Right off the bat, I’d like
to say that I found the season three premiere somewhat challenging to review.
That’s not because I thought the season premiere was bad, it’s actually a very
good episode in my opinion. What makes this episode particularly challenging
for me to review is the fact that I feel like this episode was primarily providing
exposition for season three instead of simply diving right into the action and
having the show hit the ground running like the writers did with the season two
premiere.
I don’t view that as a bad
thing at all though. My main complaint with the season two premiere was
actually that even for a show that typically moves at a pretty fast pace, the
season two premiere seemed to move too quickly for its own good, especially when
it comes to how they handled the reveal of Ann’s secret and how it effected Sue
Ellen’s life as well. Because the writers seemed to be moving really fast with
the events that took place in the season two premiere, as a viewer I felt like I
wasn’t being given a chance to take everything in and process what was
happening from an emotional standpoint, which was a little frustrating at times
and was one of the contributing factors in terms of why I found the reveal of
Ann’s secret so underwhelming and disappointing. There was also the fact that
Ann’s secret was simply just rather lame. However, Brenda Strong’s acting in
that episode as well as season two as a whole definitely helped make up for the
lameness regarding the details of Ann’s past that were revealed last season, but
I digress.
In terms of my thoughts on
the season three premiere itself, I found it refreshing that the writers really
used the entire season premiere to move forward from the events of the season
two finale and set things up for season three. One of the things that I was
really glad to see was the fact that the writers specifically established how
much time had passed since the events of the season finale unlike the season
two premiere where they played fast and loose with how they handled the passage
of time. For example, Ewing Energies was completely up and running and yet
Pamela was no longer visibly pregnant. However, I just wrote off the whole
thing with Pamela not looking pregnant for roughly the first third of the
season as something the writers did since John Ross and Pamela had several
romantic scenes during that portion of the season. However, while they did a
mini time jump in this episode, they did start out the episode by picking up
right where they left off with John Ross and Emma meeting with each other at a
hotel so that Emma could give John Ross some files that belonged to Harris, followed
by them having sex. After the theme song, the show jumped ahead twelve hours.
Despite the fact that John
Ross is married to Pamela now, it looks like he fully intends to carry on an
affair with Emma. Based on Emma’s behavior throughout the episode, it looks
like Emma is much more infatuated with John Ross than he is with her though. It
seemed like she was the one who was initiating most of their hookups throughout
the episode. While John Ross and Emma were carrying on their affair, Sue Ellen
has decided that since John Ross and Pamela got married at a wedding chapel in Las
Vegas, she wants to throw them another big wedding at Southfork so the whole
family can see John Ross and Pamela get married. John Ross also gave Pamela
what’s definitely the hugest diamond ring that I’ve ever seen and proposed to
her again at the beginning of the episode.
I have to say that as a huge
Jebecca fan, I loved the scene where John Ross proposed to Pamela. I especially
liked Josh Henderson’s acting in that scene and the episode as a whole. John
Ross really came across as being J.R.’s son when it comes to Josh’s acting in
that scene, but I’m getting off track here. Anyway, Sue Ellen is now working
with Pamela and Ann to help plan John Ross and Pamela’s wedding, and to make
the whole situation with John Ross cheating on Pamela with Emma more awkward,
Emma also joined in on helping with the wedding preparations at one point in
the episode.
As I said earlier, I feel like
this episode primarily served as exposition for season three, and at times I
felt like the writers were foreshadowing to certain events that could
potentially happen later on in the season. For example, at one point in the
episode Sue Ellen mentioned the fact that Kristin Shepard, who’s Christopher’s
biological mother, ended up dead in the swimming pool at Southfork ranch in the
season four finale of the original series. I can’t help but wonder if that was
the writers’ way of hinting at the possibility that Emma is going to end up
dead in the swimming pool during a fight with either John Ross or Pamela at the
end of season three, if not sooner.
While I admit that I wasn’t
too crazy about Emma when she was first introduced last season, she did grow on
me as season two continued, but I wouldn’t be too terribly devastated if the
writers killed her off since I’ve often found her rather irritating at times.
Thankfully, she’s not as irritating and insufferable as Christopher has proved
to be. If Emma somehow managed to annoy me as much as Christopher has
throughout the series that would definitely be one for the record books.
