Episode Title: Irrevocably Yours
Season 07, Episode 21
Episode 151 of 344
Written by Sara Ann Friedman
Directed by Robert Becker
Original Airdate: Thursday,
February 20th, 1986
The Plot (Courtesy of
TV.Com): Val
and Ben think Gary's gift is out of line, but he's given it to them in a trust,
so they can't do anything about it. Ben's furious, and tells Gary that there's
a lot more to being a father than genes, and he is the twins' father. Greg
and Abby are furious when they find out Gary gave away Empire Valley. Mack
finds out that Jill hounded the Governor for months to work with him, but she
says it was just a career move. A woman comes up to Mack and Jill, and calls
her Dottie Simpkins, and says they went to Franklin High together. Jill says
she must be mistaken. Mack finds out that Franklin High is in Wesphall. Michael
can tell Olivia is stoned, but she denies it. She goes out to dinner with Abby
and smokes pot in the bathroom. Michael drops Olivia off at school, and is then
pulled over by the police. They find a joint in his car.
Welcome back, my dear
readers. As I get started with
discussing the next five eps, spanning Irrevocably
Yours through The Legacy, I’d
like to take a few moments to provide some context for my viewing of these eps,
as I sometimes do. See, I understand
how, to my readers, it might just seem like I’m a magical machine consistently
producing essays on the brilliance of KL every Thursday, but there are some behind-the-scenes shenanigans
that the reader may not be privy to. The
best example is the fact that I’ve always strived to maintain a generous back
catalogue of ep essays so that I never reach a point where I’m simply out of
eps to discuss, where I haven’t gotten together with My Beloved Grammy in some
time and so my blog does dark for awhile.
That’s why I didn’t actually start putting up essays until My Beloved
Grammy and I were just getting started with season four, ensuring that I had
lots of work already written and needing only to be plugged in. As an example, I’m sitting here now getting
ready to write about Irrevocably Yours
from season seven (duh), but as of this exact moment in time, the blog is up to
late season five, with the next ep ready to be published being Second Chances.
Also, as
I’ve stated many times before, the general outline for how we handle watching
eps is that I go over to My Beloved Grammy’s house, we watch five eps, and then
I return home and start writing about them.
In the case of this particular span of five eps, however, I had some
personal problems on the night of our viewing and feel they drastically
effected my ability to watch and appreciate the eps, plus my notes were
unusually sparse. In addition to that,
we finished the eps, I went home, and then I was so damn lazy and waited so
damn long to start writing about these eps that I pretty much forgot all the
details and all the things I might usually write about. Therefore, I decided to try something a
little different; I decided to rewatch these five eps all by myself and then
write about them directly afterwards, refreshing my view on them and giving me
a chance to better explore them. So,
this morning I acted like a completely pretentious douche by going to a
Starbucks with my laptop and hijacking one of those big pretentious leather
chairs and ordering a big pretentious overpriced coffee drink (actually, I just
ordered a regular coffee, but I still felt pretentious) and then I plugged in
my headphones, attempting to drown out the noise of spoiled entitled white
people complaining that their latte wasn’t properly steamed or whatever, and
watched two glorious KL eps in a row,
Irrevocably Yours and High School Confidential. Now I plan to write about these two eps, and
then later I shall return to Starbucks and repeat my pretentious behavior from
this morning by watching the next three eps, as well, and then I shall write
about them, and then I’ll be all ready for another disk of eps. With all that explaining out of the way,
let’s now discuss Irrevocably Yours.
In the
concluding moments of A Very Special Gift,
Gary gave the twins, well, a very special gift, basically leaving them half of
Empire Valley in some sort of a trust, and it’s this decision that continues to
brew such controversy as we begin this ep.
See, after our thirty second preview and glorious scrolling squares, we
begin the ep in the kitchen of the, um, Val household (the Ewing
household? The Clements household? The Gibson household?) with Ben and Val
giving the twins their morning feeding.
Again, it’s small details that I appreciate on KL, and something I’ve been consistently appreciating this whole
season is the fact that the twins are ever present. How many TV shows have used a pregnancy and
babies to create some big drama and then, once the babies are alive and well,
proceeded to shuffle them offscreen for the rest of the series? Shows do that all the time, but ever since
Val got the twins back in Here in my Arms,
they have always been around and we’ve always gotten the sense that Val’s house
is now a house of babies. Having this ep
start with both Ben and Val in the kitchen, feeding the twins, just adds a nice
touch of realism that other shows would ignore.
