22 Oct 87: KNOTS LANDING: There are Smiles v. 23 Oct 87: DALLAS: Tough Love v. 23 Oct 87: FALCON CREST: The Big Bang
While watching recent Soap Land events unfold onscreen, one can sometimes sense the influence of different, sometimes conflicting, pressures from behind the scenes.
For example, the inflationary demands of the genre mean that, in order to retain (or possibly regain) viewer interest, characters’ actions must grow increasingly more extreme. Hence Sammy Jo has her aunt kidnapped and replaced with a doppelgänger, JR pays a terrorist to blow up Saudi Arabian oilfields, Abby buries a dead body in cement and Melissa switches blood samples in order to steal a baby. Most recently, we learn on this week’s KNOTS that Mack’s daughter Paige is a killer (or, at the very least, has left a man to die).
Although the guilty party in each instance is known to the authorities, none are required to stand trial, much less go to prison. In most cases, charges aren’t even filed. The reluctance to prosecute is due to another backstage consideration — the need to keep the stars of the show on screen. We may want to see JR and Abby behaving outrageously, but not if it means them spending the next fifteen years in the offscreen slammer. But if there are no legal consequences when a character is caught redhanded, where is the dramatic payoff — how to stop the audience feeling as cheated as they did following the Moldavian massacre that wasn’t or when Bobby stepped out of the shower? Each show addresses this conundrum differently.
Blake and Krystle’s saintliness means that DYNASTY gets away with them pardoning Sammy Jo, who then repays their kindness by essentially turning into a different character. Over on DALLAS, the dissolution of Ewing Oil felt like a suitably seismic punishment for JR’s misdeeds. Granted, he has learnt absolutely no moral lessons as a result, but would we really want him to? JR’s lack of repentance was DALLAS’s original USP and starting over with a new company has at least provided him with a fresh context in which to scheme his schemes. On the other hand, it’s hard not to notice that he seems suddenly older, greyer and maybe a little more complacent (particularly in his scenes with Casey Denault) this season.
On last week’s FALCON CREST, Maggie Gioberti agreed not to press charges against Melissa either for kidnapping her baby or for the reckless behaviour that led to her husband’s death. While one can just about buy Maggie's reasoning — she wants to spare her grandson’s feelings — it’s harder to believe that Melissa’s nemesis, Angela, would then agree to put her in charge of The Max, the new Del Oro Spa nightclub, just because Dan Fixx asked her nicely. Nevertheless, there is Melissa at the beginning of this week’s episode, vamping it up on stage at The Max in a ridiculous looking outfit as if nothing had ever happened. At least on KNOTS, Paige gets the sack from Lotus Point after killing Peter Hollister. (“Your severance pay is in the business office,” Abby informs her.) Otherwise, Paige, like Melissa, seems blithely unaffected by her crime. The key difference is that Paige’s attitude is addressed and then challenged by the characters around her. “You’re acting like this is a parking ticket,” observes Mack. “You think none of this matters? You think you’re so far above everyone else that you don’t have to play by the rules? … What the hell’s wrong with you? … Look what you’ve done to these people … I don’t just want you to apologise, I want you to feel sorry.” This is precisely the kind of confrontation (or “tough love”, to borrow the title of this week’s DALLAS) that would have benefited Melissa. Instead, FALCON CREST indulges the character as much as she indulges herself. While getting ready to attend the reading of Chase’s will, for example, she turns looking for a lost shoe into a high-pitched drama. Then when she finds it, she laughs hysterically. Her behaviour is witnessed by Dan Fixx, but instead of taking her to task the way Mack does Paige, he laughs right along with her — and presumably, we’re meant to be as charmed by her behaviour as he is.
While Mack makes Paige toe the line, it is Greg Sumner who cuts through her defences. “You’re working a little too hard to show us how tough you are,” he says after she mutters a grudging apology for her part in what happened to Peter. “You saw a man die and it didn’t affect you, did it? Like hell, it didn’t. Pretending you don’t care is what little kids do. You’re lucky Mack’s your old man. If I were your father, I’d hang a little snot like you out to dry in the wind.” His words hit Paige where she lives and when she cries in Mack’s arms, this time she’s genuine. Greg critiquing someone else’s detached response to a death is doubly ironic — first when one recalls how casually he himself responded to the deaths of his own father and Mark St Clare, among others, and secondly, when one fast-forwards to the last scene of this episode, and the wrenching close-up of his confused face as he listens to Laura’s out-of-nowhere bombshell.
