Honestly, I didn’t think that this episode was all that good the first time that I watched it. After I watched it the first time it really left me wondering if TNT’s Dallas was all that good since I wasn’t the biggest fan of episode 1x03 “The Price You Pay” either. That’s mainly what took me so long to write and post this review. If it hadn’t been for episode 1x05 “Truth and Consequences”, I probably would have stop watching the show, or at the very least been on the verge of deciding to not watch the show anymore, but I digress. I’ll talk about my thoughts on that episode when I write my more detailed post on the episode. To be fair, this episode has definitely grown on me a little bit since the first time I watched it, but I still have a lot of issues with it.
The whole storyline with Christopher and Bobby working together to help a pregnant cow give birth was the biggest snooze fest of the episode. It didn’t really do all that much for me. While Christopher and Bobby were working together, Christopher confided in him about what Elena had told him about the email that she got. I thought it was very unfair of Christopher to tell Bobby that John Ross was the one who sent the email as if it was a definitive fact when he didn’t know for sure who sent it, and the fact that Bobby didn’t even ask Christopher if he had actual proof that John Ross sent the email pissed me off even more. The fact that he basically went along with Christopher saying that John Ross sent the email only reinforced my belief that Bobby hates John Ross. Anyway, Bobby told Christopher that he (Bobby) couldn’t decide what he (Christopher) should do and that he has a choice to make about what he wanted to do about Elena and Rebecca. Christopher and Bobby ended up having to give the cow a C-section in order to save the calf and then put the mother down. They put the calf with another one of the cows on a ranch. After they put the calf with the other cow, Christopher and Bobby talked about Christopher’s adoption. That storyline was definitely pretty dull for the most part.
Both Christopher and Bobby continue to be my least favorite characters on the show. I just think Christopher is constantly teetering on the thin line of being the personification of a sleeping pill since I often find his storylines to be pretty boring and just being a total jackass, and Bobby just annoys the hell out of me pretty much every time he’s in a scene. Bobby constantly comes across as a self-righteous jackass in my opinion. As far as I’m concerned, Christopher and Bobby should just be banished to an imaginary island in my head to hang out with all of the other characters on TV shows that I hate, such as Serena van der Woodsen and Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl, Ivy Sullivan on 90210, and Kristina Braverman from Parenthood to name a few, never to be seen or heard from again. I hate the way Christopher treated Elena when he tried to pay her off with a large sum of money so she wouldn’t be able try to claim partial ownership of Christopher’s methane energy project in the future. He really was an absolute jackass in that scene.
It really bugged me that Bobby basically left all the packing up all of the family’s belongings for their move to the condo that they bought to Ann. I don’t mean to diminish the significance of Ann and Bobby’s marriage and I don’t think they’ve specified how long Ann and Bobby have known each other or how long they’ve been married, but I don’t think Ann would have enough insight to know every single thing on the ranch that would be significant enough for them to take to their new condo. Given the fact that the Ewings have been living on the Southfork ranch for several generations, I really think that Bobby should have helped Ann pack their things up.
In terms of what the biggest highlight of this episode was me, I loved basically everything that involved John Ross in some way. Out of all the characters from the younger generation, he’s definitely my favorite at this point in time. Although, I also love the characters Elena and Rebecca; I thought it was really fun to see John Ross and Elena interact with each other a lot in this episode, especially in the scene where John Ross went with Elena to get Mrs. Henderson’s consent to drill for oil on her land. Although, I have to say that I think watching John Ross flirt with Mrs. Henderson in order to get her to give them her consent to drill on her land psychologically scarred me a little bit given the fact that John Ross is a fairly young guy and Mrs. Henderson is basically an elderly woman. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not against younger men dating older women. Most of the celebrity crushes that I have on women are actresses in their forties, I just thought it was kind of creepy to watch John Ross flirt with Mrs. Henderson, but at least John Ross’ plan worked and they got her consent to drill for oil on her land. Although, to be fair I have to admit that I’ve found myself thinking that Linda Gray is kind of hot when I’ve been watching Dallas, and she’s 71, so I guess I shouldn’t get too weirded out watching John Ross flirt with Mrs. Henderson.
