Episode Title: Uncharted Territory
Season 06, Episode 12
Episode 112 of 344
Written by Joyce Keener
Directed by Nicholas Sgarro
Original Airdate: Thursday,
December 27th, 1984
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Galveston asks
Gary to go in with him on a planned community in Empire Valley. Galveston tells
some men that he's using Gary because he's stupid and won't know what's going
on, but he will be helpful in getting the community
built. Gary asks Greg to go in on Empire Valley, but Greg wants no part of it.
While driving with Michael, Karen's hands go out again and they almost crash.
Mack insists she see a doctor. Karen finally tells Mack what is going on and he
says he won't let her die. Joshua gets a lot of fan mail after being on TV, so
Abby asks him to make another plea to Val. Kelly asks Ben to give her a chance,
but he says he can't. In Shula, Val rents a room and hears a report on the
radio about her disappearance, but doesn't respond to it in any way. She meets
Parker Winslow, the local dry cleaner, who asks her out to a pancake breakfast.
In our last episode, Distant Locations, I said how Val/Verna
has moved on from Nevada into Tennessee but that I can’t remember the exact
location. Well, isn’t it nice that Uncharted Territory starts almost
immediately with a helpful subtitle telling us, “Shula, Tennessee,” and once
again I didn’t know if this was a real place or not and I looked it up and I’m pretty sure it’s not. Of course, all I did was go to Google and
type in “Shula, Tennessee” and see what popped up and nothing much did, so I’m
gonna go ahead and assume that it’s a made-up place.
God, even the way that we get
that subtitle and figure out Val’s location is done with style. See, the episode starts with Karen and
Lilimae together and then Laura arrives at the front door with a piece of
luggage that belongs to Val. She
declares that it was sent to her house by accident and then the ladies read the
letter attached, which happens to come from the nice old couple that ran that
Nevada motel, saying something like, “You forgot your clothes at the motel so
here you go.” The ladies start to get
excited about how now they know Val is in Nevada, but then someone (I think
Karen) points out how Val must have left the motel at least four days ago and
could now be anywhere, and then we
cut to the little subtitle about “Shula” and pick up with Val/Verna working in
the coffee shop. See, another series would
just sorta, you know, start the scene, but KL
gives us that nice sexy transition by having Karen say, “Where could she
be?” and then immediately cutting to where she is.
Val/Verna is already getting
along nicely in this little town, and why not?
I remind you that the very first time we saw Val ever, indeed the very
first shot of her in television
history, was way back in that Dallas episode
Reunion: Part One in which we saw her
working at The Hot Biscuit, and she’s always been established as a pretty great
waitress. We also saw her waiting tables
back in season three with Acts of Love,
when she took Olivia out driving and the two of them got stranded with no money
and Val had to work for that Dukes of Hazzard guy. In addition to getting
cozy as a waitress, we also see Val/Verna start renting a rather cozy little
apartment that I found very endearing.
I’m being serious here, by the way, because it is a fairly simple little
place with not a lot of room, but I find it charming and could probably comfortably
live there. You’ll note that I’m able to
appreciate all sorts of living spaces on this series, because while I would
ideally wish to live at either The Beach House or Westfork if I was allowed to
live inside this universe, I could also be at home in a nice cozy apartment
like this one right here; I just find it very cute.
We the viewers get official
confirmation that Val has become Verna
in this ep, by the way, thanks to an early scene in which she is ironing and
listening to the radio. They interrupt
the music for a quick news bulletin and the announcer says something like,
“Everyone is continuing to look for missing California author Valene Ewing,”
but then we see Val/Verna doing her ironing and not even looking up at the
sound of her own name on the radio, completely unfazed by what’s playing in the
background. Yes, it is now very clear
that Val/Verna is not just hiding out in a little Tennessee town and using a
fake name to try and keep a low profile, but rather she has gone rather nutty
and truly believes herself to be this person, this Verna from her book.
