Episode Title: Pictures at a Wedding
Season 07, Episode 08
Episode 138 of 344
Written by Michael Filerman and David Paulsen
Directed by Nicholas Sgarro
Original Airdate: Thursday, November 14th,
1985
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Gary is sure the twins are his. Joshua tries to break into Cathy's apartment,
and then trashes Val's house. Val kicks him out and Lilimae is upset. At the
station, Joshua finds out that Ben gave his show to Cathy, and he and Ben
fight. Cathy tells Ben that Joshua is upset because Lilimae is dying. Ben talks
with her doctor, who says Lilimae only has bursitis. Cathy is upset that Joshua
would lie to her like that. Greg thinks Peter is snooping too much, but Peter
says Greg is sloppy with information. Equipment convoys for the underground
communication center are coming to Empire Valley on Monday, so Abby asks Gary
to go away with her to get him out of town. Val and Ben ask the MacKenzies to
stand up for them at their wedding, and to go along with them that Ben is the
twin's father. On the day of the wedding, Val and Lilimae make up. Gary decides
to drop Olivia off before going out of town and stops to talk to Val. Ben sees
this and isn't happy.
Welcome to Pictures at a Wedding, our first episode all about a wedding since,
well, For Better, For Worse near the
end of season six. I guess it hasn’t
been that long since we had a wedding episode, but what’s exciting about this
ep is not necessarily that it’s about a wedding, but the people who are finally
getting married, Ben and Val. I’ve gone
on and on about my love affair with the slow burn storytelling of KL, and right here in the relationship
between Ben and Val, we have a perfect example of that quality. Ben was introduced right in the first episode
of season five, which was The People vs Gary Ewing, which aired September 29th, 1983, and which was
episode 076 of the series. Now here we
are with Pictures at a Wedding, which
is airing November 14th, 1985, and which is episode 138 of the
series. So we have a gap of over two
years and 62 eps between Ben being introduced as Val’s new romantic interest
and the two of them finally tying the knot now.
On another show, let’s say Dallas,
perhaps, I feel like Ben would be introduced and then, five episodes later, he
would be marrying Val. On KL, things unfold at a more realistic
and grounded pace, and it’s one of the many qualities I respect so much about
the series. Of course, I’m getting ahead
of myself by declaring that they tie the knot in this ep; maybe they do and
maybe they don’t, but the question of will they or won’t they is kinda the
central thrust of this ep. There’s a lot
to discuss here and this is episode is also coming to us courtesy of two
important people in the KL universe, Michael Filerman and David Paulsen.
I love Shack deeply and adore
his acting and the way he brings Gary Ewing to life. I feel like sometimes I forget to mention
that because it’s just such a given; he’s such a vital part of the show that I
just tend to accept his amazingness and forget to acknowledge him as much as I
really should. With Pictures at a Wedding, I feel we are seeing some of his best acting
as he wrestles with what decision to make, and we have many fabulous scenes
from him, one after the other. Probably
my favorite scene from him this ep takes place at Lotus Point between him and
Karen. He comes to visit her at her
office, they’re making polite chit chat for a couple of seconds, and then
things get real when he shuts the door to her office and looks her right in the
face and says, “Let me ask you something; are those babies mine?” We then cut right to a commercial, which is a
brilliant decision and the perfect place to insert an ad for Tide before we get
to return to the main drama a moment later.
Karen manages to hold her own very well when she tells Gary that they
are not his babies, that they are Ben’s babies, and then she heavily
discourages him from bringing the subject up with Val or interfering with the
wedding in any way.
I’ve also gone on and on about
how I feel we have crossed the threshold where the show is no longer new and
the characters are now firmly established and completely fully inhabited by the
actors playing them. I bring that up yet
again only because I feel this scene is a perfect example of that. Here we are watching Michele and Shack
sharing a very excellent scene together, and these are both characters we have
followed all the way from day one, since the very first episode of the
series. I think that longevity is one of
the reasons why a scene like this comes off as so good, because both actors
know their characters inside and out as if they are, in fact, real people.
