Episode Title: Distant Locations
Season 06, Episode 11
Episode 111 of 344
Written by Richard Gollance
Directed by Larry Elikann
Original Airdate: Thursday,
December 20th, 1984
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Karen finds out
that Val went to the bus station, but when she was seen there, four busses left.
Abby and Gary have lunch with Galveston, and Galveston notices that Abby's not
happy with Gary's preoccupation with Val.
Galveston asks Gary to go into business with him putting up communication
satellites. Abby hires a detective who finds Val, and Abby tells him to follow
her, but to keep the information only between them. Joshua gives a plea for Val
to come home on Reverend Kathryn's show. Val goes to Enoch, Nevada, and checks
into a motel. She berates herself in the mirror. Then she dresses up like a tramp,
and goes to a bar where she flirts with several men. The next day Val gets on
another bus, and tells the girl she sits with that her name is Verna Ellers,
she has no family and is going home to Tennessee. Abby's detective follows her.
Val gets off the bus in the small town of Shula, Tennessee, and gets a job as a
waitress in a diner.
REALLY QUICK RANDOM NOTE BEFORE THE ESSAY: IN THIS ESSAY, I MENTION HOW IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY AND I SPENT IT WITH MY BELOVED GRAMMY AND ALL THAT GOOD STUFF. I JUST WANT TO POINT OUT/REMIND MY READERS OF THE FACT THAT I MAKE SURE TO HAVE A GENEROUS BACK CATALOGUE OF EP ESSAYS WRITTEN SO I NEVER RUN OUT. FOR THE MOST PART, THESE ESSAYS ARE EXACTLY AS I ORIGINALLY WROTE THEM, BUT OCCASIONALLY I'LL THROW IN LITTLE THINGS RELATING TO OUR CURRENT WORLD (LIKE A TRUMP REFERENCE IN THIS ONE THAT I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD HAVE TO PUT IN HERE, UGH); IN REAL TIME, MY BELOVED GRAMMY AND I ARE CURRENTLY WATCHING SEASON EIGHT AT THE SAME TIME I'M PUTTING UP MY SEASON SIX ESSAYS. SO, IN CASE ANYONE WAS CURIOUS, MY BIRTHDAY IS MAY 13TH, 1990, AND FEEL FREE TO SEND GIFTS IN A MONTH WHEN WE REACH THAT DATE, BUT FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS EP, IT WASN'T ACTUALLY MY BIRTHDAY A FEW DAYS AGO.
Oh God yes, we’re back into
the world of KL and I couldn’t be
happier. This entire disk of eps,
spanning Distant Locations through Inside Information, was such a joy to
behold and was not only one of our best disks of eps ever, but also just such a
perfect fucking way to spend a night. To
provide a little context, I’ll tell you that it was my birthday (26 years old),
and after getting off of work, I was so excited to do my absolute favorite
thing in the world, which is go to My Beloved Grammy’s house and watch KL.
Since it was my special day, she made me my favorite meal, her goulash,
along with a delightfully crunchy Caesar salad and we sipped a fine red wine
together while enjoying these stunning eps.
So not only are the eps great, but it was just the perfect way to spend
my birthday and was everything I wanted it to be and more, putting me in a
delightful mood that continues well into the moment in which I am typing these
words.
In our last batch of eps, Val
delivered her babies prematurely due to Dr. Ackerman’s evil plans and then they
“died” even though both she and we heard those babies crying and we know
something is up. After that, she began to
suffer from scary stylish dreams and then we concluded our last ep with her
sneaking out of the house to parts unknown in the middle of the night. Distant
Locations picks up just mere hours later, with style to spare right away,
courtesy of, get ready for this cuz I’m finally OFFICIALLY gonna declare it, my
favorite KL director, Larry Elikann. Yes, folks, I’ve finally
realized that he’s the man, the very best and most creative director to ever
helm eps. I love anyone who’s ever
helmed a KL ep because, you know,
they helmed a KL ep and that
guarantees them a special place in Heaven, but whenever Larry Elikann’s name
pops up in the credits, I’ll always turn to My Beloved Grammy and say, “Ooooh,
this is gonna be a good one.” My Beloved
Grammy has also learned to keep her eyes peeled for certain names in the
credits, such as whenever we see that Peter Dunne wrote an ep, she’ll always
say how this one should be extra good.
