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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 256964" data-attributes="member: 22">The Dove Hunt (DALLAS, 26 Oct 79) v Down Came the Rain and Washed the Spider Out (1&2) (KNOTS, 18 May 89)The Dove Hunt is The One Where the Ewing Men Go Hunting. As such, one could almost view it as a prequel to Call of the Wild, the Season 11 episode where JR and Bobby take their sons to Haleyville to shoot some deer. In that ep, JR paints a portrait of Gary as the overly sensitive brother squeamish about killing animals and is worried about John Ross turning out like him. In The Dove Hunt, however, it’s apparent that JR himself is the Ewing out of his comfort zone in the great outdoors — he doesn’t bag any birds, he hangs back when the rest of the men get into a barroom brawl and when they come under attack, he’s a positive liability: first, he gets shot while trying to help the already injured Jock and then falls asleep when he’s meant to be keeping watch, allowing the enemy to overpower them. It is then that Jock is confronted by a long-forgotten face from his past, just like Pam was in Double Wedding. And just as Pam was revealed to have had a secret husband before she married Bobby, Jock confesses to JR that he had a secret wife, Amanda, before marrying Miss Ellie.I can pinpoint the start of my DALLAS obsession to the final scene of this episode — specifically the shot of Kristin eavesdropping on Jock and JR talking about Amanda on the cardboard patio. That’s when it occurred to me that every Ewing on this insane show has something they’re trying to hide from the rest of the family: Jock’s first wife, Miss Ellie’s cancer fears, JR’s mortgaging of Southfork and his affair with his sister-in-law, the riddle of Little Josh’s paternity, and Pam's genetic disorder. The one exception is Lucy, who talks openly and excitedly about meeting up with her mother and the fact that Val and Gary have reestablished contact: “They could get back together. We could be a family!” Bobby cautions her against getting her hopes up: “Sometimes these second tries don’t make it either.”   Fast forward nine years to Down Came the Rain and Washed the Spider Out and it turns out Bobby was right — Gary and Val’s second try didn’t make it after all. “You stole Val’s husband,” Karen reminds Abby in their final scene together. “Gary and I, we fell in love,” shrugs Abby, unrepentant to the last. “Nobody could help that, nobody predicted that, nobody could have prevented that and if Val was hurt in the process, I’m sorry. Val’s a nice person — a little dull, but she’s nice.” Too dull to appear in this season finale two-parter it would seen.Abby’s goodbye to Karen is perfectly pitched — very funny and very poignant without tipping over into sentimentality. She also has a memorable last scene with Paige whom she rates a six on the Abby Scale. This is an improvement on Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate almost exactly two years earlier when she made it clear to Paige that they were nothing alike ("Everything I have, I’ve earned. Everything you have, you’ve been given.") Lest we think she’s softening towards her young adversary, however, Abby makes a point of telling the murderous Ted Melcher that Paige has incriminating evidence against him. She then happily rides off into the Japanese sunset, leaving Paige with a massive target on her back.Both The Dove Hunt and Down Came the Rain involve characters deciding on a whim to take off on a two-day vacation. On DALLAS, it’s Miss Ellie who encourages Jock and their sons to go hunting in Landowne so she can consult a doctor without his knowledge. On KNOTS, Mack suggests a road trip to Karen as a way of distracting her from the whole Lotus Point/Murakame/Abby saga. Just as JR resents Jock inviting Ray along (“You know how he feels about Ray — like he’s one of the family,” Bobby tells him. “Yeah. Never could figure that one out,” JR mutters), Mack is dismayed to discover Paula has hitched a ride with him and Karen.Karen’s impromptu Rodgers and Hammerstein road trip singalong with Mack and Paula is everything her and Val’s rendition of 'I’m Henry VIII (I Am)' during Back to the Cul-de-sac isn’t: charming, funny and believable. Whatever the “cooped up in a jeep” equivalent of going stir crazy is, Kevin Dobson captures it perfectly, as Mack goes from refusing to join in with the singing to losing his inhibitions so much the other two can’t shut him up. The whole thing’s just so natural and funny and real.Thanks to Abby, Paige spends the second part of Down Comes the Rain trying to avoid being killed, much like the Ewing men do in Landsdowne nine years earlier, but whereas The Dove Hunt is set in the woods and has a kind of generic action-adventure vibe about it, Down Came the Rain Pt 2 mostly takes place in shadowy, claustrophobic places: elevators, dimly-lit offices, underground garages and, climactically, during a rainstorm at night that mirrors Paige’s inability to see clearly: who should she believe — Ted or Greg? You’d think the answer would be a simple one, but every time she takes a step towards Greg, something happens to make Ted’s accusations against him seem increasingly plausible.Each time I watch the Abby-less second half of Down Came the Rain, the more I love it. It’s a such a bold, ingenious psychological game of cat and mouse that I almost end up thinking “Abby who?”And the winner is … Down Came the Rain and Washed the Spider Out.BONUS BEATS:[MEDIA=youtube]y_B9WURa8Go[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?