Unfortunately, this is the longest version I can find of the famed pilot scene in which Blake and Steven get into it over his sexuality.
Opinions on the scene, and how the topic was subsequently (mis)handled?
How did I miss this thread? What Peter De Vilbis drugs was I on?
When ABC and Spelling decided to create "a Dallas for ABC," their sole purpose was to create ratings and money. Despite all her subsequent faults, when Esther Shapiro sat down to create "Oil," she had four more reasons: Krystle, Steven, Fallon, and Claudia, four characters never before seen on TV. This scene is such a gem for showcasing Steven, and the relationship between him and Blake.
Before that scene, which starts with a very tender music theme showing Steven's vulnerability (also shown when he knocks on the library door with trepidation) Blake tells Steven that it's been two years since he got a degree so useless he can't even bag groceries with it, and after two years finding himself in New York (Steven
is a gay cliche) Blake expects that after his honeymoon, Steven will come to work at Denver Carrington. "Take a little vacation. Rest up from... resting, gather your strengths, and then you report to work." He offers him three choices: refinery, plant supervision, or PR. Then when discussing Steven's opinion of DC, Steven is incredulous that Blake wants him sharing that with the public, but Blake mentions any opinion would be welcome as he didn't believe Steven "had any opinions about anything."
And then Steven lashes out--how would you know anything about me? Since mother left, you wouldn't even know I was around if I didn't come in wearing a name tag. Blake completely refuses to answer Steven's real accusation, and goes "yeah, about my business--you had a comment to make?" Right from the pilot the absent mother and the ripple effects of that are front and center--Alexis casts a shadow before even cast. When Steven starts his accusations, Blake replies, "Steven, I heard this garbage from people I almost respect. Do you suppose I am going to take it from you?" Apparently you can't go lower than being Steven in that house. Then begins the above clip.
Some of the things Steven says, hearing them now with middle-aged ears, sound quite sophomoric ("Ok, I don't work, but at least I don't steal from the people of this country"--aren't you spending the very money of the person you say steals? I am sure receiving stolen goods is also a crime). As soon as Blake mentions the homosexuality, the camera zooms on young Steven on Blake's desk (at a time when props themselves told stories on Dynasty). Al Corley plays Steven so hurt, and we don't know why he is hurt. Is it because his father dismisses anything he says because he is gay? Is it because he refuses to even discuss his lack of fatherly love toward him? Blake's apology is that he hoped everything would go away--which I guess has been his answer with problems in general. When Steven pleads "dad look at me" Blake still actually doesn't. His dime-story psychoanalysis is in fact brutish--Steven is hiding his sexual dysfunction behind hostility for his father: he would love Blake if he weren't gay.
Blake is brutal, and I find the acting by Forsythe pitch-perfect. It is a shame he did not want to keep this Blake around longer, but went from the epitome of the capitalist Patriarch to the old geezer CEO in a couple of seasons. Al Corley is, as others have noted, showing a performance that tears at your core. I find the eventual interaction of the four characters I initially mentioned anything but incidental. Krystle becoming an ally of Steven, same as Fallon, much as they don't get along. Claudia getting to love Krystle even as coming to despise Krystle. It was like Dynasty in season 1 tried to take complexity and gray areas as far as they would stretch.
