Jock the jerk!

[Billy Nolan]

I´m in Season 8 now and J.R. has his fights with Jamie.
Again, I think (like often before) Jock Ewing was a real as***le.

Jock Ewing was a real jerk. What Cliff Barnes says to Jamie Ewing hits the nail on the head: Jock left Digger Barnes and even his own brother Jason Ewing penniless and ravaged by alcoholism, while he himself amassed a fortune. It therefore seems only fair that their name is finally cleared and their children receive a third of the Ewing oil.

Although the series repeatedly tries to portray Jock as an honorable patriarch, his behavior often tells a different story. He frequently treated his children harshly and didn't always show the necessary warmth, even towards Ellie. Friendship—for example, with Digger—family unity—towards Jason—or genuine fatherly compassion for Gary weren't always his priorities.

Cliff is right—and J.R. remains, as so often, the ruthless antagonist whom we somehow still enjoy watching.
I hope J.R. will finally be brought to his knees.
I really cannot stand him.

 

[Svengali]

unpopular opinion but never liked him ! never !

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Oh, yes. We only met Jock as sweet, sweet Grandpa. But even he admitted, during that duck hunt in Texarkana, that he'd run roughshod over people in his youth.

At least he could admit that in his twilight years.

And poor Uncle Jonas!

 

[Barbara Fan]

Not a fan and hate how they made the character a Saint - all that baloney about saving people during the war

JR learned at the feet of the master of deviousness - The 3 Bs booze, broads and booty - also Blackmail, bribery, corruption, driving Jonus Culver to suicide by stealing his land and getting him committed, his treatment of Digger

He stuck his 1st wife in a sanatorium and cheated on his 2nd wife

Not great qualities or ones to be proud of.

 

[Laurie Marr]

Yes the revisionist myth making swings into action as soon as his plane goes down in South America. However, that’s not uncommon when most people die. Jock became a cipher through which different characters constructed meaning about their own identity. Ellie did this a lot, but none more so than JR who used pleasing dead Daddy as the excuse to justify all kinds of outrageous practices.

One gets maximum cooperation from the dead and they are regularly recruited to legitimise all kinds of fantasies fabricated by the living.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Jock was also deified most-mortem as a way of commemorating the fallen actor, Jim Davis, and that can be a tricky balance to strike. I'm not sure TV shows would feel the need to do the same today.

Jock had turned his family into the internecine, codependent pit of alcoholic they became, and all they can do is praise him for it.

And Miss Ellie claims that "all that hate" was inside of herself.

Really, Ellie? All of it??

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

There are some who feel Jock loved Miss Ellie more than she did him, and that she was well-aware of the discrepancy and perhaps held it over his head to a degree.

Does anybody agree with that assessment?

Certainly, the relationship began with Jock saving Southfork during the Depression, with Ellie later asserting that the couple was "a good match."

It's quite common for women to choose men in order to access resources (even today, when women have their own money). While Jock's feelings for her were about, perhaps, "love" -- or sexual attraction, the desire for offspring?

Was Jock's "love" worth anything, given his rascally nature? And was Ellie's "love" just about what he could do for her financially?



Jock: "I had a wartime affair with Margaret Hunter which produced a child, Ray; Miss Ellie forgave me for that --- just as I've forgiven her for bearing Digger's child, the man we today call 'J.R.'..."
Miss Ellie: "F**k you and eat sh*t, you bastard. Now smoke a pack of Marlboros and take a chopper to Colombia, you a**hole!"

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

Jock was an alpha male in a business where his competitors were ruthless

Was Jock's story accurate or was Digger's story accurate? Did the accuracy take place some where in between?

In Dallas: The Early Years, the indication is that Jock tried to be fair, but Jason betrayed him and Digger was unreliable and gambled away
his shares. Jock then assumed full ownership, was going to give Digger his share, but Digger then said that Jock took his share.

In the original miniseries, Jock tells Pam a basic version of these events.

"Dallas: The Early Years" seems to be a story that is told from the perspective of JR's memories, and whatever Jock told him.
JR dismisses Cliff's reliability when talking to the reporter. We have Cliff's interpretation of whatever Digger told him, presumably, in the 1978-91 series.
Cliff seems to accept Jock's version of events, after finding the letters, and his experience with Dandy.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

Was Jock's story accurate or was Digger's story accurate? Did the accuracy take place some where in between?

I liked it a lot more when this was a valid question — before Jason was invented as a vehicle to get Cindy from Three’s Company on the show and Jock soon was revealed to be something like “Ghandi as a depression-era Texas oil entrepreneur”. (to be mildly facetious)

The “real power is something you *take*” speech gets a lot more interesting when you realize Bobby’s internal reaction may well be “oh s**t, maybe Digger was more right about what happened than I thought”.

