Episode Title: Marital Privileges
Season 05, Episode 04
Episode 079 of 344
Written by Richard Gollance
Directed by Larry Elikann
Original Airdate: Thursday, October
20th, 1983
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Diana tells
Karen that Chip killed Ciji for her. Karen says she'll testify, but Janet says
they need Diana. Furious, Diana tells Karen she never wants to see her again
and moves to the ranch with Abby. Lilimae
goes to see Chip, who laughs at her. She realizes he killed Ciji. Abby finds
out that Gary will inherit 10% of Ewing Oil in fifteen days and his divorce is final
in ten, so she has five days to marry him in order to get half of his inheritance.
Abby finalizes the papers on her subsidiary, Apolune Corp. She asks Laura to
check out an apartment building that her uncle left her. Gregory Sumner, a
candidate for the U.S. Senate and old friend of Mack's, asks Mack to be part of
his team. Val doesn't ask for money at her and Gary's divorce settlement. Val
sees Ben, who explains he doesn't want a story, but wants to get to know her
and they agree to be friends.
When
we last left off, Chip had been apprehended by the police and Diana was boldly
declaring that her name was no longer Fairgate, but was now Mrs. Tony
Fenice. As you can probably tell from
the title of this week’s episode, Marital
Privileges, we are going to expand and build upon this development this
week. My
question about when, exactly, Diana
made her big switch from Chip’s frightened hostage to his fervent defender is
still waiting for an answer this week.
See, as we pick up the start of this week’s show, Diana is returning
home and is not in good spirits. She’s
mad at Karen for Chip getting arrested and she yells at her a whole lot this
week. During the course of that yelling,
she mentions that she and Chip stopped off and got married in Vegas. Is this true or not? I honestly don’t know and can’t remember if
we ever find out for sure whether this is truth or fiction. I don’t know my geography very well, so I
don’t know exactly where Vegas is in relation to wherever Chip and Diana were
driving through. My Beloved Grammy is
much smarter than me and has actually looked at a map in her life, so she told
me that with the route they were taking, they could go to Vegas, but that it
would have been a bit out of their way.
I’m
gonna go ahead and declare that I think Diana is lying. When watching a series, you kinda have to
just trust your own eyes, if that makes sense.
It’s sorta like if a character dies offscreen (especially in one of these ‘80s primetime soap operas); you just
need to kinda assume that they could return to the series any minute because we
didn’t physically see them die, you know?
The same is true of this little marriage between Chip and Diana. We didn’t actually see this happen; we saw
them driving along a whole lot and dodging cops and a few futile attempts of
Diana to escape. Since we never actually
saw them stopping off in Vegas to exchange marital vows, I’m going to assume
that it did not happen. Rather, I think
Diana, who is a mentally ill person, is so desperate to protect Chip that she’s
concocted this little bit of fiction to do so.
This
calls several things into question, for me.
Okay, so I’m vaguely familiar with the whole “Spouses can’t testify
against each other” thing, and I assume that to be the main reason Diana is
telling this lie, but won’t she need some concrete proof that the two are
indeed married? She can run around
claiming they are man and wife all she wants, but does this hold any legal sway
if she can’t produce some evidence?
Where’s all that stuff that you’re supposed to get when you get
married? Don’t you need, like, a
marriage license or something? I know
Vegas is famous for quickie weddings, but I assume there’s still a standard
protocol that needs to be followed, no?
Diana
is at the peak of her mega-bitchiness right before our very eyes. Upon returning to her home, she screams and
yells at Karen a lot and says how it’s her fault that she abandoned Chip and so
on and so forth. At some point, in all
this yelling, Diana accidentally lets the cat out of the bag that Chip is the
murderer of Ciji. It’s in the middle of
a shouting match between mother and daughter and Diana just sorta blurts out
something like, “He did it for me!” Upon
hearing this, Karen gets understandably upset.
We the audience only had complete confirmation on who took Ciji’s life
two episodes back in Fugitives. This is the moment where Karen hears the
truth, as well, the answer to the big question that’s been hovering over the
show since Celebration.
