"Check and Mate"
This episode closes possibly the most dramatic chapter in DALLAS history: the fight between JR and Bobby for control of Ewing Oil. As Harve Smithfield puts it in the second scene, “When the audit is finished and a winner is declared, it’ll signal the end of a long and very bitter year.” “A year that brought a lot of people a lot of pain, and not all of them named Ewing,” Bobby echoes, while talking to Holly Harwood. “Wounds heal. At least, mine do,” Holly replies gamely. The same, alas, cannot be said for the battle’s more serious casualties: Rebecca Wentworth, Walt Driscoll, and now Mickey Trotter.
As the episode opens, Donna arrives at Dallas Memorial Hospital to collect Ray and his Aunt Lil, who have been visiting with Mickey. She is met at the entrance by a gaggle of reporters, anxious for a statement. “A statement? About what?” she asks, laughing in suprise. “Haven’t you heard the news report?” asks one, thrusting a microphone towards her. “Your husband’s been arrested for murder!” Stunned, Donna attempts to make her way inside. “DONNA!” calls out a voice in the crowd. She stops and looks. A photographer’s flashlight goes off in her face. Angered, she continues to push past the reporters, more roughly this time: “Get out of my way!” Following the preceding episode’s abrupt climax, (in which Ray blocked the door of Mickey’s room to prevent doctors from saving his life, while Lil looked silently on) the audience are almost as much in the dark as Donna, and we now watch the action unfold through her eyes. The use of a hand held camera adds a sense of immediacy and confusion to the scene. This sequence (reminiscent of the moment in Season 2 in which JR and Sue Ellen arrive at the hospital to collect their new born son, only to be greeted by the press and informed that the baby has been kidnapped) is a very effective start to a very effective instalment in a very effective season.
As news of Ray’s arrest spreads, (“What’s he done now?,” is JR’s dry response) we follow Donna to the Police and Courts Building where he is being held. In the cold blue waiting room, she finds Lil, sitting quietly in a state of shock. Gently, Donna approaches her. Like the audience, she is looking for answers.
Donna: Lil, it’s Donna. What happened?
Lil (staring straight ahead): He’s gone, Donna. Michael’s gone.
Donna (delicately): I know, but can you tell me how it happened?
Lil: The Lord took him away.
Donna: Lil, did Ray do something? Did he?
Lil: Ray’s a good boy. He loved Michael.
Donna: Yes, he did, but did he-?
Lil flinches.
Donna: Lil, I have to know.
No response. Donna lowers her head in despair. Soon, they are joined by Bobby.
Bobby: Fill me in. What happened?
Donna: The people at the hospital say Ray did it.
Bobby: Did what, exactly?
Donna: Disconnected Mickey’s life support system.
We are used to seeing Donna depicted as calm and capable. Here, however, she is on unfamiliar ground, where her political savvy and Culver millions count for nothing. Her vulnerable emotional state is again reflected by shaky camera work, as she makes her way to the cell where Ray is being held. “What did you do?” she whispers, addressing her husband from the other side of a glass screen.
Ray: Mickey just died with a little dignity. It was important to him.
While the mercy killing of Mickey raises the topic of euthanasia, the word itself is never once mentioned during this story line. It is notable that on the occasions where DALLAS addresses what might be loosely termed “social issues”, it often does so through stories involving Ray and Donna. (As well as euthanasia, Season 6 also sees them uncover Edgar Randolph’s history of child molestation, and of course there is there is the Down’s Syndrome story line of Season 8). This is no coincidence. As arguably the most down to earth characters on the show, Ray and Donna are the DALLAS couple who most resemble the residents of KNOTS LANDING. Like their Californian cousins, they stubbornly refuse to move from their modest abode even after acquiring untold wealth. If, to quote David Jacobs, “DALLAS is about ‘them’ and KNOTS is about ‘us’,” then the Krebbses are theoretically the DALLAS characters most “relatable” to their audience. Certainly, Donna is the only Ewing wife whose world view extends beyond her own neuroses. She subsequently has a more defined sense of her own convictions than either Pam or Sue Ellen.
“Oh Ray, it was wrong. It was WRONG!” she passionately insists in this episode. “Nobody has the right to play God!”