After all, it would be very easy to just throw in a line like, “Gee,
we’d better wake the babies up soon,” or “Gee, wasn’t it nice of Cathy to take
the babies out for a walk this morning?” and then have Ben and Val talk alone,
but KL doesn’t do that.
I also
appreciate the fact that the babies are present because Ben and Val’s
conversation/confrontation revolves around the babies. All season (as well as the season before this
one, and of course the season before that
one), Ben has been dealing with some jealousy issues in regards to
Gary. This gift only reinforces that, no
matter how much Ben hates it, Gary is always going to be a part of his life
because he’s always going to be a part of Val’s life. At this point, I see Ben being a little more
open in his hostility towards Gary. For
the majority of his time on the show, I’d say Ben’s resentment has been sorta
simmering beneath the surface, an elephant in the room that everybody was well
aware of. Now, however, he’s speaking
directly to Val about how Gary’s gift is inappropriate, questioning what his
motivations could have been, saying how he needs to stay out of their
lives. To her credit, Val agrees, saying that leaving half of Empire Valley to the twins is way out of line.
This leads
us to a fabulous Gary/Val confrontation taking place at some race track. You’ll all recall how Gary has decided to get
into racing as a sport, channeling a little bit of the grown up Bobby Brady
from The Bradys, although that
“drama” series is still a few years into the future. In this scene, Val arrives with the sole
purpose of giving the gift back to Gary, but he refuses to back down, saying
how Val never even told him that the twins were his, or, to use his exact quote,
“You never even told me you were having my babies.” Hmmm, now this is worth discussing, wouldn’t
you say? I find Gary to be an endlessly
complex and fascinating character, much like all of my loved and cherished KL characters, but this is the first
time I’ve really thought about the alternative possibilities that could have
occurred if Val had chosen to go about her pregnancy differently. For instance, what exactly would have
happened if Val had told Gary right away, as soon as she found out she was pregnant
back in season five, that she believed the babies to be his? Gary had just
married Abs a couple of eps beforehand, and so obviously that provides some
motivation for Val to keep mum, but what if she hadn’t? Would Gary have ditched Abs to go back to Val
and raise the babies with her? Would
they have stayed divorced, but worked out some sort of a custody
arrangement? Or would he have agreed to
leave her alone even knowing the truth?
It’s hard to say, but I guess I’d predict that he would stick with Abs,
mostly because of how recent their wedding was and how, at that point in the
saga, Gary was still really wanting to be a good husband and make it work with
Abs.
In any
case, it’s the fact that Gary didn’t know that is really getting to him at this
point. I try to climb inside of his brain
and understand his feelings and his motivations, and what I see is a man who
feels he was shut out, that he wasn’t even given the opportunity to try and be
a father to these kids because nobody told him that he was, in fact, their
father. I think Gary is feeling some
serious guilt about not being around the twins very much but I think he’s also
feeling some anger for the fact that he was shut out and not given the full
truth in the first place and this anger is fueling his decisions at this point. Even though it’s obvious how the gift of half
of Empire Valley could be taken offensively by someone like Ben, taken as an
insult by another man who is handling over millions and millions of dollars to
the twins and effectively undermining Ben’s ability to be a responsible parent,
I can also see Gary’s perspective. He
feels impotent, unable to express love for these kids he knows are his, and so
when he gives a big fat gift like that, he’s not thinking of it like, “Look at
how much money and power I have!” He’s
thinking of it as something he can do to make the lives of the twins better in
the future, something he can do to help.
One last
thing worth noting on this Gary/Val confrontation at the race track: Throughout
the entire conversation, J.B. looms in the background, quietly watching and
listening. Hmmm, what to make of
this? The scene ends before she can come
out and say hello to Gary, but what’s the significance of her seeing this
little altercation? I’d say it’s an apt
demonstration of the fact that, if she’s gonna wanna be part of Gary’s life,
she’ll have to accept that Val will always be there, as well. I don’t know if this is exactly news to J.B.,
as I imagine she figured this out pretty right and quick upon arriving on the
series, but maybe this is just a firm reminder of that fact, a demonstration of
how deeply entwined the two soulmates really are in each other’s lives. All that said, I don’t know that anything
directly comes out of this; rather, we just see that J.B. witnesses their
argument and that’s the end of it.
