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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Dallas: Wow! Things really are heating up on this show! (My thoughts on episode 1x07 Collateral Damage)


Let me begin by saying that I’m really falling in love with this show more and more, which I think is great, because after absolutely loving the first two episodes that made up the two-hour series premiere event, I was rather disappointed by episode 1x03 “The Price You Pay” and episode 1x04 “The Last Hurrah”, and watching those episodes really made me wonder if this show was going to be able to keep my interest in the long-term sense. However, starting with episode 1x05 “Truth and Consequences” I feel like the drama and the action on the show really got amped up and started to become more interesting with each passing episode. I feel like episode 1x05 “Truth and Consequences” was where TNT’s Dallas became the show that I was hoping that it would be before it started, but I have to say that the level of enjoyment that I got from watching this episode exceeded the level of enjoyment that I got from watching episode 1x05 “Truth and Consequences”.

In my mind, this was the most exciting and most intense episode yet of the show. It really had me on the edge of my seat, and when I got done watch this episode the first time, it really left me wondering wants going to be happening next, which as someone who watches a lot TV shows, I think that’s a very good thing for a TV show to be able to do. After watching this episode, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m officially addicted to this show.

After watching this episode, I’m officially declaring that John Ross is my favorite character on show from the younger generation and Christopher and Bobby are officially my least favorite characters on the show. I hate how smug and self-righteous they were in this episode, and just how self-righteous they are in general. The whole thing between John Ross wanting to drill for oil on Southfork Ranch, but Christopher and Bobby being hell-bent on stopping him continued in this episode. Christopher informed John Ross that he and Bobby owned the mineral rights to Southfork and without the mineral rights he can’t drill for oil on Southfork. I personally have mixed feelings about this ongoing storyline. On the one hand, I’m really enjoying watching John Ross scheme and plot to be able to drill for oil, especially when J.R.’s helping him. However, in this episode John Ross was basically forced to deal with the situation with Christopher and Bobby on his own since J.R.’s still out of town on business and he’s not ready to go back to Dallas. He was also still having to deal those businessmen that he owes oil to since he was running out of time to pay them, which is why he’s so desperate to start drilling for oil.

Honestly, I’m also starting to find this storyline a little repetitive in terms of Bobby and Christopher constantly trying to prevent John Ross from drilling on Southfork. I get that this is a drama and that there needs to be conflict, but I personally would like to see someone get the upper hand for extended period of time on the show and not for just one episode, preferably John Ross and J.R. Bobby and Christopher are extremely arrogant, self-righteous and annoying, and I think they need to be knock down a few pegs. I hate that Bobby thinks that he has the right to have John Ross thrown off Southfork. Like I said before, I don’t know a lot about the original show, but if this was the real world I don’t think that Bobby would be allowed to kick John Ross off the family property just because he doesn’t like him.

In addition to dealing with John Ross trying to get the mineral rights to drill on Southfork, Bobby also had to deal with Ann’s ex-husband, Harris Ryland, who had him arrested for assault. For anyone who missed last week’s episode, Bobby showed up at Harris’ office and attacked him for bothering Ann. Harris apparently told Bobby’s lawyer that he would drop the charges if Bobby simply apologized to him for attacking to him, which Bobby initially refused to do, even though his lawyer told him that Harris has a lot of influence with a lot of people that he could use to make the situation worse if he didn’t just apologize to Harris. However, Bobby eventually changed his mind and apologized to him after he saw how upset Ann was.

They’ve made it pretty clear that Ann has a secret that Harris knows about because he gave Bobby a file that contained information on her past, which I’m guessing is why she was really on edge throughout the episode. It’s obvious for a number of reasons that her secret involves a child in some way. At one point in the episode she was talking to Bobby on the phone, telling him that she was in line to buy something at Neiman’s when she was actually sitting on a park bench watching a little girl play in the park. I’m wondering if the little girl was hers’ and that she gave her up for adoption or the child in the park simply reminded her of her daughter. At the end of the episode Bobby told Ann that he didn’t want to read what was in the file and that he would wait for her to tell him whatever’s bothering her herself when she’s ready to, so he threw the file in the fire that was burning in the fireplace. They should a close-up of a picture from the file as it burned, and the picture was a picture of Ann holding what looked like a little girl, so I think it’s pretty safe to say that her secret involves a child.

