New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 203991" data-attributes="member: 22">04 Jul 12: DALLAS: Truth and Consequences v. 04 Feb 15: EMPIRE: Dangerous Bonds v. 25 Oct 15: BLOOD AND OIL: Rocks and Hard Places v. 08 Nov 17: DYNASTY: Company Slut There are two car accidents in this week’s Soap Land. In the first, BLOOD AND OIL’s Garry is on his way out of town when he crashes his getaway car in a drunken stupor. He approaches Wick once more and asks for another $20,000 (the exact amount DYNASTY’s blackmailer demanded for the return of the Cristal/Matthew sex-tape last week) to lay low and keep his mouth shut.But like Rebecca on DALLAS, Wick has had enough of being blackmailed and decides to tell the truth — up to a point. He admits to the sheriff that he lied about the night of the robbery, but pins the blame solely on his accomplice. “Garry said that if I didn’t cover for him, he was gonna tell my father I was the one that gave him the rig codes — which I did not.” (Even though he did.) Meanwhile, in the opening scene of DALLAS, Rebecca confesses to Christopher that their initial meeting in China was prearranged — but insists she had nothing to do with breaking up him and Elena. “All I knew is that you were going to be on the train, that you had just broken up with someone, but … I swear I didn’t know what Tommy had done,” she tells him. “He sent the email to Elena and made it look like it had come from your computer.”After they have been exposed respectively as email fakers and sex-tape leakers, Tommy and Rebecca on DALLAS and Fallon on DYNASTY are each given their marching orders. Bobby instructs a ranch hand to “get this punk off my ranch,” pointing at Tommy. “Make sure I never see you again!” Christopher tells Rebecca. “I want you out of this house!” Blake informs Fallon. Strangely, Sam is permitted to remain at the Carrington manor, even though everyone knows he was responsible for the robbery there two episodes ago. He is nonetheless shunned by Steven. “Cristal and Blake already forgave me,” he protests. “That’s their mistake,” Steven replies. “I’m not making the same one.”Actually, it seems that no C21st soap is complete without a robbery and/or break-in that turns out to be an inside job. This week it’s the turn of EMPIRE where Andre ingeniously orchestrates the hold-up of one of his brothers, Jamal, while pinning it on his other brother, Hakeem. Rather than get his own hands dirty, he manipulates Hakeem’s dumb but fun entourage into robbing Jamal at the rundown, ghetto ass studio where he is recording (so rundown, it’s actually called Ghetto Ass Studios). Inevitably, the hold-up turns uglier than intended and a minor character is shot. This leads to a juicy sibling showdown where Jamal accuses Hakeem of deliberately sabotaging his recording session. Hakeem protests his innocence, but Jamal is too angry to listen. “You ain’t nothing but Lucious’s little puppet and that’s all you’re ever gonna be,” he tells him before punching him in the stomach for good measure. As soon as Hakeem has got his breath back, he calls Andre and instructs him to rush-release his new video before Jamal’s new single has a chance to drop. Thus, the two brothers go from being friendly competitors to bitter rivals — just as Andre intended.We’re only five episodes in, but this week’s DALLAS has all the momentum and urgency of a really good season finale. No sooner have Rebecca and Tommy been thrown off the ranch than Bobby receives legal notification that JR is the new owner of Southfork and intends to start drilling for oil on the property immediately. “They warned me. My whole marriage, they told me about you,” Ann tells JR, “but in my wildest imagination I never thought you could stoop to this.” “Well, Annie, you’re just gonna have to work on your imagination,” he replies evenly.JR’s new deal for Southfork has cut John Ross completely out of the picture — Bad Dad! Or is he? “The deed to Southfork is still yours for the having,” he assures his son. “You and I were supposed to be partners now. That was the deal,” John Ross insists. “The deal was to teach you the oil business — and I am,” he replies. To JR, double-crossing John Ross over their family home is the equivalent of Jock selling him a blind horse when he was eight years old — how else is a son supposed to learn but the hard way? Billy LeFever might not be Hap Briggs’s son on BLOOD AND OIL, but Hap justifies suckering him out of a fortune the same way. “One day you’ll thank me for giving you your first lesson in the oil business,” he tells him.