Gary is
pissing off a lot of people this week, however, because near the end of the ep,
on that same old racetrack where he likes to spend the majority of his time
lately, Gary has a fight with Ben. This
fight is even more intense than the one he had with Val earlier, since that was
clearly a case of two soulmates having a disagreement, whereas here it’s two
men who don’t particularly like each other finally having a one-on-one
confrontation. As I’ve said pretty much
since day one, the beauty and the joy of KL
lies in the wonderful three-dimensional complexities of the characters, so
usually when I see a fight like this one, I find it impossible to pick a side
and I also just sorta don’t want to, because I love both characters and I
understand them. However, in this case,
if I absolutely inherently must pick
a side, I’m going with Ben.
See, I understand Gary’s emotions, as I just
discussed, but Ben’s feelings and needs are also valid, so let’s look at it
from his perspective. He’s already
gotten kind of a raw deal ever since he first met Val, since it was pretty
obvious right off the bat that she would always carry a torch for Gary, no
matter how much time passed or how much her life changed. The whole time he’s been with the series, Ben
has been having to compete with Gary for Val’s love, even at the same time that
the dynamic duo is split up and leading separate lives and even marrying other
people. It only got worse after Val
became pregnant, because now Ben is competing with Gary not only over who Val’s
heart belongs to, but also who is the actual biological father of these
babies. That brings us up to date, where
now, even after Ben and Val have been married and agreed to raise the children
together as their mother and their father, Gary still won’t go away; he’s still
showing up with big expensive gifts and sorta pissing on Ben’s efforts to
create a family with Val. If I was Ben,
I can tell you exactly the way I would view Gary, and that’s basically what Ben
does for us in this scene. He points out
how being a father is about more than genes, that it’s about the
responsibilities and duties of looking after the children, of raising them.
Everything he says is brilliant and also very cutting, things like, “You
don’t drink anymore, but that’s the only thing about you that’s not acting like
a drunk,” “Your idea of masculinity might go down great with a couple of
sixteen year old kids, but it doesn’t cut it with grown ups,” and “Wouldn’t it
be more accurate to say you never considered how this would hurt Val?” Oh yeah, and the big piece de resistance
comes with, “You’re trying to soothe your ego by calling my kids
bastards.” In my newfound role as
President of the Ben Gibson Fan Club, I greatly relish all of this stuff and
would say that this scene is probably my favorite of the ep. I just love how Gary and Ben get real here,
get direct, speak frankly about the problems that have been brewing for the
last nearly three years. Both actors are
great in their anger and I understand both of them. All in all, a solid little scene.
While we’re on the topic of Ben, let’s also discuss
his impending affair with Cathy, which has been getting cooked up for a really
long time now. Seriously, this is going
on forever and it’s not the way I remembered it at all. In my memories, Ben and Cathy had an affair
right near the end of season seven and it was really quick and it seemed to
come out of nowhere. Watching now, I
realize the exact opposite is true. The
seeds have been being planted for this affair since near the end of season six,
since Ben went up to Joshua and confronted him on the way he treats Cathy and
then punched him. As we’ve moved through
season seven, we have seen a ton of scenes and little dropped lines indicating
that Ben and Cathy are gonna shag, yet here we are in episode 21 and they still
haven’t done it yet. I mention this
because we get a quick little scene between the two of them in this ep that
continues to build sexual tension, at least in my opinion. It takes place at the Ewing/Clements/Gibson
household and involves Ben offering Cathy “a cup of milk,” only for her to
request a “cup of beer” instead, which he promptly brings her. Next, the two characters talk about how Cathy
is considering going off on tour and Ben tells her not to, which I find a tad
vexing. How is a rising singer going off
on tour a bad thing? Isn’t that the way
you build a fan-base and get your audience?
Or is Ben saying it’s better for her to stick to her little cable show
(the one that used to be a religious
program but was quickly tweaked and changed into a pop rock show starring a
scantily clad woman bearing a striking resemblance to another popular singer who was violently killed in 1983) and the
fan base she’s building right there versus taking a gamble and going out on
tour? Or, let’s be real, is Ben just
attracted to Cathy and considering having an affair with her and he doesn’t
want her to run off on him right now?
I’d say we can safely go with option number three.