After
having one of these big fights, Diana disappears to go and live at Westfork
with Gary and Abs. While she presents
this as, “I’m mad at my mother, so therefore I’m moving in with my aunt,” am I
the only one who suspects that she just really wants to live at Westfork for
awhile? The first time we see her there,
she’s relaxing in the hot tub (and I think she’s naked, too). Sure, Diana is mad at Karen and what have
you, but I feel like she heard about Gary and Abby’s fantastic new ranch with a
full gym and steam room and she just decided to make up an excuse to go live
there for awhile.
I
do want to take this moment to call into question Abby’s motivations. She is very open to having Diana stay with
them and never seems bothered by the idea that Diana’s boyfriend/alleged
husband could be a murderer. Does Abby
believe Chip killed Ciji? Does she care?
That’s kinda what I’m trying to explore here, because while Abs is
wicked, I think there’s a limit to her wickedness, and I don’t think she would
be totally cool with Chip murdering Ciji in cold blood. Is she only doing this to win a popularity
contest against Karen, to show that she’s the cool aunt that Diana can talk to
about anything and always rely on?
While
Diana is relaxing in the hot tub at Westfork, Chip is incarcerated at police
headquarters, being interrogated by that stereotypical angry cop. Have I mentioned this guy yet? Well, if I haven’t, that’s a tremendous
oversight, and now is certainly the time to bring him up. This character’s name is Detective Nick
Morrison and he is played by Steve Kahan (pictured below).
I kinda just assumed this guy to be some random TV character actor, and
I was surprised when I looked him up and discovered that he is actually Richard Donner’s cousin and was in all four Lethal Weapon movies (despite being a bit of an action film fan, I’ve actually
never seen the Lethal Weapon movies,
which I recognize is a tremendous hole in my film nerd knowledge), amongst many
other things. Anyway, maybe if I was
familiar with more of his other work and saw him turn in a good performance,
I’d cut him some slack here, but I’ve found him hilariously cheesy here on KL ever since he was introduced in The Fatal Blow, and he’s extra bad/good
this week
One
of the very first scenes we get this week (it might even be the very first
scene of the episode; I’m blanking on that) is Chip being interrogated by Baines
and Morrison. The scene is a mix of
artistry and camp, because the way it’s constructed and presented is
surprisingly cinematic for network television, yet the dialogue from Morrison
is just totally cornball and also exceptionally unenthused. Follow me along here. See, we actually get to see Lisa Hartman as
Ciji once again in this quick flashback that’s intercut with Morrison
talking. This is interesting because we
see her name as a guest star, “Lisa Hartman as Ciji,” and I kinda perked up a
little bit and was like, “Oh, is this the episode where she comes back to the
show?” No, it’s not, that’s a few
episodes down the line that we are going to have Hartman returning as brand new
character Cathy. In this case, she is
just playing Ciji one last time, real fast, for this little flashback.
Okay,
so in the flashback, we see Chip and Ciji arguing, and she’s yelling at him,
and then we get to the moment where Chip does her in, and it’s this shot in
particular that I wish to talk about.
Presumably you couldn’t show a man violently bash a woman’s skull in on
network TV (I could be wrong about this one; write to me if I am), so director
Larry Elikann shoots the fatal blow with this really cool shadow effect. We get a shot of the wall and Chip and Ciji’s
shadows are prominent over that wall as he smashes her head. It looks like something from a Hitchcock
film, honestly, and was an impressive bit of style to something that could
easily be presented as very bland.
So
the actual flashback I’m totally fine with, but Morrison narrates the whole
thing like a man who has never been excited to talk about anything in
history. His line reading is so flat it
reminded me of Harrison Ford’s awful voice-over narration in the original
theatrical cut of Blade Runner, the
narration he purposefully did the shittiest job possible on because he was
hoping it wouldn’t wind up in the movie.
Yup, that’s the tone I get from Detective Morrison as he recounts the
events leading up to Ciji’s death. He
reads everything totally flat, no emotion, completely boring, as if he’s reciting
a grocery list he’s handing over to someone before they go off to the
market. In addition, we have some killer
bits of corny dialogue, with probably the best one being, “You killed her and
then you cleaned up like your mother was coming to visit.” Oh God, yes, so cheesy, I love it.