Val/Verna meets a character
who’s gonna prove to be pretty important in this ep, and that would be Parker
Winslow, who works running the local dry cleaner. Once again, IMDb is proving to be completely
useless when it comes to KL because
they don’t even have anyone credited for playing this character, not in this
episode or the next one, either, so I can’t tell you the actor’s name, because
I do not know it. I do know that when Parker first walked onscreen, I thought I
recognized the actor for some reason, but thanks to IMDb being inaccurate in
every way when it comes to their episode pages for KL, I’m afraid I can’t tell you quite yet who plays him. Anyway, is Parker a nice guy or is he sleazy? I guess that’s going to be up to us to figure
out, because as he’s first introduced, he seems nice enough. Val/Verna just comes in to get some laundry
taken care of and that’s where she meets him and they have a little interaction
but nothing too major and that’s it for this week. Don’t worry, this character will wind up
having a lot more to do in the coming weeks as we continue to follow Val/Verna
throughout her adventures in Shula.
We also get a surprise
reappearance that I wasn’t expecting this week, and that would be from one
Clayton Landey as James Westmont, Abby’s faithful little lackey from pretty
much all of seasons four and five. This
was an interesting surprise, as I thought we had seen the last of Westmont when
we finished up season five, but here he is now, although IMDb (which I just
finished saying is wildly inaccurate, so please take this information with a
grain of salt) does say that this will mark his final appearance. We get a good little scene between him and
Abs in which Abs finally is able to spill her big secret to somebody, and I
appreciate that it’s this guy. Lazy
writers could have just devised to have Abs spill the secret to anybody they
felt like, but the KL writers are not
lazy writers, they are a higher class of writers than any other writers in the
entire universe, so they do this in the classy way by bringing back a character
who, logically, we can believe that Abs would actually confide in. Even so, Westmont doesn’t want to hear any of
this, and as soon as Abs tells him about dead ‘80s Rapist Beards taking
skydives without parachutes and having Val’s babies stolen, he’s like, “Wo,
hey, I’m not listening to any of this,” and just walks away, nicely ensuring
that he keep his own ass covered in case any future problems should arise.
We get more Gary/Galveston this
week and I continue to relish the charisma that Howard Duff is bringing to this
character. Also, we get some
confirmation that Galveston is probably actually a bad dude, because we see him
having a little private meeting with some other bad dudes and making vague
exchanges about how Gary Ewing is the man he wants to do this project or
something or other. Again, this is the
stuff that went flying right over my head upon first viewing, maybe because I
wasn’t actually putting that much effort into paying attention and my energies
were just focused on other aspects of the show.
But anyway, this is the ep where Galveston essentially asks Gary to be
the man to run Empire Valley for him, bringing up another name that should be
familiar to all long time KL fans. We are definitely in an era of the series in
which we get lots of big, cool company names and it can be difficult to keep
track. We’ve already had Wolfbridge and
Gary Ewing Enterprises and Apolune and Lotus Point and the Tidal Basin murders, and now we’ve got Empire
Valley to throw into the mix. What is Empire Valley, you
ask? Well, I guess it’s basically Paul
Galveston’s version of Lotus Point, a big fat piece of land that he owns
personally and that he wants to develop in some way, expand upon, and he wants
Gary to be the man to help him with it.
The problem is that there are lots of red flags that perhaps Galveston
shouldn’t be trusted, such as that weird vague meeting he has with those other
guys in which he declares that Gary is the man for this job, where the
insinuation we get is that he’s tricking Gary in some way. I’ll be honest, even with My Beloved Grammy
along to help me with this, my brain still has a bit of trouble figuring out
what’s going on. As I often say, I don’t
blame the show for my confusion, but rather my own brain and the bizarre way
that it works and often has trouble following plot developments.
