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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 13541" data-attributes="member: 22">22/Feb/84: DYNASTY: The Accident v. 23/Feb/84: KNOTS LANDING: No Trumpets, No Drums v. 24/Feb/84: DALLAS: True Confessions v. 24/Feb/84: FALCON CREST: Tests Of Faith v. 25/Feb/84: THE YELLOW ROSE: Running FreeEach of Soap Land’s working girls - DYNASTY’s Tracy Kendall, FALCON CREST’s Terry Hartford, KNOTS LANDING’s Cathy Geary and DALLAS’s Jenna Wade - is visited by a figure from her past this week. First to arrive is “ageing but still attractive boy reporter” Jeremy Thatcher, an old flame of Tracy’s from New York, whom she persuades to write a magazine article discrediting Krystle as “the spoiled wife of a tycoon playing at being a career lady”.Then the newfound happiness of both Cathy and Gary on KNOTS and Jenna and Bobby on DALLAS is cut short by the intrusion of an ex-husband. Whereas Naldo Marchetta introduces himself to Bobby in the elegant surroundings of the Oil Baron’s Club and apologises profusely for interrupting his and Jenna’s lunch, Gary’s first meeting with Ray Geary is less civilised — he walks in on him trying to rape Cathy. While Naldo remains charming and courteous throughout his ep ("You have always had such marvellous taste,” he tells Jenna on a visit to her apartment), Ray Geary refers to his former wife as “nothing but a two-bit whore trying to take some guy for all he's worth.”Gary and Ray come to blows at the ranch, the fight ending with Gary holding Ray face down in the mud. It’s an exciting set piece but is eclipsed by a violent confrontation on this week’s FALCON CREST. Lance is lying in wait for Richard in an underground parking lot. "Everything up at Falcon Crest," he tells him, "my grandmother's loss of power, Melissa's loss of my baby, my mother's loss of her mind, it's all because of you. You have destroyed our entire way of life." Richard's chauffeur-cum-bodyguard comes to the rescue, but Lance overpowers him. Richard pulls out a gun. Lance kicks it away and they have a cool fight. Richard’s security team appear and slam Lance's fingers in a car door. Richard then punches him in the stomach. "You want revenge, do you?” he snarls. "You don't even know the meaning of the word. You, you disgust me, your whole family disgust me, and I won't rest until you and your family are through! Do you hear me, boy? Finished! Can that get through that vacant head of yours? ... Dump him on his grandmother's front porch." Again the viciousness of the scene feels specific to FALCON CREST - Richard and Lance are equally important characters who co-exist in the same opening title sequence yet it feels as if neither would hesitate to kill the other if necessary. That kind of cold-bloodedness doesn’t really exist on any of the other soaps.Naldo Marchetta may be too suave to resort to violence but he does wield a weapon in this week’s DALLAS - Charlie’s birth certificate, which reveals that Jenna lied about Bobby being her father. Likewise on FALCON CREST, Terry’s former prostitute pal Kate Mars (recently seen making snarky comments about Peter and Sue Ellen’s relationship in that taco shop on DALLAS) also arrives from New York equipped with a smoking gun - Terry's little black book. "All the guys' specialities are listed after their phone numbers,” she explains as she hands the book over to Terry’s boyfriend Michael.For Bobby and Michael, the truth about Charlie’s paternity and Terry’s former profession is less of an issue than the fact that they’ve been lied to. “What bothers me, Jenna, is that you just kept leading me on," says Bobby. “You’re either a pathological liar or I’m a pathological fool," Michael tells Terry. "Everything else is a lie ... All I ever wanted was a chance at the truth.” “I know how much the truth means to you, how important it’s been to you all your life,” Jenna tells Bobby - a line that, as Dallas Decoder points out in his recent critique of this DALLAS ep, takes on added significance following the cover-up of JR’s death on New DALLAS. <a href="http://dallasdecoder.com/2014/12/03/critique-dallas-episode-152-true-confessions/" target="_blank">http://dallasdecoder.com/2014/12/03/critique-dallas-episode-152-true-confessions/</a>When Cathy offers Ray $5,000 to leave town on KNOTS, he is unimpressed. When Angela Channing offers Kate Mars the same amount to wreck Michael and Terry’s romance she takes it. Naldo accepts an undisclosed amount from Katherine Wentworth for doing the same thing to Bobby and Jenna’s relationship, despite a brief crisis of conscience (“I didn’t say I was noble, I just know what I am.”) Over on DYNASTY, Peter de Vilbis absconds with $1,000,000 belonging to Blake Carrington. Will Sue Ellen’s Peter disappear just as easily? Not if Lucy’s got anything to do with it. This week, she offers him a modelling job (“I know you could use the money”). He isn’t interested — until