Chip
spends the entire episode under arrest, and the other notable scene he’s
involved in here comes due to a visit from Lilimae. This continues to move me in a way that I’m not
completely able to express. There’s
something about that inherent sweetness in Lilimae’s feelings towards Chip that
tugs at my heart strings. Maybe she
didn’t exactly have a romantic interest in Chip or want to screw him or
anything like that, but she felt a special bond with him and she put her trust
in him and he has betrayed her. I think
Lilimae is feeling exceptionally confused by her feelings at this juncture,
that she could really like a person and cherish that person only to find out
that he is, in fact, a cold blooded killer who took a person’s life for his own
selfish reasons.
A
lot of Lilimae’s footage this week is just trying
to get in to speak with Chip. She
spends a lot of time hanging around the police station, waiting to hear if she
can get in, and when she finally is allowed to meet with him, it’s a tremendous
scene. I want to take my time machine
back to 1983 and give Julie Harris an Emmy for her work here (you will probably
hear me saying this a lot in the next two or three seasons to come, when
Lilimae is really given some incredibly weighty material to work with and Julie Harris pulls it all off like a pro and a true master actress). She essentially pours her heart out to Chip
and says that he has to take accountability for what he’s done, only for him to
laugh at her. This is a very painful
scene to watch because you can see in Lilimae’s eyes how much his dismissive
laughter of her big speech stabs her in the heart. In addition, this scene is helping to set us
up for some of the tremendous events of our next episode, One Kind of Justice.
Meanwhile,
on the Abs/Gary side of the stories, we have something that I’m honestly a bit
confused about. See, we get a quick
A.D.R. of Abs talking to J.R. on the phone (I believe it’s piped in over an
exterior shot of her palatial office complex, and we just hear her saying
something like, “Nice talking to you, J.R.”).
After hanging up the phone, Abs declares to Westmont that Gary will be
inheriting ten percent of Ewing Oil in fifteen days. His divorce from Val will be final in ten
days, which means there’s this five day window where she can rope him into
marriage and then she will be entitled to half of his fortune, which should be
tremendous. This
development confuses me in relation to what we saw in the Brief Dallas Interlude Jock’s Will as well as the following batch of KL episodes like New Beginnings and Investments and,
indeed, even to what was going on over on Dallas
at this exact time. At some point in
my life (not any time soon), it might be interesting to watch both Dallas and KL in tandem, sorta hopping back and forth from one show to the
next all the way through their entire runs (remembering, of course, that Dallas had two seasons before KL was on the air and KL had two more seasons after Dallas had gone off the air) to see how
well the two shows keep in continuity with each other.
The
reason I mention this is because, if I’m remembering correctly from Jock’s Will, didn’t Gary just get that
ten million dollar inheritance from his dad, the one that he could only live
off the interest of for the first few years?
Why, then, is he suddenly about to come into so much more money from the
ten percent of Ewing Oil? I’m trying to
remember back to what was happening on Dallas
during this 1983-1984 season (that would be season seven of Dallas, for those following along at
home). I remember that the big battle
between J.R. and Bobby over who got control of Ewing Oil came to its conclusion
right near the start of the season, and I remember that episode being a big
deal, but I don’t remember how the culminating moments of that big battle
related to Gary over in California. I
just don’t understand why he’s suddenly coming into all this money when he
already was given the ten million dollars last season, so can anyone help me
along here?
In
any case, I’m not gonna fret about it too much.
For the purposes of the story before us, Abs is very excited to hear
about Gary’s incoming fortune and now she’s got to work hard to get married as
fast as possible so she can reap all possible benefits. Obviously this is a very duplicitous move,
and it’s a testament to Donna's acting that, for me, she never seems all that evil. I’m not entirely sure how she manages to pull
it off, except to say that as she schemes and manipulates and talks to Westmont
about getting the most out of Gary, I really do find myself kinda rooting for
her, in some strange way. This might
have something to do with the fact that I do believe Abs loves Gary in her own
twisted way. After all, she had her eyes
set on him way back in season two when he was working for Sid at Knots Landing
Motors and living in a cozy little house.
If he had already been a millionaire when she met him and went after
him, she would seem more wicked, but there’s something about the fact that
she’s had her eye on him since her first appearance that keeps it feeling like
she really does love the guy.