Personally, I think it’s funny that Brenda Strong just got done playing Mary Alice for eight years on Desperate Housewives, which began with Mary Alice killing herself because she had a secret that ended up being about a child, and her first acting job after Desperate Housewives is playing Bobby Ewing’s new wife, Ann, who has a secret that obviously involves a child. They’ve already established that Ann is pretty handy with guns, so everybody should probably keep an eye on her make sure she doesn’t go off and blow her brains out like Mary Alice did.

I feel like this episode really gave John Ross a lot of humanity as a character, and it really made me want to root for him and Elena to get together when I watched their scenes together. Elena obviously cares a lot about him, because she offered to give him some of the oil from Mrs. Henderson’s land so he can pay the people he owes oil to. He initially turned down her offer, but she eventually convinced him to let her help him. John Ross obviously cares about her given the way he reacted when Veronica Martinez called him, telling him that she was holding Elena hostage and was threatening to hurt her. John Ross seemed pretty distraught when he showed up at Veronica’s place to save Elena, only to discover that she had only told him that she was holding Elena hostage, because she knew that he would come if he thought Elena was in danger.

It was nice to see more of Lucy in this episode and not just for thirty seconds like they did in the other episodes that Charlene Tilton has appeared in so far. John Ross had lunch with her to ask her for help with getting the rights to drill on Southfork. Unfortunately, Lucy told him she wouldn’t help him and told Bobby that John Ross had asked her for help, which is what prompted Bobby to threaten to have John Ross thrown off Southfork. Even though they showed her for more than thirty seconds in this episode, I’d still like to see more of Lucy. Charlene Tilton must be pretty desperate for cash if she’s willing to appear in each episode that she’s been in for what feels like just thirty seconds of screen time.

Rebecca was dealing with the fact that she’s pregnant and Christopher was initially refusing to have anything to do with her. Elena figured out that Rebecca was pregnant after she came to her house to give her a gift basket as a way of thanking her for taking to the hospital in the previous episode, only to quickly be hit with a bout of morning sickness and throw up. Elena told Rebecca that she would keep her secret, but she ended up spilling the beans to Christopher during an argument.

Christopher was initially a total jackass when he found out that Rebecca was pregnant, and on some level I feel like he has the right to be. After all, Rebecca had been lying to him and she did send the email that led to him and Elena breaking up, but I’m thrilled that Ann really let him have it about how he spiteful and cruel he was acting. Ann lashing out at Christopher also added a little to bit her storyline in the episode as well, if you ask me. They decided to have paternity test to determine if he was indeed the father, and I don’t entirely blame him for being skeptical about whether or not he was the father. It was revealed that Christopher is indeed the father, but in a twist they also revealed that Rebecca is pregnant with twins.

While I do think the whole thing with Rebecca finding out that she was pregnant after Christopher found out that she had sent the email to Elena and left her was rather predictable, because I totally saw that coming, I wasn’t expecting Rebecca to end up being pregnant with twins. That was definitely a nice little twist. Of course with Dallas being a primetime soap opera, just because Rebecca’s pregnant now, it doesn’t mean that she won’t have a miscarriage down the road. Although, they did say that she was nine weeks along, which means she’s not too far away from going into her second trimester and people say that miscarriages usually happen in the first trimester. If I had to guess, I’m guessing that Rebecca will end up giving birth to the twins, because it would give the writers a reason to keep her around if she and Christopher don’t get back together eventually.

This episode had quite the ending, soon after John Ross left Veronica’s place he saw that Veronica had fallen from the balcony of her place and landed on his car. They didn’t show her or John Ross when she fell, so I don’t think he killed her. Although, he did seem pretty upset as he was leaving her place. If I had to guess what happened, I’m guessing that Vincente Cano killed her since they showed him or at least some other Venezuelan man at the hotel when John Ross was there. If that guy didn’t kill her, then I’m guessing she jumped off the balcony herself. After all, she’s obviously mentally instable. Things aren’t looking too good for John Ross right now though, because the cops came to Southfork and arrested him at the end of the episode.

All in all, I really do think that this was the best episode yet of Dallas. It was definitely the most action packed episode yet. The only thing that I didn’t like about this episode was just Bobby and Christopher in general. I hate those two so much. Thankfully, they didn’t bring the level of enjoyment that I got from watching this episode too much.

That being said, I give this episode a rating of an A.

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