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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 212882" data-attributes="member: 22">Breakup (KNOTS, 09 Apr 87) v The Briar Patch (KNOTS, 15 Dec 88)There’s a scene in Breakup where Karen is trying to untangle some wool that could serve as a metaphor for the entire series. Things are especially knotty in these two episodes where nearly everyone is tied up in lies, lies and more lies. For instance, Gary is the only character in Breakup who knows that Peter and Jill are brother and sister, but because he believes Sylvia and Peter were mother and son, he also assumes Jill must be Sylvia's daughter and insists on accompanying her to her mother's funeral. (I don't think Sylvia and Jill ever even met.) At the funeral, Greg, who's pretending to believe Peter's lie that he's his half-brother, doesn't know Peter and Jill are brother and sister and asks Peter why Jill is there. So Peter has to come up with yet another lie. Meanwhile, Peter is secretly seeing Abby, Paige and Olivia at the same time and lying to all of them.Olivia is carrying a letter from Sylvia which would prove that Peter has been lying all along about being her son, but she doesn't know what to do with it. Olivia's a totally empty-headed nitwit at this point,  but in a way that’s useful to the plot. When she takes centre stage, such as during her drug storyline, her histrionics can be grating, but here she’s more like an emotional pinball, ricocheting from one storyline twist to another, and it's really fun to watch.Elsewhere in Breakup, the Mackenzies are trying to figure out whether Anne (never more feline) is lying or if her overdose was a genuine suicide bid. In The Briar Patch, Val is busy trying to prove that her overdose wasn’t a suicide bid, but a genuine murder attempt by Jill. This leads to a whole other web of lies as Jill 'admits' to Gary that she was in bed with another man at the time Val was attacked.Having recently watched a double bill of Breach of Faith and A Brand New Day, both of which dealt with Gary’s infidelities, it’s really interesting to watch his reaction when he’s the one that’s been cheated on. “It was just a single indiscretion which, God knows, I, Gary Ewing, have been guilty of on more than one occasion in my life …” he concedes sarcastically. His bitterly jaundiced attitude throughout the ep is very funny. (“It’s too early in the day to feel this tired. It’s too early in life,” he sighs wearily.) The real irony, of course, is that Jill hasn’t cheated on him at all, but is trying to convince him she has, even as it's costing her the very relationship she has gone to such extraordinary lengths to preserve. Meanwhile, Val is intent on proving that Jill has remained faithful to Gary. Even poor old patsy David Lamb gets roped in — when Val asks if he really spent the night with Jill and he denies it, he thinks he’s lying, but he’s actually telling the truth.I've always liked the bit in Breakup where Mack puts Anne in her place by giving Karen the hot dog sausages and making his “I love how quiet it is on a cul-de-sac” speech. Probably because I'm watching it out of context, it now seems a bit precious, as does Karen’s misty-eyed response. Karen's attempts to go for another misty-eyed moment in The Briar Patch, following the sale of Lotus Point, are undermined, first by Gary and Abby rolling their eyes cynically at each other, and then by Abby’s secret glee at defrauding her partners. Yes, this is the episode where Nice Abby is replaced by the return of Wicked, Wicked Abby who's actually more like Vicious, Vicious Abby. Abby on the warpath, as she is over Peter and Olivia's relationship in Breakup, is exciting, but Abby having a ball scheming under everyone’s noses, as she does as she plants drugs in Harold's locker and introduces the Murakame storyline in The Briar Patch, is even better.And the winner is ... The Briar PatchBONUS BEATS:[MEDIA=youtube]A2tGEVwUuKw[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?