"Sins of the Fathers"
Without yet descending into self-parody, there is a strong undercurrent of humour that runs all the way through this latest "fight for Ewing Oil" storyline--as if the writers are aware that they won't be able to generate the same level of gravitas here as they did during the equivalent battle of Season 5.
Accordingly, this episode gets off to an fun start as the freshly subpoenaed Ewing boys summon their attorney to an early morning meeting: "JR, I was in the midst of shaving when you called. I gave myself a very severe cut," complains Harve, a small piece of tissue paper clinging to his face. "I'm not interested in your medical report! I wanna legal opinion!" snaps JR. (This brief exchange has prompted more than one forum discussion in which people have wondered why filming wasn't delayed until after George O. Petrie (aka Harve)'s shaving injury had healed. Mind-boggling, on many levels.) "It's gonna make things difficult for you," Harve warns JR and Bobby of Cliff and Jamie's bid to have an injunction placed on Ewing Oil. "Whatever you have to do, do it," JR orders him. "From a legal standpoint, of course," Harve replies. "Well, what did you think I was talkin' about, bribin' the judge?!" JR snaps amusingly.
These little comic moments, however, are not allowed to detract from the drama of the situation. "We're in trouble, Bobby," JR says gravely once the brothers are alone. "I feel it in my bones. It was bad enough when we were just fightin' Barnes and Jamie, but now Pamela's thrown in with them too ... if she ever thought of herself as a Ewing, that day is long gone. No sir, that little lady is all Barnes now." There's an "end of era" whiff about this line, accompanied as it is by Bobby's sad reaction shot. There might still be eleven episodes of the season to go, but one can already sense some kind of unidentifiable end to "The Bobby and Pam Show" on the horizon.
We then cut from one set of siblings in the opening scene to another, as we move from Ewing Oil to Barnes-Wentworth where Pam is in the process of transferring money into a discretionary account ("as I anticipate large legal fees and I would like the money available when I need it") and Cliff is busy predicting JR and Bobby's reactions to current circumstances: "If I know the Ewings, if things start lookin' bad then they're gonna start dumping assets into holding companies, umbrella corporations, anything, because they'd rather bankrupt that company that let me get my fair share." "Well, that's the kinda thing JR would do, not Bobby," Pam replies. Debate over who is morally capable of what? is a recurring thread in this episode. Just as JR criticised Pam to Bobby in the opening scene, Cliff now does the same thing to Pam regarding Bobby. "A Ewing is a Ewing is a Ewing," he insists. "I think deep down in your heart, you know that."
Remember JR's mysterious phone call after Bobby and Jenna's non-wedding which turned out to be from Cliff? Well, now it's time for Pam's equivalent: "Hello?" she asks. "Hi. Um. Fine. I'll meet you there. All right. Good-bye." The call is from Bobby, requesting an urgent meeting. Cliff speculates as to his motive. "If you're so worried, why don't you come along?" she suggests. Cliff laughingly declines: "I happen to know what Bobby's temper's like and I don't wanna be anywhere near him today!" This would be reference to the end of Season 1 when Bobby thwacked Cliff after finding out about his affair with Sue Ellen, and the beginning of Season 2 when he almost did the same thing following Baby John's kidnapping.
Pam abruptly announces that she's leaving work for the day. "Bobby's asked me to meet him for a drink so I think I'll go home and change first," she tells Jackie dreamily. "Might as well look my best." There's something kinda reckless and sexy about the way she then saunters out of the office. The message it leaves us with is very different, but just as strong, as JR's earlier assertion that "if she ever thought of herself as a Ewing, that day is long gone." After all, now that her search for Mark has gone up in smoke, Pam is a free woman once again.
Her carefree mood does not last long, however.
