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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 177238" data-attributes="member: 22">13 Dec 90: KNOTS LANDING: Asked to Rise v. 14 Dec 90: DALLAS: The Fabulous Ewing BoysJason Lochner starts off playing the tough teen on this week’s KNOTS — slashing Mack’s tyres (“You little piece of garbage!” Mack growls) and ridiculing Frank after he makes good on his threat to sit on in Julie’s classes. Later, however, he inadvertently passes the Claudia Blaisdel Sensitivity Test by displaying an affinity with the words of Emily Dickinson during a poetry class, even as his friends appear glassy-eyed with boredom. Back in DYNASTY Season 1, Steven Carrington drew a parallel between Dickinson and Claudia: “She was a very special person and I think you’re a very special person too.” Ergo, Jason must also be very special. Even Mack’s attitude towards him starts to soften when he tells him about his father’s tragic death. But then another layer of the Jason onion falls away when this story turns out to be a lie. Mack finally gets close to the truth when he walks up to Jason’s house and oh so conveniently overhears the commotion going on inside — Jason yelling, “Let me alone! Cut it out! Stop it! That hurts!” accompanied by various bangs and crashes.As well as possible child abuse, there’s also child neglect on KNOTS. Gary finds the twins consuming candy and soda for dinner and watching television unsupervised. “Mommy’s nice and you’re stupid!” Betsy tells him when he tries to intervene. Bobby goes one better by calling him “a son of a bitch daddy!” By the end of the episode, the twins have somehow wound up on the roof of Val’s house (a Clements family trait — Mommy Val, Gooma Lilimae and Uncle Joshua have each found themselves atop a building at some point in the past nine years), while Mommy herself is busy getting an asymmetrical hairdo. Back in the day, this new ‘do really did seem like a “Mental Person Haircut” but now it just looks quite nice.According to his son James, JR is no better a parent than his intermittent sister-in-law Val. In fact, he’s “a lying, cheating, whoring, no-good bastard.” “Not in front of the boys,” cautions Clayton when JR tries to pick a fight with him in front of John Ross and Christopher. “Well, I think they’re entitled to know what kind of a traitor their grandmother married,” JR replies, referring to Clayton’s decision to give Carter McKay his voting rights in West Star. Clayton makes a grab for him, JR retaliates and it falls to Bobby to break them up. “Another fight about the oil business!” he snaps. “I just buried my wife because of the oil business! I think it’s time I buried Daddy too … I’m selling Ewing Oil!” Somehow, that last declaration never loses its end-of-episode impact.Despite Greg Sumner’s transplant proving successful, his sister Claudia is far from happy when she learns that he proposed marriage to Paige shortly before his collapse and that Paige has yet to give him an answer. However, she is careful not to reveal her true feelings. “I’m speechless!” she says instead, even managing a little laugh. Over on DALLAS, it’s a foregone conclusion that JR will propose to the lovely Vanessa, and unlike Claudia, James makes no secret of his opposition to their union. “Live with him if you want,” he advises his mother, “just don’t marry him. You’ll find out what he’s really like and then you’ll run away from him, just like Cally and his first wife did.” “And if I decide to marry him?” ventures Vanessa. “Don’t invite me to the wedding,” he replies.Rather sweetly, Cally presents Vanessa with a more optimistic viewpoint (“Maybe you’re the one that can make it work with him. I think you’re the woman he measured all the rest of us against and we all fell short”), before completely ruining the moment by blurting out the news that she is carrying JR’s baby. “You better hope for both our sakes that he never finds out,” she warns Vanessa, “because if he does, he’ll come after my child and nothing, and I mean nothing, on God’s green earth will be able to stop him. Not even you.” Understandably, Vanessa is left somewhat ambivalent about a future with JR.Back on KNOTS, Claudia succeeds in keeping her brother and Paige apart for almost the entire episode (without either of them realising that’s what she’s doing), but towards the end of the hour, Paige finally manages to gain access to Greg’s hospital room. “I wanna marry you,” she tells him. At this precise moment, two separate cases of fraud are being perpetrated, one against Greg, the other against Paige. As Claudia is forging Greg’s will (and appointing herself its executrix), Anne is pretending to be Paige while exchanging wedding vows with Nick.Following the drowning of Danny Waleska at the start of this season’s KNOTS, the fatal shooting of Johnny Dancer provides the Ewingverse with its second mini-whodunnit of the season. Liz’s shady government handler thinks she did it, Liz thinks Cliff did it, and Rose thinks McKay did it after he orders her to give him an alibi for the night in question. In spite of her misgivings, she does so. But Rose is as much a liability as she is an asset. Thanks to the bug she planted in her husband’s office, JR gets to hear the conversation between McKay and Johnny Dancer where he threatened Dancer’s life. “I wonder what McKay would give to get a hold of this?” JR muses.There’s further espionage afoot on KNOTS where Alex Giorgi, the representative of a company that is secretly scheming to acquire the Sumner Group, tries to charm the ambitious and under-appreciated Linda Fairgate into passing on classified information. But she proves less malleable than Rose McKay. Before handing over the information he’s after, she presents him with “a contingency contract guaranteeing my employment with Calloway Industries should I be terminated here for any reason. I’ve also included fees for a defence attorney should the need arise. This is a freelance contract for my services to your company while I’m still employed in my present position. I’ll be paid as a consultant through my loan out company which doesn’t have my name on it. This contract also includes legal indemnification.” It’s as if Linda has seen how all the other Soap Land spies have come a cropper in the past and is taking care not to repeat their mistakes. There again, there are no absolutely consequences for Sly after she admits to JR that she handed confidential information about him to James. Instead, he offers her her old job back.A week after DALLAS tipped its hat to TWIN PEAKS with a close up of a piece of cherry pie, KNOTS references its time slot competitor LA LAW with Mort claiming to be wearing the same tie as Corbin Bernsen did on last Thursday's show. While certainly meta, this isn't quite as witty DALLAS's dig at its then-rival, MIAMI VICE, four years ago. There’s further self-awareness on KNOTS when Karen describes Val’s recent behaviour as “so unreasonable … so extreme”. “… Val has always been extreme,” Mack replies. “I mean I love her, but calling Val extreme is like calling Magic Johnson a basketball player.”And this week’s Top 2 are …1 (1) DALLAS2 (2) KNOTS LANDING</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?