After being released on bail, Ray returns wearily home. No sooner have he and Donna pulled up in the Krebbs driveway than Lucy bursts out of the house, beside herself with rage and grief. This is Charlene Tilton’s most powerful moment of the series. “HOW COULD YOU? YOU HAD NO RIGHT! YOU MURDERED HIM!” she screams, lashing out at Ray with her fists. He pushes past her, seeking refuge inside the house. In the background we glimpse Lil sitting motionless, apparently unaware of the commotion surrounding her. All three are grieving for the same person, yet isolated from one other by their individual loss. Again, it falls Donna to hold things together. “Stop it!” she insists, pulling Lucy away from Ray and holding tightly onto her. “Don’t you know this is tearing him apart too?” This brief sequence, no longer than forty-five seconds, is one of the most moving in DALLAS history. Once again, the hand held camera work of director of photography Bradford May perfectly captures the raw emotions of the scene.
While the others grieve, Donna must deal with the practicalities of the situation, such as finding a lawyer to handle Ray’s case. This proves suprisingly difficult. The more frantic her search becomes, the more fatalistic Ray’s response: “I don’t need a lawyer ... What I did, I did ... There’s just not much I can do about it, except take what’s comin’.” Finally, Donna can take no more: “Who the hell do you think you’re talkin’ to? Do you just think you’re some drifter who just lives all alone? ... You do remember that you have a wife, don’t you? A wife who’d like to see you more than on Sunday afternoons behind iron bars? You listen to me. We’ve been through a lot together, and don’t you dare sit there and tell me it was all in vain ... I’m gonna get you the best lawyer I can find. You’re what I wanted all my life. You may not think your life is worth savin’, but I sure as hell do.”
To make another Krebbs/KNOTS comparison, the dynamic of Ray and Donna’s relationship here closely resembles that of Gary and Val at the end of KNOTS LANDING’s fourth season, originally broadcast seven months earlier than this episode. Like his half brother, Gary is charged with murder and, wracked with guilt and self loathing, refuses to defend himself (despite his innocence). It is only the love of a good woman--in his case, estranged wife Val--that persuades him that his life is worth fighting for. Ray and Gary are the “weaker” Ewing brothers that have married “stronger” women. The difference between the two series--KNOTS depicts a matriarchal community which nurtures its female members, while DALLAS portrays a patriarchal family that breeds dominant men--explains why Gary and Val are major characters, and Ray and Donna largely supporting players, in their respective show. The only time the Krebbses are featured heavily in DALLAS is in Season 8, a result of the series’ “feminization” by former KNOTS LANDING writer/producer Peter Dunne. Donna’s quest for a lawyer takes her to attorney Paul Morgan, cleverly introduced two episodes earlier as a one time associate of her late husband Sam who nursed a secret crush on her.
Donna: Harve’s talked to all the top criminal firms around, but they all seem to be too tied up to do the case justice.
Paul: C’mon, Donna. Smithfield’s just tryin’ to spare your feelings ... Look, this case is gonna have a terrific fee attached to it, and the only reason I know for a good lawyer to turn it down is because he’s afraid he might lose ... A lawyer’s win record is more important to him than his fee ... You’re not on very solid legal ground here. You’re dealing with sensitive issues and the judge might react emotionally rather than with clear legal logic.
Donna: ... Especially the whole thing’s gonna be swimming in a sea of publicity.
Paul: Another good reason for a lawyer to duck it if he thinks he’s gonna lose.
This discussion, which takes place in one of Dallas’s landmark squares (Thanksgiving? Energy?) puts Ray’s upcoming trial into a wider perspective, adding another layer of reality and complexity to the story. Once more, Bradford May’s photography expresses this visually by literally placing the characters in a larger context. The scene begins with an impressive overview of the Square. Although we can hear can Donna speaking, she and Paul are visually indistinguishable from the rest of the crowd--they are simply people amongst people--until the camera slowly pans in to find them.
Donna: Do you think he’s gonna lose? ... Look, I’ve checked y’out. I know you have a good reputation.
Paul: Aha! So we’re down to me - the best of what’s left?
Donna: No, I’m serious ... Will you take the case?
Paul: All right ... I’ll represent your husband.
Paul’s feelings for Donna, which don’t lead anywhere and are barely referred to, nonetheless add an extra dimension to their scenes together (reminiscent of the dynamic between old flames Mack Mackenzie and Janet Baines during KNOTS’ Season 4 murder investigation). Both are in the dark as to exactly what took place between Ray and Lil in the moments leading up to Mickey’s death, as are the audience. Ray is uncommunicative, while Lil is almost catatonic with grief.
