Right off the bat, I have to
say that I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. The biggest highlight of this
episode for me personally would be all of the scenes featuring John Ross, who
spent the episode desperately trying to keep the Arctic lease deal alive by
scheming with various people throughout the course of the episode. His primary
strategy was to suggest to Christopher, Bobby, Pamela and Sue Ellen that they
take Ewing Global public. He originally got the idea from an old friend of his,
Hunter McKay, and Nicolas, who both told him that they became rich by
originally buying controlling interest in a company, so John Ross set out to do
the same thing. He thought that he had managed to get enough support from
Nicolas, Pamela and Sue Ellen, but when the time came to vote Sue Ellen voted
against taking the company public, so his plan ultimately failed.
If that wasn’t enough trouble
for John Ross to deal with, Sue Ellen continued to tell John Ross that he was
acting just like J.R. by cheating on Pamela with Emma and his secretary Candice,
but he made it clear to her that there was nothing going with Candice. Candice
did try to make a move on John Ross at one point in the episode though, but he
rejected her advances. Throughout the episode he repeatedly told Sue Ellen that
he’s not J.R., but personally his attempts to convince her that he’s not just
like J.R. were about as convincing as Jim Parsons’ attempt to convince
everybody that he’s not Sheldon when he was hosting Saturday Night Live, which
weren’t even the tiniest bit convincing. After all, in his opening monologue he
talked a lot about how he’s nothing like his character on The Big Bang Theory,
Sheldon Cooper. He even sang a song about how he’s not Sheldon, where the
lyrics consisted primarily of him singing “I’m not that guy” over and over,
only to act just like Sheldon in pretty much every sketch that he appeared in
throughout the episode. I’m now convinced that Jim Parsons is pretty much just
being himself when he’s playing Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, which in my
mind shows that despite all of the awards that he’s either won or been
nominated for, he has a very limited range in terms of his acting ability. That
really makes me wonder what will happen with Jim Parsons’ acting career once
The Big Bang Theory eventually ends, but I digress.
Speaking of bad acting and
characters that annoy the hell out of me, while I’m willing to admit that for
the past several episodes Christopher hadn’t been annoying me nearly as much as
he did last season, he unfortunately found a whole new way to annoy the hell
out of me that didn’t even involve him talking or threatening to have someone
sent to jail in this episode. Towards the beginning of the episode, Bobby told
John Ross that he was giving his shares in Ewing Global to Christopher, because
now that he’s serving as the interim Texas railroad commissioner regulations dictate
that he can’t own any shares in a company. What made Christopher so annoying in
that scene is the way that he stood in the background with an incredibly
obnoxious smirk on his face the entire time Bobby was telling John Ross this.
That scene also once again
illustrated just how spineless Christopher truly is. He can’t really pull off
any scheme against John Ross without Bobby doing pretty much all of the work
while he just stands around acting all smug and arrogant. The ironic thing
about season one for me personally is the fact that I often found myself
thinking about how John Ross would handle things when J.R. died someday in the
future versus how Christopher would most likely handle a problem if Bobby was
dead and wasn’t around for backup, and now we’re seeing John Ross having to do
just that. Back then it was my opinion that while John Ross might not always succeed,
he would probably be able to survive without J.R. around to help, whereas I’ve
always imagined that Christopher would most likely quickly crash and burn in
that situation given how dependent on Bobby he’s always been, which would allow
John Ross to crush him in the business world.
Christopher continued to
flirt with Heather and spend time with her, and personally the only thing that
I found the tiniest bit enjoyable about his storyline was AnnaLynne McCord’s
presence in this episode. At one point in the episode, Heather needed to go to
do her work on the Southfork Ranch and her ex-husband, Bo, had to go out of
town for his job. Christopher volunteered to babysit her son, Michael, saying
that it was “bring your kid to the office day” at Ewing Global, but Michael is
the only kid that he knows. While he wasn’t being an asshole when he was spending
time with Michael, Christopher’s presence was still inflicted upon the viewers,
so he still managed to annoy me.
Apparently, Michael got the
impression that Christopher is the most powerful man in Texas, and I have to
say that idea of Christopher being the most powerful man in any state scares
the hell out of me given how annoying and incompetent he is. Despite the fact
that Michael seemed to enjoy spending time with Christopher, I still felt sorry
for him that he had to spend any amount of time with Christopher. As far as I’m
concerned, if a criminal was convicted of a crime other than murder and he was
sentenced to spend just five minutes with Christopher as a punishment for his
crime, that should be considered cruel and unusual punishment, because
Christopher really is that annoying.