I’m so proud of her, and we never discussed things like this when
watching Dallas.
I love the way this ep starts
right away, because we have a bunch of our characters (Ben, Karen, Lilimae, and
so on) speaking directly into the camera to some unseen character as they
explain what Val’s been going through in the last few weeks and why they’re
concerned that she’s disappeared. It’s
cool enough to start the ep with the characters kinda sorta speaking directly
to us viewers, but it only gets more stylish when we cut to see Val, who
appears to be bopping around Nevada, and yet the dialogue of the characters on
the cul de sac continues to be played over the footage of Val. It’s the first two minutes of the ep and I’m
already impressed; surely Larry Elikann is the Alfred Hitchcock of the small
screen.
Where is Val? My Beloved Grammy
and I had a smidge of difficulty figuring out the precise location, but it
turns out to be Enoch, Nevada. I asked
My Beloved Grammy if this was a real place and she didn’t know, and neither did
I because I don’t know geography and couldn’t tell you where a certain place is
on a globe if you paid me (I’m a lot like George W. Bush in that way), so for
most of this ep I actually thought this might be taking place in a fictional
Nevada town, but nope, it’s a real place, cuz I looked it up and found out. Anyway, she immediately checks into a cozy
motel run by a nice old married couple who seem very sweet. One thing that’s interesting is that she uses
her real name, Valene Ewing, and I would think that if Val is trying to keep on
the D.L., she would use a fake name. After
all, by this point in the saga, Val is a famous author with two published
books, one very successful and one not so much.
In fact, the nice couple even asks her if she is indeed that Valene Ewing and Val looks kinda
uncomfortable and says she’s not the same person.
There’s a lot going on in this
episode with absolutely everybody in the cast roster, but let’s make no bones
about it, this is Val’s episode (indeed, one could easily argue that this whole
season belongs to Val). Almost
as soon as she arrives in town, things get a little, well, spooky. I’m pretty sure that, when all is said and
done and all 344 eps have been watched and written about and I get a phone call
from The President of The United States of America (not the fake one we currently have, whom I would refuse to speak to) asking if I’ll accept a
Nobel Peace Prize for excellence and accomplishment because of writing about
the whole show, I’m probably gonna say season six is the darkest and scariest
season of the series, because we already had the horrifying ep where Val
delivered the babies (that one was Tomorrow Never Knows) and now we have another dark and scary one with Distant Locations. This one isn’t nearly as horrifying as Tomorrow Never Knows (mostly because of
how horrific the whole evil-doctors thing is for Brett personally), but it’s
got some spook factor, for sure.
It takes a minute for things to
get scary, cuz first Val goes out shopping or whatever, and she happens to run
into a woman with two adorable little, gulp, twin babies. God,
what a sad scene this is, and as soon as we see those two twin babies, we know
what Val is thinking about. She goes
over to the lady and tells her how cute her kids are and asks if she can hold
them for a second, and at first things are cool, like Val just appears to be a
friendly stranger and the woman seems to be viewing her as such, but then Val
holds the one baby and starts to get kinda creepy, saying how she is never
gonna let the baby go and stuff like that.
Yeah, sometimes friendly strangers say that about babies, but they
usually use that annoying voice that people use when they’re talking to babies,
and Val’s not using that voice, she’s just kinda drooling over the baby and
clearly wishing it belonged to her.
After a minute, the mother clearly becomes uncomfortable and takes the
baby back from Val, saying how they’ve got to run. From there we cut to the first
scary scene of the ep, which is Val returning to her darkened hotel room and
screaming at herself in the mirror about how ugly she is. Not only is this scary, but also sad. I feel bad for Val as she looks at herself in
the mirror and scolds herself for not having a perfect body, for not having
good boobs, all that stuff. One can only
imagine the mental anguish that is going through Val’s head, now that she’s not
only lost her husband to a hotter woman but also her first baby and now her
newest babies. I don’t find it
ridiculous to see Val going crazy the way she is going, because I can not even
begin to imagine what feelings must be going through her at this point in her
life, where everything seems to be falling apart so rapidly.
