"The Reckoning"
Written by Will Lorin, apparently - there goes David Paulsen's weekend then. Directed by Bill Duke, a groovy black character actor who appeared in DALLAS THE EARLY YEARS as one of the characters Jock saved single-handedly from the Ku Klux Klan (or something like that).
Following on from a somewhat sluggish instalment, this episode is far more dramatic. There is no shortage of inter-family conflict: JR insults Miss Ellie, Miss Ellie shouts at JR, JR turns on Pam, Pam shouts at Bobby, JR taunts Ray, Ray manhandles JR, JR and Lucy snipe at one another and Sue Ellen angers Pam.
The episode begins with an establishing shot of JR driving through the Southfork entrance, the lights of the house blazing dramatically against the night sky. He is informed by Sue Ellen that the rest of the family are waiting inside for him. "Miss Ellie has something to tell us," she says.
The atmosphere in the living room is pensive - Bobby paces, Ellie noodles at the piano, Pam nurses a drink while staring into the middle distance. In comparison, JR is positively chirpy: "I'm sorry, I didn't know everyone was waiting for me ... Just let me get a little fortification and I'll be all ears." While he busies himself at the bar, Miss Ellie stands and addresses the room: "You all know my feelings about Jock's will. Particularly about the codicil that he wrote before he died. Well, I've had some time to consider the whole thing. I've talked to Harve Smithfield and another lawyer Brooks Oliver." "I hope they talked you out of making any hasty decisions?" enquires JR, holding out a club soda to Sue Ellen who crosses the room to take it. "Mr Oliver has agreed to represent me," Ellie continues, "He thinks we have a good chance to break the will." "You're going ahead with it??" asks Sue Ellen in surprise. "Yes I am," she responds. "I can't believe you're still intent on tarnishing Daddy's memory," says JR, his upbeat veneer disappearing. "I am
not tarnishing his memory," Ellie replies, "Don't you SAY THAT TO ME!" "... Don't you two realise she's trying to stop you from hurting each other?" asks Pam, addressing Bobby and JR. "Keep out of this, Pam," barks JR. "Mama, what's going on is between JR and me," says Bobby, "I don't think you should get involved at all." "I'm not here to explain my reasons. Only to tell you what I'm doing." "You think is fair, Miss Ellie?" Sue Ellen asks. "It has to do with survival. Not fairness, Sue Ellen." With that, Ellie exits the room. JR refills his drink. "I hope you two are really proud of yourselves," snaps Pam. "This is all your fault, Pam," snarls JR, "Hadn't been for you, she'd have never gotten that lawyer." "Miss Ellie made up her mind herself and if you don't know that, you don't know your own mother!" she shouts back. "I know my own mother," he tells her, "and I know you too, sweetheart. Ever since you moved into this family, you've been trouble. Now stay out of it. This is not your fight!" On his way out of the living room, he grabs Sue Ellen's glass out of her hand, ("Gimme that!") slamming it down on the table for good measure. She follows him up the stairs, leaving Pam and Bobby alone. "Thanks a lot!" Pam exclaims crossly. "That was a wonderful defence of your own wife! How could you let him talk to me that way?" Without waiting for a reply, she too leaves the room. "JR is wrong in a lot of things, but he's not wrong in this," Bobby calls to her retreating back, "As my wife, I thought you'd stand by me in it!" Phew--way to start an episode!
Upstairs, Sue Ellen attempts to defend Pam's involvement to JR. "It's only because she cares for Bobby," she declares, completely misinterpreting Pam's motives. "She feels that overturning Jock's will may get Bobby out of the fight." "Darlin', if she really cares for him, she'll help him," he replies before suggesting that she intercede with Pam on his behalf. "Tell her that if she really believes in her husband, she'll support him just the way you're supporting me ... If she believes in your friendship as much as you do ... you'll convince her." This is the first of two successive episodes in which he attempts (unsuccessfully) to pimp one of his wife's friendships for his own gain.