Towards the end of this instalment, there is a beautifully acted scene between Steve Kanaly and Kate Reid as Ray broaches the subject of Mickey’s funeral: “Seein’ how much Mickey loved it on Southfork this past year, I was wonderin’, Aunt Lil, if maybe he woulda liked it if we buried him here. There’s this corner up above the meadow beneath this big old tree. He used to go up there whenever he wanted to be by himself. I just keep thinkin’ how much he mighta liked it if we laid him to rest up there. Are you hearin’ me, Aunt Lil? I hope so ... I’ll understand whatever you wanna do about this, of course. It sure would mean somethin’ to me.” Throughout this speech, Lil sits silently, staring straight ahead. The only indication that she can hear Ray are the tears running down her face. In hindsight, it’s almost impossible to watch this episode without thinking of the premature death of Timothy Patrick Murphy, who played Mickey, which only adds to the deep poignance of the scene.
The Krebbs’ crisis is the subject of conversation elsewhere in this episode. JR is naturally delighted by the arrest of “that half-breed”, (“with any luck he’ll be in jail for the next ten to fifteen years”) while in the Gulf, Clayton wonders how he can keep the newspaper headlines (“EWING RELATIVE ARRESTED FOR MURDER”) from an off screen and ailing Ellie. “What if you took her some place where nobody cares what a Ewing does?” suggests her physician. For Pam, Ray’s arrest proves something of a turning point. “I talked to Donna on the phone ... but I didn’t go to be with them,” she tells Mark. “They were my family for six years ... I’ve always been there when there was trouble.”
Mark: That was before the divorce.
Pam: Well, it’s hard.
Mark: Pam, you’re doing the right thing. You’ve got your own house to put in order.
Part of Pam’s fresh start includes a new oil venture with Mark and Cliff, (neatly, this episode marks the beginning of two sibling business partnerships - Pam and Cliff’s, and JR and Bobby’s) and a new office at Barnes/Wentworth. The set of Pam’s office, a mainstay of the show for the next four seasons, gets its unveiling here. “Cliff, this is lovely!” Pam gasps, and indeed it is. But if Pam thinks her new partnership is a step away from her old life, she is mistaken. “Barnes/Wentworth/Graisco is officially in business,” crows Cliff, celebrating their first deal. “What’s sweeter is who I stole it from ... JR Ewing!”“Oh no, not again,” exclaims Pam, her face dropping in horror: “That means the Barnes/Ewing feud is gonna start up all over again!”
Curiously, two characters who don’t acknowledge Mickey’s passing in this episode are Holly Harwood (making her penultimate appearance) and Sue Ellen, both of whom had a key part to play in his demise. Instead, each shares a scene with Bobby, in which they emerge from the wreckage of Season 5 to look towards the future. “It’s hard to fall out of love,” Holly admits, “and I was just wondering if I was gonna get another chance with you now that you’re a free man.” Bobby tries to let her down gently, but she isn’t satisfied with his “we can be friends” spiel. “Tell me somethin’, is it because I set JR up that time?” she asks, “ ... or because I slept with him to do it?” “Maybe both,” he concedes, establishing his rule of never sleeping with any of JR’s casts off, and thereby giving JR a means of blackmailing Katherine and April later in the series. (Katherine’s rejection of JR in this episode - “You’re not your brother, and he’s the one I’m in love with” - is reminiscent of Holly’s rebuff a year earlier: “JR, if I had wanted a package that included sex, I would’ve hired your brother Bobby.” In both cases, JR subsequently resorts to coercion to force the woman into sex.) Holly and Bobby say their good-byes. “Guess that’s the end of the road. Not that there ever really was a road for you and me,” Holly smiles ruefully.
