New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 214464" data-attributes="member: 22">08 Aug 12: DALLAS: Revelations v. 11 Mar 15: EMPIRE: Sins of the Father v. 13 Dec 15: BLOOD AND OIL: Departures v. 17 Jan 18: DYNASTY: A Well-Dressed Tarantula   An eventful week that includes a season finale, a series finale, three proposals of marriage and four fatal shootings.The lives of Rebecca Ewing and Cristal Carrington continue to run along parallel lines as they have all season. Both start the week haunted by flashbacks of the violent men they have killed in self-defence: Tommy Sutter, who hits the deck at the start of this week’s DALLAS after being shot at the end of last week’s (making him Gunshot Fatality #1), and Alejandro Rayas, whose stabbing at Cristal’s hands was revealed on last week’s DYNASTY.While Rebecca is faced with the disposal of Tommy’s body, Cristal comes face to face with Alejandro himself — back from the dead and sitting in her office at Carrington Atlantic. He has a new identity and threatens to kill her unless she persuades Blake to do business with the shadowy Venezuelan company he represents (not to be confused with the shadowy Venezuelan company Vicente Cano represents on DALLAS — although both companies are so shadowy, they might as well be the same one).Before the end of their respective episodes, both women will have similar accusations levelled at them. Rebecca is branded “a lying piece of garbage” while Cristal is called “a congenital liar” and “a lying, cheating stabber of men.”Watching Rebecca frantically cover up any evidence of Tommy’s death, one is reminded of Abby Ewing doing the same thing following Peter Hollister’s demise on KNOTS LANDING. Rebecca has mysterious helpers who transport the body by laundry cart, just as Abby did herself, leaving her behind to scrub her apartment clean. As New DALLAS is on a C21st subscription network rather than a 1980s commercial one like KNOTS, the crime scene is far more sanguinary. As Lady Macbeth might have said, “Who would have thought the young man to have had so much blood in him?”Rebecca then joins Christopher at Soap Land Memorial Hospital where he and the rest of the Ewings are awaiting news of Bobby following his collapse. Christopher’s feelings towards Rebecca have softened so much he has put his wedding and engagement rings back on and asks her to the same. However, she gave her rings to Tommy a few weeks ago in a failed attempt to buy him off. So, in much the same way that Abby was obliged to dig up Peter’s corpse from its burial place to salvage his car keys, Rebecca is forced to unzip the body bag in which Tommy has been stashed and rummage through his pockets to find the receipt for the pawnshop where he hocked the rings. But when she visits the pawnshop, the broker tells her the rings have already been sold. She begs him to retrieve them from the buyer. “I’ll re-buy them from you for double what they paid,” she pleads, sliding a wad of notes across the counter.“I can’t believe some of the stuff people pawn — engagement rings, vintage porn,” remarks Steven Carrington, the second character to drop by the Soap Land Pawn Shop this week. While EMPIRE’s Lucious has placed Andre in a psychiatric clinic following his meltdown, DYNASTY’s Blake has booked Steven into a rehab facility following his cocaine relapse, but Steven refuses to go. “What’s wrong with me can’t be cured by a 12-Step programme,” he insists. In response, Blake freezes his bank accounts. “I need to get my hands on some cash,” Steven tells Sam — hence the visit to the pawnshop. Worried lest he blows the money on blow, Sam insists on tagging along. “For a lot of people, pawn shops are a part of life,” he explains to Steven. “Growing up, it’s how my mom put food on the table some days … A pawn shop is also a doorway to opportunity, like when I pawned my neighbour’s bike for Coachella tickets.” Steven pawns his “premium brand timepiece” for $20,000. Not bad — if not as impressive as the $30,000 Hakeem Lyon claims his diamond-encrusted watch is worth on this week’s EMPIRE.To Sam’s relief, Steven doesn’t want the money for “coke or meth or moon rocks,” but as recompense for the widow of Dominic Ortega, the Carrington Atlantic employee whose death he inadvertently caused. DYNASTY isn’t especially interested in Ortega — we only glimpse his wife from a distance — but given how glibly Matthew Blaisdel’s demise was treated by the Carringtons, it’s refreshing to see that his death at least matters to Steven. While Steven chooses to tackle his psychological problems through direct action rather than rehab, Andre’s gorgeous music therapist makes an unconventional suggestion regarding his treatment on EMPIRE. She gets down on her knees in front of him and starts … praying. Hmm, sexy praying — it could catch on.The first of the week’s three marriage proposals comes from John Ross on DALLAS when he invites Elena to view the empty office space he has chosen as the new headquarters of Ewing Enterprises. But it’s not just any empty office space. “Jock’s office, Bobby’s office and right here, JR’s,” he says walking around. “I remember sitting behind Daddy’s desk looking at this view, just wanting to sit where he sat one day …” “This was Ewing Oil,” Elena realises. “Christopher’s always saying that the Ewing name means nothing to me. Well, maybe this will finally prove to him that it does,” he tells her. So it’s not just his daddy’s approval that John Ross seeks, but his cousin’s as well. Then