A little later, the motel owner
guy knocks on the door and tries to get Val to come out. Here’s another arty scene that uses darkness
and shadows really well, as Val is sitting on the floor and is sorta framed
between two, like, chair legs, and the camera is sorta filming her as if
looking up at her. It’s another case of
Elikann striking with his usual tremendous style (and I got sick and threw up
when I looked at Elikann’s IMDb and saw that he’s only got three more KL eps left in
him; how am I going to function when he evacuates the series?!). The motel owner finally persuades Val to come
to the door, but she leaves the chain bolted and won’t let him come in, saying
how she looks a mess and doesn’t want anybody to see her, which prompts the guy
to say how pretty she is and how any man in town would go crazy for her. I have to wonder if this nice man’s words are
what prompt Val to do what she does next, which is trash herself up to look,
shall we say, a little bit skanky, and then hit the bars looking for a man.
This is what all television
should be, by the way, and if you don’t like what you’re seeing when you watch
this, you should just never watch television again, because you clearly have no
taste. When we next catch up with Val,
she’s putting on some makeup in the mirror and admiring her face and saying,
“You are beautiful and there isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t want you,” the same words I say to myself in the mirror every morning. After that, she stops at a nearby bar full of
drunken assholes and quickly becomes the life of party, entertaining a whole
group of men all at the same time, all the while keeping her eyes firmly set on
some married guy who is sitting at a table with his wife. As soon as the wife steps away for a moment,
Val swoops in and starts to work her magic on this man, asking him if he’s
looking for company or whatever. The man
gets kinda nervous and is like, “My wife just went to the ladies’ room and
she’ll be real mad if she sees you here,” but he also tells Val that he’d be
willing to meet up with her for a shag later, after he drops the wife off at
home. Things would probably work out
okay if Val nodded and then walked away, but instead she hangs around too long
and the wife does indeed return and start to kick her ass.
This altercation is interesting
for a number of reasons. First of all, when
the wife confronts Val, Val has a response that is something like, “I can have
your husband anytime I want him,” making me think of a certain other hot blonde who
may have said a certain similar thing a few seasons back. Is Val trying to transform into Abs? Is she just trying to be flashy and trashy
and powerful and seductive in the same way that Abs is? Is she feeling like being a nice, good, sweet
person hasn’t exactly worked out for her too well and now it’s time to be
bad? I guess the answer to all of these
questions could be, ‘yes,’ but I appreciate that it’s sorta left up to us to
figure out what’s really going on with Val.
The second thing worth noting is
how not funny and not campy this scene is even though it
very easily could have become both.
Again, I remind the readers that I never have watched Dynasty (don’t worry, cuz it’s
definitely on the list for when I one day finish this KL rewatch), so I can’t really say anything about that series with
any real authority, but I will say that I’ve heard that show is exceptionally
campy and that bitchy catfights were a highlight of that series to anyone who
watched. Additionally, Dallas was positively brimming with camp
for pretty much its entire run, and sometimes that was a good thing and
sometimes that was a bad thing, but it was always inherently a part of the
core. I think it’s interesting to note
that I don’t find this little catfight between Val and this random wife to be
campy, but just kinda sad. You feel bad
for Val, who is clearly going through some sort of awful trauma and not knowing
how to deal with it, and now as she tries out a new personality or lifestyle or
whatever, she immediately gets her hair yanked and nearly gets her face beaten
in by this really pissed off wife.
From here we go to the best
scene of the ep and one of the most memorable of the entire series run, a scene
that burns itself into your memories and can never possibly be forgotten. I am of course talking about the long
unbroken scene in which we watch Val return to the hotel and go even more insane, now
morphing from some version of Abs into, well, Verna. I suppose all KL fans should immediately know what I’m talking about when I say
this, because what’s happening here is going to fuel several eps in a row of
sheer brilliance as Val decides that she is, in fact, Verna Ellers, the lead
character of her flop second book, Nashville
Junction. This is not coming out of the blue, by the way,
because a little earlier this season, Joshua read Val’s book and then asked
Lilimae if she was actually Verna,
which Lilimae denied. Now we get this
stunning scene of Val scrubbing all the make up off of her face in front of the
mirror and finishing her scene with yet another little pep talk to herself, about
how she’s going to return home and find a nice job and Bob Loblaw, and then
she says something like “You gotta make yourself look pretty, Verna.”
