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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 178863" data-attributes="member: 22">10 Jan 91: KNOTS LANDING: Simmer v. 11 Jan 91: DALLAS: Lock, Stock and JockThere are four separate storylines in this week’s KNOTS, ranging from the really good to the slightly irritating.The best of the bunch deals with the aftermath of Greg and Paige’s broken engagement. Interestingly, this is shown solely from a workplace perspective. There are no scenes of the pair discussing their relationship — we don’t even know if they have a relationship anymore. For the second time in recent months, Paige is obliged to return her co-workers’ wedding gifts. We see her becoming increasingly impatient with their platitudes until, with Mort, she finally snaps: “Yeah I know, you’re here for me if I need you, you’re there for me if I wanna share, you care deeply, you hear what I’m saying, you know where I’m coming from, you’re special, I’m special. Thanks, Mort.” “Bitch!” he exclaims as she walks away. “What?” she asks, turning back around in surprise. “I said you’re 0 for 2 in the wedding league and I’m beginning to see why,” he replies calmly. She is left speechless. This is a fascinatingly unexpected exchange: Mort is the buffoon of the show; Paige one of its heroines. Indeed, the series places so much importance on her, it even followed her into her subconscious last week where she encountered a version of her future self. And yet here Mort is granted the upper hand. It’s the equivalent of Ozwald Valentine getting the better of Sue Ellen.Something just as unexpected happens over on DALLAS — after nearly ten years of undiluted niceness, Phyllis finally tells JR off following an argument between him and Bobby. “How could you talk to him that way after all he’s been through? … He’s your brother!” she exclaims. Unlike Paige, JR still gets the last word. “If you wanna keep on working here, you better watch your mouth, little lady!” he barks.Mort isn’t the only thorn in Paige’s side at the Sumner Group.  Only a few episodes ago, Linda Fairgate was doing everything she could to curry favour with her. Now that she (Linda) has been promoted, it’s a different story. “I need everything you can find on the history of the Richfield holdings before 1971 … This is high priority,” Paige tells her snappily. “I’ll see if I can find someone willing to change his or her schedule and get right on it,” Linda replies with icy disdain. Paige’s subsequent complaint to Greg (“She doesn’t have a sense of urgency, she doesn’t demonstrate responsibility and she is openly rude”) falls on stony ground. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” he suggests.The closest DALLAS gets to an adversarial female relationship this week is Vanessa Beaumont and LeeAnn De La Vega (I do like typing that ludicrous name) who have one those “ladies who lunch while wearing big hats and making cryptic remarks” scenes we haven’t seen in Soap Land for a while. They make an enjoyably odd combination. Vanessa is sophisticated, almost regal, in a specifically English way, but is about as far from Sable or Alexis Colby as one could get. She’s full of warmth and sincerity, and evidently willing to open her heart to someone she doesn’t know from Adam. LeeAnn, meanwhile, is all twinkly-eyed Dolly Parton folksiness — so much the better to conceal her vengeful scheming. Her final line to Vanessa is delightful in its soapy absurdity: “I do want you to know how wonderful it is that you mean so much to JR, and he to you — it gives me something to think about.”And that’s not even LeeAnn’s best line of the episode! “Oh, didn’t I mention it at lunch? I signed the papers this morning. Ewing Oil no long exists,” she informs JR airily. It appears that, much like Michael Sharpe when he took possession of Falcon Crest, she regards the company as a minor acquisition compared to her other holdings. For this reason, she asks JR to help run it for her (“You’ll be in almost complete control”) in exchange for ten percent ownership. He agrees, with a view to eventually snatching the whole thing back from her. “Sooner or later, she’s gonna drop her guard and when she does, that’s when I’m gonna make my move,” he assures Sly. “I’m gonna beat Mrs De La Vega yet.”The second best story on KNOTS is Jason’s. The sight of Mack and Karen welcoming him into their house and offering him a place to stay, all the while taking care not to scare him away as one might a skittish dog, is very touching. After one night, however, the inevitable legalities kick in and he returns to his father’s house before eventually running away. The episode ends with an allusion to Mack’s own backstory: “Why in the world would anyone expect a fifteen-year-old to know what to do? When I was fifteen, I didn’t know what to do — I didn’t know enough to run away.”Meanwhile, during an extended flashback on DALLAS, LeeAnn reveals her teenage trauma to gal pal Michelle: a college fling with JR that resulted in pregnancy, humiliation (“He called me everything but the village whore”) and a botched abortion performed by “a miserable dirty quack … in some nasty little hotel room” that left her unable to have another baby. Yes, it’s the same sorry (but dramatically useful) tale as previously told by Dana Carrington, Channing Colby and Cliff Barnes on behalf of his late fiancee Penny who died during her illegal abortion.Whereas the violence we are witness to between Jason and his dad this week is more psychological than physical, DALLAS opens with a hands-on altercation between father and son as JR drags James out of his cot at the bike shop, grabs him by the scruff of the neck (“You filthy piece of garbage, I oughta do you in right now!”) and pushes him across the room. “You and Cally making out behind my back!” JR rants. “She told me you were the father of that child … You took advantage of that poor girl just to get back at me!” Seeing how unhappy it makes his father, James plays along with Cally’s lie, but then agrees to his request to keep quiet about it: “Trust me, Daddy,  it’ll be our little secret and it’ll be something you’ll always remember — that’s good enough for me.” This results in a weird kind of truce between them: “You’ve got no morals, you’ve got no scruples. You might be worthy of me yet,” JR tells James. He then manages to win points with Vanessa by telling her that, for the sake of their marriage, he had decided not to pursue the baby he secretly thinks is James’s, even though it’s really his own.Third on the list of KNOTS plots is the ongoing story of crazy Val. While she is busy hiding her medication and painting her nails different colours, Gary seeks respite at the gym where Anne is waiting to “accidentally” run into him at the juice bar. She flicks water on herself so he’ll think she’s been working out and cracks corny jokes about how exercise is bad for you, all of which makes her seem more wacky than witty. (Juice bars in gyms seem to be the meeting place du jour. It’s where LeeAnn and Michelle hatch their scheme to break up JR and Vanessa on DALLAS.)In my least favourite KNOTS storyline of the week, Frank Williams ties himself up in, er, knots trying to work out if the art exhibition Julie’s teacher Charlotte has invited him to constitutes a date. Hedging his bets, he invites the dreaded Peggy along as his beard. Cue lots of socially awkward sitcom acting from all concerned. Back on DALLAS, Frank’s fellow widower, Bobby, is also getting on with his life by packing up his office at what used to be Ewing Oil. He’s about to take down Jock’s painting, but JR stops him: “I want that picture to stay right where it is — Daddy looking down on the one boy he can still be proud of,” he insists. “Fine, you can have it, and you’re right — Daddy wouldn’t have understood, but I don’t give a damn!” Bobby replies blasphemously.Ex-lovers James and Michelle have undergone a reversal of fortunes of late. She's now rich while he's poor. This week, she visits him at the bike shop and their meeting ends with a bonkers bit of innuendo. “If I need a mechanic, I’ll call you,” she tells him. “Don’t bother,” he replies. “I don’t think I can fix the problem you have with your motor!” “Not anymore, that’s for damn sure!” she pouts.And this week’s Top 2 are …1 (1) DALLAS2 (2) KNOTS LANDING</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?