Cleverly, KNOTS supplies Jill Bennett as a conduit for any remaining viewer frustrations about Paige and Abby escaping their just desserts. “She buried a man in a cement!” she exclaims. “Am I the only one who finds it outrageous that a man was killed and then dragged through a construction site and left to rot?” The cruel irony, she is then informed, is that the one person able to file damages against Abby for burying Peter is his next-of-kin, “but the guy’s only relative is Greg Sumner and he is disinclined to pursue the matter”. Of course Greg’s disinclined: he isn’t really Peter’s next-of-kin, Jill is, only she is unable to publicly acknowledge that fact. “Who was this guy to you?” Mack asks her impatiently. “You’ve lost all perspective on this case!” And of course, she cannot reply. This aspect of the plot arises so naturally out of what has come before that it almost feels as if Jill's situation were writing itself.
Another external factor influencing what we see on screen is what might be termed “real life soap fatigue” — that mysterious combination of reduced budgets, sliding ratings and actor restlessness. However much Soap Land may wish to keep its opening titles intact, there has been an unprecedented exodus of key players recently. Ben Gibson, Ben Carrington, Dominique Devereaux, Donna Krebbs, Pam Ewing, Peter Hollister, Chase Gioberti and the Californian Colbys have all departed without so much as a goodbye scene between them. And it’s not over yet: the closing scene of this week’s KNOTS finds Laura Avery talking circuitously about finally being able to eat all the pizza she wants because she won’t be around long enough to put on weight. What is potentially even more disruptive to a soap than the departures of its leading players is the impact (or lack thereof) those departures then have on those characters left behind. Just as JR and Abby cannot be sent to prison for their crimes, Val Gibson and Bobby Ewing cannot drop everything to go looking for their newly vanished spouses who, even though they are still alive and still love their families, will definitely not be returning — because the actors playing them have not had their contracts renewed. Consequently, Val and Bobby must each be seen to mourn their loss, but must then also move on pretty darn quickly.
Alone on this week’s KNOTS, Val allows herself the indulgence of playing a one-fingered version of ‘Send in the Clowns’ on the piano (a call-back to her and Ben’s romantic dance in Season 6) before being subjected to Lilimae’s well-meaning lecture on smile therapy. Alone at the beginning of this week’s DALLAS, Bobby allows himself the indulgence of one last look at a photo of Pam (the image of which we are contractually denied) before putting it away in a drawer. He then heads to the nearest cowboy bar where he gets into a drunken brawl with a bunch of stuntmen.
With that out of the way, Val and Bobby must each “move on”. Val goes on a shopping spree, treating herself to a red convertible (the Ewing-verse’s subconscious replacement for the one that went up in flames at the end of last season’s DALLAS perhaps?) and a femullet, the likes of which KNOTS hasn’t seen since the days of Ciji Dunne. She also acquires a kind of sad optimism about her future: “I love Ben and I miss him terribly, but … I can make it on my own. I’m not saying that I want to, but I know that I can.” Bobby, meanwhile, faces some blunt questioning from his son: “Why don’t you find her? I know you could if you really wanted to.” “If we love Mama, we have to let her go,” Bobby replies, conceding that “it’s a tough kind of love to understand, at any age.” His words are echoed by an equally on-message Miss Ellie in a later scene: “We just have to do what Pam asked, put it behind us.”
Sometimes in Soap Land, “letting go” and “moving on” can mean coming full circle — especially when you share a child with your first love. “Don’t worry,” Val assures Gary when he asks about Ben’s absence, “I’m perfectly able to take care of your kids.” “It’s the first time she’s ever said they were my kids,” he later marvels. Meanwhile, Jenna lets her guard down in front of Bobby for the first time since he dumped her for Pam: “Isn’t it ironic? Now that it seems I’ve gotten my life in order, yours has become so painful … Bobby, for the longest time, I tried to hate you … I never could and I never will.”
“What a cruel trick fate’s played on him, one little boy losing two mothers,” sighs Sue Ellen with regard to Christopher. Laura is in a similarly reflective mood on KNOTS. “I cannot stand the fact that things happen and you have no control over them,” she tells Greg. “Don’t you ever think about car accidents or kids falling into swimming pools or people taking them away somewhere?” Hmm, car accidents — like the one that disfigured Pam last season or the one that leaves Dina badly hurt on this week’s FALCON CREST. “There are a number of complications associated with spinal injuries,” her doctor warns Lance.