“Smile for the camera,” JR orders an angry John Ross when they are caught on-screen during a football game at Texas Stadium. Hakeem applies the same dictum during a red carpet interview on EMPIRE, masking his frustration at being continually referred to as “Lucious Lyon’s son.” And on DYNASTY, Fallon and Cristal are obliged to make nice while being honoured at Atlanta Digest’s Upcoming Women in Business luncheon, even as they exchange under-their-breath putdowns. (Eventually, Cristal snaps and sprays Fallon with a bottle of Cristal, but no-one seems to notice.)Jerry Jones, real-life owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who was briefly seen in War of the Ewings, makes an equally brief appearance welcoming JR to the stadium. Wide receiver Dez Bryant is also shown making a peace sign in JR’s direction. Over on EMPIRE, Lucious presents “your favourite, Mr Anthony Hamilton” as a surprise treat for Anika. I’d never previously heard of Mr Anthony Hamilton, but from Anika’s awed reaction (“Oh my God! Are you kidding me?!”) and his own “aw shucks” persona, you can immediately tell this is another Real Life Cameo. Mr Anthony Hamilton plays the piano and croons in the background as Lucious asks Anika to marry him, presenting her with “an 18-carat diamond ring — same ring that Richard Burton gave to Elizabeth Taylor” to boot. So far so romantic, but during a later conversation with Anika’s father, who just happens to be a prestigious doctor, it emerges that Lucious has an ulterior motive in proposing. After informing the doctor of his terminal condition, Lucious explains that “Empire is going public, but in order for that to happen … I need a doctor to certify that I’m in good health.” “You’re asking me to commit fraud,” the doctor realises. “You’re just a thug!” “Dr Calhoun,” Lucious persists, “if the IPO goes through and I die, Anika will become a billionaire in her own right.” Doc C is persuaded but insists that no-one, including his daughter, can ever find out about their arrangement.Having turned everyone’s lives upside down, JR abruptly departs Dallas midway through this week’s ep, leaving John Ross to manage things in his absence. “I’m throwing you in at the deep end, just like my daddy did to me,” he tells him before ascending into the clouds in a helicopter. John Ross’s cover story is that he had no prior knowledge of his father’s arrangement with Fake Marta to steal the ranch from Bobby, and is now just trying to make the best of the situation. This claim becomes a relationship deal-breaker for him and Elena. “Promise me that you had nothing to do with stealing Southfork, that it was all JR. Promise me you’re the man I think you are,” she tells him. “I swear none of it was me,” he insists. And with that, they’re back in each other’s arms again.It’s the first day at work for John Ross (overseeing the drilling on Southfork), Cristal (as COO of Carrington Atlantic), Steven (presiding over the Carrington Foundation) and BLOOD AND OIL’s Lacey, who has been persuaded by father Hap to join the family business. “God knows we could use the help,” he makes a point of telling her in front of her brother Wick — the better to make Wick feel like crap. While his daddy’s power of attorney gives John Ross the upper hand over Bobby (“At my father’s request, I am moving into Southfork to keep an eye on things in his absence … I’m hoping you and I can stay out of each other’s way — last thing I’d want is to have to kick you off this ranch like you did to me”), Cristal finds her work cut out for her when it comes to winning her new subordinates’ respect. One of them, Kylie, helpfully explains why: “You know the conversations happening about women in the workplace — we can’t even get mentors because guys like Mike Pence are too afraid to have dinner with us. So when you sleep with the boss and when your wedding ring comes with a promotion, it kind of feels like you proved them right.” Or, as Claudia Blaisdel puts it even more succinctly when she confronts Cristal in the lobby of Carrington Atlantic, “Get back to work, you company tramp — or is it company slut?!”While Elena praises John Ross’s ability to keep his men on side (“Never met a crew that didn’t like you. A tycoon who gets his hands dirty — who can resist that?”), hapless Wick Briggs does not possess the same touch. Indeed, he manages to alienate the crew he’s in charge to the point where they walk off the job. To add insult to injury, Lacey manages to rectify the situation with the minimum of fuss. She even tries to cover for Wick in front of their father, but Hap sees through the charade.Meanwhile, Steven’s first day on the job is complicated by a visit from an old flame, Ted Dinard. He’s ostensibly there for business reasons, but really to impress upon Steven how much he’s changed. “I get it, you don’t trust me … I screwed up in the past,” he acknowledges. “My dad told me … that he offered you a quick payoff to go away and you took it,” Steven reminds him. “What kind of person does that?” “What kind of person offers an addict that kind of money?” Ted shoots back. Seems New Ted has been a lot wilder than Square Ted ever was back in ’81. Ted and Steven aren’t the only pair of exes to take an awkward trip down memory lane this week. To transport the oil from Southfork, JR has enlisted the services of Ryland Tankers. “I’m the only one in Dallas