Despite what Karen says, Gary is
still having a hard time, and you can hardly blame him. We get another callback to Bobby’s death
(and, now that I’ve officially finished my just-for-fun rewatch of the dream
season of Dallas, I can officially
declare with 100% certainty that Bobby’s death is handled far better on KL than it is over on the parent series
during the exact same season) when we see Gary sitting and gazing at a black
and white framed photo of him and Bobby as kids, and wouldn’t you know it, the
two boys standing side by side together look pretty much exactly like Val’s new
twins. God, what a fabulous way to stay
linked to the parent series but do it in a super organic and interesting way
that propels the plotlines on the spinoff further, because now this photo that
Gary found is serving to move the storyline over here on KL. This is quality writing,
folks.
I’m gonna move away from Gary
for a moment to focus on some other characters.
In case I didn’t mention it, this wedding is going to take place at
Lotus Point, which has really turned into a lavish tourist destination by now. We now see that it comes with a pool and
tennis courts and, I’m fairly certain, a fully functioning gym (we all know how
into pumping iron Gary is), and a restaurant; it’s basically got everything you
could ever want. Also, last ep Karen
started trying to persuade Laura to come work with her at Lotus Point and, at
first, Laura didn’t want to, citing some of her disastrous past jobs with
friends or family that have wreaked havoc on her life. She reminds us of the tragedy of Richard’s
restaurant, of what happened when she worked for Abs during season five, and
what happened when she got involved with Sumner and all his political
stuff. Again, this is solid writing that
shows the writers are remembering all the past history of these characters and
are making sure to remind us of what went down in seasons past, yet being done
in such an organic and subtle way that you hardly notice it’s happening. Ooooh, and the same could be said for a
fabulous Sid callback that we get via Laura to Karen. See, when Karen is trying to sell her on the
idea of working with her, she starts to talk in these big, over-the-top ways
about how Lotus Point could make the world a better place, and then Laura says
how Karen sounds like Sid when she talks that way. God, yes, everything about this scene is a
yes.
We also get a line a little
later in the ep that I have to wonder if it’s meant to be somewhat meta. Karen and Laura are discussing something or
other and how much this something or other will cost and then Karen just
casually says how it should cost about eleven million dollars, to which Laura
says, “I can remember a time when eleven million dollars meant a lot to
you.” I’m convinced this line is
supposed to sorta be like Eric’s immortal, “Living in this cul-de-sac is like
being in a soap opera,” line from a few eps back, as if the writers are deliberately
acknowledging that they know these characters are now more glamorous and rich
than they were back in the simpler, more middle class days of seasons one
through three.
Meanwhile, Joshua is unraveling
so rapidly that it makes the Joshua of the closing hours of season six seem
like a big, snuggly teddy bear. By this
point, he is legit frightening to watch and he only gets more frightening in
this ep. You should all vividly recall
him attacking Cathy and flinging her into a pile of garbage last ep, which
means that Cathy is justifiably upset with him now. When we first catch up with the two
characters, Cathy is in the little apartment that she bought a few eps back,
alone and enjoying some relative peace, when Joshua knocks on the door and starts
pleading with her to let him in. Fuck,
what a suspenseful scene, as Cathy puts her head up against the door, which is
locked with one of those cool chain things that I wish I had. I also love how perfectly acted this scene is
by both actors; I believe in Cathy’s fright and I also think Baldwin is
perfectly portraying a mentally unhinged and abusive person, most specifically
in his ability to go from calm and collected to totally raving within seconds,
which he demonstrates nicely in this scene.
See, at first his voice is all calm and gentle and he’s telling her how
sorry he is for throwing her into a pile of garbage, saying she should just
open the door, which she eventually does, although she’s smart enough to leave
the chain on so he can't burst in. It’s
good thinking, too, because after she tells him their marriage is over, he
freaks out and starts screaming at her and trying to break the door down,
turning really scary really fast, a classic psychotic abusive in action. Fortunately, Cathy manages to get the door
shut and locked without him getting in, but it’s still a tremendously unnerving
scene.