An obedient Sue Ellen takes Pam to lunch at Mario Messina's Il Sorrento Cucina Italia the following day. "I don't care if Bobby beats JR or doesn't beat JR," Pam clarifies. "I want my husband and my family all in one piece. That's what's important to me ...
That battle is really going to hurt somebody. Really hurt somebody." This echoes her warning to JR from two episodes ago: "Your dirty deals might just get somebody killed one of these days." She is interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Mark Graison. He playfully asks what she is doing in "my restaurant ... I eat here almost every day." (Needless to say, we won't ever see Mark eating there after this episode.) Mark and Sue Ellen are introduced but won't meet again until Pam's dream. "Brooks called. He's taking Miss Ellie's case," he says to Pam. "I can't thank you enough for that," she replies with a smile, her manner noticeably warmer than at their last meeting. "I am here to help," he tells her. "Anything that I can do for you ..." Sue Ellen looks from one to the other before reporting back to JR that night.
"Are you suggesting that Pam and Graison are having an affair?" JR asks her. "No," she replies, "but he was definitely impressed by her." "... This could be quite a break, honey," he muses. "From what I understand, Graison's quite the ladies' man, likes all those macho things like parachutin', fast cars and so forth. Turns ladies on, you know?" This is our introduction to the concept of Mark Graison, daredevil. Even though we never see him indulging in any such activities on screen (unless riding a polo pony counts), the idea is reinforced regularly during his time on the show (such as with the suggestion in Season 6 that he was "the first man to skydive in the nude") and even beyond, with Pam theorising that his love of danger might have stemmed from the same death wish that also prompted his suicide. "Given the right signals, he just might make a move on her," JR continues. "I wouldn't mind if [Bobby] was distracted by a nasty little marital problem." This idea does not sit too well with Sue Ellen: "I don't want anything bad happenin' to Bobby and Pam's marriage ...
Can you imagine if somebody did that to you and I?" This is another example of Season 5's karmic irony: somebody
will "do that" to JR and Sue Ellen - one Holly Harwood. (Lois Chiles is a no-show in this episode for the first time since the season began. Timothy Patrick Murphy also gets his first week off.)
JR makes reassuring noises to Sue Ellen, but this does not stop him from tracking Mark to Il Sorrento the next day. "My sister-in-law Pam, she's quite taken with you," he tells him, "Pam's a wonderful girl. Too bad she and Bobby are havin' problems right now." It's always fun to hear JR lie so blatantly. "Say, we've never done any business together, have we?" he asks Mark, changing tack. "No," Mark replies curtly. "Well we oughta get together and see what we have in common," he suggests. "JR, I think the only thing we have in common is that we're eating in the same restaurant." Mark's cool response is interesting. It makes it clear that while he may have no qualms about pursuing a married woman, that's where the similarities between he and JR end; Mark Graison is one of the good guys. As is the case with Sue Ellen, Mark's next encounter with JR will take place in Pam's head, when he bursts into his office and sends him flying with one punch.
Whatever his reservations about the man himself, Mark is nonetheless sufficiently encouraged by JR's words to pay an impromptu visit to the aerobics studio where VP's delightfully pert bottom is on display. Even as she reminds Mark that "I am a married woman", Pam appears flattered, even charmed, by his attentions. "Sounds like I'm being thrown out on my ear," he says with a twinkle in his eye. "You are," she smiles.
After a hard day in Lycra, Pam returns home to find Sue Ellen sitting on the living room couch pretending to read a book. (This is a pose Sue Ellen will strike for much of the remainder of the season. They don't call her "the brunette on the couch" for nothin'.) "You've had a few phone calls today, all from the same person - Mark Graison," she informs Pam, "I'm just getting a little worried about you ... I've never seen you go against Bobby before and it's really not something that a happily married woman does, and now with Mark Graison -" This is a 180 degree shift from the Sue Ellen who actively encouraged Pam to begin an affair with Alex Ward in Season 3: "The Ewing men are all the same," she told her then. "The Ewing women must make their own lives."
