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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 215902" data-attributes="member: 22">Brothers and Sons (DALLAS, 04 Dec 87) v The Brothers Ewing (DALLAS, 15 Feb 85)At the start of Brothers and Sons, Cliff and Dandy are commiserating over their failed attempt to strike oil on Dandy’s land when they hear that they have unwittingly stumbled upon the biggest thingy of natural gas in the history of Texas. Cliff striking it rich in spite of himself — it’s like Gold Canyon 340 all over again, but on a smaller scale. He relays the news of his good fortune to JR via a recorded message attached to a life-sized cardboard cutout of himself.Three years earlier at the start of The Brothers Ewing, Cliff is still crowing, this time about Alf Brindle, the star witness the Ewing boys brought to his home in the previous episode to discredit Digger and Jason’s reputations, only for Brindle to provide evidence strengthening Cliff and Jamie’s legal claim to two-thirds of Ewing Oil. When Clayton hears about it back at Southfork, he gives JR an unusually hard time for not anticipating this turn of events. Perhaps he's trying too hard to take Jock’s place, but Clayton being unfair to JR tilts the family dynamic off its axis with Ray coming to JR’s defence and Donna then taking umbrage at Ray for siding with JR over Clayton. Things are so out of whack that by the end of the episode Miss Ellie has sided against her own sons: "I don’t want to turn my back on my family or Ewing Oil but if a choice is to be made, I choose my husband.”In 1987, Ray and Jenna are married in the Krebbs living room in a ceremony that one reviewer at the time described as having all the spirituality of a Big Mac. Surprisingly, Bobby being the best man doesn’t create any fireworks, but it does afford Jenna the opportunity to look from one brother to another as she’s walking down the aisle in a “here’s what you could have won” fashion. In fact, the wedding goes off without a hitch (unless you count Charlie accidentally telling Christopher that Lucas is Bobby’s son).Like Cliff, Sue Ellen is in a similar situation in both episodes as she comes to terms with JR’s latest infidelity. In 1985, she affects an icy indifference towards anything involving her husband. “You’re never gonna get that kind of sympathy from me again,” she vows after recalling all the previous times she has provided him with support in his hour of need. “I have no feelings about that at all,” she informs Cliff, regarding his current battle with JR. Sue Ellen freezing people out is always a sight to behold, but it’s also a dramatic dead-end — hence her hitching her wagon to Pam’s search-for-Mark storyline, tagging along with her to Hong Kong ostensibly to lend moral support but really to bag some extra screen time. In 1987, she’s more proactive — expanding Valentine Lingerie, developing her friendship with Nicholas Pearce and inviting Kimberly Cryder to the Ewing barbecue just to keep JR off balance. She even finds time to attend her first Daughters of the Alamo meeting since the previous decade. Her status is underlined by the fact that she is now dressed as a glamorous businesswoman while all other women in attendance are wearing the same matronly outfits and hairstyles they were in the late ‘70s.Brothers and Sons marks the final appearance of Larry Doyle, the very likeable, very nervous, very well acted private eye April has hired to dig into Nicholas’s past. Her only motive is idle curiosity yet she badgers Doyle into continuing his investigation even after his life has been threatened and he ends up dead as a result. So you might say there’s something karmic about April’s own premature death — at least Sheila Foley had a solid reason for what she did.In both episodes, we see a pair of tertiary characters in bed together celebrating their scheme to rip off a Ewing. In ’85 it’s Lucy’s two-timing building constructor boyfriend Eddie and Betty the waitress; in ’87 it’s Casey Denault and junior cartel member Mary Lou Lassiter (who is kind of like Marilee Stone: the Next Generation), who have just swiped a deal from under JR’s nose.And the winner is ... The Brothers EwingBONUS BEATS:[MEDIA=youtube]r8IGkLWmf4E[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

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