Lilimae is still on the series, although I’m not
entirely sure why at this point. Ever
since Joshua took that plunge off the roof, the writers have seriously put the
brakes on the very possibility of Lilimae getting something interesting to
do. This is now the eleventh episode since Joshua died and yet we are still watching
Lilimae mope around and do nothing and act all sad about her dead son. Now, some might be tempted to say I’m
contradicting myself, as I am always the first one to go on and on about the
brilliance of KL’s slow burn
storytelling. Why would I compliment
that and then complain that this fallout from Joshua’s death is going on too long? Well, mostly it’s because nothing is happening and nothing has been happening since he died. Rest assured, I did not want Joshua to die
and then immediately be completely forgotten about, but I certainly didn’t
think we would have eleven eps in a row of Lilimae just sorta doing nothing and
being sad. Yeah, we had that little
storyline about her and Cathy lying to the police, but that was way drawn out
and hardly very interesting at all, and even after they wrapped that up, they
still continued to draw out Lilimae’s sadness ever-longer. Now here we are with an episode that finally decides to wrap this up, but
it’s not done in an exciting or interesting way; rather, it just sorta fizzles.
Okay, so what is Lilimae up to this week? Well, we are told early in the ep that she
crept out of the house right at the crack of dawn, and then we proceed to
follow her around throughout the day as she just sorta wanders through the
highlight spots of Joshua’s last few days on this earth. She returns to the preaching district and
looks around and we are treated to a generous sprinkling of audio flashbacks from
the last ep or two that Joshua was alive in.
We get to rehear the tremendous speech from Until Parted by Death in which Joshua describes living in a house
with an abusive father and no mother, and then later we actually get to see
Baldwin again when we get a visual flashback to the ending of Rise and Fall. This is all fine, I guess, but what’s really
being served in terms of story? You
could say that this is further emphasizing Lilimae’s heightened emotional
state, but weren’t we viewers already well aware of that state? Not only is this the ELEVENTH ep since Joshua died, but we’ve also already seen Lilimae,
alone in her bedroom, giving that big soliloquy to, I guess, Joshua’s spirit or
whatever. In any case, Lilimae’s
material this week feels completely like the writers trying to fill time. She wanders from place to place, we rehear
things we’ve already heard, we re-see things we’ve already seen, and then
basically she comes home and announces that she’s finally feeling better. Actually, saying she “announces she’s finally
feeling better” is a bit of an understatement.
Instead, what really happens is that she returns home to find Ben and
Val hanging out with the twins and she starts to give this great big speech
about how she lost a son and she would very much like to have another one,
eyeing Ben. Now this I like because I’m
ready for Lilimae and Ben to be solid friends who get along with each other,
but what I find a little bit more vexing is Lilimae’s assertion that the twins
“will have a guardian angel named Joshua.”
Hmmm, didn’t Lilimae see the sixth season and the first ten eps of the
seventh season? Would you want abusive psychotic demented
religious nut Joshua to be the guardian angel of your children? Well, I
certainly wouldn’t, plus I would also question if Joshua wound up in the place
that angels wind up and not, you know, the other place that’s a few miles
below. In any case, I’m willing to bet that Lilimae
knows Joshua didn’t wind up becoming no guardian angel, but this is just a
little spin on things that she needs to do in her own brain in order to move
forward.
Lilimae and Cathy are both suffering from the same
problem at this juncture, and that is the fact that the powers that be clearly
do not know what to do with them. Who to
blame for this? I’m tempted to blame
David Paulsen, who is coming over after years of working on Dallas, a show hardly renowned for
having great, complex, super interesting female characters. The ladies of Seaview Circle have always been
way more interesting than any woman over in Texas, but perhaps Paulsen just
doesn’t understand how to write for them?
Perhaps his talents lie more in the big business stuff and so he’s more
comfortable writing scenes of Sumner up in his skyrise, smoking cigars and
making plots, versus trying to figure out how to write for established female
characters like Lilimae and Cathy. I
could try to throw some of this blame around, but you know what, I’m just gonna
stick to my assertion and blame Paulsen.
I remind all of you that I was not on set, that I wasn’t even alive at
this time, so obviously I have no actual idea of what the hell I’m talking
about, but even so, as a person who has watched all fourteen seasons of Dallas as well as all fourteen seasons
of KL, I feel like I can spot some of
the usual Dallas storytelling
problems creeping into KL at this
point, and they are displayed most significantly in the lacking storylines for
Lilimae and Cathy.