Then she wanted Pam to rebel;
now she wants her to conform. Regardless of whether Sue Ellen is looking at the Ewing world through jaundiced or rose-coloured glasses, she expects Pam (and later Jenna) to share her vision. "Why do you keep mentioning Mark Graison?" Pam asks. "What are you trying to suggest? ... Just so you know, my marriage to Bobby is rock solid." "If that's true, then why are you getting so angry?" Sue Ellen persists. "Because you're
making me angry!" "Pam, I'm your friend." "Then act like it!"
JR and Sue Ellen are not the only ones speculating about Bobby and Pam's marriage. In their first scene since their off-screen reconciliation, Miss Ellie frets to Rebecca that her decision to contest the will is the cause of "some friction" between them. "Wouldn't it be nice if you and I could show them that the Barneses and the Ewings can be friends?" sighs Rebecca, as if she hadn't just spent the previous fourteen episodes waging a vendetta against her daughter's in-laws. Indeed, she and Ellie are suddenly best buds, embracing and cooing over their grandson. "He's bringing us closer than we've ever been," she later tells Afton. This is one of the narrative pieces being put in place to ensure that Rebecca's death will have the maximum impact on the greatest number of people.
As the Ewing brothers prepare to face their mother in court, Harve warns that if the judge rules against them, the entire will - not just the codicil pertaining to the fight for the company - could be overturned. If this should happen, Jock's previous will, drawn up fourteen years earlier, will come into effect. "As young as you boys were at the time ... your mama would get 100% of Ewing Oil," he tells them. (Actually, JR wasn't
that young in 1968. He was already working at Ewing Oil, dating Sue Ellen and sleeping with Julie Grey.) "The will is a problem for what it doesn't include," Harve continues. "Ray and Gary. They'd lose out badly. Fifteen years ago, Jock was furious at Gary." "That's when Gary was drinkin' so much," remembers Bobby. According to the Ewing back story, Gary fled the ranch some five years earlier. How much contact, if any, he had with his family between 1963 and 1978 when Bobby found him in Vegas is unclear. In any case, both Gary and Ray ("just a ranch hand then," as per JR's description) "would get virtually nothing" if the earlier will were to come into effect.
Bobby and JR each use this information to try and pressure members of the family over to their side. First Bobby argues with Pam over Miss Ellie's course of action. "I don't think she's wrong," Pam maintains. "Even if it hurts Gary and Ray?" he asks. Pam is unimpressed: "Bobby, you know your mother. Never in a billion years would she hurt Gary or Ray."
Next, JR preys on Lucy. "I can't say it would bother me if you lost Ewing Oil," she tells him airily, seemingly less concerned about the matter than when she questioned Miss Ellie's decision on the night of the barbecue. "It's just a joke to you, isn't it?" he snaps. "If your grandma's successful in court, your daddy's inheritance is gonna be reduced to a stipend. That means a handout, honey. Or don't you give a damn?" Given her attitude towards Gary following the reading of Jock's will, ("I know what my father is; it's my own stupidity that makes me think he'll ever change") it wouldn't be too surprising to find out that Lucy
doesn't give a damn. However, indifference does not good drama make and so we get a nicely affectionate grandma scene in which Miss Ellie reassures Lucy that she will make good on Jock's bequest to Gary. ("Gary was my son a long time before he was your daddy.") During a discussion with Pam, Miss Ellie goes so far as to say that "where Gary's concerned, it could be a blessing. I could improve on
the way Jock dealt with him." This being a reference to the restrictions Jock put on Gary's access to his inheritance.
Ray, however, is a different matter. "I'd take care of Ray too, but Pam, Ray is so much his own man," Ellie frets. "He might refuse to accept anything from me." She summons him to the house to discuss the matter. "Well I never had that money before," he shrugs. "Guess I can keep on living all right without it, Miss Ellie." "... I won't let you lose that money," she insists. "First things first," he replies, shifting the direction of the conversation, "and the first thing is for you to win."