She arrives at the Oil Barons' Club (having changed into what appears to be a virtually identical dress to the one she was already wearing, only in a different colour) to be told by Bobby that it was Cliff, not JR, who sent her to the Caribbean looking for Mark. In the same way that she defended Bobby to Cliff earlier, ("Bobby wouldn't do the kind of illegal, underhand things that JR would") she now finds herself doing the same thing in reverse: "Cliff? Don't be ridiculous. Cliff would never do something like that to me." This is a classic Pam caught-between-Cliff-and-the-Ewings situation. Again, we're back to the beginning of Season 2 and Pam defending her brother against Bobby's accusation that he could have kidnapped Baby John. "Pamela, when are you gonna realise just how much your brother hates my family?!" Bobby yelled back then. "What wouldn't Cliff do to get Ewing Oil?" he asks her now. "Bobby, it doesn't matter what you say," she insists. "I know that Cliff loves me and he would never intentionally hurt me. Can you say the same about your brother?" She then exits, possibly heading home to slip into yet another variation of the same outfit. "Is Mrs Ewing coming back?" Cassie asks Bobby dumbly. "No Cassie, I don't think she is," he replies. And there it is again: a seemingly inconsequential remark weighted down by a sense of impending finality.
Pam and Cliff do not meet again (at least on screen) before the court hearing regarding the Ewing Oil injunction. At the hearing, Pam sits alone, separated from her brother and Jamie as well as from the Ewings. By contrast, Ray sits alongside JR and Bobby at the head of the court, where the brothers demonstrate a united front before the judge. This follows an earlier scene in which Donna reminds Ray of his previous assertion that "the whole family would be better off if Ewing Oil didn't even exist." "I still think that might be true under different conditions," he maintains, "but right now, what Cliff and Jamie are tryin' to do, well, it' like sayin' that Jock stole the company from Jason and Digger ... So whatever the right or wrong of it, Jock was my daddy and when it comes right down to it, I'm not gonna let Cliff Barnes, Jamie Ewing or anybody else drag his name in the mud." "I don't think you should take sides in this," Donna replies, "This is Bobby and JR's fight. Not yours ..." "Lord knows, most of my life I never thought of myself as a Ewing, but I'm gonna let 'em know I want in," he insists. This is the first sign of the conflict that will eventually lead to the Krebbses' separation. The scene is also notable for a rare reference to Donna's brief fling with Cliff four years earlier. "I never did like Cliff Barnes - for a whole bunch of reasons," Ray tells her. "Ray, Cliff and I were together long before you and I were married," she points out, not altogether accurately. "It bothers me every time I see that jerk!" he snarls. It's a little strange to hear Ray talk so vehemently about a character whom he has never actually spoken to and never will. Curiously, a further three of Cliff's relationships (with Julie, Sue Ellen and Afton) will be recalled elsewhere in this episode.
Like the opening scene, the court hearing is played partially for laughs with the Barnes and Ewing attorneys bickering furiously with one another. Again, we return to theme of who is morally capable of what as Harve takes exception to Ferguson's suggestion that JR and Bobby "would choose to liquidate the assets of, or even bankrupt, the company rather than turn it over to their long life enemy." "Your Honour," Harve begins with enjoyable indignance, "I am outraged by Mr Ferguson's suggestion that the Ewing family, long-respected members of the Dallas oil community, would resort to illegal deception in order to bankrupt its own company." The languid response of the Irish-accented Judge Harding also amuses: "I appreciate your emotion, Mr Smithfield. Beyond that do you have an argument?" In the event, the judge grants a temporary injunction against Ewing Oil while he considers his final decision.
Cliff has little chance to celebrate this interim victory before Pam confronts him over Bobby's allegation: "Did you call JR and set up a meeting to talk about keeping Bobby and me apart? Tell the truth, Cliff!" Jamie squirms uncomfortably as she finds herself an unwilling observer of yet another family argument. Cliff admits that he made the call to JR "because I love you; I sincerely think that you and Bobby are poison for each other," but insists that he took no further action: "I never met this Gerald Kane ... I'm tellin' you the truth. You'd better believe me."
The temporary freeze on Ewing Oil is soon lifted. "Cliff Barnes does not get his injunction," Harve tells JR before sounding a note of caution: "If the judge hears of any impropriety, he might just reverse himself and freeze the company's assets again." Larry Hagman plays JR's wounded reaction tongue-in-cheek: "Harve, that's a terrible thing to say! Do you really think I'd do anything illegal??" Besides, the audience already know JR's up to something because we've seen him in a meeting with Carl Haughnessy, Season 5's dummy corporations expert. (Remember Petro State, the company secretly owned by JR that bought up Holly Harwood's gas stations?) "Are those corporations you set up for me still legal?" JR asks him. "I may be infusing those corporations with a great deal of cash in the near future."