In fact, having eleven straight eps in a row dealing
with the fallout from Joshua’s death without really, you know, propelling any
new storylines forward, well, this has made me reflect that this is the first
season of KL in which I can sense the
creative powers struggling to fill their entire season. This is only the second season of KL to contain that massive episode count
of thirty, but it’s already suffering in the shadow of the brilliant season
six. Season six also had thirty eps, but
at no point did I feel like the series was struggling to fill time or
meandering; every episode of that season was a delight and every episode pushed
forth the stories and also gave us plenty of time with our fascinating
characters. Season seven is definitely
lacking that grace at this point.
Instead, I’m seeing writers saying, “Oh God, thirty episodes, um, well,
we just killed off Joshua, so why don’t we, um, have some sort of a police
investigation into his death that can fill four or five eps? Then maybe after that we can have a super
lame storyline involving Cathy dating a saxophonist who’s really a
reporter? Yeah, that should fill up
another four eps. After that, um, let’s
just sorta have Lilimae mope around and do nothing interesting for awhile, then
we’ll have a flashback to Joshua’s death and then Lilimae will, um, kinda, um,
you know, just get over it?”
But enough bitching about that; let’s focus on
someone I love very much, and that would be J.B. Fuck, not only is J.B. just as good as I
remembered from my first viewing, but she’s actually better. In my memories, J.B. didn’t really and truly
blossom until seasons nine and ten, but now I’m loving her from the moment she
was first introduced. In this ep, the
plot thickens ever more as far as J.B. is concerned, starting with a little
scene in Mack’s office taking place between Mack, Karen, and, um, some
guy. “Some guy” could also be referred
to as “Lou from Fight Club,” by the
way, and the basic gist of the scene is that Lou from Fight Club (actor’s incredibly strange real life name: Peter Iacangelo) asks Mack how he’s liking working with J.B., Mack says something
like, “Ugh, it’s terrible; all she does is whine about how she got assigned out
here,” and then Lou from Fight Club tells
him how that’s real strange because J.B. specifically requested to come out here and work with Mack. Hmm, why the lies?
Later, Mack and J.B. are walking out of the office
when they bump into a strange woman who sees J.B., gets very excited, and says,
“Oh hi, you’re Dotty Simpkins from Franklin High!” J.B. looks very uncomfortable at this comment
and says how she doesn’t know the woman, who quickly vacates the premises. An interesting little scene, although I would
have preferred to see Mack a little more visibly suspicious of J.B. right
here. After what Lou from Fight Club told him, shouldn’t this
random stranger mistaking J.B. for someone else strike him as especially
curious? Instead, Mack is shown to be
distracted with something else on his mind, so this woman barely registers with
him. In any case, we viewers should be
able to see that a big fat seed is being planted right in front of us.
Oh yeah, and real fast on the subject of this
strange woman (who tells J.B., “It’s me, Sheree!” but is merely credited as
“Woman” on the IMDb page), let’s discuss the actress playing her. Well, her name is Dinah Lenney and, first of
all, she is a Tangled Knot who will return to the series in 1988 for the
episode Lawfully Wedded (season nine,
episode nineteen) playing “Meter Reader.”
I’ll keep my eyes open for her when we get to that ep (watch me forget
all about it by the time we actually get there), but what I found most
interesting about this actress is that she played Nurse Shirley on ER all the way from 1995 to 2009,
appearing in 74 eps. This would be
another one of those characters who is just sorta around for the entire run of
the show, never a main character, never a huge focus of storylines, but just
consistently showing up over the course of the run. Also, earlier in this essay, I made a
reference to the first episode of The Bradys, a CBS show from 1990 that absolutely nobody else in the world
besides myself knows about or cares about.
Well, I made my little reference just to amuse myself, really, but now
here I am looking at Dinah Lenney’s acting credits and, GASP, it says she also
appeared in the pilot episode of The Bradys! She plays the pregnant chick who cheesily gives birth during Bobby's wedding ceremony to Martha Quinn. How cosmic is that?
Our last batch of eps demonstrated Karen having some
trust issues with Mack after finding the key to J.B.’s hotel room in his
pocket. Well, it seems that the two have
mended fences since then, and I think Karen’s
trust issues with Mack are in the past, but now we’ve got a new problem:
Karen’s burgeoning frigidity, although I suppose the two could be directly
related. See, in this ep, we see Karen
and Mack crawl into bed and Mack attempt to get busy with Karen, who is simply
not in the mood. After a few awkward
moments of Mack kissing Karen and her having none of it, he finally resigns
himself to a night of blue balls as Karen snuggles up to him and says, “But I
do feel like cuddling,” words no horny man ever wants to hear. Once again, I love and respect both
characters and can sympathize with both of them. I’d say Karen’s frigidity is based in her
still feeling hurt by Mack holding on to that room key, so she is currently
unable to get completely close with him and be intimate and tender. Meanwhile, Mack is trying to show his love
for his wife and he’s trying to do it in the most time honored way, through
a healthy shag, yet she’s not on the
same wavelength as him. Will these
problems be resolved? Well, spoiler
alert, but yes, they will be resolved, and it won’t take too long to resolve
them, either. I take issue with that,
but perhaps I’d better save my thoughts on this for a few eps down the line.