Out in the driveway, JR tries to enlist Ray's support for the cause. "You and Bobby and me," he tells him, "we're all in this together." Ray is unmoved. "I find it hard to believe you're fightin' against your own ten million dollars," persists JR, "cos if she wins that's what you stand to lose, boy ... You really are a dumb old cowboy, aren't you?" Ray grabs him by the scruff of the neck and pins him against the bonnet of his pick up: "I'd give up my house, my inheritance, every damn cent I've got before I'd go with you against Miss Ellie!" he snarls. (While all eyes are on the fight between JR and Bobby this season, the sibling relationship that's slowly building in violence is between JR and Ray.) It's interesting to note that while Ray does not object to Miss Ellie publicly questioning his father's mental competency, he'll adopt a far more defensive stance when Jock is accused of stealing Ewing Oil from Digger and Jason in Season 7. Indeed, that is an instance in which Ray
does side with JR against Miss Ellie - or at least Donna Reed's somnambulant version thereof.
Back at his own house, Ray confirms Miss Ellie's fears when he admits that he would not be comfortable receiving money from her if Jock's will is thrown out of court. "Taking charity from Miss Ellie who's not even my real mother, well I just don't think I could do that," he tells Donna.
In retrospect, of course, all of this soul searching is moot. In fact, one might even call the entire "older will" subplot a red herring as the judge will end up ruling against Miss Ellie anyway. Nevertheless, it provides us with some good solid family interaction and gives characters less directly involved in the Ewing Oil fight, i.e. Ray and Lucy, a chance to take a stand on the matter.
News of Miss Ellie's upcoming court fight even filters through to the Texas Energy Commission where Donna uses it as yet another reason to have JR's variance rescinded. "If Jock's will is overturned, the whole company is gonna revert to his widow," she informs her fellow commission members. "She is going to sell it. That is the end of the battle and of low gasoline prices ... This whole commission is gonna look like a bunch of fools as soon as this battle between the Ewing brothers is over with." "Something we should consider, I suppose," concedes TEC chairman Elton Lawrence. George Hicks is unimpressed, however. "Voting against that variance is like voting against motherhood!" he decrees.
There's a really good scene in which Punk, clad once again in his Johnny Cash/Man-in-Black outfit, comes to JR's office to see the Ewing boys. As the closest person to Jock in the last days of his life, it is logical to assume that his testimony at the hearing will be the most crucial, and the brothers are anxious to know which side of the fence he is on. "Can we count on you in court?" JR wants to know. "Will you be willing to testify as to what Daddy's intentions were?" Bobby asks. "Are
you?" replies Punk pointedly, "I know what Jock's intentions were and I know the feelin' behind 'em and neither one of you care anything about that at all ... It wasn't Jock's intention to let you use the codicil to destroy Ewin' Oil." The brothers aren't in a listening mood. "Punk, are you with us or not?" snaps Bobby. "I don't know," he replies. "I'm caught in the middle ... between my duty to your daddy and my affection for your mama!"
Elsewhere in the episode, a similar sentiment is expressed to the brothers by Harve Smithfield: "I take no joy in fighting with your mama - or the fact that both of you forced her into taking this action." In a way, these two elder men, Punk and Harve, represent the more benign side of Jock and function as the conscience of the episode. JR reacts to both their remonstrations with a cool-headed practicality. "I appreciate your sentiments," he tells Harve. "Neither Bobby nor I wanted to go up against Mama, you know that. But we can't let those feelings interfere with our winning. That's the one thing we damn well better do." "The only way Mama can win is to prove that Daddy was mentally incompetent," he says to Punk. "Would you testify to that?" "I don't know what I'll testify to," Punk replies, "if I testify to anything. All I can tell you is I'll be in the courtroom."
A tense family dinner ("The atmosphere around this table is cold enough to chill the wine," observes Miss Ellie) is interrupted by a visit from Brooks Oliver who appears
at the front door!! "The hearing of the will is scheduled for next Tuesday," he tells Ellie.