In any case, what’s worth noting
here is the human drama that is created due to this, because when Gary
announces to Karen and Abs that he is planning to sorta back away from Lotus
Point for awhile and focus all his attention over on Empire Valley, they are
both damn mad. I like this scene because
it provides a rare chance to see Karen and Abs on the same side, both arguing
with Gary about why he should keep his energies focused on Lotus Point. However, Gary reminds them that Lotus Point
is basically his to do with whatever he pleases and that, for the time being,
he’d like to work on Empire Valley with Galveston. Both Karen and Abs are suffering from a funny
feeling about Galveston and don’t precisely trust him, although Gary says how
Galveston is very similar to his father and he knows how these guys work. There’s the temptation to say that Gary is
being naïve here (and indeed My Beloved Grammy is utterly convinced that he’s
going to lose his entire fortune because of this and then return to the bottle
and basically ruin his life), but I understand him. Yes, Galveston definitely has a certain charm
about him, and yes, I definitely see a lot of Jock Ewing in him, so I could
understand why hanging around a man like this on a sexy ranch would be right up
Gary’s alley and why he would probably feel some inherent trust for the guy.
I feel like Ben is getting the
short end of the stick when it comes to stories at this exact juncture in the
series, and that’s sorta disheartening after coming to a new appreciation of
his character throughout season five, but we do get a quick upsetting scene
this week between him and The Desperate Horny Chick. Okay, so I finally learned that The Desperate Horny Chick's name is P.K. Kelly and she’s actually played by someone I should
have recognized immediately but failed to, an actress named Wendel Meldrum (pictured below). Terrible name, I agree, but this lady is
actually kinda iconic because she played The Low Talker in the classic Seinfeld episode, The Puffy Shirt and even reprised that character for the
not-so-classic Seinfeld episode, The Finale. In addition, she played Ms. White, the
teacher Kevin Arnold had a mondo crush on, in seven episodes of The Wonder Years. Again I reiterate that IMDb is hopelessly
screwed up when it comes to KL eps
because they only have her credited for three eps when I know for a fact that
she’s in a ton more than that, so really I think IMDb should hire me to work as
the guy correcting and face-checking all 344 eps of KL wouldn’t you agree?
Anyway, even though I now know
her name and the actress who plays her, I’d rather continue to refer to her as The Desperate Horny Chick, because let’s be honest, that’s really all she is,
and this week she sinks to new and frightening lows by sneaking into Ben’s Plant House to rouse/harass him in the middle
of the night. Seriously, Ben is asleep as we begin this scene, and then
this crazy Desperate Horny Chick comes walking in to wake him and beg him to
give her a chance at a relationship.
Ugh, and it only gets worse when, instead of telling her that she’s crazy
and should probably go home, Ben kisses her. This does not reflect badly on Ben, however,
as he is a man very confused at this point in his life. This reflects badly on The Desperate Horny Chick, who is just using the fact that Ben is vulnerable to get closer to
him. I want this character shipped away
as soon as possible, and My Beloved Grammy agrees with me. Whenever she’s onscreen, you can just smell
her pathetic desperation dripping off of her and it’s not even fun to watch. The sixth season is obviously utterly brilliant
and a sheer work of artistic genius from start to finish, but this lame
character is the closest this season comes to having a flaw.
Let’s see, who else is on the
agenda for stories this week. Well, we
have the continuing investigation into the Tidal Basin murders, which I think
I’m getting a better grasp on as we work our way through the season. Basically, Mack and Jessick are continuing
their investigation into all these women who were killed and it somehow links
back to Galveston Industries because one of them was a secretary for the
company or something. The real important
thing worth noting about this story this week is Mack’s completely unnecessary
and hilarious little workout that he does on the floor of his office. This scene has burned into my brain since the
first time I watched it as one of the most bizarrely brilliant in the entire
series run, but perhaps I am the only person in the world to feel this
way. See, as we start the scene, Jessick
is sitting behind the desk of Mack’s office and they are chatting about these
murders, and then the camera sorta pulls back to reveal Mack sitting on the
floor, working out on one of those ‘80s rowing machines that you’d usually see
at the gym. What is this machine doing
in the office? Why is Mack working out
on it while fully dressed in a suit and tie?
