I've always believed that a much better way to return the character of Bobby Ewing to the canvas, would have been to have his death have been a complete ruse, staged by Katherine.
Once you consider all the missing "details" we didn't see on screen, having the whole "death" ultimately explained - as a "Katherine scheme" - which was - at first - to kill Pam - wouldn't have been that difficult to - all all - recreate.
So, how you explain Katherine's evil plan and the truth that Bobby isn't actually dead?
We start with the facts already in evidence. Since audience did see Katherine in her car - watching the house as Pam turned off the living room light - realizing the couple had reconciled their relationship - her resulting rage led her to hatch-a-plan - to kill Pam the next morning and fake her own death - to escape punishment.
Remember - Katherine had millions & millions of dollars to carry out whatever nasty scheme she wanted - and don't forget - it was Katherine who paid for Naldo's murder and framed Jenna Wade for the deed - earlier that season - so it was already shown to the audience that she did have "connections" to get whatever evil deed she wanted done - accomplished.
So - back to Pam's house - Katherine has about eight hours to arrange this plot, which is plenty of time if she already had people in place - ready to assist her.
Since Katherine knows Pam's habit of walking her guests out of her house, she realizes that Pam will certainly walk Bobby out and into the driveway, that next morning and she figures that hitting Pam with her car and killing her - shouldn't be that difficult a task.
Wasting no time, Katherine puts her plan into motion. First off, she has her car fitted with a special harness, that will keep her in place - once she hits Pam - even though she knows she needs a "friendly place to land" - after the hit.
Thinking quickly, Katherine was doubtful that Pam actually knew her gardener's schedule, so it wasn't a big risk to have one arrive that next morning (who was on Katherine's payroll) and begin work. She surmised that the gardener's truck would be the perfect thing to hit - after plowing into Pam - and that the gardener would provide a person to declare her dead, plus her stage-makeup-faked injuries would be on full display, to add even more realness to the action.
Then, like clockwork - phony EMT's would suddenly arrive to take the "dead" Katherine away - quickly leaving the scene before the actual EMT's arrive to tend to the fatally injured Pam.
It was a perfect plan, except that Bobby pushed Pam out of the way and he took the force of the blow of the car - upon himself.
And it makes perfect sense that Katherine wouldn't have even had a notion of that happening, since she truly doesn't understand the fact that Bobby loves Pam - so much - he would willingly die in her place.
Upset as she was about Bobby being hit, the very-much-alive Katherine still realized there was still a chance for her to "steal" a helpless Bobby for herself, so she again went into action, from the first moments the doors of the medical van, shut tight.
While the true EMT's arrived at the scene and took Bobby to Dallas Memorial Hospital, Katherine instructed her goons to work double-time to secure the services of various unethical doctors & nurses - who were already known to be eager to cash in - on multi-million dollar paychecks - if the occasion ever presented itself.
And while Bobby truly was critically injured - his surgery had been successful enough to insure his continued life, even if all involved were instructed to downplay the positive results of the surgery and his chances of survival.
The devices around Bobby's bedside were "rigged" to stage a cardiac arrest - which Katherine knew would send the family into a downward emotional spiral that would make them easy targets of the various bought & paid for staff - allowing them cover to get Bobby out of the hospital and onto Katherine's medical helicopter and eventually - into a private clinic - where he could recover - under Katherine's watchful eye.
Faking the funeral arrangements would be a piece-of-cake, for Katherine - she simply faked a dead body to resemble Bobby's corpse and it's this poor unknown soul, who is buried on Southfork, near Bobby's treehouse.
So - back to the cliffhanger:
Instead of Pam's opening the door to see Bobby in the shower - the last scene of that season - shows perfectly healthy & strong Bobby James Ewing coming out of a beautiful ocean scene, where he had gone for a swim (yes, much like Patrick did on the "Man from Atlantis") and quickly jumping into Katherine's overwhelmingly happy, loving embrace, with him, saying something like, "My life - with you - it's just like this place - it's almost paradise...".
DaDUM !!
Was Bobby brainwashed?
OR - does he have a brain injury due to the clash with Katherine's car?
OR - is Bobby conning Katherine - waiting for a chance to escape?
OR - does someone eventually finds Bobby - then they have to prove to him, that his life with Katherine is a hoax?
;0)