comes the romantic bit as he produces a black diamond engagement ring and gets down on one knee. “When I saw this ring, it reminded me how light reflects off oil,” he says. “The first time I saw that I thought nothing could be more beautiful. Then I saw you. I love you, Elena Ramos. My life and everything that I want it to be is better with you … Marry me.” Elena accepts immediately — how could she not?Over on EMPIRE, Lucious likewise chooses an office environment in which to pop the question. “I’m asking you to be my one again,” he tells ex-wife Cookie, as he gestures to the Empire empire in which they are standing. “We built all this, we fought for this, we defended this.” His proposal may not be quite as romantic as John Ross’s, but he’s confident Cookie will accept it anyway. Indeed, as she admits, “When I first got out of prison, I had a stupid fantasy about us getting back together.” Since then, however, she has moved on and is now enjoying a clandestine affair with Lucious’s head of security, Malcolm. She declines the proposal, telling Lucious, “You don’t care about nothing but yourself … You just don’t wanna die alone.” When Cookie first strode into EMPIRE — an ex-wife deprived of raising her children, still hung up on her former husband and hungry for a piece of the pie, and with a cracking backstory to boot — she was the black C21st century equivalent of '80s Alexis Carrington. So the sight of Black Alexis turning down her ex’s marriage proposal and walking away with a smile on her face feels like a major victory, one that White Alexis never even came close to achieving.There is further ex-husband and wife office action on DALLAS when Ann visits Harris Ryland to concede defeat: “You’ve won, Harris. I let you back in … You sent me that necklace, brought up the past, made me a wreck, antagonised my husband … and now Sue Ellen — I know you’re blackmailing her just to get to me.” She even offers to sleep with him if he’ll stop using what he has on Sue Ellen to force her to launder money for him. “Unfortunately, I need that money cleaned so I can’t,” Harris replies, “but … since you’re here and in the mood, how about it?” Tearfully, she starts to unzip her top — to reveal a microphone attached to her bra. “Extortion, blackmail and a confession to money laundering, all recorded,” she explains. “You make a move against me, Sue Ellen or any member of my family — you’re going to jail.” Having succeeded where Wick Briggs and Steven Carrington failed, Ann is officially Soap Land’s Spy of the Season. To commemorate her victory, she punches Harris in the mouth and promises to shoot him the next time he makes a pass at her.In fact, things in the Ewing garden are looking rosy all around. “We’re all moving forward,” Christopher says to John Ross, “me, Rebecca and the babies; you and Elena.” “Your daddy’s on the mend, we got offices, we got energy,” John Ross adds. But then the past returns to bite them all in the ass.First, the lie John Ross told Elena when they got back together — that he had nothing to do with stealing Southfork from Bobby, that it was all JR’s doing — comes back to haunt him. “The videos that Veronica Martinez took prove that you brought her and the Venezuelans in on the deal before JR was involved. You are the one who asked her to impersonate Marta Del Sol,” Bobby’s lawyer informs him. “JR’s the one who stole Southfork, not me!” John Ross protests. He appeals to Christopher for understanding — again, it’s striking how much he wants, maybe needs, his cousin to believe in him: “You know I’m trying to do the right thing here, put all this behind us, help bring this family back together.” But Christopher ain’t buying it. “You can’t lie your way out of this,” he tells John Ross coldly. However, the reaction that really hurts is Elena’s. “You lied about everything!” she exclaims. John Ross begs her for another chance: “Look what I’m doing. I’m helping Christopher … I got JR to give Southfork back. I’m trying to do the right thing because that is the man I am today — with you … Do not give up on me!”“Everything you touch, you destroy,” Cookie tells Lucious on EMPIRE. “This place — it takes everything that’s good and turns it bad,” echoes Billy on BLOOD AND OIL, referring to Rock Springs, the town he and his wife arrived in ten episodes ago. “Sometimes I just think I was happier in Florida … I’d give anything to go back to that version of me, of us.” It’s like he’s cancelling the show right in front of us. Cody’s already packing to go home and wants Billy to go with her, but he isn’t sure if he can give up his chance of striking it rich. His dilemma is compounded when Dr Meet Cute tells him the mineral rights to the oil underneath the Black Elk reservation are his — on the proviso that he stays in town to oversee the project: “I need you here on the ground, front and centre — you’re the one that I trust.”Can Billy walk away from his dream? Hap Briggs doesn’t think so. “That’s my son, from tip to tail,” says JR, looking at John Ross at the end of DALLAS and Hap makes a similar observation about Billy. “We’re not so different, you and me,” he tells him. “You came into town like I once did, too damn brash and too stupid to even consider failure as an option. What we had was a dream. Do you know what happens when you abandon your dreams? They don’t dry up and blow away. They lodge in your gut and gnaw away at you until there’s nothing left except the memory of what you once wanted to be.” Dreams, literal and