Was this in the script or was it some sort of cool, sexy Dobsonator
improvisation? I love The Dobsonator and all you readers should know that and you
should know that I love the character of Mack and everything he represents, but
he does occasionally become a little bit campy and this is definitely a good
example of that, and I do have to wonder if The Dobsonator showed up to the set
asking to work on this rowboat machine as some way of looking sexy or
something; anyone have any ideas? I
suppose it makes some sense that Mack would want to stay in shape and he works
a fairly sedate job sitting at a desk all day, which is boring, so I guess I’d
want a sexy ‘80s rowboat machine too, but still, it’s a fairly strange (meaning
amazing) choice for something to do during this scene.
Meanwhile, the jig is finally
starting to be up for Karen and her whole dying saga. See, she’s taking a nice joyride with Sexy Michael when she goes numb, not just in the hand but in the
entire arm this time, and nearly crashes the car and kills some kid on a
bicycle. Basically, it’s bad, but
thankfully nobody is hurt and most thankfully Michael’s face is not injured in
any way. After this exciting incident,
we cut to commercial, but when we get back we see the fallout of this little
near-car crash. Karen is getting dinner
prepared and trying to act like what happened was no big deal, that she just
got distracted driving the car or whatever, but Michael is adamant that, had he
not grabbed the wheel away from Karen, they would both have crashed. We see that Mack is at the end of his
patience by this point and he sends the boys off to go do something in the
kitchen and then announces to Karen, “We’re going to the doctor’s
tomorrow.” I like to see Mack get cool
and authoritative in this way, reminding us that he is a very patient man and
he has put up with a lot and I do mean a
lot in the two years or so he’s been married to Karen, but he knows when
it’s time to put his foot down about something, and this is it.
Karen manages to avoid the
meeting with the doctor by busying herself with something or other at Lotus
Point, which means Mack has a little one-on-one time with Dr. Garner, that
fabulous black doctor that I love so much played by Jason Bernard, rest in
peace. What a great scene this is,
reminding me of that magical ability that KL
has to make every character, even the most minor ones, extremely
interesting to watch onscreen. See, Mack
tries to get Dr. Garner to tell him the truth about what’s going on with Karen,
but Garner refuses, and I appreciate that.
I could see any other show (7th Heaven, perhaps, since doctor/patient confidentiality didn’t appear to exist
in that show’s universe) just having Garner sorta sigh and say, “Aw, fuck it,
your wife is dying,” but instead Garner reminds Mack that he has a
doctor/patient confidentiality with Karen and can’t just go around telling Mack
what the deal is and he advises Mack to talk to Karen himself.
When Karen returns home, she
finds Mack on the couch, holding some magazine and glaring. She tries to shrug off her failure to show up
at the doctor’s office by saying something like, “Oh, I hope you got my message
about why I couldn’t make it,” but Mack has finally had enough, and I think we
the audience also have. This is not a
criticism since I think KL almost
always has brilliant pacing with its stories and knows when its time to finish
something up; this is more an observation about the fact that we are now twelve
eps deep into the season and Karen has been keeping this secret for pretty much
all twelve eps. I’d say it’s definitely
time for Mack to find out the truth, and so the writers let it happen. Mack gives a nice speech about how he and
Karen don’t have a marriage because, “You’re lying to me and you caused an
accident that could have killed a kid.”
This is finally enough for Karen to tell Mack the truth, the fact that
she is dying thanks to that little bullet in her spine.
I love it when a KL ep is rolling along and I’m staring at the screen and drooling
and wouldn’t notice if a dump truck came crashing into the living room and I’m
just so damn invested in what’s going on and then suddenly the ep is over and
I’m like, “Omigod, it’s over!” That to
me symbolizes that the show has done its job by sucking me into its world and
making me completely unaware of the time passing around me, and this ep does
that. See, our last scene is a super
powerful one between Karen and Mack taking place in their bedroom in which
Karen says how she didn’t tell Mack because she didn’t want him to worry,
didn’t want him to feel obligated to come be with her as she died, didn’t want
to distract from his work, all that stuff.