with enough trucks to move that kind of oil,” brags Harris Ryland, who just happens to be the ex-husband of Bobby’s wife Ann. “As I remember, I make your skin crawl. Of course, you always were prone to hyperbole,” he recalls when she visits him. Nevertheless, when she asks him to cancel his tanker contract with JR, he agrees: “I like your husband. I always thought his brother was a prick.” Meanwhile, in spite of Ted’s claim that he has got his act together, he hurts Steven all over again by going to bed with Sam.Oil tankers also factor as a plot point on BLOOD AND OIL when Billy pitches his latest get-rich-quick scheme to buddy Clifton: “Picks and shovels, baby — that’s how people got rich during the gold rush … You know what our picks and shovels are? Tanker trucks. We don’t drill the oil, we move it. I got us a crazy cheap deal on four of ‘em!” Alas, Clifton then rains on his parade by keeling over with a heart attack.Soap Land has gone sex-tape crazy of late. A week after the video of Matthew having it off with Cristal went viral on DYNASTY, two more compromising recordings emerge. The first, of John Ross and Fake Marta,  is left as a parting gift for the former by the latter before she skips town — only for it to be intercepted by an angry Christopher. He tells John Ross he is especially interested in the pillow talk “where you call Marta by her real name, Veronica. It proves you knew who she was before the deal was made, that you were conspiring against my father … Fraud and conspiracy, that’s still a crime in the state of Texas. I want proof from you that JR was in on the fraud, enough proof to undo the deal, or you’re going to jail!” Meanwhile on EMPIRE, Andre’s wife Rhonda films Hakeem’s pop singer girlfriend Tiana canoodling with her own girlfriend, India. (A lesbian couple in Soap Land and an interracial one at that! Whatever next — a black female Doctor Who?) Rhonda then does what Fallon did with the Matthew/Cristal video — leaks it to the media.“Million Dollar Tramp!” yelled the Los Angeles Ledger, next to a picture of Cristal in throes of passion with Matthew on last week’s DYNASTY. “Shocking New Photos of Tiana and India!” gasps Perez Hilton’s website on this week’s EMPIRE. “You my girl. You ain’t supposed to be kissing no damn India chick and you know that,” Hakeem tells Tiana sulkily. “You got a sidepiece too,” she points out, lest he forget she caught him taking a bubble bath with Naomi Campbell last week.(Whereas Matthew & Cristal’s and Tiana & India’s indiscretions were caught on camera phone before being uploaded onto the net, John Ross and Fake Marta’s coupling has been preserved on Ye Olde DVD. This is the first real reminder that five years separate Episode 5 of New DALLAS from Episode 5 of New DYNASTY — the equivalent of watching an ep from the original DALLAS mini-series alongside an episode from La Mirage-era DYNASTY.)Just as Wick agrees to wear a wire in the hopes of extracting a murder confession from Garry on BLOOD AND OIL, Cookie reluctantly cooperates with the authorities on EMPIRE — testifying in a confidential hearing that she witnessed drug dealer Frank Gathers (presently incarcerated) shoot a man dead seventeen years earlier. Only after she’s given evidence does she learn that the dead man was an FBI agent. “Do you know what kind of animal kills a federal agent?!” she asks her handler in alarm. “Dead bitch walking — that’s me … Men like Frank Gathers reach right from prison and drop people dead every day!” After finding a single rose on her doorstep, she assumes the worst: “That’s Frank’s trademark — he marked all his product with a rose … Somebody’s trying to kill me!” As far as Cookie is concerned, an anonymous rose at her door is the equivalent of ‘80s Claudia receiving violets from Lancelot or Karen Mackenzie finding a box full of snakes courtesy of My Love Always. But rather than collapse in a dead faint or scream the house down, Cookie simply hires a hitman to take care of “Frank’s boy on the outside” and carries on with her day, which entails producing Jamal’s new song over the phone (“Baby, scrap that intro — talking before the record starts is dated”) and dealing with Tiana’s sapphic sex scandal (“Look, girl, I don’t judge, but you’s a freak. That’s a good thing. We can sell that.”) All is well until the end of the ep when Lucious casually mentions that it was he who left her the rose to mark their anniversary. Realising she had no reason to arrange the hit on Gathers’ man, she tries to call it off, but it’s too late — she may have just inadvertently instigated a gang war!When Jamal calls Hakeem “nothing but Lucious’s little puppet," it hits a nerve. Hakeem’s already decided that for his career to progress, he “can’t be Lucious Lyon’s son no more.” Likewise, John Ross talks about how he has “spent my whole life trying not to be [JR’s] son.” Conversely on BLOOD AND OIL, Clifton advises Billy from his hospital bed that “to beat Hap Briggs, you got to be Hap