Emma also continued to annoy
me in this episode given the way that she was ordering John Ross around and
being so clingy, much to his dismay. When John Ross tried to sleep with Emma at
one point in the episode, she insisted that he “take care of her needs” rather
than his needs, and based on how the scene was handled, it looks like he ended
up giving her oral sex. I know that John Ross has pretty much only himself to
blame for having to deal with Emma’s craziness, but I still can’t help but feel
a little sorry for him having to deal with her. He probably could have handled
things with Emma a lot differently from the very beginning and not started
sleeping with her if he had really tried to, if you ask me. I know that it
would devastate Ann, but at this point I’m really hoping that Emma ends up dead
in the Ewings’ pool at some point this season, because I can hardly stand her
at this point. She may act all vulnerable and sensitive at times, but I can’t
help but think that Emma is a bit of a sociopath.
Given how much I loved all
of the material between John Ross and Pamela and their romance last season, I
really hate the fact that John Ross is cheating on Pamela with Emma. It
especially bothers he that he’s constantly insisting that what he’s doing with
Emma is just business. (Sighs) I guess
you need to tell yourself whatever it is that allows you to live with yourself,
don’t you, John Ross? (Sighs) However, this is a soap opera and whether I
like it or not, I just have to realize that this kind of situation happens all
the time on soap operas. Despite the fact that John Ross is cheating on Pamela,
I still think that he’s a much more likable character than Christopher.
Elena and Nicolas continued
to work on their plan to get revenge against the Ewing family justice
for Elena’s family, and at one point she hired someone to spy on John Ross so
they could hopefully find something that they could use to turn Pamela against
John Ross and the rest of Ewings. Fortunately for her and even more
unfortunately for John Ross, she caught John Ross and Emma having sex on video
at the very end of the episode, because she had the person that she hired
install a hidden camera in John Ross and Pamela’s bedroom. Uh oh, John Ross!
You’re busted! That being said, I really enjoyed that storyline and it will be
interesting to see what happens next with that plot development.
Everything with John Ross
cheating on Pamela with Emma and having it remind her of how much J.R. had hurt
her over the years really seemed to get to Sue Ellen by the end of the episode.
John Ross arranged to have Sue Ellen committed due to her drinking at one point
in the episode, because having Sue Ellen committed would allow him to call
another vote to take Ewing Global public. If it weren’t for Sue Ellen being in
the mental state that she was in when some people from the psych ward came to
Sue Ellen’s house to bring her in for a psychological evaluation, I would
probably have said that John Ross was going overboard in his attempts to take
Ewing Global public so he can seize control of the company. While I do think
that John Ross’ motives for having Sue Ellen were for the most part rather
self-centered, Sue Ellen looked like a complete and total mess and was
completely out of it when she was taken into custody by the people from the
psych ward, so it’s probably for the best that Sue Ellen actually be committed.
Plus, John Ross demonstrated what to me felt like genuine heartbreak and
emotional pain from being forced to have Sue Ellen committed afterwards.
When it comes to Pamela and
Ann’s involvement in this episode, they seemed rather forgettable to me
personally, especially when it comes to Ann. Aside from Pamela, Elena and Emma
having a girl’s night, nothing Pamela did in this episode really stood out to
me. Everything that John Ross was doing in this episode, and to some extent
Elena and Nicolas, really seem to dominate the episode. I’m not saying that as
a complaint though, because those were my favorite aspects of the episode.
As for Christopher’s biggest
face palming moment in this episode, that would definitely be the scene where
he’s just standing around with the stupidest smirk on his face as he watches
Bobby tell John Ross that he’s given Christopher his shares in Ewing Global. Aside
from one or two annoying comments, he contributed nothing to the situation and
just took up oxygen.
All things considered, this
was a thoroughly enjoyable episode with some especially fantastic writing for
John Ross and Sue Ellen, along with some phenomenal acting from Josh Henderson
and Linda Gray in this episode. They were definitely the MVPs of the episode,
if you ask me. Despite the fact that I still have a few issues with Elena and
Nicolas’ storyline, I’m still loving it, and I feel like Juan Pablo Di Pace has
been a great addition to the show.
As much as Christopher
consistently annoyed me in this episode, I’m once again really enjoying
watching AnnaLynne McCord on Dallas. It’s a lot of fun for me personally to
watch her play a character that’s so radically different from Naomi Clark on
90210. I know that I didn’t talk about it in this review, but I really hope that
the writers give Brenda Strong more to do on the show soon. I feel like
Brenda/Ann has been given very little screen time and character development
this season compared to how much screen time and character development that she
had last season. It’s such a shame to see Brenda Strong’s talent as an actress
go to waste this season.
That being said, my final
score for this episode is 8 out of 10.
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