Throwing off the shackles of a year’s worth of storylines means that DALLAS feels similarly liberated. Running parallel to KNOTS’ senatorial story (the lightness of which is best illustrated by the sequence where Gary gets a fit of the giggles while trying to film a TV ad for his campaign), DALLAS has its own political plot which is similarly fun while also incorporating a wide range of characters. In order to combat OPEC’s stranglehold on the oil industry, Jamie comes up with the bright idea of lobbying Washington to place a tariff on all imported oil. Cliff chauvinistically passes off this idea as his own, winning the approval of the Dallas oil community in the process. JR, in turn, steals Cliff’s thunder by persuading Donna to head up the lobby, a decision which threatens to impact her already troubled marriage to Ray, who has developed a bond with Jenna following her split from Bobby, … and so on.
Following its bizarre yet sweet introductory scene, “Return to Camelot” is something of a slow burn ep compared to the other season premieres. Nonetheless, it has a power, a grandeur. The location scenes — a Fort Worth cattle auction, the anti-OPEC meeting at Energy Square — recall past DALLAS glories, while the familiar musical score takes the show back to its roots. Likewise, Bobby and Pam breaking the news of their engagement to their dismayed relatives recalls the aftermath of their elopement at the very beginning of the series. Ironically, while mocking his brother Steven’s idealism on last season’s DYNASTY, Adam Carrington referred to Camelot as a dream. According to the title of this week’s opener, DALLAS regards it as the exact opposite.
Yet DALLAS also feels more aware this season — both of its own history (JR and Cliff’s eye-rolling reactions to Bobby and Pam’s news, while perfectly in character, are laugh-out-loud funny in a way they couldn’t have been in 1978) and of the outside world. Given that “South East Asia” was as specific as the show got during its offshore drilling and counterrevolution storylines of Seasons 2 and 3, JR’s passing wisecrack — “Any chance that Iraq/Iran war’ll spread?” — is surprising, as much for its specificity as its irreverence. Similarly, given how culturally parochial the Ewings have always been, Bobby quoting Woody Allen feels strange — but not strange in the stilted way that Donna and Ellie rearranging the Southfork furniture did last season — just looser and more playful.
Another example of that playfulness is the new depiction of Sue Ellen. During what can now be referred to as "the dream season”, she solemnly underwent a lengthy process of recovery in order to get sober and “become my own person.” This culminated in her reconciling with JR once again, but on a far healthier and more mutually respectful basis than ever before. This week’s episode delights in throwing all of that of the window. Whereas JR stopped her in her tracks towards the end of last season with the simple statement, “There's a magic between us, Sue Ellen. I know that and so do you”, here it’s Sue Ellen who tells JR, “There’s something between us that I’ve never found with another man,” before getting him to admit he feels the same way about her. However, this time it is part of a mock seduction scene designed to humiliate JR. “Well, you’re never gonna have me!” she tells him. Forget rehab and AA and becoming your own person, “hating you the way I do’s enough to keep me sober.” Hallelujah.