Briggs.”There are no sex-tapes currently doing the rounds on B&O, but Cody, Billy’s nice but forgettable wife, has figured out that Hap and her gal pal Jules are sleeping together and confides her discovery to Billy. With Clinton’s words ringing in his ears (“To beat Hap Briggs, you got to be Hap Briggs”), he uses this tidbit to try and blackmail Hap. “I want my 5% of McCutching back … or we add Carla to this conversation,” he tells him. Hap calls his bluff, inviting him to say what he has to say in front of his wife — but when push comes to shove, Billy’s too nice a guy to carry out his threat. Following through on the mentor/student theme, Hap then describes Billy as “a student flunking his final exam.” Christopher Ewing exhibits a similar failure of nerve on DALLAS. He shows up at Elena’s door with the DVD proving that John Ross was in on the Southfork swindle burning a hole in his pocket, but when he hears her say how much John Ross means to her (“More than anyone, he has always had my back”), he cannot bring himself to show it to her.Carla’s suspicions have been aroused, however. “Billy may have been too weak to tell me, but I’m not an idiot and we both know old habits die hard so who is she?” she asks Hap. He manages to deflect the question, but it seems he isn’t the only serial philanderer in C21st Soap Land. When Anika queries her mother’s lack of enthusiasm regarding her engagement to Lucious, she is reminded of “all the times you came crying home to me — all his other women.”When Cody hears that Billy used what she told him in confidence to threaten Hap, she is furious. “I am trying to make a life here, I am trying to put down roots and you are alienating anybody who tries to get close!” she yells during the first onscreen fight between B&O’s golden couple. She then abandons the argument to put in an extra shift at the pharmacy because “one of us has to work.” This leads to a classic ‘When Storylines Collide’ climax as Garry, still on the lam and injured following his car crash, pulls a gun in the very pharmacy where Cody is working late, demanding money and pain medication. He gets nasty and she pulls off his mask, causing him to panic and knock her to the floor, where he starts kicking her in the stomach. Just as DYNASTY ends with Blake hovering anxiously over Claudia Blaisdel’s prone body after knocking her down outside her house (the second of the week’s two car accidents), B&O ends with Billy crouched over his similarly unconscious, and also pregnant, wife.Although the Lyon and Carrington clans have now been the subjects of two online scandals apiece, the Ewings of DALLAS don’t seem to attract media attention in the same way. The popping flashbulbs at the Cattleman’s Ball and JR making it onto the big screen at the Cowboys game this week are as celebrity as New DALLAS has gotten. Christopher and Rebecca’s breakup plays out against the semi-public backdrop of the Ewing barbecue, but there’s nobody surreptitiously filming it on their phone. Thus it doesn’t go viral and from a dramatic standpoint, it doesn’t need to. The open-mouthed reactions of Christopher’s family and a few shocked extras are enough to convey the gravity of the situation. “How could you do that to him, use us all like this?” demands an appalled Ann of Tommy, with whom she had previously bonded. “I just did,” he mumbles — and it’s the one time he shows even a flicker of remorse. (Notably, Ann is the one member of the family to whom Rebecca later looks for absolution.) And even though there’s no love lost between Christopher and either John Ross or Elena at this point, neither of them derives any amusement from the situation the way Fallon did from the news of Matthew’s death at Blake and Cristal’s wedding.While the characters on EMPIRE and DYNASTY are depicted as belonging to a wider, more contemporary world (see this week’s references to Perez Hilton and Mike Pence), the world of the Ewings feels more enclosed and intense, just as it did on the original DALLAS. There’s a similar vibe in this week’s B&O where it’s suggested that the “boom town” environment that the characters inhabit is starting to affect their behaviour — or more specifically, their morality. “Out here, the rules are different,” insists Billy when Cody confronts him about his blackmail attempt. “This place, all the temptations, it’s easy to lose your way,” admits minor character Ada, who began the series as a model wife and is now on the brink of an affair. It’s precisely this kind of moral murkiness that Bobby has been trying to pull his family out of on New DALLAS. When Christopher argues that to combat JR’s appropriation of Southfork, “we need to start fighting fire with fire,” Bobby insists that “we are not breaking the law to fix this … The whole point of selling Southfork in the first place was to stop this family’s descent!”And this week’s Top 4 are …1 (1) DALLAS2 (3) BLOOD AND OIL3 (4) EMPIRE4 (2) DYNASTY</blockquote>

Verification: 6 + 4 =