Regardless of how much Emma may annoy me at times, there’s also a part me that
would hate to see Emma get killed off. I say this only because Harris and his
mother, Judith, kept Emma from Ann for years, and it wasn’t all that long ago
that Ann was reunited with Emma. I would feel pretty bad for Ann if she lost
Emma all over again so soon after they were reunited with each other.
Speaking of Christopher,
given the fact that last season I found him to be 1,000X more annoying than he
was in season one, I was definitely worried that Cynthia Cidre and the rest of
the writers would manage to somehow find a way to make him even more annoying
this season. That being said, Christopher didn’t annoy me nearly as much in
this episode as he did 99.9% of the time last season. One of the only things
that Christopher did in this episode that truly annoyed me were the fact that
he/Jesse Metcalfe has grown a full-on beard, which looks beyond gross. I don’t
know if it was Jesse’s decision to grow a beard, or if it was storyline
dictated since Cynthia Cidre did talk about the fact that Christopher has grown
a beard and will keep the beard for a while this season in a recent interview
that she did to talk about season three.
Personally, I didn’t think
that Jesse could pull off having a soul patch last season without it looking
repulsive and ridiculous, and he definitely can’t make having a beard look
attractive either. However, in Jesse’s defense, men having lots of facial hair has
often been a major turn-off for me personally and in most cases makes men seem
less attractive in my eyes. Maybe that makes me sound incredibly shallow, but I
very rarely think that facial hair actually makes a man look sexy, but that’s
just how I feel.
The other thing that
Christopher did in this episode that annoyed me was his apology to Elena for
the way he treated her in the season two finale. I know that I should just be
glad that this was one of the rare cases where Christopher had the decency to
apologize for his behavior, but that scene just made him seem beyond stupid and
completely lacking in self-awareness. The reason why I feel he came across as
being really stupid was the fact that from what I could tell, he failed to see
that he has a pattern of acting and talking impulsively, which usually ends
with him acting like an irrational asshole, especially when it comes to how he
treats Elena or Pamela. The only thing that kind of saved that scene was the
fact that Elena didn’t exactly forgive him for his behavior and told him that
they both need to work through their own personal issues before they even think
about getting back together.
They briefly introduced
Christopher’s new love interest Heather, who’s played by AnnaLynne McCord, and
as a fan of AnnaLynne’s acting, I have to say that I loved what they showed of
Heather. Heather is definitely the polar opposite of Naomi Clarke, AnnaLynne’s
character on 90210. Heather is a ranch hand, and based on the spoilers I’ve
read, it sounds like Heather is also a single mother. I hate to say it, but the
writers have finally found a way to make me be at least somewhat interested in
Christopher’s storyline by casting AnnaLynne as his new love interest. In the
past the writers have constantly given me one reason after the other to mock
Christopher and Jesse Metcalfe’s horrific acting, so I’ve never really been
able to actually enjoy Christopher’s scenes apart from gleefully cackling in
contempt at Christopher’s constant misfortune.
For those who might not
remember, season two ended with Elena going to meet a man named Joaquin after
Christopher kicked her to the curb after discovering the fact that she helped
Drew leave town when he was in trouble with the law for blowing up the rig,
which ultimately led to the death of his and Pamela’s unborn babies. Plus, she
also discovered that J.R. had switched the deeds when her father bought the
Henderson’s land. Basically, when J.R. switched the deed to the land that
Elena’s father had planned to drill on, Elena’s father got a worthless piece of
land that that he had tried in vain for years to drill for oil on, while J.R.
got the land that was rich in oil.
I personally liked Elena’s
thinking when she agreed to be Cliff Barnes’ proxy. She told him that given what
the Ewings’ did to her father and the fact that Sue Ellen took her shares in
Ewing Energies, forcing her out of the company that she had helped start,
helping him wasn’t about getting revenge in her eyes, it was about getting justice
for her family. After all, she mentioned that while Ewings’ will always protect
each other, they are also not afraid to screw other people over to get what
they want, which I think is kind of true. Just ask Cliff Barnes.
My main concern with this
storyline is that I have no idea how the writers will be able to justify
keeping Elena around once Christopher, Bobby and the others eventually discover
what she’s up to. This whole thing could very well lead to them turning against
her once and for all, and the show is about their family, so if that were to
happen it might be tricky for the writers to give Elena a purpose for still
being a part of the show when the entire Ewing family could end up making her a
pariah. Plus, I’ve always felt that Elena could be rather self-righteous at
times in the past, so I have no idea how she will ever be able to act like she
has any moral high ground with them in the future. Although, this is a soap
opera and characters doing the kind of thing that Elena is doing right now on
other soap operas usually doesn’t stop them from acting like they have the moral
high ground with others.