The immediate crisis at Ewing Oil averted, JR turns his attention back to Mandy, even loitering outside her apartment in the dark. "You must know how you affect me," he murmurs when she shows up carrying a bag of sticky-out groceries like kitchen roll and a baguette. "I think you feel attracted to me," he tells her. She demurs, citing unresolved issues with Cliff. "I'm not sure I'm over him." Finally, she offers JR a beacon of hope: "Call me, but not for a few days." "Mandy, a very few days please?" begs the lovesick fool.
Cliff arrives home to find Mandy on her way out the door, her bags packed. "Please don't go," he begs. "I need you more than ever now." "You mean that?" she asks, softening. "Hey, I'm in the fight of my life!" he replies, "If ever I needed somebody to keep tabs on JR, it's now. I mean, you could help me clinch this thing. The timing's perfect!" She loses it: "You are unbelievable! ... You are a selfish, insensitive, cheap, no class jerk! I tell you something. Next to you, JR Ewing is quite a catch!" This echoes Afton's final line to Cliff eighteen episodes earlier: "You make JR Ewing look like a saint." In contrast to Afton's exit where she slipped away carrying just a dainty little box thing and matching hat, Mandy is weighed down by armfuls of clothes, a heavy suitcase (Pam's from Season 1 if I'm not mistaken), some bags and a large overcoat. The effect is comedic rather than poignant which, given the comparatively brief nature of Cliff and Mandy's relationship, feels appropriate.
Clayton and Ellie are MIA for most of this episode, dispatched to Texas City to deal with some refinery emergency or other--whatever it takes to keep Donna Reed off screen. The sidelining of Donna R continues as Donna K admits in her scene with Ray that she has been avoiding her supposed best pal: "I did not want to see Miss Ellie."
While Ray tags along to Galveston with JR to track down Alf Brindle, the only surviving eyewitness to Jock, Jason and Digger's 1930 oil strike, and Sue Ellen takes off on a mysterious errand, Jenna is left behind at the ranch to brood and bake bread. This is one of the very few occasions in which we see someone who is neither Mexican nor BBG cooking in the Southfork kitchen (although I do seem to remember Donna whipping something out of an oven during the tête-de-veau scene of Season 6). Donna drops by and she and Jenna share their first one to one scene together, (a brief exchange at the Good Ol' Boys Charity Rodeo notwithstanding) before going on to develop the weirdly intense and deeply phoney friendship they share during Season 8, and a much more difficult and interesting relationship in Season 9. Jenna explains that her interest in baking comes from her father. "Most girls learn from their mothers, I guess. Mine couldn't cook a thing. She never did teach me anything." This is the only reference in the series to Jenna's mother. With the investigation into Naldo's death yielding no fresh leads (or plot developments), she is on the verge of cracking up, and PP does a not too bad job of conveying the stress that she's under: "I'm so frightened ... Everything points to me killing Naldo ... Maybe he did try to rape me, maybe I did grab a gun and shoot him ... I just don't know anymore ... God, what if I really did kill him?!"
Meanwhile, a fur-trimmed Sue Ellen (looking, I must grudgingly admit, lovelier than she has all season) visits Barnes Wentworth for the very first time. After a brief encounter with Cliff in reception, (during which Ken Kercheval acts his socks off, hoping perhaps to alert Katzman and co to the potential of another Cliff/Sue Ellen storyline) she is shown into Pam's office where she offers Pam one of her periodic olive branches. No longer the pushover she once was, Pam plays it cool: "You made your feelings very clear that day at my house when you accused Cliff of trying to shoot JR ... I hurt so much that day. You were the only one I had left that I felt close to or that I could talk to." "Pam, I don't even think that an apology can make up for what I said," Sue Ellen grovels. "I wish that we could be friends again." "Has something happened between you and JR?" Pam asks cynically. "Doesn't something always? I know that things couldn't be at a worse point between the Ewings and the Barnes, but I would like our friendship to be apart from all that, and I hope that can happen." "I hope so too," replies Pam (uh oh, maybe she is still a pushover). "Despite everything I try, a little part of me always feels that I belong at Southfork," she adds poignantly. "I know that that can never happen now that I've thrown in with Cliff"--there's that note of finality again--"but I hope that we can be friends."