Likewise I think Bobby’s seemingly rash decision to leave Southfork when JR shut down Ewing 23 was really a reaction to Jock circling the wagons around JR’s obvious lie about not knowing anything about the Asian revolution. You could see a bit of Bobby’s idealism die in both of those cases.

Prior to Jason and Wallace Windham and the Early Years, I think the closest we got to a third-party endorsement of Jock’s side of the story was Sam Culver, a wily politician if there ever was one, saying something like “well I guess you did about as right by Digger as you could..”

My guess is that both Jock and Digger truly believed their respective sides of the story and it was a misunderstanding between two men too stubborn and hot tempered to work things out. We didn’t know for sure, though..

 

[Seaviewer]

It's quite common for women to choose men in order to access resources (even today, when women have their own money). While Jock's feelings for her were about, perhaps, "love" -- or sexual attraction, the desire for offspring?

It would be interesting to know exactly at what point they began to "love" each other - if they ever truly did. They seemed to during the years we saw them together, but their history is more mercenary.

 

[Laurie Marr]

In Season 11 Ellie is candid about her marriage to Jock and her motivation. However, this is just a springboard to play cupid to Jenna and Ray by commending patience and how true love is ultimately more than the dopamine high of instant attraction.

Unlike Jenna, I didn't buy a word of it.

 

[Chase Gioberti]

Jock was an alpha male in a business where his competitors were ruthless

Was Jock's story accurate or was Digger's story accurate? Did the accuracy take place some where in between?

In Dallas: The Early Years, the indication is that Jock tried to be fair, but Jason betrayed him and Digger was unreliable and gambled away
his shares. Jock then assumed full ownership, was going to give Digger his share, but Digger then said that Jock took his share.

In the original miniseries, Jock tells Pam a basic version of these events.

"Dallas: The Early Years" seems to be a story that is told from the perspective of JR's memories, and whatever Jock told him.
JR dismisses Cliff's reliability when talking to the reporter. We have Cliff's interpretation of whatever Digger told him, presumably, in the 1978-91 series.
Cliff seems to accept Jock's version of events, after finding the letters, and his experience with Dandy.

If we take The Early Years as canon then Jock certainly tried to do his best by Digger and help him and Digger wouldn’t take help. He raised two

Jason was just an asshole who deserved to be run out of town. He raised two kids that were idiots and never saw anything through. Jamie didn’t do her research before her suit. Jack couldn’t be bothered to stick around long enough to see his divorce finalized and lost everything as a result.

If The Early Years is not canon then Jock’s character is a matter of interpretation .

 

[Chase Gioberti]

I´m in Season 8 now and J.R. has his fights with Jamie.
Again, I think (like often before) Jock Ewing was a real as***le.

Jock Ewing was a real jerk. What Cliff Barnes says to Jamie Ewing hits the nail on the head: Jock left Digger Barnes and even his own brother Jason Ewing penniless and ravaged by alcoholism, while he himself amassed a fortune. It therefore seems only fair that their name is finally cleared and their children receive a third of the Ewing oil.

Although the series repeatedly tries to portray Jock as an honorable patriarch, his behavior often tells a different story. He frequently treated his children harshly and didn't always show the necessary warmth, even towards Ellie. Friendship—for example, with Digger—family unity—towards Jason—or genuine fatherly compassion for Gary weren't always his priorities.

Cliff is right—and J.R. remains, as so often, the ruthless antagonist whom we somehow still enjoy watching.
I hope J.R. will finally be brought to his knees.
I really cannot stand him.

Jason took off after burning their own oil fields.

Jock tried to give Digger a handout and Digger got drunk and tried to shoot him instead.

Jock may not have been a saint but he did right by these two loathsome people.

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

It would be interesting to know exactly at what point they began to "love" each other - if they ever truly did. They seemed to during the years we saw them together, but their history is more mercenary.

In season 2 when Ellie was prepared to give ownership of SF to Garrison, that was a major red flag.
How can Ellie say that she loves the man who saved SF from bankruptcy, built it into a wealthy ranch operation, built Ewing Oil
into a multimillion (later billion) enterprise and fathered her sons, then turn around and give it away to a brother who had been absent for decades and did literally nothing to save the ranch?
JR was right to object
JR was also right to object when Ellie further disrespected Jock by giving half of SF to Clayton, with Jock's sons having no property rights
if Ellie predeceased Clayton
That seems inconsistent with love, at the very least

It is fiction, granted, but in the real world, it is unlikely that Garrison would have kept ownership of SF, even if Jock' s name was not listed as an owner.
Jock and his sons would have had a claim of adverse possession, since Garrison was away for decades and/or Garrison would be responsible
for reimbursing Jock for the upkeep of the property during that time, likely millions. Garrison would have nowhere near that much.