As for how the writers and
Jordana Brewster are handling this storyline, I’m liking it so far. I feel like
Jordana should have some kind of mischievous smile on her face at times
depending on what she’s doing or what’s happening in certain scenes though. When
it comes to actors portraying this kind of storyline, most actors usually give
a mischievous smile at times on shows like the original Dallas and the new
Dallas, Revenge or various daytime soap operas. Instead, Jordana just spent
most of the episode scowling and looking like she was mad. It just felt rather off-putting
to watch at times. I also felt the way Elena showed up at Southfork to
apologize for everything that happened with Drew last season was rather weird.
It looked like Jordana just wandered onto the set without any idea of what the
hell she was supposed to do. It was probably just bad blocking for the scene
though, which I’m guessing was the director’s responsibility. Her entrance into
the scene where she came to Ewing Global to ask for a job felt much more
natural, and I feel like Jordana wearing glasses during her scenes at Ewing Global and the music they used to the score the scene where Elena was looking
at business documents on the computer helped give Elena a schemer vibe, which
was nice to see.
One of the questions that I
found myself having before the season started was how the writers could
possibly make Elena’s storyline with her trying to get revenge justice
for what Ewings did to her father work from the get-go. I didn’t think that
Elena could just come back and announce to everybody that she’s now Cliff
Barnes’ proxy for the part of Barnes Global that he still possesses. However,
it turns out that’s what addition of both Juan Pablo Di Pace and his character,
Nicolas Treviño, to the show is for. Nicolas
is a wealthy self-made business man who showed up at Ewing Global to announce
that he was Cliff Barnes’ proxy just as John Ross, Bobby, Sue Ellen,
Christopher and Pamela were discussing their plans to sell the consumer
division of Barnes Global. He informed them that they basically don’t have
super majority over the company, but he does, which means he can block the sale
of the consumer division that they had been planning to sell. This news left
everybody scrambling the find a way to get the money that they would have
gotten from selling the consumer division, because the company needs the money.
At the end of the episode, Elena went back to Joaquin’s pace, and it was revealed that Nicolas
Treviño
is Joaquin. Basically, it sounds like he’s going to be the face of Elena’s plan
to get revenge justice for her family while she pulls the strings.
This reveal also raised a
question that I always had about Revenge and the fact that the Grayson’s never
recognized that Emily Thorne was actually Amanda Clarke. Sure, she was a child
when they last saw her and she returned to the Hamptons as an adult, but I
always thought that they would have at least recognized to her to a certain
degree. Anyway, it’s basically the same thing with Nicolas. It seems weird to me that they didn’t think that Nicolas looked
kind of familiar when he showed up at Ewing Global. After all, they
established at the beginning of the series that Elena has known the Ewing
family since she was a child. In this episode, they established that she has
known Nicolas ever since they were children and he still went by the name
Joaquin, so if that were the case I can’t help but think that John Ross,
Christopher and the rest of the Ewing family would have probably also met him
back then too. Nicolas mentioned that Elena’s father had essentially adopted
him and raised him as a son, although not in a legal sense from what I
understood, so that’s either a plot hole, or it’s something that I really hope
the writers clarify in a later episode.
I know they only showed Nicolas a little bit in this
episode, but I felt like Juan Pablo Di
Pace did a really good job in this episode. Apparently, Cynthia Cidre and the
other producers had been having a really hard time finding the right actor for
the role until they saw his audition. That being said, I feel like both Juan
and his character Nicolas Treviño are going to be a
fantastic addition to the show.
The whole storyline with
Elena seeking revenge justice isn’t the only storyline that I’m having a
hard time picking a side with. Now that John Ross owns half the deed Southfork,
he’s planning to do a big remodel of the house. Naturally, Bobby is completely
against the idea, saying that John Ross doesn’t respect their family’s history.
What makes it hard for me to completely side with Bobby or completely side with
John Ross is that on the one hand, sometimes I feel like at some point Bobby
simply decided that he’s going to always be against anything John Ross does or
wants to do. Also, sometimes I feel like Bobby comes across as being so stuck
in the past and stuck on the idea of honoring Miss Ellie’s wishes that he’s
unable to accept that change is an inevitable part of life. Plus, sometimes
Bobby’s behavior makes him come across as a major momma’s boy to the point where
it’s a bit extreme and rather creepy when you consider the fact that Miss Ellie
has been dead for years. Usually I think of the idea of someone being a momma’s
boy as something that men would grow out of at some point, or that they at least
cease being a momma’s boy once their mother has died.