I have to say that I really love the character Rebecca so far. Despite the fact that she’s been lying to Christopher and scheming against the Ewings with her brother, Tommy, I still think she’s a sympathetic character that isn’t completely devoid of having a sense of right and wrong. This episode really illustrated that aspect of Rebecca as a character. John Ross confronted her about the fact that she’s the one who sent the email to Elena, which caused Elena to believe that Christopher was breaking up with her. John Ross basically blackmailed her into helping him try to get pictures of Mitch Lobell’s son, Rick, doing drugs because he already had two felonies on his record, and J.R. and John Ross wanted to use proof of Rick doing drugs to blackmail Mitch into signing the deed to Southfork ranch over to them instead of the conservancy that Bobby was planning to sell the ranch to. Since Texas is a three strike state when it comes to being convicted of a felony, getting busted for being in possession of illegal drugs would send Rick back to jail for a long time, and they knew Mitch wouldn’t want to risk his son getting in trouble with the law again.
John Ross basically told Rebecca that if she helped him get pictures of Rick doing drugs, then he would keep her secret and basically let her get away with whatever she and Tommy are scheming to do. Rebecca reluctantly agreed to go along with it and went to the anonymous support group Rick was going to, claiming to be a drug addict. Rebecca approached Rick telling him that she was inspired by what he said during the meeting and asked him if they could talk in private. Once they were alone together she made up a sob story about an ex-boyfriend of hers’ that told her that she was too damaged for him and that she thought the only way that she would be able to get through the night would be by getting high. She tried to convince him to do drugs with her and “promised” that she would get help for her “addiction” in the morning. Ultimately, Rebecca decided to not try and set Rick up because she saw how much he loved his fiancée and how devastated that he would be and that he would fall apart if he ever lost her.
This episode really helped me gain a whole new level of appreciation for Rebecca as a character, because I’ve always been very drawn to fictional characters who do morally questionable things, but at the end of the day you can’t help but root for them and feel sympathetic towards them. That’s definitely a big part of why I love the characters J.R. and John Ross so much as well. They are also characters that do morally questionable things, and yet I still love them a trillion times more than I like Christopher and Bobby, which is not at all. The episode ended with Rebecca starting to tell Christopher about how she sent the email to Elena.
It’s obvious that Veronica Martinez A.K.A. Marta Del Sol is nuts and is pretty much someone that nobody would want to mess with and Mitch Lobell basically confirmed that when he told J.R. that Marta has bipolar disorder and that she had apparently been charged for assault, but she managed to get away with it by convincing the jury it was self-defense. J.R. initially suggested to John Ross that he should have Marta help them frame Rick, but John Ross objected to that idea because Marta was getting too clingy, and John Ross was right about that. She seemed pretty mad when John Ross blew off their date, and she took him shopping for a new watch so he wouldn’t have an excuse for being late for a date with her again. While they were out buying a watch, John Ross told her how he and J.R. needed to get proof of Rick doing drugs in order to blackmail Mitchell, and she agreed to help him. She ended up being able to get pictures of Rick doing drugs with her, but she apparently also had to sleep with him in order to get the proof they needed.
The private investigator that J.R. hired to take pictures of John Ross and Elena when they were working together on the oil drilling site, and towards the end of the episode J.R. showed Marta the pictures of John Ross and Elena together, which she responded to by showing him the pictures of her with Rick. J.R. used the pictures to force Mitchell to sign the deed for Southfork over to him, but he also cut John Ross out of the deal, which I loved, because that’s a classic soap opera move.
I have to say that I love the character Marta. If you ask me, characters that are mentally unstable are a must-have on any daytime soap opera or primetime soap opera.
I’m glad that they showed Cliff Barnes again, because I was really disappointed by the fact that Ken Kercheval had very little screen time in episode 1x03 “The Price You Pay”. According to Ken Kercheval’s page on the IMDB website, he will be appearing in two more episodes this season, so I’m really hoping that he will be featured a little bit more prominently in those episodes.
Speaking of actors from the original series not being featured very much, I hate that Charlene Tilton’s (Lucy) and Ken Kanaly’s (Ray) appearances on the show have basically only been thirty seconds long in both of the episodes that they appeared in. That’s such a waste of having them on the show only to have their appearances basically be less than a minute long. I really do think that if the writers and producers of the show are able to get actors from the original Dallas to appear on the show they should utilize them on the show as much as possible. The writers really need to work on that.
Like I mentioned earlier, I initially didn’t really care for this episode, but it’s definitely grown on me the more I’ve watched it. As I mentioned earlier the highlight of this episode for me personally was definitely everything that involved J.R. and John Ross, while Bobby and Christopher really brought down the level of enjoyment that I got from watching this episode.
That being said, I give this episode a rating of a B.
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