Next thing we know, it's next Tuesday, and "the case of Eleanor Southworth Ewing versus the estate of John Ross Ewing Senior, deceased," is underway. "Judge Howard Mantee [played by the brother of Oscar-winning actor Art Carney] presiding." As Brooks commences his opening argument, ("It is our contention that the codicil is inconsistent with Mr Ewing's character ... We further believe that the codicil casts serious questions as to the soundness of his judgement towards the end of his life and we petition the court to eliminate it") we find Pam, Donna, Ray, Clayton, Dave Culver and Franklin Horner all seated on Ellie's side of the court. Punk's position on JR and Bobby's side (behind Sue Ellen) makes it clear that "my duty to your daddy" ultimately wins out over "my affection for your mama." The sombre mood of the proceedings is reflected in the appearances of the women, each of whom is dressed in black and white, with the exception of Sue Ellen who wears grey.
The first witness to be called on Miss Ellie's behalf is Dave Culver, the man who initially approached Jock about the South American trip on behalf of the State Department. He explains that Jock actually volunteered for the job. "He seemed anxious to go. He wanted to jump in with both feet." When Brooks asks if Jock's behaviour could be described as obsessive, Dave demurs (which makes one wonder why he was called to testify for the plaintiff in the first place). "
It was more like this trip could be his last hurrah," he explains. "
Sort of a last grand gesture of a great man." This description suggests some awareness on Jock's part that his life was drawing to a close. While he was clearly not a young man, there was nothing in the
character's behaviour at the end of Season 3 to suggest such a keen sense of his own mortality. However, the
actor playing him was gravely ill--something most viewers would have been aware of. And so retrospectively, it seems as if Jim Davis's real-life condition and Jock's off screen actions are somehow being fused together.
Next to the stand is Franklin Horner, Jock's banker for over thirty years. He describes letters he received from him in South America. "Jock seemed so concerned about the company ... minor, trivial details .. like he was forgetful." Prompted by Brooks Oliver, he suggests that Jock may have been suffering from senility. This prompts an effective reaction shot of Pam wincing.
To denote the passing of time in the courtroom, we are shown a list of witnesses for the plaintiff on which some of the names have been crossed off, among them Pam and Harlan Danvers (the Ewings' physician) whose testimonies are not shown on screen. The last name on the list is Ellie's. Brooks requests that her testimony is delayed until after the defence has presented its case.
There is a similar witness list for the defence. The following names are crossed off: Pat Powers (Jock and Punk's buddy from Season 3), Harold Jackson (no idea), Bobby, and Sue Ellen. (The mind boggles as to what Sue Ellen's testimony would have been: that she knew her father-in-law was of sound mind because when she presented him with a piece of sculpture for his 40th wedding anniversary, he correctly identified it as a piece of crap?)
Far more germane to the case is Punk's eye-witness account of Jock's last days. "Jock has been worrying a lot about the future of Ewing Oil," he explains on the stand. "Miss Ellie was to inherit total control of the company and he was afraid it might be a little bit too much of a burden for her ... He just couldn't figure out a better way to handle the problem." "It's your opinion that Jock knew exactly what he was doing when he set up that contest?" asks Harve. "He knew it'd be tough," Punk confirms.
During Punk's cross-examination by Brooks, the fact that Jock was suffering a fever during the last week of his life is introduced. This plot point will prove to be a key factor in the resolution of Season 9's "Is Wes Parmalee Jock?" riddle. "We both had a little fever," Punk admits. "It came and went." "How high was his temperature?" asks Brooks. "101, 2," he mumbles. "My word, you can become delirious at 103." "Jock wasn't delirious."
"How can you tell? You were burning up just like he was!" I love the way Donald Moffatt barks that last line.
JR is the last witness for the defence. "He was always pitting Bobby and me against each other," he tells Harve truthfully. "It was his way of toughening us up and it also told him who was the best man for the job. No sir, that codicil was just an extension of the way we were raised all our lives."