A little later, Joshua returns
to Val’s house all pissed off because he went in for an interview with someone
only to find that the people were no longer interested in him. As he talks, he gets more and more super
scary, throwing things around, breaking a lamp, basically trashing the entire
living room while Lilimae and Val scream at him to calm down. All three actors are at the absolute peak of
their talents in this scene, and my favorite thing about the whole scene is
probably the way Val asserts control and orders Joshua out of the house right
away. I’m a big fan of assertive Val; I
love whenever she gets real tough and direct, and this is a good example. Then she rushes upstairs to start packing up
a suitcase for Joshua, declaring to Lilimae that Joshua is never setting foot
in the house again, ever. Obviously I am
completely and 100% supportive of Val in this situation. Joshua is a raving lunatic, he’s now become
abusive, violent, and dangerous and there are two new babies living in the
house now, two babies who shouldn’t be around a psychotic. At the same time, I understand Lilimae and my
heart goes out to her. I’m gonna go
ahead and boldly declare that Julie Harris and only Julie Harris could
manage to convey all the emotions going through Lilimae in such a fabulous,
realistic, and yet subtle way. During
this scene, she manages to be frightened of Joshua but also deeply hurt by what
Val is saying. This goes back to what I
said last ep, about how Lilimae simply doesn’t know what to do with Joshua,
that she doesn’t want to alienate the son she has only just recently gotten
close to, and that’s why she’s choosing to bury her head in the sand at this
point. She is not stupid and she logically knows that Joshua is a menace, but her
heart is still going out to him because of how she abandoned him so many years
ago. So many complex emotions going on,
all confined within one fantastic scene with some of the best acting we’ve seen
on the series ever.
Later in the ep, we are catching
up with Ben and Cathy at Pacific Cable Whatever as they have a nice long chat
about what a psycho Joshua is. The only
problem is that Joshua is lurking in the vicinity, hiding out under, like, the
bleachers or whatever, listening to them talk, watching as his stupid little
religious show gets morphed into something much sexier, much more rocking, and
much better. Indeed, in case I’ve
forgotten to mention it before, Ben is effectively morphing the religious show
into something completely different, something that focuses exclusively on the
talents of Cathy and her band, something that people might actually want to
watch. Joshua is upset by these
developments, so he takes it upon himself to interrupt what is shaping up to be
a great Cathy musical number and turn into The Phantom of Pacific Cable
Whatever, cutting the electricity and ruining the show and generally being a
menace. He is thrown out by security or
whatever, but I do question Ben’s decision to not call the police and report this blatant vandalism, perhaps get
a restraining order put on Joshua. In
fact, that’s probably my only criticism right now of this most sizzling
storyine which, for the record, is my absolute favorite story going on right
now and one of my favorites of the entire series run. The criticism is that I find it a smidge
unrealistic that nobody, in all this drama and chaos, decides to call the
police and report Joshua’s psychotic behavior as of late. Maybe this is a storytelling contrivance to
keep the drama moving, but I’m not too upset about it because the drama at hand
is just so very good.
There’s another vital plot
development this week relating to the whole story of Lilimae “dying.” If you’ll recall, this is the lie that Joshua
thought up to explain to Cathy why he needs to keep living with Lilimae, but
now that lie is coming back to bite him on the ass. See, Cathy tells Ben how Lilimae is dying,
trying to use this as a reason for why Joshua is acting so nutty. I’m not sure that Ben even buys this in the
first place, but it’s hard to tell, and in any case, he winds up visiting
Lilimae’s doctor in the interest of getting a blood test before the wedding (I
don’t know if you still need to do this nowadays and, since I never plan to get
married, I’ll probably never find out) and he mentions how he found out that
Lilimae is dying. The doctor is fairly
shocked to hear Ben say this and immediately tells him that Lilimae is not
dying, that she only has bursitis (whatever the hell that is). At first I wondered if this doctor is in any
way violating the whole Hippocratic oath confidentiality thing, but I’m pretty
sure he’s not. It’s violating the
confidentiality if you’re like, “Hey everyone, guess who’s dying!”, but I think
it’s okay to assure a person that another person is not dying when the one
person seems to believe that they are.
In any case, this is real important because now Ben knows that Joshua’s
been lying and he’s able to report it back to Cathy, further emphasizing what a
crazy monster she is now married to.