Sue Ellen’s discussion with Bobby has a similarly bittersweet quality. It takes place in the Southfork living room, as did their most recent previous encounter shortly before the Southfork fire, in which Bobby attempted to wrest a large vodka from Sue Ellen’s bandaged grasp. Just as the room itself has been freshly painted since then, so the Sue Ellen is once again composed and cordial. “No thank you,” she smiles, turning down Bobby’s offer of a pre dinner drink. “I do make a pretty mean club soda,” he smiles back, in muted reference to her newly sober status. Beneath this cheerful veneer, however, there is a deep sense of melancholy coming from both characters. Sue Ellen tells Bobby about John Ross’s camp counsellor, Peter Richards: “He reminds me a lot of how you used to be. There’s a youthful sincerity about him. Life is important to him, Bobby. Not business, not deals - but life.” It is here, rather than in any scene involving Christopher Atkins, that we most clearly understand what draws Sue Ellen to Peter; the same qualities that first attracted her to Dusty, when he was “just” a rodeo rider: hope, freedom, a lack of corruption. By contrast, Sue Ellen sees herself as hopeless, trapped and tainted. Peter also possess the purity of youth. He has yet to be corrupted by greed and a lust for power in the same way the Ewings, including Bobby and Sue Ellen herself, have been.
Bobby: Well, just give him time, Sue Ellen. He’ll change.
Sue Ellen: Maybe not. If he doesn’t look for the things that are important to you, then maybe he’ll grow up to be as wholesome as he is right now.
Sue Ellen’s remembrance of Bobby as a young man (“JR’s kid brother - you were so sweet and dashing and handsome”) and Holly’s final words to him (“There’s someone out there somewhere who’s gonna end up with you, and it won’t be me”) subtly pave the way for the return of Jenna Wade, his childhood sweetheart and future fiancee, in the following instalment.
At the end of the episode, JR, Bobby, Punk Anderson and Harve reassemble in Harve’s office for the final audit. But is the result a foregone conclusion? Despite the agreement has existed between Bobby and JR for the past six episodes to split the company equally regardless of who comes out ahead, it is apparent that JR, the most likely winner, is planning to double cross his brother at the last minute and claim control of Ewing Oil for himself.
“You haven’t called off the fight, have you?” twigs Katherine, early on in the episode. “You just tricked him into thinking you did.”
JR: That’ll be our little secret.
Katherine: And what if I want Bobby to have his rightful share of Ewing Oil?
JR: You may be lovesick, but you’re not stupid, honey. I don’t think you want Pam or Bobby to find out how you manipulated their divorce ... Now, you’re gonna be happy with Bobby far away from here, and I’ll finally have my daddy’s company all to myself.
Does Bobby know what JR is planning? More intriguingly, does he even care? There is an interesting ambivalence in Patrick Duffy’s performance in this episode. In most of his scenes, he exudes a weary air of resignation, even defeat, as if all the fight has gone out of him. When Sue Ellen compares the man he has become to the sweet, naive boy she once knew, his response - “Life has a tendency to change people, and I’ve had more than my share lately,” - is a clear reference to what the battle for Ewing Oil has cost him: his marriage and, to some extent, his integrity. “Bobby, we both know JR,” warns Sue Ellen, with reference to the brothers’ supposed truce. “Don’t take too much for granted.” “Sue Ellen, I never take JR granted.”
Despite his governmental duties and bout of malaria, Jock was evidently quite the prolific writer during his stay in South America: legal documents, codicils, and love letters have all found their way back to Texas to be read aloud at family gatherings, in lawyers’ offices, and even courts of law. Now comes Jock’s final word from beyond the grave (his World War II instruction to his first born to not “let the bastards grind you down” notwithstanding). “This letter came to Harve a year ago,” Punk explains to JR and Bobby, “and [he] gave it to me, with the instruction not to open it until the contest year had finished and the winner was about to be announced. (This alludes to a scene in the Season 5 episode “Aftermath”, which originally aired--with almost perfect accuracy--exactly 53 weeks earlier!)
“Bobby, JR,” the letter begins. “By the time you read these words, a year will have passed since I died. Now, I know you never have been able to work together, but in throwing you against each other as I decided to, I will have been able to prove a point. I’m convinced that the fight for Ewing Oil will bring out the best in both of you -”
Hmm, let’s recap on the fight here: leaving aside his usual chicanery, JR sold oil to Cuba, flooded the local market with cheap gasoline, thus turning every independent oil man in Texas against him, and raped Holly Harwood - all in the name of Ewing Oil. Bobby, meanwhile, double-crossed the cartel, and used cocaine and prostitutes to blackmail George Hicks. The brothers have also managed to destroy their respective marriages, drive their mother first into court and then to the edge of a breakdown, and wreck Walt Driscoll’s marriage, career and reputation, resulting in attempted murder and his own suicide. Either Jock Ewing had a very warped concept of what “the best in both of you” means, or he got it very, very badly wrong.