Now
might be a good time to discuss Laura’s new role as the real estate advisor for
Gary Ewing Enterprises. There are at
least two fabulously funny scenes between Abs and Laura this week, starting off
when the two are having a friendly chat and Laura casually mentions that Gary
hired her to work for him. Abs smiles
real wide and is like, “That’s great, Laura!”
As soon as Laura is out of frame, however, Abby’s face completely
crumbles and she looks exceptionally irritated, a nice bit of funny physical
acting from Donna. The
second funny scene occurs when Abs is clearly trying to distract Laura with
nonsense busywork that is completely unimportant just so Laura will keep her
nose out of what Abs is really doing.
Instead of talking to Laura about her plans to trap Gary into marriage
in time for her to get his fortune, Abs hands her some papers and says
something about how her uncle died and left her with some land and she’d like
Laura to go and look at it. I think
Laura is smart enough to know that Abs is up to something, but she keeps quiet
about it for the time being. The funny
line, however, comes in reference to Abby’s new office, when Laura says, “You
could open a trailer park in the reception area,” a killer sarcastic line
delivered impeccably by Constance McCashin. I
said in another writeup how I feel like Laura has, by season five, officially
become the Laura I know and love from my last viewing of the series, and
humorous lines like that underline my point.
It seems like now that Richard is out of the picture, Laura’s tongue has
loosened and she’s going to be ready with a sassy joke or comeback way more
frequently than she ever was back in the first four seasons. This is good for many reasons, not the least
of which is the fact that her comments are usually very funny. The other thing I like is that, by having
Laura as this down-to-Earth sarcastic character, we still feel like we are in
the real world along with real people even as all these soapy dramas are
occurring all around us. Laura always manages
to keep it feeling like we’re in a real, tangible universe.
Probably
the least interesting aspect of this episode involves the story between Val and
Ben. I don’t mean to shit on Ben, if it
seems like that’s what I’m doing, and I honestly have no particular problem
with his character except that he’s, you know, a little bit boring. This story is still fine; it just happens to be far less gripping than the other events
of this week’s show. Basically, Ben and
Val run into each other again after that awkward first date from our last
episode. Ben comes clean to Val that he
is, indeed, a reporter, but that he wasn’t dating her because of some
underhanded desire to manipulate a story out of her, but simply because he
liked her and wanted to get to know her better.
The two chat a bit and then settle on trying out the friend thing for a
little while. Even
though as a plot arc, this isn’t my favorite thing going on right now, I still
note that the scene between the two of them is infused with some style. See, it takes place at Ben’s bizarre Plant
House when Val decides to jog over there and see him. While the two are speaking outside the house,
they then go inside and the handheld camera follows them in. A small touch, but I like handheld camera and
I know that any other show could have just cut from them standing outside to
standing inside (or just shot them entering The Plant House with a boring,
stationary camera shot the way they would film it over on Dallas). I’m starting to
think Larry Elikann really likes the handheld camera because I immediately
recall him using it in the opening moments of The Fatal Blow, when all those reporters were hanging outside Val’s
door.
One
of the highlight scenes of this episode takes place between Gary and Val as
they work to finalize their divorce. The
two are sitting in an office with their two angry lawyers who are yelling at
each other. What’s interesting is that
Gary and Val display no hostility towards each other; all the anger in the room
is coming from the lawyers trying to get the most they can out of the other
one. Finally, Gary interrupts by
insisting that Val have half of all his money, but Val refuses. Obviously, Gary’s lawyer thinks he’s insane
for doing this and is relieved when Val refuses, and from there we follow Gary
and Val out into the parking lot as they talk.
Val
walks over to her car while Gary insists that she deserves the money, that he
wants to give it to her, that she earned it
by being married to him. Val says that
she appreciates the sentiment but that his big fortune came into being after
she and he were already separated, that she feels she has no right to it. Then she gets to have a pretty great speech
about how she is making it work on her own, without his money, and she wants to
keep it that way. This branches off into
a talk about how, through all these years, everything she’s ever done has been
for Gary. This is both an effective way
to keep the audience up to date if they have missed out on previous seasons
(cuz remember this is the ‘80s and if you hadn’t seen the previous seasons,
well, too bad so sad, cuz you wouldn’t be seeing them again anytime soon), while
also exemplifying the complex relationship they’ve had ever since we first met
them back on Dallas.