The day of the ceremony arrives,
and we are immediately given the fantastic gift of one amazing scene after
another, just flying at us like these magical, wonderful bullets of love out of
some magic and amazing gun. The first
scene to spring to mind is a wonderfully touching,
actually-brought-tears-to-my-eyes scene between Lilimae and Val in which they
make up. Val’s all dressed up in her
wedding outfit and Lilimae is looking real pretty with a nice outfit and a nice
hairdo, and they talk about the whole something old, something new, something
borrowed Bob Loblaw stuff. Then Lilimae
starts crying and she tells Val how she loves her and always will and they
embrace and it’s just glorious. This is
a situation where nothing I write can possibly exemplify the magic of this
scene, you really just need to watch it (after watching the 137 eps that come
before it, of course, although you have my full permission to skip Silver Shadows). This is just two actresses inhabiting their
characters and really bringing them to life, acting their asses off together,
and it’s a fabulous thing to witness. In
my notes I simply jotted down what I so often think to myself while watching
the series, “These characters are soooooooo interesting.”
Let’s get back to Gary and his
moral dilemma, since that jets us right along to our final scene of the
ep. Okay, so there’s something confusing
going on over at Empire Valley, something I’m not bothering to pay any
attention to or write about at this point, but basically because of this top
secret thing that’s going on over there, Greg wants Abs to get Gary out of town
for awhile, so she convinces him that they need to run off together for some
sort of wild weekend of nonstop shagging in a super fancy hotel. The day of the wedding comes and it’s also
the day that Gary and Abs are supposed to leave town, but first Gary has to
give Olivia a ride to the wedding. He
takes her there and then he decides to also take a stroll through Lotus Point
and see all the proceedings and shenanigans, maybe, just maybe, talk to Val and
ask her for the truth about the babies. When Mack sees Gary at Lotus
Point, he comes up to him and tells him how he doesn’t want to screw this up,
all that stuff, but Gary is now set in his decision to speak with Val, so he
walks up to her, all while Ben glares at them from off in the distance, and he
asks Val if there’s somewhere they could go to talk and then BOOM, the ep is
over, a most fabulous ending to a most fabulous episode.
Fuck, this episode was
good. With the talent involved in
writing the script (and in this case I really think that Michael Filerman, pictured below, is something of an unsung hero
behind the scenes of KL for all
fourteen seasons and I think he probably deserves most of the credit for this
ep being so great), one shouldn’t be surprised at how brilliantly this turns
out. Scene by scene, beat by beat,
this episode was killer, without a second of dull footage, with a million
fantastic and fascinating character moments, with the drama just powering
along, totally riveting, yet at the same time a fabulous feeling of reflection
from all the people involved, of the cast and crew taking this opportunity to
kinda look back at their previous work and how far they have come in the last
six years.
As I seem to be saying for every
ep at this point, the most amazing thing about all this is that, as great as
this episode was, the next episode is even better. Our next ep shows the triumphant return of my
favorite KL director, Larry Elikann,
giving us his penultimate episode of the series with Until Parted by Death.
This episode was great. We know that the Cathy/Joshua storyline is coming to a head, and the end of the episode sets up one of the best Gary/Val moments of the series.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to see Laura back working at Lotus Point. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of her as Season 7 progresses. Given Laura's lack of screen time and her almost complete disconnect with the other characters on the canvas, I understand why the character was the first to go when the show had to make budget cuts. It certainly wasn't McCashin's fault -- the writers failed the actress and the character by keeping her on the sidelines throughout most of her run on the show.
ReplyDeleteThe writers also missed the ball in regards to Joshua’s character. At this point, they’ve created a monster and have no where to go but down (pun intended). But given his wild and violent mood swings it would have been interesting if they had explored a multiple-personality/bi-polar storyline for him. Bring back his father, show how he tortured Joshua as a child, explore how that may make a child develop different defensive/offensive personalities. Joshua’s tantrum at the studio where he pulled out the wires emanated from a child’s rage. His destroying Val’s house is the act of petulant brat. Instead of kicking Josh of the show, it might have been interesting to watch how a young man gets help, heals his emotional problems, and later thrives.
But that’s me talking in 2018 – it’s sometimes difficult to remember that this show is 33 years(!) old and the era was very different. Our culture -- and television programs -- have grown up a lot.
This is, so far, the best ep of the season. Starting to feel everything cooking. Love to see more of Laura, and I agree there were many missed opportunities with her character.
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