“- and that when you add up your two halves of the company, you’ll find that together you have taken Ewing Oil to the heights of success and profitability.”
The legacy Jock has bequeathed his sons is source of both human suffering and capital gain. That that none of Jock’s sons (including Ray and Gary) are able to escape that legacy brings a layer of tragedy to the Ewing saga - as well as an element of subversion. Unlike DYNASTY, which depicts the wisdom and goodness of its patriarch Blake Carrington with unquestioning adoration, DALLAS is a critique as much as a celebration of capitalism; if the Ewings represent the American Dream, they also symbolise the American Nightmare - at least during its first six seasons. (Season 7 rewrites Ewing history in an attempt to depict Jock - and subsequently his legacy - in a far more noble and heroic light. Season 9, with its depiction of the Ewings from the point of view of “the little man”, restores some complexity and ambiguity to the drama, and the series is all the stronger for it.)
“I don’t care which of you ends up with the higher profit,” Jock’s letter continues. “I truly don’t. My deepest wish is that at the end of the year, you two will have learned that you’re far better off together than apart, and if you just took the same energy you used to fight each other and went to work side by side, there’d be no limit to what you’d be able to accomplish in the future. Sons, that was the point of your contest, not to make one of you a winner and another a loser, it was to make you look at each other as family.” This sentiment is in stark contrast to the declaration made in the codicil to Jock’s will, heard on-screen a year earlier, but supposedly written at the same time at this letter: “Ewing Oil can have only one man at the helm and that’s got to be the man that wants it the most.” This contradiction embodies the paradox that Jock has left his loved ones (as well as the series itself) to try and make sense of: that that which brings the family together will also tear them apart.
The letter ends with a simple request: “JR, Bobby - do it without me, for your Mama’s sake and mine. Put your arms around each other and work that company like brothers.”
“Harve, that’s not a legal document, is it?” JR asks coolly, and we understand that he still has no intention of sharing the company with his brother. “After all the trouble this battle has caused, shouldn’t we at least found out who won? How do you feel about that, Bob?”
“Whatever you say, JR,” replies Bobby, his eyes lowered.
As predicted, JR is the clear winner, totalling $40,220,000 to Bobby’s $24,160,000. He is just on the verge of wheedling out of his agreement with Bobby, when an unexpected visitor makes an appearance. Enter Thornton McLeish, “my partner in those Canadian frozen fields that I was involved with,” Bobby explains. Thornton makes a boring expositional speech: “When Bobby came in with us, we were sure our fields would come in and come in big. What we couldn’t tell was when ...” ending with the words, “I just wanted to give Bobby his cheque for twenty six million dollars.” JR’s face drops. “It’s his share of the profits from the Canadian fields ... The test well came in gushing and we just sold out to the majors.” “That means you win the contest, Bob!” declares Punk.
Now it’s time to watch JR squirm as he rapidly shifts from smug victor (“Well, yes, there’s some truth to the idea that we were gonna share the company ... but that was in the aftermath of what happened at Southfork ... Both Bobby and I were highly emotional at the time-”) to outraged loser (“Contest is over! The winner’s been declared!”) to Uriah Heep in a stetson (“Well, I’ll be damned!” he chuckles, slapping Bobby on the back. “I’ve never been a sore loser. Congratulations on your win, Bob - not that it makes any difference. I mean, we have decided to be partners, right? ... Bob, you’ve never gone back on a deal. We are partners, right? Just the way Daddy wanted it?”) That such a crucial turning point in the saga should be played for laughs does not perhaps bode well for the series’ future credibility, but Larry Hagman’s depiction of a JR rapidly shifting gears in pursuit of his own interests is just too skilfully comic to resist.
Like Jock’s last minute request, Bobby’s eleventh hour victory is, of course, a cop-out on the part of the writers - JR is by far the more ruthless, determined and experienced oilman. It’s a dramatic compromise, a device to keep both the show’s villain in check, and “the JR & Bobby Show” on the road. Nevertheless, the final shot of the episode is an intriguing one. JR, the contest loser, is all smiles with his arm around with his baby brother. By contrast, Bobby--the nominal winner --looks hunched, uncomfortable, trapped. “Yeah, JR. It’s gonna be just like Daddy wanted,” he murmurs, that same look of resignation on his face.