In
my mind, the imagery of this scene is iconic, and perhaps I’m mistaken in
saying so, but don’t most KL fans
just immediately know this scene based on the image of Val sitting in her car
while Gary leans in through the window to talk to her? Doesn’t this shot even make its way into the
scrolling squares at some point? Anyway,
whether the scene is truly iconic or not, I do not know, but I know it’s iconic
in my brain. See, Gary and Val come to
this lovely agreement where he says he won’t force her to take all of his money
if she doesn’t want to just so long as she isn’t too proud to give him a call
one day and ask for some money if she’s ever in a jam and needs it. The two smile at each other with the most
loving expressions I think I’ve ever seen on two people and, as Val drives
away, you feel that they have achieved some special form of Zen peace with each
other.
I
could write pages about this scene and the developments it establishes. There’s so much going on in what could easily
just be a scene of two people talking.
First, let’s note the tremendously classy way that Val conducts
herself. She could easily just take half of Gary’s fortune with no questions
asked. After all, when you think about
all that has happened since she was fifteen years old and Gary was seventeen
years old, she kinda deserves a nice chunk of money for all her mental
anguish. First, he knocks her up when
she’s just a teenager, then he decides to run off on her while she’s got his
baby in her arms, leaving her with his shitty family in Texas and his wicked
brother J.R., who then proceeds to kick Val out of Texas and steal the baby
from her. Okay, and that’s just chapter
one. Next, after the two very briefly
reconnected back in the Dallas two
parter of Reunion, he did the same
thing, leaving her randomly early in the morning (this was due in no small part
to J.R.’s interferences, but I digress).
Then, after they had finally remarried and been spun off into their own
series, he went on a crazy two-part alcoholic bender at the end of season one
that almost destroyed their marriage, but still Val was able to stay strong for
him. Once they got through that hurdle,
Gary started sleeping with The Other Paul Rudd’s wife, continuing an ongoing
affair for several episodes behind Val’s back.
Remarkably, she managed to forgive him for this and the two were able to
go on for another year or so, only for him to take up a torrid affair with
Abby. So
yeah, all in all, some pretty shitty behavior on the part of Gary towards Val,
and yet even with all that said and done, and with the opportunity staring her
in the face to take his money and say, “I deserve this because of all you made
me put up with,” Val still doesn’t take it.
She has pride and respect in herself and she is proud that she is now
making her own living as a successful author.
Any other person could easily take the money and run, but Val says no
thank you.
On
the other end of the spectrum, I believe we are seeing real remorse from
Gary. I think that big alcoholic bender
through the end of season four has almost served as some sort of second birth
from him. Now he has come out after that
experience and is actively working to change his life, to right his
wrongs. It is a testament to the fact
that he really and truly loves Val that he is so insistent on her getting the
money from their divorce. However, it’s
even more a testament to that love when, after hearing her reasons for not
wanting the money, he backs down and tells her he won’t badger her about it
anymore, but that it’s always there if she needs it.
It’s
moments like this that prove that breaking up Gary and Val at the end of season
three was the best decision the show ever made.
They are so compelling when they are apart, when they maintain this
super interesting friendship built on respect for each other. The longer they are apart (and it’s a long time, ladies and gentlemen), the
more we want them to be together.
Moments such as Gary looking over at Val in the closing moments of The People vs. Gary Ewing or this
fabulous scene here further show the deep love that the two really have for
each other, no matter what they may have done in the past. Also,
I can see that Gary is turning into the Gary that I really like and really
respect right before my very eyes. This
is not just a man who went on a bender and is like, “Sorry about that; what do
I have to do to make up for it?” This is
a guy who is really trying to live his life with some decency and ethics, doing
the right thing and treating people correctly.
Gary has been a very weak character throughout the first four seasons,
unable to deal with any kind of a crisis or any kind of responsibility, but now
we are seeing him shift into being a real, legitimate grown up and a real
honest and decent person.