Lucy mentions the shoot is going to be at Southfork.As one piece of sleazy Eurotrash departs Soap Land (Peter de Vilbis) another arrives (Naldo Marchetta). The two men have a lot in common. Each comes from an aristocratic background (Naldo has been referred to as a count, Peter told Fallon his mother was a countess) yet both now travel the globe living off rich divorcees and heiresses. We learn this week that neither man is exactly the paternal type. Jenna explains to Bobby that even though Naldo is Charlie’s father, he "couldn’t care less about children” which is why she put Bobby’s name on the birth certificate in the first place. Meanwhile, Alexis tells Fallon that Peter ordered his former fiancee, Princess Marie Elena, to abort his child because “he didn’t want children … She refused so he dumped her.” Naldo and Peter even share the same fashion sense, both favouring the blazer-and-cravat-with-swept-back-hair look.As Naldo’s revelation drives a wedge between Bobby and Jenna, Bobby’s brother Gary remains separated from his wife Abby. Both Ewing men, however, continue to make time for their respective partner’s daughter. Whereas Charlie Wade, a babyish thirteen year old, remains oblivious to the drama going on around her (“You’re everything I’d ever want in a daddy,” she tells Bobby dreamily, “all you have to do is marry Mommy”) a wise-beyond-her-twelve-years Olivia is all too aware of the estrangement between her mother and Gary. (“How many fathers am I going to have?” she asks Abby. “I hate you!” she yells at Gary after catching him with Cathy.) Meanwhile, on FALCON CREST, little Joseph is too young to understand that he is caught in a power struggle between Melissa and Angela. “He’ll never come to you,” Melissa insists. “All little boys are drawn to power,” replies Angela chillingly. “Lance was and Joseph will be too.” This gets my vote for Line of the Week, ahead of JR’s well known “once you give up integrity, the rest is a piece of cake” quip, which is a little too knowing for my taste.Melissa is the only recently bereaved mother-to-be to feature prominently in this week’s Soap Land. Kirby and Sue Ellen make brief appearances early on in their respective episodes before spending the rest of the hour recuperating off screen. Meanwhile, as if to compensate for all the recent baby loss, Val discovers she is expecting twins on KNOTS.Given the extremely delicate — if not taboo — subject matter, it’s somewhat ironic that Edgar Randolph’s child molestation secret should come to light on DALLAS just one week after THE YELLOW ROSE’s episode about child prostitution. While the YELLOW ROSE story took place on LA’s mean streets, DALLAS’s unfolds amidst the dappled sunlight and pretty houses of small town Maryland. Whereas all the previous sexual predators we've seen targeting young girls in Soap Land (LC’s abductors and Olivia’s kerb crawler in last week’s YELLOW ROSE and KNOTS, Vicky’s would be pornographer in FALCON CREST Season 1) were situated “out there” on the big city streets, on DALLAS they’re living in fancy houses in respectable neighbourhoods. And in place of the tough-talking hookers and slimy pimps encountered by the Champions last week, the Krebbses meet an eccentric gardener and a cheerily domestic retiree, Sarah Mulgravy, who is transformed by rage at the mention of Edgar’s name: “Oh Lord! Why didn’t I have a gun in my hand when I went into that room?!” Sarah feels to me like a forerunner of Carmen Ramos on New DALLAS - both are housekeepers who come to bitterly regret their blind devotion to the rich families they served and the subsequent damage done to their children. Certainly, Sarah is Soap Land's most memorable one-scene character since Ciji’s mother on KNOTS.Through their investigation, Ray and Donna come to learn that Edgar’s recent unstable behaviour (i.e., his suicide attempt) stems from his molestation of a little girl when he was a troubled teenager. Likewise on DYNASTY, Blake finally discovers that Adam’s recent unstable behaviour (i.e., his poisoning of Jeff) stems from the drugs he experimented with as a troubled teenager. "Edgar was a very confused adolescent. He had no real experience of anything,” explains victim-turned-psychologist Barbara Mulgravy. "He was a very lonely boy. He had no real family, no real friends,” explains Adam’s mother Alexis.For both DYNASTY’s Dex and KNOTS LANDING’s Ben, the shadow of their respective lady love’s ex-husband looms large this week. On DYNASTY a new understanding is forged between Blake and Alexis following Adam’s confession, while the look he witnessed between Gary and Val at the end of last week’s KNOTS continues to weigh on Ben’s mind. At Mack’s urging, he tries to raise the subject with Val before leaving on his assignment to El Salvador, but cannot bring himself to say the words. In contrast, when Alexis turns down his marriage proposal, Dex has no hesitation in accusing her of being hung