Donna Reed finally shows up for a pre-dinner cocktail scene, during which Bobby comes out with an interesting aside: "Mama, you remember Lee Evans, the pilot who saw Daddy's helicopter go down? ... Well, [he] is being questioned about ... that governmental investigation into drug trafficking in South America." Nothing more is ever made of this, but it's presumably a reference to the plot of "Who Killed Jock Ewing?", the tacky novel published in 1985 in which the character of Evans appears. (I say presumably as I gave up on the book after two attempts; it's not very good.) Perhaps this was an aborted attempt to lay some groundwork before introducing the Jock Ewing murder mystery (which the novel doesn't bother to solve) into Season 8, before the Ben Stivers/Wes Parmalee/Wyatt Haines lookalike plot device proved a more intriguing idea.
JR returns tight-lipped from his meeting with Alf Brindle in Galveston. "That man is a gold-mine of information," he tells Bobby, Ellie and Clayton tantalisingly, before going upstairs to change out of his safari jacket. He runs into Sue Ellen on her way out to dinner, another dead animal draped daintily around her shoulders. "I went to Barnes-Wentworth this morning to see--" she begins. "You went to see Cliff Barnes?" he interrupts. "Are you really tryin' to rub my nose in it by goin' out with that idiot?" "Well he must have something," she replies teasingly, standing in his bedroom doorway. "Look at all the women the two of you have shared--Julie Grey, Afton, myself." (Points for continuity here as there's no mention of Marilee Stone, whose affairs with JR and Cliff Sue Ellen has no knowledge of.) "As a matter of fact, Cliff is a wonderful lover," she adds wickedly.
This is the final straw for JR who slams the bedroom door and grabs Sue Ellen by the furry arms. "I'm not gonna let you do this to me," he tells her. "I'm not going to do it to you," she taunts, "I'm gonna do it to Cliff. You never really wanted me anyway, so why does it bother you what I do?" "Because, honey, you belong to me," he replies, pushing her onto the bed. "You still want me, don't you?" he laughs, kissing her. "No, get off me!" she protests. "I know what you like," he insists. She starts kissing him back. Oh no, one thinks for a second, they're gonna get back together yet again and it's gonna be really boring ... but then she knees him the groin. "And I know what you like," she murmurs, "and I'm sure that wasn't it." With that, she moves out of shot, leaving JR behind grimacing in pain.
It's a really good scene--a call back to the excitingly visceral JR/Sue Ellen bedroom battles of the early years, (see "Black Market Baby", "Rodeo", "House Divided", "Taste of Success") where their antagonism would spill over into physical violence. JR's been pussy-footing around Sue Ellen for far too long--it's been three years since he pinned her up against a wall, for instance--but happily, that's all about to change.
In Charlene Tilton's Scene of the Week, Lucy and Eddie canoodle after breaking ground on their new business venture, unaware they are being observed by a seething Lovely Betty from inside her car. If only she'd remembered her fibreglass wig, Lovely Betty could have gone careering into them, Katherine Wentworth style.
This episode contains a troubling scene in which Pam receives a phone call from nice, kind Dr Miller, the Caribbean medic who introduced her to the doctor who claimed to have seen Mark in Hong Kong, and she is so rude to him! "You're really good to the very end, aren't you?" she snaps. "Why don't you stop this charade? I know that this entire chase for Mark is a phoney, that you and everyone else was bought and paid for by JR Ewing!" "That's a very insulting thing for you to say, Mrs Ewing," replies Dr Miller, sounding all hurt and Jamaican and lovely. "If you really want to find Mr Graison, can you take the chance that what Dr Matsuda told you wasn't the truth? ... Could you ever forgive yourself if you didn't follow up on every lead?" She ends the call without apologising. We never see or hear of Dr Miller again, so one can only hope Pam sent him a postcard of apology from Hong Kong or her subconscious or wherever. "Cliff, I've just had the strangest phone call," she tells her brother thoughtfully. "So have I," he counters. "From Bobby! The Ewings want to meet us tonight. It's about who really owns Ewing Oil!" Could this be any more exciting?