There’s
really only one other development I wish to speak of this week, but it’s a good
one. When you first power up Marital Privileges and get past the
thirty second preview, you hit the fabulous opening credits sequence (the
greatest opening credits sequence in television history, I remind you) and now
the first name we see on the roster is not Kevin Dobson, but instead William Devane. Ah yes, as soon as I saw his
fabulous face in that square with this name under it, I actually applauded at
the TV screen, for I knew that this would be the first episode to feature
easily one of my favorite characters from the entire series run. William Devane is going to stay with the show all the way until the final episode in
1993, and at least according to IMDb, he has 269 KL episodes to his name (although this might be slightly
inaccurate, as sometimes IMDb includes those “credit only” eps where people are
listed but don’t actually show up for the episode). Over the next ten years, we are going to
really get to know this character and explore him in all his fascinating
idiosyncrasies and contradictions. By
the time we finish the series (if that ever happens), it will be hard to even
remember a KL that didn’t have
William Devane in it; to me, he is such a vital part of the series fabric that
it was almost bizarre to watch those first four seasons and not have him as
part of the cast.
I
really dug his first scene on the series and felt like it was an appropriate
harbinger for how important his character will be. See, Abs finds out about this Gregory Sumner
guy who is some sort of politician and is running under the Democratic party
for, um, something. I’m not sure what
Greg is exactly running for, but I guess it’s the U.S. Senate. In real life, I try not to follow any
politics, so if I sound really stupid when it comes to political stuff, it’s
because I am. I vote for the President
every four years and that’s about it. So
please be warned that, moving forward, I’ll probably talk a whole lot about how
much I love Sumner and the way Devane plays him, but often I’ll be kinda fuzzy
on what exactly his character is up to politically, know what I mean?
We
first meet him when Abs decides to pay a visit to his campaign
headquarters. Before we see the
character in the flesh, we see a great big poster of him, Devane’s smiling face
and this slogan: “Sumner: The Man For the ‘80s.” Abs walks into the headquarters and finds
Sumner with his back turned to her, a whole bunch of his lackeys gathered around
him, listening to him talk about something.
Then he sorta spins around and looks at Abs and he’s framed right in
front of a big poster of himself and it honestly feels like A Big Moment. Perhaps if Devane had only been in a season
or two of the series and then left, I wouldn’t be investing so much importance
into this moment, but watching it, you get the feeling that we are unveiling a
really important character and that it’s a big deal. We
also immediately get the sense that this character will be unpredictable,
because Abs tries to basically bribe him by giving him a big chunk of money
from Gary Ewing Enterprises, only for him to turn it down. Again, I’m gonna sound like a moron because
I’m not entirely sure on what the
bribe is for. I think in politics, you
basically just give money to people and then you expect them to do whatever you
ask them to. Of course, they don’t call
it a bribe, but rather a donation, but I assume that’s how it works. What’s interesting is that Greg turns this
money down and seems to really embarrass Abs.
Whatever her goal was coming here with this big check, she has clearly
failed, so she has to creep out somewhat made a fool of.
Next
time we see Greg, it’s in a scene between him and Mack in the men’s locker room
(the most erotic place in the entire world). The two are chatting it up the way only
straight men in a locker room can chat, and we learn that Greg and Mack are old
friends who have known each other for some time. Also, Greg invites Mack to come on and be a
part of his team, whatever that means, but for the moment, Mack turns it
down.
That’s
about all we get of Greg this week, and I can see why it might seem bizarre to
get so excited about him showing up here.
The reason is because I know he’s a hugely important character who will
be with us clear through to the end of the series, and this is our first time
seeing him. As we move on through the
next seasons, I think we’re gonna see that Devane brings a welcome new energy
to the show in the same way that The Dobsonator brought a new energy to the show
when he was brought on in season four.
Also, and I hope I can explain this well, but the entrance of Sumner to
the series really makes it feel like the band is complete, that they’re finally
all together. See, when I think of KL (as I do every single day), I think
of a show featuring Gary, Val, Karen, Mack, Abs, Laura, Lilimae, and Sumner. To me, it’s these eight that are the most
important characters through the series run, and now that we’ve reached season
five, they are finally all together and in the cast roster at the same
time. The KL team is officially complete and assembled.