Then the topic of the surgery comes up and Karen says how she didn’t
have the surgery when she first found out and Mack says, “When the choices are
slim or none, you go with slim, always.”
Just written out as a line of dialogue that way, it’s hard to convey the
amazing way that The Dobsonator delivers the line, but it’s slow yet firm and
with every ounce of heart and feeling really thrown into it, fully conveying
the emotions of the scene in a fabulous way, and then he declares, “I won’t let
you die,” and we get our “Executive Producers” credit played over that
beautiful image of Karen and Mack looking into each other’s eyes and we just
have to wait for our next episode to see how all of this is going to turn out.
Holding each and every episode
under a microscope the way I’ve been doing for 112 episodes now, I would say
that this episode isn’t quite as good
as our prior one, Distant Locations,
but that’s because that one was really especially memorable and had many scenes
that are just etched into my mind forever.
Maybe this one was a smidge more regular than that ep, but it was
obviously still great and still had amazing acting and story plotting from all
involved. Why split hairs when you’re
getting something this unbelievably stellar each and every week? Aside from The Desperate Horny Chick who I
want to see take a walk off of that big cliff from the start of the opening
credits, this episode is nicely moving the saga alone with lots of good drama,
most especially for Val but also for Karen and Mack and all that stuff. Overall, very solid.
But wait, there's more! I almost forgot to mention that this is our very last episode of 1984, a most important year not just because of George Orwell but also because it was just a great year. As usual by this point, I just don't really feel the energy to write too much about what happened this year because, well, my fingers hurt and I want to take a break from writing and watch some TV. For movies, some of the most important things to happen this year, in my opinion, would be the release of James Cameron's absolutely brilliant The Terminator, which is probably my second favorite movie of all time (after my #1 favorite movie, which also happens to be from J.C., Titanic). Also, David Lynch (one of my other favorite directors) released Dune. Maligned upon its original release, I feel this movie is now finally appreciated the way it should be. It's a bizarre and crazy work of mad art with plenty of unforgettable visuals and it's one of my faves from Lynch's canon. Also, Brian De Palma released Body Double, a movie I seem to bring up constantly on this blog, mostly because I love it and also because tons of people from KL pop up in it. Steven Spielberg released Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which has always been my favorite of that series. Finally, the top ten shows of the 1983-1984 season were (going from #10 to #1), Cagney & Lacey, Hotel, Kate and Allie, Falcon Crest, Magnum P.I., Simon & Simon, The A-Team, Dynasty, 60 Minutes, and Dallas.
Next up, we finally see Karen
start to accept that she needs to do something about her serious medical
condition with our first episode of 1985, Weighing of Evils.
I never realized that Desperate Horny Chick was the low talker! That is awesome! It would be really funny if she poured her heart out to Ben...and he never heard it! :)
ReplyDeleteI really like Howard Duff, but I must admit I've started my Ruth Sumner countdown clock. Cuz she's prime on repeat.
ReplyDeleteJoan Van Ark is doing incredible work in this season. I understand that the Emmy's poo-pooed the nighttime soaps, but of all the women who were up for Best Actress in a Drama for the 84/85 season, Van Ark blows them all away. Not even nominated...
ReplyDeleteI thought the scene with Mack on the rowing machine was hilarious - it sorta reminded me of the later years of KL where subtle comedy crept into the series - and Dobson was often the one delivering funny moments. I think you forgot to mention that we've seen his faithful secretary Peggy by now in the series. I don't think she is actually in this episode (only mentioned), but we have seen her in a previous episode.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Desperate Horny Chick... I think it was inferred in the scene that she had not just "popped over" unannounced. I think she had already been over at Ben's beach pad for "carnal activities" as she put it. Ben must have dozed off and then when he awoke alone in bed and heard rustling in the room, instinct led him to hope it might be Val. I think as much as Ben has sorta rejected Desperate Horny Chick over and over, we are to believe at this point that they have slept together.
One more note... Loved Laura and Greg's chemistry in the scene where she is preparing food in her kitchen. They are just too cool together.