Real fast I’ll give some deets
about why this scene is so great, even though I feel like I won’t be able to
justify it; the only way to truly understand is to watch it yourself,
preferably twice, one viewing right after the other, to really soak in the
amazingness. I think the most impressive
thing is the fact that this is an unbroken scene; I didn’t time the whole scene
but it feels long and there’s no
point where the camera cuts to something new; it just stays on Val the whole
time as she goes through this bizarre personality change in front of the
mirror. The music in the background is
creepy and there aren’t really any lights turned on in the room, which adds
some definite spook factor, and obviously J.V.A is stellar in the scene and
makes me wish I could get Doc Brown to fly me back to 1984 so I could just give
her that much deserved Emmy already.
We actually end on Val’s arrival
in a new town, this time Tennessee, and we see that she meant it quite
literally when she looked in the mirror and told “Verna” that it was time to
return home; she’s going way back to her roots, although I don’t believe she
picks the exact same town that Val lived in, but rather some other obscure and
probably made up Tennessee location (honestly can’t remember the name of this
town at this point, sorry). Anyway, it
looks like a cozy place and the cinema is showing a Peter Sellers movie (Being There), so it makes sense when Val
climbs off the bus and enters the diner with the “Help Wanted” sign in the
window and immediately secures a job working there. We also end on confirmation that she has
morphed into a new personality, because when the diner owner asks for name, she
smiles and answers “Verna Ellers.” I
will say that I suppose we the viewers don’t know for sure yet that Val has
actually morphed; a first time viewer watching this in real time might believe
that Val has just chosen a fake name to get away from all her troubles, but as
we proceed a few eps further, we are going to see that Val does, indeed,
believe herself to be this Verna person.
So obviously Val is getting the
best material and the most to work with this week, and J.V.A of course delivers
in spades, but let’s check in on our other friends, as well. First off, Karen is continuing to keep Mack
in the dark about her illness, and we get another scene of her suffering from
the numb hand this week. I appreciate
the way KL will be rolling along with
something happening and our minds occupied with that one thing, and then it
will organically introduce or remind us of something that’s developing in the
plots. For instance, in this scene we
start with Karen on the phone to someone or other, working on locating Val (and
she also gives Val’s address as “22229 Seaview Circle,” and I wrote that down
in my notes along with, “Is that accurate?”), and we are with Karen in that our
thoughts are focused on Val and we want to find out what’s going on with her, as
well, but then as Karen is on the phone, her hand goes numb and she can’t
really hold the phone and write stuff down too well, so we watch her try to
awkwardly do this maneuver and in the scene we are immediately reminded of her
illness. What writing! What skill!
The scene manages to propel two storylines along at the same time just
by having Karen on the phone while also dealing with her hand. Later in bed we see Karen lie to
Mack again, once again causing My Beloved Grammy and I to scream at the screen,
“Just tell him, Karen!” See, we already saw her make up a lie to him
about how she smacked her hand on the desk at work or something, but this time
she says she burned it on the coffee maker.
When Mack says she oughta take the bandage off and give it some air, she
says how it’s no big deal and to not focus on it, but we can see that Mack is
starting to get suspicious.
We also get some growing trust
in the relationship between Gary and Galveston this week, and I’m gonna explore
that, but first I wanna note that we also get a shout out to some Dallas characters. This again shows the writers doing a good job
of covering their bases in explaining why Valene continues to have no on-screen
relationship with Lucy over in Texas. In
fact, it was only about two seconds after My Beloved Grammy said, “It sure is
odd how they never talk about Lucy on this show,” that we did, indeed, get a
mention of Lucy. Lilimae says how
perhaps Val went off to Texas to be with Lucy, and Gary says, “Valene would
never go back to Dallas,” and he reiterates how J.R. stole baby Lucy away from
her oh so many years ago and all that, a nice little callback that pairs nicely
with the scene a few eps ago in which Val told Ben that story while sitting at
the beach. Also, during an early scene
in which Gary and Galveston walk through Galveston’s ranch, Galveston tells
Gary, “In the end, you’ll be the Ewing they remember, not J.R. and not
Bobby.” Again, we’re in kind of a gray
area of Dallas/KL right now in which the two shows still exist in the same
universe (and they will continue to exist in the same universe until the very
start of the 1986-1987 season) but we aren’t getting any crossovers from Dallas characters anymore and the
references to those characters have become more sporadic. I’m fine with it, though, and I think when
they do choose to bring up characters from Dallas
in dialogue, it’s always appropriate to the scene.
