about "bidness" and what not) prior, and the consequences of the accident led him to that state of mind, especially after getting that new face.

So let´s keep the ambiguity, and let the audience decide, though not the way they did it. He does fall in love with Ellie (but not she with him) and decides to leave to avoid suffering to her, but in his mind and heart he feels he´s Jock. And he "lies" to her. I would spare the "raiders of the ark" trip of Bobby to find out about his true identity.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

So let´s keep the ambiguity, and let the audience decide, though not the way they did it.

Oh, gee, I really liked the way they did it... You say to keep the ambiguity, but your idea seems a bit too soapily semi-concrete foe me...

But then, I'm weird.

 

[Piggyrella Sanderson]

Oh, gee, I really liked the way they did it... You say to keep the ambiguity, but your idea seems a bit too soapily semi-concrete foe me...

But then, I'm weird.

I didn´t like the final explanation with Bobby, Punk and co, it sounded too far-fetched, making it soapier to me. Weird? Vous? Aren´t we all...?

 

[Spooky Owl!]

I didn´t like the final explanation with Bobby, Punk and co, it sounded too far-fetched, making it soapier to me. Weird? Vous? Aren´t we all...?

It's precisely the same explanation I'd use when Steven Number 1 returns and exposes the Stevenbot to have been Ben Reynolds all along.

And given that Jock's helicopter crashed into Matthew's jeep in South America, it all makes a kind of sense.

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

The Caddo/Takapa retcon disinformation campaign was in process long before we viewers had any idea who Wes Parmalee was, with the shots being called at the highest levels of power up to and including the CIA and/or Lenny Katzman himself. Who gave Senator Culver the order to entice Jock to South America? Did Bobby really think we wouldn’t notice that Landowne had been mysteriously renamed as ‘J’?

 

[Falcon Crest I]

You know Wes Parmalee was the last most interesting Dallas storyline. I tend to believe he was probably the most important character. Digger was important as well, just not as much as the main man. Without Jock there would not have been a show. There really needs to be a prequel to classic Dallas

 

[Sea - Boo! - Er]

I didn´t like the final explanation with Bobby, Punk and co, it sounded too far-fetched,

Ironically, it's more farfetched than the idea that really was Jock. It was just a quick and easy out scriptwise.

 

[Count Jockula]

The Wes Parmalee storyline was indeed the last great one. After DVD-10 the Texas saga slid quicker than someone running, in an oil field. As I've said before Wes should have been Jason Ewing (Jock's 'tumbleweed' brother). Steve Forrest was an actor of high calibre, who should eventually have been a permanent cast member.

The Ewings thought Jason was dead. Mr. 'Tumbleweed' is back to claim his share of the oil dynasty and tell his story, of what happened circa 1930.


Wes takes Ellie for a spin in a horse and buggy around Dallas. He woos her, then goes in for a kiss. Before they kiss he has something to say; (a scene from season 9, DVD-10, 1986-'87):

"There is a time for talking and a time to stop talking!!!"

 

[Jock-O-Lantern]

Season 10 was the last great season. Not only the Wes Parmelee storyline, but the BD Calhoun storyline.

Speaking of Lake Takapa, I always found it weird that Clayton would take Miss Ellie there considering it almost broke up her marriage to Jock. Lol

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Speaking of Lake Takapa, I always found it weird that Clayton would take Miss Ellie there considering it almost broke up her marriage to Jock. Lol

Maybe that's why it almost broke up her marriage to Jock -- because Clayton had been taking Miss Ellie there for years!