New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 267901" data-attributes="member: 22">Ewings Unite! (DALLAS, 18 Mar 13) v Executive Wife (DALLAS, 09 Jan 81)It’s a 'When Good Ewings Go Bad' double bill!“Bobby, he’s changed and not for the better,” huffs Jock in 1981. “Welcome to the dark side,” John Ross tells Christopher in 2013. In Executive Wife, Bobby’s determination to prove that you can run an oil company ethically and still turn a profit is severely tested as he’s forced to choose between honouring a gentleman’s agreement with a group of gas station owners and making a super lucrative deal with Jeremy Wendell (making his first  appearance on DALLAS). In the end, he chooses the latter.The first season of New DALLAS saw Bobby firmly back on the moral high ground. In Enemy of My Enemy, he cautioned Christopher against playing dirty: “A lifetime of dealing with JR has put me on both sides of blackmail. It never pays off in the end. It’s not just that it’s wrong, it’s bad business.” In Ewings Unite!, however, he has had a change of heart. “Since JR is dead, we have to find our own inner junkyard dog,” he tells John Ross and Christopher, thereby giving his blessing to a devious scheme that involves John Ross sleeping with someone he shouldn’t, Bum taking photographs of them and Christopher using those photos to blackmail a government official.Alex Ward also makes his DALLAS debut appearance in Executive Wife. Just like Mark Graison in The Ewing Blues two years later, he is instantly smitten by Pam and just as open in declaring his attraction despite the wedding ring on her finger. In both situations, Pam’s marriage is on shaky ground thanks to Bobby’s preoccupation with Ewing Oil, but whereas she initially kept Mark at arm’s length, she accepts no less than four lunch or dinner invitations from Alex in the space of just this one episode. There’s an angry recklessness about Pam at this point in the series that we don’t really see at any other time. It almost feels like she’s being driven a bit mad by the weirdly ominous score that permeates the first half of this season. Nor she is the only one behaving strangely. While Pam couldn’t care less about Bobby’s wheeling and dealing at the office, Connie, formerly just his meek little secretary, gets increasingly drawn into it and starts to look more and more aroused. She even gets close-ups where she regards Bobby with unbridled lust. This is in contrast to Elena in 2013, who regards Christopher’s new business methods with disappointment. “You’re the most decent man I know and now you’re blackmailing people,” she tells him sadly.In both of these episodes, Sue Ellen belittles one of her brothers-in-law. In Executive Wife, she’s back under JR’s spell and suggests to Bobby that he doesn’t have what it takes to run Ewing Oil. “It's a game, and you have to love it to play it well," she declares, savouring every word. "JR's a natural born businessman, the best." Bobby asks how he measures up. "You will always be JR's little brother,” she sneers, the sexual innuendo unmistakable. The jab connects: Bobby has never looked smaller or more emasculated. “Poor, sweet Gary,” she says mockingly thirty-two years later, “I was playing you to get Bobby to turn that oil back on … but Bobby’s already done that so I don’t need you anymore.” Here, she’s deliberately trying to drive Gary away so he won’t interfere with her grief-induced drinking. She’s sort of under JR’s spell in this episode too, even though he’s gone. There’s a wonderful moment where she shuts herself away in her office, pours herself a large one and toasts his picture conspiratorially.While Jeremy and Alex make their DALLAS introductions in Executive Wife, Ewings Unite! marks the final Ewingverse appearances of Gary and Val. Val’s last ever scene is her deliciously soapy “Once a bitch always a bitch” confrontation with Sue Ellen where she gives her the full Jill Bennett treatment for falsely encouraging her to believe that Gary wanted a reconciliation: “You are just as sadistic as JR ever was … what a manipulative monster you are!” Gary’s last scene is also with Sue Ellen. He is still convinced she needs his help because of her drinking (“and, unlike my wife, I help people in trouble”) and she is still trying to get rid of him, but this time she tries a gentler approach. “Valene left you because she knew it was the only way to get you sober again and she was right,” she says. “She left you because she loves you. I know I need help, but I need to do it myself.” Her next words clearly refer to JR’s passing, but they also serve to assuage Gary’s feelings of resentment towards Val: “One day she may be gone and you don’t want to regret the loss of every moment you could have spent with her.” It's a very touching line and Gary is moved. “If you ever need anything, I’m just a phone call away,” he tells her. “I know that,” Sue Ellen assures him gratefully. And so, with Gary and Val back together, the KNOTS saga has come full circle. Sue Ellen Ewing providing KNOTS LANDING with its final moment of closure — who’d have thunk it? (And all so she can carry on drinking.) Conversely in Executive Wife, after Sue Ellen and JR run into Cliff and Donna, she wickedly suggests that he break them up.Each ep contain a moment of happiness that becomes kind of poignant when watched in hindsight. In Ewings Unite!, Drew Ramos asks Bobby to sell him back his father’s land so he can fulfil his birthright by drilling for oil on it. After Elena assures Bobby that she will also be involved in the project, he agrees. Drew is so excited, he spontaneously grabs Bobby and hugs him for just a little too long. Bobby awkwardly tries to disentangle himself, offsetting his embarrassment by kissing Elena on the cheek. It’s a lovely, sweet scene that’s all the more precious when one remembers how incredibly wrong things are gonna go between these three characters. The equivalent moment in Executive Wife is Lucy’s rose-coloured “all you need is love” optimism about her future with Mitch, which is likewise doomed to failure.Things start to go incredibly wrong for Drew almost immediately. Cliff Barnes has already assigned Harris Ryland the task of finding someone to plant a bomb on Christopher's rig to coincide with the demonstration he has planned. When Harris discovers Drew is dating his daughter Emma, aka the C21st Lucy, he tells his henchman Roy Vickers to give the job to Drew: “I want him fully compromised.” Drew refuses to comply, until Roy threatens his sister (“Her death would be so tragic”). New DALLAS is nothing if not big on repercussions. Even John Ross inviting Pamela to the demonstration on the Ewing rig as an act of friendship becomes a “Noooo, don’t do it!” moment in retrospect. The final line of the episode — Cliff replying “Just do it” when Vickers asks if he really wants to go through with blowing up the rig even though his own pregnant daughter is onboard — seals the fates of three men (as well as Pamela’s babies): Roy and Drew will be killed while Cliff ends up rotting away in a Mexican prison cell. Really, it’s perfect soap: everything links up, everything pays off..Back in '81, JR sneakily sets Jock and Bobby on a collision course then sits back and enjoys the resultant “real power is something you take!” showdown at the Cattleman’s Club with quiet relish. It evidently makes quite an impression on him as he’ll quote Jock’s line to John Ross thirty-one years later. The same cannot be said for the two other characters present, Punk Anderson and Pat Powers, who avert their eyes in discomfort. Clearly, by challenging his daddy in a public place, Bobby has crossed some unspoken line. This is not "Ewings Unite" behaviour.And the winner is ... Ewings Unite!BONUS BEATS:[MEDIA=youtube]Xz7_3n7xyDg[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?