Back on KNOTS, Paige’s newfound contrition has its limits. “I’m so sorry,” she tells Abby, “that you ever got off the hook … If you hadn’t made Peter break up with me, none of this would have happened … You were afraid of losing him to a younger woman. You couldn’t stand the competition.” The only character cattier than Paige this week is DALLAS’s Wilson Cryder when he drops by JRE Industries specifically to throw shade on JR’s new office. “West Star’s thinking of buying the building,” he tells him. “We have some low-level executives we need to find space for … We would prefer a more prestigious property.” Both Abby and JR wait until the end of their respective scenes before returning fire. “Sooner or later, I’m gonna make you pay … just don’t sleep too soundly,” warns Abby. “Cryder, you just joined the crowd … the crowd of people who have lived to regret underestimating JR Ewing,” declaims JR.
While Steven’s assessment of Fallon and Jeff’s relationship on last week’s DYNASTY was great, Jill’s analysis of Gary, as he attempts to do right by both his ex-wives and their offspring on this week’s KNOTS, is even better. “I think you’re exactly where you wanna be,” she tells him, “you’re right in the middle of a crisis with everybody depending on you … You like having dependents. You cultivate them. You don’t know how to commit to people so you compensate for it by making everyone dependent on you … and you’re there for them, you stick it out, self-righteously living up to your responsibilities … If they’re dependent on you, Gary, it’s because you made them that way. You just can’t walk away.”
Jill’s speech combines the weak, commitment-phobic Gary we first met in 1978 (“He’s over his head with a shopping cart in front of him!”) with the part-time knight in shining armour he is today, making sense of how he has changed in the intervening time. Is this a natural evolution or are the writers skilfully working backwards to disguise that the fact that Gary has been transformed by the dictates of his storylines? To ask that question in a broader sense, do the characters in Soap Land drive the plot or do the demands of the plot forge the characters? For example, Bobby Ewing passively accepts Pam’s decision to disappear, not because it is “in character” for him to do so, but because that’s what the storyline requires of him. On the other hand, if one accepts what F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, that “action is character”, i.e., we are defined not by what we think or say but by what we do, then Bobby’s action (or lack thereof) simply becomes part of who he is now. Likewise, Fallon’s alien abduction is part of who she is now — only the writers were smart enough to have Steven link it with the non-conformist character she was when DYNASTY began.
Over on FALCON CREST, Maggie has been given a dossier on Richard’s past. “It scared me,” she admits. This prompts Richard to deliver a speech about himself, not entirely dissimilar to the one Jill makes about Gary, where he attempts to reconcile who he used to be with who he is now. “I don’t know if you have any idea why I came out here to Tuscany,” he says to Maggie. “I was trying to save my life. I was involved with evil, the worst kind of evil. They wouldn’t let me go. They wanted to take my soul. And it took every damn trick I know to escape my old life and settle here … I am what I am, and either you accept me or you don’t.” Whether or not Maggie can accept Richard, and whether or not Jill can accept Gary, are the big questions here. Jill walks out on Gary during this week’s KNOTS but later returns to him. Maggie is just as ambivalent. “I love you,” she tells Richard, “but sometimes you frighten me. Sometimes I feel that we don’t have a chance, and then when I’m with you, I’m just so swept away by you.”
“Meet cutes” have become a minor Soap Land trend of late. According to Wikipedia, “a meet-cute is a scene in which a future romantic couple meets for the first time … This type of scene is a staple of romantic comedies. Frequently, the meet-cute leads to a humorous clash of personality or of beliefs, embarrassing situations, or comical misunderstandings that further drive the plot.” Leslie Carrington’s first encounter with Clay Fallmont on last season’s DYNASTY — they get into an argument over whose car has the right of way, not realising that he is, in fact, her new boss — would qualify, as would her first meeting with Jeff Colby a couple of weeks ago — they get into a disagreement outside Dex’s hospital room over who should be allowed to visit with him first, not realising that they are, in fact, related. Both scenes have the feel of a rom-com without being actually funny — unlike the meet-cute that occurs between Lilimae and Al the messenger on this week’s KNOTS where she eyes him suspiciously as he hovers outside the Mackenzie house. It’s also a rare instance in Soap Land where the workings of someone’s bladder advance the plot. “I was wondering, could I use your bathroom?” he eventually asks her. “I should say not!” she replies, affronted, before hurrying back inside her house.