To the last scene of the episode, and if it was strange to Sue Ellen at Barnes-Wentworth, it's feels even more incongruous to see the Ewing boys, Ray included, setting foot inside Cliff's condo-townhouse-thingy. "Nice cosy little place you got here," smarms JR. (This is his and Ray's only visit to Barnesville; Bobby becomes an occasional visitor in the last few years of the show.) JR, Ray and Bobby face off against Cliff, Jamie and Pam. Accompanying the brothers is Alf Brindle. In a season full of great supporting characters, this bashful, boozy Walter Brennan-esque eccentric is one of my favourites. (In fact, when I first saw Walter Brennan in RIO BRAVO a few years after this episode originally aired, I was dumb enough to think he was the actor who'd played Brindle. It's actually Eddie Firestone, who will return in Season 12 as murder victim "Rabbit" Hutch who drowns in a fish tank or hangs from a noose or chokes on the implausibility of the script--I forget which.)
JR introduces Cliff and Jamie to Brindle as Digger and Jason's respective offspring. "This is Pamela Barnes," he then adds. "I'm not sure if you ever met her father." With some fortification from Cliff's liquor cabinet, Alf then takes centre-stage, and starts to tell his story. ("Pay attention to who stole what from whom," JR urges Cliff's camp.) "You know," Alf begins, "Digger was a real good friend of mine. Oh yeah, we did a lot of drinkin' and playin' together. He always knew how to smell out where the oil was, that Digger did .... and the fights them three had, I tell you!" "You mean, the Ewing brothers against my daddy?" asks Cliff. "Digger and Jason," Brindle corrects him. "They were the ones doin' most of the fightin'. Oh yeah, many's the time Jock had to come between them cos Jason really hated Digger, you know? He was all the time tryin' to get Jock to get rid of him, that they didn't need him, that he was just a drunk--which he mostly was--but Jock wouldn't hear of it, no sir ... Jock took care of Digger. He kept him on the payroll, even when he was off doin' his drinkin', and he kept Jason from doin' him any real damage ... Beggin' your pardon, Miss Jamie, and I hate to say it, but your daddy was a black-hearted man, and he and Jock were all the time goin' at each other over Digger, and I gotta tell you that Mr Jock Ewing was near a saint pullin' up with the two of them!"
So Jock was "near a saint" and Jason "a black-hearted man". Up until the invention of his ghostly brother, Jock was a sufficiently complex and ambiguous creation to incorporate both saintly and black-hearted aspects within his character. Adored by his wife and worshipped by his sons, he was nonetheless capable of ruining men in the name of business and impregnating women at times of international crisis. Now that the evil spirit of Jason has emerged to absorb all the negative aspects of his personality, Jock is free to be remembered as a blameless and noble hero. Rest assured, there'll be no more Tom Owens or Margaret Hunters or Jonas Culvers to come out of the woodwork and tarnish his reputation.
"This old man's rambling doesn't mean anything legally," shrugs Cliff uneasily. "Really?" challenges JR. "Well, what if he were to testify in court? Then Dallas and the whole world would know the truth about the Barnes/Ewing relationship. All that talk all those years about my daddy stealing from Digger, and all the time he was tryin' to protect him. Well, you just go ahead with your little lawsuit. Maybe it's time the truth comes out." The suggestion that Cliff and Jamie would consider surrendering their claim to millions and millions of dollars in order to safeguard their fathers' reputations is kind of quaint, and very DALLAS. "If I had a daddy like Digger Barnes," continues JR, unaware of Alf reaching inside his jacket pocket, "I'd do just about anything to keep the whole world from knowing the truth about him." "Another thing you reminded me of, Mr Ewing," Brindle pipes up, pulling out a package, "when Digger and Jock had their big falling out, well, Digger gave this to me. I guess he was afraid of getting drunk and losin' it or somethin'. Anyways, we parted paths along about then, and the only times we saw each other after that, we'd start drinkin' and clean forget that we ever had it ... Don't even rightly know what's in it, but I guess it belongs to you now, son," he says, handing the packet to Cliff who opens it, smiles and shows its contents to Jamie and Pam. "It must be Digger's copy splitting Ewing Oil in thirds," he says. "It proves that document's real ... Thank-you, Mr Brindle. JR, I wanna thank you for finding him. You've just made our case. Now I'm sure Jamie and I are gonna take Ewing Oil away from you." Ha ha!