All that’s really left in the character roster for Irrevocably Yours is Olivia, who is
continuing to blossom nicely into an out-of-control teenaged rebel. One of our very first scenes this ep is
Olivia in her room, spraying some air freshener around. As soon as we see that air freshener, we know
what’s up, but I’m gonna poke some major holes in Olivia’s pot smoking habits
and say that no seasoned stoner would be as obvious as she’s being. Okay, we all know that the smell of pot
doesn’t linger in the air and the walls and the carpets in the same way that
the smell of tobacco does. Even so, that
obviously doesn’t mean there’s no smell. The smell fades faster and should basically
be completely gone by about 24 hours later, but during the time that you’re
physically blazing up, the smell is rather potent. Why would Olivia be so stupid as to continue
smoking within the confines of the Fairgate house and then think that a measly
little spray of air freshener will take care of the problem? A seasoned stoner would know that you don’t
blaze up in the house unless you are all by yourself and know that you’re gonna
be all by yourself for many hours, and then a seasoned stoner would also make
sure to leave several doors and windows open in order to de-smellify the house
as soon as possible. Olivia instead
chooses to blaze up in her bedroom two seconds before it’s time to go to
school.
Is it any wonder that Sexy Michael walks in and
immediately knows what’s going on? He
walks in wearing a fabulous white shirt that somewhat shows off his neck
(mmmmm, I just wanna bite his neck, mmmmm) and immediately declares, “You’re
stoned, aren’t you?” Olivia goes on
about how she doesn’t smoke grass and then Sexy Michael finds himself once
again possessed by the spirit of Nancy Reagan as he goes on about all the evils
of pot and how Olivia will get in trouble at school just for having it. As I said before, this is really the only
flaw in the entire character of Sexy Michael Fairgate. Absolutely everything else about him would
make him the most perfect boyfriend/husband that a boy could ask for, but the
fact that he is such a square as far as Mary Jane is concerned is a bit of a
problem. Fortunately, I have complete
confidence in myself and my own powers and I know that, if I suddenly found
myself trapped inside the television ala Pleasantville
and was living and breathing within the KL
world, I would immediately use my powers to turn Michael gay, get him to blaze up a doobie, and then I would do things with him in a hot tub that would make Abby herself blush.
While I’m kinda making fun of Sexy Michael for being
a square, he’s actually not totally out of line. See, Olivia clearly is smoking weed too much and it’s clearly starting to affect her
schooling and her general demeanor. As
we see throughout this ep, she has to blaze up several times throughout the day
just to make it through, because the next time we catch up with her, she’s out
at a fancy dinner with Abs, clearly yearning to be anywhere else. Abs asks the waiter to give all the anchovies
to Olivia, which seems gross and weird, saying how it’s important for Olivia to
try new things. Olivia counters with, “I
hate Caesar salad and I hate anchovies,” and bemoans the fact that she even has
to talk to her mother at all before quickly retreating to the bathroom. Once again, I point out that Olivia is taking
quite a risk here that a seasoned stoner probably would not take. In this instance, she’s lucky that the
bathroom is completely unoccupied and that nobody comes in while she’s enjoying
her toke, but it’s still a big risk.
What if someone did come in? What
if this was one of those restaurants that has a restroom attendant? I guess we can take this to mean that Olivia
needs her weed so bad that she doesn’t care what risks she takes to get
it. Oh yeah, and one last note on this
scene: I absolute adore the scary-ass electronic sci-fi music that plays when
Olivia puts the joint in her mouth, suddenly making this scene feel way scarier
and way more dramatic than it actually is.