metaphorical, have been a recurrent theme throughout Soap Land’s history, but they’ve never described quite in such menacing terms.And so the relationships between B&O’s Billy and Cody and DALLAS’s Elena and John Ross hang in the balance. “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve,” Cody tells Billy. “I’ll be at the Tack Room at midnight, bags packed, car loaded. If you’re not there, I’m leaving without you. It’s now or never because I’m not looking back.” “Meet me tomorrow at the Ewing Energies space,” John Ross begs Elena. “It’ll be a new beginning for us. Please.”Over on EMPIRE, Jamal’s cute little daughter Lola has been staying at Lucious’s house ever since her mother Olivia abandoned her. There are echoes of Blake and Steven fighting over Danny on Old DYNASTY in this week’s ep when Lucious objects to Jamal’s decision to have Lola live with him instead: “Lola don’t need to be raised in that kind of lifestyle, son.”Lola tells Jamal about a recurring nightmare of hers: “The scary bird is going to get us … He tries to hurt Mommy.” Later in the episode, he learns that the scary bird is Olivia’s boyfriend Reg. Christopher is similarly disturbed when he sees bruises on Rebecca’s body and correctly guesses that they were inflicted by Tommy. Not realising Tommy is dead, Christopher goes to his motel room to confront him. There, with exquisitely soapy timing, he intercepts a phone call intended for Tommy — from his sister, the real Rebecca Sutter!There are further tales of abusive relationships on DYNASTY where Cristal is dismayed to learn that her sister Iris has been secretly conspiring with her violent ex, Alejandro, to extort money from Cristal and the rest of the Carringtons. “You betrayed me for someone who almost killed you?!” she asks in dismay. “He made mistakes, so did I,” Iris shrugs, “but I never asked you to hurt him, to tear my family apart.” “I saved you!” Cristal protests. “No, you saved yourself,” replies Iris, “and ever since then, when I wanted to come here and have a taste of the life you had, you found some reason to keep me in Caracas, begging you for every dollar. Well, I’m done asking.”Back on DALLAS, Christopher confronts Fake Rebecca. “Who the hell are you?!” he demands to know. Just as John Ross did when faced with his murky past, she tries desperately to convince Christopher that she has changed: “I don’t wanna lie anymore. I’ve done everything I could to get out from under things.” When he refuses to believe her, she goes on the attack. “I’m not the only one who lied in this marriage,” she points out. “You’re still in love with Elena.” This clearly hits a nerve because the next thing Christopher does is deliver the third marriage proposal of the week, to Elena. Not since a previous Hispanic heroine from the wrong side of the tracks — Pilar Ortega in FALCON CREST — has a Soap Land gal been proposed to twice in the same episode. What’s more, Christopher’s proposal is almost as swoonaliciously romantic as the one Elena received from John Ross twenty-three screen minutes earlier: “When you were nine and your father died and I saw you crying, that was the day I knew I wanted to do anything I could to make you smile again. When we were fifteen and we raced horses across this ranch and you won and I kissed you for the first time, that was the moment I knew I loved you. When we were twenty-two and we kept each other up all night studying … and then we came home after and made love, that was the day I knew I wanted to marry you … We’ve wasted too much of our lives not being together and I don’t wanna waste another minute without you.” He then produces an engagement ring. “I know you gave this back to me, but it’s yours. It’s always been yours.” Elena may not immediately accept this proposal the way she did John Ross’s, but the final time we see her and Christopher this season, they are ripping each others’ clothes off in a hotel room so I’d say it’s looking pretty hopeful.It's apparent from the trip down memory lane Christopher takes Elena on during his proposal that they are the same age — thirty-one. It’s also Fallon’s twenty-fifth birthday, which means she was born two years after the original DYNASTY reunion mini-series. While Christopher recalls that Elena was nine when “your father died and I saw you crying," Steven claims that Fallon was seven when she “found out what private equity investments were.” “I’ve wanted control of my trust ever since,” she replies. “While other girls were crushing on Chad Michael Murray, I was fantasising about rebalancing my portfolio.” I’m not sure how literally we’re meant to take this claim, but it nonetheless highlights a crucial difference between Fallon and her male counterparts on the other soaps. While John Ross and Christopher on DALLAS, the Lyon boys on EMPIRE and B&O’s Wick and Billy are all driven by a conflicting need to simultaneously learn from their fathers (or father figure, in Billy’s case), gain his approval and break free of his control, Fallon appears not to suffer from any such internal dilemma. She does not doubt her own business skills, has no real need for her father’s approval and, give or take a few million dollars, is pretty much his equal. Also, she’s meant to be hungry and ambitious, yet she has the persona of a spoiled, indolent princess. All of which makes her a hard character to pin down, identify with or root for. On the plus side, she looks nice and has some great one-liners.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?