Both Al and his DALLAS equivalent, Dandy Dandridge, (played, of course, by Lilimae’s previous romantic interest, Jackson Mobeley) inadvertently catch their respective benefactor at the wrong time this week. “Boy, you look terrible,” observes Dandy. “Shut up and stay out of my way!” snaps Cliff, preoccupied with Pam’s disappearance. “You’re tense lately,” remarks Al. “Al, not today!” snaps Mack, preoccupied with Paige’s culpability in Peter’s death. Once again, both men’s living arrangements are also a matter for discussion. Annoyed by Dandy’s insensitivity towards Cliff, April tosses him a few bucks “to find someplace to flop tonight.” Meanwhile, Al explains that he is not homeless and instead lives out of the back of his impressively pimped-out ride. “Great car!” says Mack, admiringly.
While Abby tries to blackmail Greg into handing over what she refers to as “my share of Peter’s estate”, the Giobertis go the more straightforward route of holding a reading of Chase’s will. While son Cole gets five million — half of what the Ewing boys got when their daddy died, but still not too shabby — daughter Vicky receives the Gary treatment: “Like your brother, I leave you the sum of $5,000.000 — with one distinction: it shall remain in trust … for a period of five years.” It’s Vicky’s husband Eric who takes this news hardest, resulting in a scene of marital violence more brutal than anything we witnessed between Joshua and Cathy on KNOTS. Eric only stops punching Vicky when she screams at him that she’s pregnant. There’s a rawness to this scene that’s light years away from the self-congratulatory, back-slapping sit-com of Dan and Lance going undercover at Angela’s behest to expose Sweethearts — the dating agency Emma has invested in and which, like Valentine Lingerie, has a heart-shape as its company logo — as a front for a prostitution ring.
DALLAS includes no less than three, albeit slightly roundabout, references to the AIDS crisis this week. Two are quips about safe sex that extend the relevance of the issue beyond the "high-risk groups" previously acknowledged by Soap Land — gay men and prostitutes — to also cover sexually voracious older women. “Don’t forget to stop by the drugstore,” JR smirks after pimping Casey out to Marilee Stone. “Don’t worry about a thing — I’m totally prepared,” Marilee herself assures Casey just as she’s about to have her wicked way with him.
At the end of last week’s FALCON CREST, Angela gloatingly informed Maggie that she had bought Chase’s thirty-million dollar loan from Nicole Sauguet. On this week’s DALLAS, having heard from former call girl Serena about the financial hole her boyfriend Walter Hicks had gotten himself into, JR purchases Hicks’ $5,000,000 bank loan, but unlike Angela, keeps quiet about it. While Angela informs anyone who will listen that “if Maggie doesn’t come up with $3,000,000, their house and the land will belong to me,” JR discreetly forecloses on Hicks and pockets his entire inventory worth $15,000,000 more than what he paid for the loan.
Richard Channing and John Remick spend most of this week’s FALCON CREST competing to be the one who rides to Maggie’s rescue with the money she needs to stop Angela. In order to get Remick out of the picture, Richard goes so far as to supply arms to the African government John’s soldiers are fighting against. “Let slip the dogs of war,” he murmurs, quoting Mark Antony in ‘Julius Caesar’. (Lest we forget, Greg Sumner once played Brutus in a college production of ‘Julius Caesar’ — imagine Richard Channing playing opposite him as Marc Antony. Oh, what a Shakespearean/Soap Land mashup that would be!) Richard is later pleased to learn that “Remick’s band of merry men are losing ground faster than a racehorse.” (The “band of merry men” bit is, oddly enough, one of two Robin Hood references in Soap Land this week. The other is on DALLAS — John Ross and Christopher are on a school trip to a museum where an employee in period costume, presumably representing Bonnie Parker, delivers the following monologue: “Pictured as some kind of Robin Hood, they had me stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Well, yes, I stole from the rich, but I don’t remember giving a thing to the poor!”) Richard’s plan having succeeded, he manages to foil Angela’s attempt to evict Maggie from her home in the nick of time. However, the Gioberti house (or more accurately, a cute little model version of it) is then blown sky high with all three of them inside.
Back on DALLAS, Walter Hicks losing his business also spells the end for his relationship with Serena. This leads to the third AIDS reference of the week. “I have no choice. I’ll have to play Russian roulette back in my old profession,” Serena says gloomily. Is JR really willing to risk her life, in the same Richard is prepared to gamble with the lives of the unknown soldiers fighting in the unknown war somewhere in Africa, just to further his own ends? For a moment, it looks as if he is, but then he comes up with an offer — he’ll set Serena up for life if she’ll use her old contacts to find the dirt he needs to bring down Wilson Cryder. That’ll teach Cryder to diss the office decor.
And this week’s Top 3 are …
1 (3) KNOTS LANDING
2 (2) DALLAS
3 (4) FALCON CREST