Plus, I’ve always thought
that it was really weird that Bobby frequently says that he thinks John Ross doesn’t
respect their family’s legacy when John Ross wants to continue to focus the
family business on the oil industry like their family has for several
generations while Bobby seems to have no problem with Christopher’s beliefs
that oil as an energy source is a thing of the past. If anything, I feel like
Christopher is disrespecting their family’s legacy by being so pro methane and
so anti-oil, but you never hear Bobby accuse Christopher of not respecting
their family’s history. (Sighs heavily)
That being said, in Bobby’s
defense, a part of me thinks that maybe John Ross is planning to remodel Southfork
simply because he knew it would piss Bobby off and he’s letting the fact that
he now owns half the deed to Southfork go to his head. Like I said, I’m having
a hard time deciding whom to side with in this particular situation.
Mitch Pileggi wasn’t in this
episode very much, but Harris was released from prison towards the end of the
episode. As for how he got out of prison and who got him out of jail, I have no
idea. For some reason I have feeling that Nicolas arranged to have him released
from prison as a part of Elena’s plan to get revenge justice for her
family. It’s definitely not any of the Ewings, and with Cliff in prison, it
wouldn’t make sense for him to be able to do that, so Nicolas seems to be the
most logical guess. The only other person that would make sense to me would be
Emma given John Ross’ line earlier in the episode about Emma now having more
power than she probably realizes. I could be wrong about who got Harris out of
jail though.
I think it would be wrong of
me if I didn’t address the new opening credits for the show. While they still
show footage of various parts of Dallas like they did in the first two seasons
of the show, the credits now resemble the opening credits for the original
series where they did the split screen effect, showing footage of three clips
of each cast members. Based on the interviews that Cynthia Cidre has done for
season three that I have read at this point, it sound like they will really be
embracing the somewhat campy nature that the original series seemed to have.
Personally, I think changing the opening credits to resemble the credits for
the original series is a great way to honor the original series and reflect the
idea that they appear to be embracing certain qualities that the original
series had, which they didn’t necessarily embrace in the first two seasons. I’m
not saying that as a criticism of the show, I’m just making an observation.
Originally I had hope to
have finished and posted my review of season two as a whole before season three
started, but due a number of reasons, I’m still finishing it up. As I was
watching each episode again, I decided to pick one, or in some cases two or
three moments involving Christopher to be his biggest face-palming moment or
moments of the episode. Like I said earlier, he didn’t annoy me as much in this
episode compared to how much he has annoyed me in the past, but he still
managed to annoy me in this episode. As silly as my selection of Christopher’s
biggest face-palming moment for this episode may be, it’s the fact that
Christopher grew a beard. There are so many ridiculous things about that, such
as the time frame between the end of season two and this episode being way too
short for Christopher to have gone from having a soul patch to having a fully
grown beard. Plus, there’s also the fact that Jesse Metcalfe simply looks
hideous with a beard. I don’t know if it was strictly a storyline decision,
Jesse simply wanting to grow beard, or if it was a joint decision, but the
beard was definitely a huge mistake.
All things considered, this
episode really did feel like it was serving as exposition for the season. I
feel like the writers really did a great job of setting things up for season
three. The writing for this episode was really great, and I love the direction
that Cynthia Cidre and the rest of the writers seem to be taking the show in
this season based on the season premiere alone. While I’m excited about Elena’s
storyline and the addition of both Juan Pablo Di Pace and his character Nicolas Treviño, I do think Jordana Brewster’s acting for this storyline
could use a little tweaking.
Josh
Henderson continued to really shine in the role of John Ross, and his scenes
were definitely one of the biggest highlights of the episode for me personally,
especially when it comes to the scene where John Ross proposed to Pamela. I’d
be lying if I said that I hadn’t been a little worried about what the show
would be like since this will be the first season of the show that’s 100%
J.R./Larry Hagman free going into the season, but watching this episode really
helped me get rid of those fears since while he may be dead, they still
continued acknowledge the legacy of J.R. in this episode, which was wonderful.
This episode really left me feeling like the viewers can expect an amazing
third season.
That
being said, my final score for this episode is 9 out of 10.
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