What about Gary and Galveston,
anyway? Well here’s another in a long
line of stories that I clearly wasn’t paying enough attention to upon first
viewing, because I think I didn’t even realize that Galveston was a villain
upon first watch. I know, right? I’m starting to reflect heavily on how
bizarre it is that I was able to get sucked into this world so heavily back in
college during my first watch despite not really following the big plot arcs
too terribly well. At this point, I
think I thought Galveston was a good character, and that might just be because
of the charisma Howard Duff brings to the part, which is plentiful. Looking at this guy, you just want to believe
anything he says because he has that fabulous old style “man’s man” quality
about him. Aside from a few scenes
between Gary and Galveston, we don’t really get much with them this week, but
it’s important to see that Galveston is around and that he is starting to
become someone Gary really likes and respects, so keep that in mind for future
eps.
Distant Locations also gets a pretty important plot point kicked
into gear when Joshua agrees to go on the air for Pacific World Whatever and
give a little sermon that’s really a clever way to get Val to return home. See, he gives a nice speech about how
sometimes God does bad things to good people, and he uses the example of some
family he used to know that were very faithful but had a bunch of shitty things
happen to them. As with most sermons,
you hear a long story about life being really shitty and then the conclusion
is, “So you see, God is here for us!”
After that, though, Joshua looks at the camera straight on and says
Valene’s name directly and then tells her that she is loved and she should
return home to the people who live here. How many people are watching
this show, by the way? This is a
California cable station, and I don’t know how far it reaches in terms of where
it is broadcast; I can’t imagine some daily church show on a random cable
network is exactly getting “Who Shot J.R.?” level ratings, nor am I sure if Val
could even have the chance to see
this sermon from her far off adventures in Nevada and then Tennessee, but it’s
still a noble effort on the part of everyone involved to try and reach out to
her. It’s also important to note Joshua
giving his firm on-television sermon and starting to get a taste for that job
and, perhaps, wishing to pursue that career path; we shall have to wait and
see.
That oughta do it for Distant Locations. Obviously it was brilliant and I really don’t
know that I have much else left to say about it besides that. Elikann brings his usual flourishes that elevate
this above a standard 48 minute episode of television, plus J.V.A’s acting is
really top quality at this point, but that’s something I’m just gonna keep
saying all season, so get ready. I think
the craziness of this ep and all of Val’s adventures in Nevada also help to
keep this ep real memorable; this is one that never faded out of my brain the
way certain eps have over time. No, I
always remembered this ep vividly as the one where Val hits the road and goes crazy
in a little Nevada town, and that scene with her taking off her makeup in front
of the mirror is just classic and one of KL’s
all time most memorable scenes.
However, as much as I enjoyed
Val’s little stop off in Nevada, I’m much more excited to see her get to work
being Verna in Tennessee, so let’s proceed forward to our next ep, Uncharted Territory.
Hi Brett, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your blog. I love KL just as much as you, and I think you are accurate and funny all at the same time!! I have the DVD copies as well and watch them so much I know the dialogue. Regarding this episode, just wanted to share that Val ends up in Shula Tenn. Not sure if this is a real place. Looking forward to the next episode. Thank you so much for keeping KL alive .
ReplyDeleteShula! Where the fireman's picnics suck and the best looking guy in town is a 5 on a good day.
ReplyDeleteWow, this was Joan Van Ark's finest hour.
ReplyDeleteAhhhhh, finally we reach the episode that inspired my Star Wars/ Knots Landing mash-ups. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIbO3y4LaKE&t=3s (A NEW HOPE version) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGWF4IX6uOw (RETURN OF THE JEDI version)
ReplyDeleteOh my God, I didn't know you made those! I love those and have always loved them! Had no idea you were the same person who made them!
DeleteThis is a fantastic episode with many memorable scenes. It's interesting to note that actress Viola Davis received much praise a number of years back (2014-ish?) for a scene in her HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER show in which she removed all of her make-up, laying herself "bare" for the whole world to see. Great scene... but let's be honest, JVA did it first, and here all the way back in 1984 on KNOTS!
ReplyDelete