Even as I bitch about Paulsen not knowing how to
write for women, I see an immediate contradiction to my statement in the
fabulous way that Olivia has blossomed this year. She’s gone from being Abby’s daughter who I
always liked and always cared about but who was just sorta, you know, there,
and she’s turning into a rather important character in her own regard. In fact, even though she’s credited as a
guest star and is not a part of the scrolling squares, I would argue that she’s
a more important character at this point than either Lilimae or Cathy. Certainly she is getting a lot more to do and
her stories are a lot more interesting than either of those two, and I again
praise Tonya Crowe’s acting, which I feel is vastly underrated in the grand KL scheme of things. She’s figuring heavily into the stories now
and has to show herself as, yes, rebellious, but also as a teenaged kid
confused about her own life and about the moral integrity of the people around
her. I think she’s doing a great job at
all of this and it’s only going to get better as we move into the eighth
season.
Olivia’s joints propel us towards our exciting
episode cliffhanger, in which Michael is driving and is stopped by The T-1000,
who tells him he has a broken tail light.
Michael is apologetic, but as he’s talking, The T-1000 spots two joints
lying on the floor of the passenger side, his eyes get all big and wide as if
he’s never seen joints before, he orders Michael out of the car, grabs the
joints, and then holds them up and asks, “Are these yours, Mr. Fairgate?” While it’s a little bit strange and
unrealistic to watch a cop harass a white person in such a way, it’s still a
pretty good ep ending that leaves me wanting to watch more.
Okay, so that was Irrevocably Yours. How did I
find it? Hmmm, it’s actually kinda hard
to say. I guess what I will say is that,
at this point, at this exact juncture in the series, while the eps are fine and have
great moments individually, I am having some problems with the storytelling of
the season overall. What I mean is that
if you watch this episode all by itself and then just judge it all by itself,
it’s pretty good despite a few problems, but if you start to look at the way
the stories are moving in the context of the overall season and the eps that
came before this one and the ones that are going to come after it, you start to
see more flaws. I’ll elaborate on this
more as we move closer and closer to the end of the season, but for now I’ll
say that this was a good episode, but not great. It had some great moments like the
confrontations between Gary and Val as well as Gary and Ben, but it also had
meandering parts like every scene involving Lilimae. It had great stuff for Olivia and her grass
problem, but then it had almost nothing interesting for Cathy to do. It had great stuff involving J.B. and a
possible secret identity, but then it had Karen and her frigidity, a storyline
I’m not entirely sure I like or not at this point. So overall, a pretty mixed bag, although of
course I must make sure and remind you that I love KL yesterday, today, and tomorrow and I will love it until the end
of time. If I was just watching the show
the way I did back in college, I’ll bet I wouldn’t even notice any of these
problems. It’s the fact that I’m going
episode-by-episode in such minute detail that’s making flaws stand out to
me. They appear bigger than they perhaps
actually are, and that’s totally a result of me paying such strict attention. Also, I remind you that, even if the eps are
suffering from some story flaws, it’s still good. This is still a good show that everybody
should watch and I also feel very comfortable saying I’m sure it was the best
nighttime soap on TV in 1985-1986 (although I remind you that I still haven’t
seen Dynasty or Falcon Crest, though rest assured that I will one day soon). It’s just suffering from a few problems that
the show either hasn’t had in years or hasn’t had at all yet, but that is
simply the nature of a series that lasts so long.
Next up, we shall further explore the shock of
Michael being found with marijuana in his car with High School Confidential.
I always got the feeling they were having to shoot around Julie Harris for some reason, like she either couldn't be on set as many days as she was supposed to, or they dropped her number of days, which is why you see her in scenes by herself a lot or maybe with one other person. They shot all the walking around stuff in 90 minutes and then she went home and ate waffles til next week.
ReplyDeleteI realize that all of the Joshua/Alec Baldwin scenes were clips from precious episodes, but I wonder why Baldwin wasn't acknowledged in the end-credits of this episode. And was he paid?
ReplyDeleteYou can smell pot a mile away. Olivia smoking in her bedroom without anyone in the Fairgate house becoming suspicious was 100% unrealistic.
Your take on Gary's personality was very sharp. His recent self-centered behavior has been irritating -- but you gave me new insight as to why it's completely natural given his failing marriage and his frustration at being been pushed out of the twin's lives.
I loved Jill walking into the Gary / Val conversation at the race track, a true harbinger of things to come. And with our newfound knowledge of her double life, she has become in this ep, the most interesting character in the landscape. Overall, I'm enjoying these last few eps more than anything since Joshua died as it feels like, aside from Lilimae, we are moving forward into new storyline territory.
ReplyDelete