Interestingly,
when I sat down to write about Marital
Privileges, I really thought it would be one of my quicker write-ups, that
I would just sorta bust it out real fast to get to the extremely exciting One Kind of Justice. Instead, I wound up writing a ton more about
this episode than I thought I had in me, like as soon as I started to think back
over it, I realized how rich this episode was and how many different things
were going on. First off, I am really
starting to love Larry Elikann eps and think they are immediately recognizable
as being directed by him and I look forward to his next one (which will be a
little later this season with Lest the Truth Be Known). Also, in terms of
storytelling, there’s just so much going on this week. You have the Chip/Diana drama, you have
Lilimae’s fabulous scene visiting with Chip, you have Laura and Abs beginning a
new business relationship together, you have Gary and Val reaching a new form
of peace and understanding with each other, and you have the introduction of
Sumner. All in all, a pretty loaded
episode and one that I enjoyed tremendously.
Next
week we have A BIG ONE, a very cathartic episode both written and directed by
series creator David Jacobs, One Kind of Justice.
Really love the sarcastic Laura! It seems like from this point on, Laura actually says out loud what the audience is thinking. It is almost as if Laura is our proxy into the Knot's world.
ReplyDeleteOh! So many things to say!
ReplyDeleteA. Las Vegas is about 4 hours outside LA. Yes, out of the way for the route they are traveling, but certainly still a feasible possibility. I absolutely believe they got married right at the beginning of them fleeing from California. I think Diana was insurance for Chip. His way of making sure he kept that insurance was to seal the deal. I think Chip knew there was a potential of a hell of a lot that could go wrong as he is fleeing to New York, and it just made things better for him if Diana were his wife. What I never can decide is if I think there's actually a moment that he wanted to be with Diana. I don't really think so, but I will be interested to see your opinion after the events that lead up to his final episode. It would seem to be that Diana has turned into a huge ass liability to him at this point, and yet he keeps enlisting her help. I think that's what makes Chip so interesting-- you really don't know if there was any genuine caring in him. Did he care about Diana? Did he care about Lillimae?
B. I do not think that Abs really thinks that Chip killed Ciji. I totally agree that she has a limit to her nastiness. While I think she enjoys being the person that Diana turns to, I don't think she would have knowingly helped Diana protect Chip, especially since Gary spent a significant amount of time behind bars himself for the murder.
C. If I remember my Dallas correctly, I don't think that Gary actually got to reap the rewards of that 10% of Ewing Oil until the battle between Bobby and JR was over, which would have been right about the same time that Gary's divorce would be final. If I remember, all the proceeds weren't distributed until the fight was over because that was the fight was all about: Whichever brother (JR or Bobby) made the company the most money at the end of the year. Until the time the battle started, the company was being ran with those voting shares-- Remember JR trying to run around and snag everyone's voting shares? He tried to get Gary's, and Gary got the last laugh by turning them over to Lucy instead.
Next episode is gonna be gooooood!
ReplyDeleteWhat is your email? I can send you an excel sheet with all 746 Dallas, Knots Landing, Movies and 2012 Dallas series in broadcast order.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I have been watching Dallas and Knots Landing in broadcast order. We got to this episode and thought we were missing something! Thought maybe the episode had been edited as they do for rebroadcasting. Thank you for this blog! I need to read your Three Sisters review as this episode almost made my wife and I regret watching Knots! Lol
ReplyDelete@Tim West - I hated that stupid 3 sisters epi, too !
ReplyDelete@Brett - and so my super crush with Sumner begins ! Lol ! That moment when he turned around in his office was iconic ! I think, however, that Abby enjoys alienating Diana from Karen. Why didn't anyone talk to Eric about slapping Diana ? That should have been a no no.
wouldn't the police check to see if they were actually married? Diana has to be mentally ill. She's even got a crazed look on her face.
ReplyDeleteExactly, the police would easily be able to check if they were actually married. I think they very easily could have married in Vegas en route to Albuquerque en route to OK City. Remember, the two were not shown during the first episode of S5, which geographically, would have constituted the Vegas portion of their trip.
DeleteAbs visits Greg with J.R.'s check donation, not Gary Ewing Enterprises. The donation is to persuade future Senator Sumner to allow offshore oil drilling. Sumne4 turns it down as he does not want to take bribes and Abs is not embarrassed, she is impressed. She gets those big gleaming eyes and girlish grin. She's turned on by Sumner because he's not interested in J.R.'s money and, in effect, standing up against real power. That's an aphrodisiac for Abby.
ReplyDeleteDid you mention she and Westmont set up subsidiary company Appaloon in this ep? Oh boy, what are they up to???