up on “your ex-husband whom you can't seem to get out of your head or your life or your heart!” Mark Graison might feel the same way about Pam and Bobby if he knew that they were having pre-dinner drinks together at Southfork. However, he has left the country in order to give Pam time to think about his marriage proposal. (In Mark's absence, it’s left to JR to voice his disapproval, somewhat amusingly, when he sees Pam at the ranch: "Say, weren't you here a couple of months ago? You're not gonna make a habit out of this, are you?”) Meanwhile on FALCON CREST, Phillip Erickson angrily resigns as Angela’s attorney when she does an Alexis and declines his offer of marriage.While Ben bids a tender farewell to his fiancee Val before departing for Central America, Peter de Vilbis leaves for an unknown destination without a word to his. "Peter found you beautiful and amusing,” his lawyer informs Fallon, “and now he’s had to leave … He doesn't want to see you again.” “The minute [Ben] walked out the door, I started to crumble,” Val admits to Karen. The moment Fallon leaves the lawyer's hotel room, she starts hearing the voices of those Carringtons and Colbys who previously warned her against Peter. (However, disembodied voices are nothing to the trippy effect FALCON CREST uses to indicate Julia’s unhinged state of mind this week. Looking at herself in the mirror, she puts out her hand to touch her reflection and it bends.)Following on from Sue Ellen and Melissa’s recent car accidents on DALLAS and FALCON CREST, this week’s DYNASTY and KNOTS also end with vehicular collisions, both of which technically take place off screen. Firstly, just after being jilted by Peter, Fallon gets into an argument with Jeff in the driveway of La Mirage. A drunk driver (I like to imagine it’s the same guy that knocked down Sue Ellen two weeks ago and that he's since hit all the bars in Soap Land to get over the shock) ploughs into one or both of them. (The camera is on Blake’s dismayed reaction during the moment of impact.) Meanwhile, KNOTS ends with Val taking a phone call about Ben, not dissimilar to those received by Miss Ellie and Claudia Blaisdel regarding their husbands two seasons earlier. “Their jeep was hit,” she tells Karen and Lilimae after hanging up. "The jeep’s been found but none of the men.” Have the jungles of Soap Land claimed yet another victim? Nor are Ben, Jeff and Fallon the only characters left in mortal jeopardy at the end of this week’s episodes - FALCON CREST concludes with Maggie learning that she has a brain tumour. “It’s inoperable,” Dr Michael tells her gravely.Horses have been an element of several Soap Land story-lines this season. As well as the day to day ranch life which serves as a backdrop to much of the action on DALLAS, KNOTS and THE YELLOW ROSE, there’s the ongoing saga of Richard’s racetrack on FALCON CREST, the purchase and apparent kidnapping of racehorse Allegree on DYNASTY and a recent visit to the races on EMERALD POINT which seemed to trigger Casey Denault’s latent gambling addiction. However, the beautiful white stallion we see running across an oil drilling site in the opening scene of this week’s YELLOW ROSE and who then becomes the primary focus of the ep is the first Soap Land horse that’s an actual character. “It’s funny how everyone feels a little different when they see a horse running free,” observes Roy Champion and indeed the wild animal comes to represent different things for each of the show’s regular (human) characters. (And it’s not hard to draw a parallel between the stallion’s need for freedom and Julia’s implausible but exciting escape from a maximum security institution on this week’s FALCON CREST.) It’s a sweet and poetic ep that has very little do with conventional soap opera until the climax of the episode when several characters independently arrive at the same location, all with different intentions, resulting in a tragic shooting. In that respect, it strongly anticipates the KNOTS LANDING season finale in five weeks time.THE YELLOW ROSE does contain one other classic soap moment this week: the Champions striking oil on their own ranch, thereby saving themselves from financial ruin at the eleventh hour. We’ve seen variations on this scenario before — Matthew and Walter’s well coming in towards the end of DYNASTY’s first season, the Ewings hitting it big in South East Asia during DALLAS’s second — while John Ross and Elena’s discovery of oil on Southfork will later be deemed significant enough to reignite the entire Ewing saga on New DALLAS. On this show, however, the iconic moment occurs when all but one member of the family are too preoccupied by the story of the week to even notice. Such absolute refusal to abide by Soap Land norms is quintessential YELLOW ROSE.And this week’s Top 5 are …1 (2) KNOTS LANDING2 (1) FALCON CREST3 (-) DYNASTY4 (4) THE YELLOW ROSE5 (3) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?