During a brief recess, in which the Ewings, Punk and Clayton (Howard Keel has no lines in this episode) huddle in their various camps outside the courtroom, JR delivers to Bobby the coldest line of the episode, if not the entire season: "I see your little wife over there giving aid and comfort to the opposition." "Opposition? JR, that's your mother!" exclaims Sue Ellen.
Ellie finally takes the stand and tells Brooks of the conversations and letters she shared with Jock while he was in South America. Obviously, this is information we were not privy to during the first half of Season 4 when such correspondence would have been taking place, and again there's a retrospective sense that Jock's death wasn't only the result of a random helicopter crash, but also arose out of Jim Davis's illness. "He told me on the phone that he had been trying to plan ahead, but it was hard. He was tired. He said that he just wanted to lie down and go to sleep for a while," Ellie recalls. "He just wasn't himself down there."
To read from Jock's letters, she put on her reading glasses, a gesture which only adds to her vulnerability. "'I'd forgotten how miserable the jungle can be,'" she reads. "'Between the heat and the fatigue, I'm about done in. I've been running a fever lately, but I guess I'll get over that.
If Punk can survive it then so I can I.'" This line prompts another poignant reaction shot, this time from a moist-eyed Sue Ellen. "'We're getting things done. It's not like when we were young, though, Ellie. I'm really feeling the years down here ... I find myself trying to figure something out, then just drifting off some place, back to younger days, younger times. It's funny, but I stare out and all these jungle plants just kind of dissolve and there's your face instead. My pretty little girl, my pretty little Ellie. Lord, how I miss you down here.'"
By now, she is weeping. Brooks continues with his questions. "Aside from the fever and the exhaustion," he asks, "are you saying that at the time your husband wrote the codicil, he lacked mental competence?" She looks up at him pleadingly. He flashes her a warning look with his eyes. She turns to her sons. Bobby appears upset; JR's expression is harder, less easy to read. "I'm saying his sense of judgement was not up to his usual standard," she says through her tears. "That's not what I'm asking," prods Brooks gently. "If that's the legal term you need to break the will," she replies slowly, "then yes, Jock was not mentally competent." She lets out a small cry.
It's strange: I've lost count of how many times I've watched Season 5, and this was always an example of a BBG performance I found impressive without being particularly touched by. For some reason, however, and I don't know if it's to do with watching it on DVD, it now feels very moving. The ordeal Ellie undergoes on the stand--being forced to "betray" her husband twice over: first by making his private thoughts public, then by declaring him incompetent--must be one of the most acute depictions of anguish experienced by any character during the series. Moreover, not only are the rest of the family obliged to helplessly witness this suffering, but two of them--Bobby and JR--must do so in the knowledge that they are the cause of it. Would the writers have chosen to explore this kind of emotional territory had the situation not been forced on them by Jim Davis's death, I wonder? It seems doubtful.
And in the end, Miss Ellie's suffering is for nought. "The court finds the testimony both touching and persuasive," says Judge Mantee in delivering his verdict. "It would appear that the codicil as drawn was possibly a mistake in judgement. ... However, the court cannot find grounds enough to overturn [Mr Ewing's] final intentions." In retrospect, the idea that so much destruction (three deaths, two broken marriages, a fire, etc.) could have been the result of something as simple as "a mistake in judgement" seems terribly poignant. Nonetheless, JR smiles with relief upon hearing the verdict.
The final shot is one of the most evocative episode endings of the series. From the back of the courtroom, we see Brooks sitting next to Ellie, offering some words of consolation, but we are too far way to hear what is being said. They are then obscured from our view by the people behind them getting to their feet. Then Ellie emerges walking alone down the aisle, eyes fixed ahead of her. Bobby's voice calls "Mama", but she doesn't acknowledge it. JR starts walking behind her, then Pam appears. They're all headed in the same direction, but isolated from one another. It's the exact opposite of the "Bypass" freeze frame which captures the Ewings exiting the hospital after Jock's operation, very much a united family.