Dallas – Recap & Review – Guilt & Innocence

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Dallas
Guilt & Innocence

Original Air Date: Mar 25, 2013

Karen Belgrad – Senior Editor
karenbelgrad@thetwocentscorp.com

Last week left us with a cliffhanger after everything above the Ewing Energies rig went boom. This week gives us the fallout, medically and emotionally. When the dust cleared who lived? Who died? And who would find out who was to blame?

After all of the drama of the past few weeks, this episode felt slightly subdued, but it still ramped up the drama and the forthcoming fallout. Heck, we managed to have an episode with sex, betrayal, lies, and death… and I thought it was more quietly paced! That says something about the drama in these latest outings, doesn’t it?

Post-Boom: After the explosion, Christopher and John Ross pull wreckage from Pamela, while Bobby searches for Ann. We’re quickly transported to the hospital where we learn that everyone survived, Bobby and Ann make up, and only Pamela is still in serious condition. She has an abdominal aortic aneurysm that’s in danger of rupturing, along with a partial placenta tear. The doctor recommends terminating the pregnancy, but Pamela is insistent that they try and save the babies. Christopher wonders if a methane (drinking game begins!) pressure build-up caused the explosion, but everyone tells him not to blame himself until after the investigation is complete.

Harris/Emma: Harris seeks out Emma to let her know that her grandmother is having surgery for her broken leg caused by her “accidental” fall. He uses the opportunity to let Emma know he misses her, but she is cool with him. After Judith is out of surgery, she cruelly taunts Harris, making him say he was weak (like his father)and promising to repair the Emma rift, in order to gain a pardon for him for his earlier words. She is just one wire hanger short of Joan Crawford, isn’t she? Emma does pay her a visit, but Judith’s efforts to place blame on Harrison fail her, as Emma sees through her grandmother’s manipulations. Harris has Judith sedated and sent off to a “rehab facility”, presumably just to get her out of his hair.

Drew: Stupid Drew rails at Roy for setting off the bomb while everyone was on the rig. Roy blames shoddy bomb making. He tells Drew to leave town, which he almost does until Emma pays him a visit and sleeps with her second guy at Southfork (this time in a bed!). I’m not sure what Emma’s motives are, but she spent half the episode trying to get John Ross to have a quickie in the hospital, so we have a lot to learn about what makes her tick. Drew opts to stay in town, using the old method of “if you take me down, you’re coming with” blackmail to tell Roy to keep his trap shut.

Sue Ellen: Sue Ellen is still boozing, but doing so by adding “twists” to everything she orders. With all of the chaos, nobody but the viewers really seems to be noticing. When Christopher learns that early investigations are pointing to his rig having a methane (drink!) pressure build-up, Sue Ellen reaches out to an old flame, Ken Richards (played by 70’s icon Lee Majors) who is on the board of the investigating office. He still carries a torch for her, trashing J.R. and bemoaning the loss of time with her. Sue Ellen gamely flirts back and gets the news they needed… that there were two explosions, the first likely being explosives. All thoughts race to J.R.’s warning about Cliff Barnes and Harris Ryland.

Pamela: Pamela gets a surprise visit from her mother, Afton Cooper (played by Audrey Landers), thanks to a call from John Ross. I’ll admit, most of my memories of Afton from original-flavor Dallas are of her whisper-voice, as opposed to her actual story arcs. She cements herself as half-protective mama bear, half- sexpot in her slinky little dress. She surprisingly does not read into Christopher for visiting his still-wife with his current-fiancée (tacky!). She does give Pamela grief for spending so much time trying to impress her father, but nobody mentions how odd it is that he isn’t there to visit his daughter. When Pamela’s aneurysm ruptures, she begs the doctor to save her daughter, but Christopher intervenes and tells the doctor to try and save her and the babies. The three survive surgery. Afton, and later Pamela, rip into Christopher over his presumed culpability in the explosion, but none of it matters when hours end both babies heart rates drop on the fetal monitor and both twins die.

Well, that was a downer of an ending, wasn’t it? Now we have the fallout, as the pieces fall into place and people eventually learn (and maybe prove) that Drew, Roy, Harris, and Cliff were directly responsible for the death of the next generation of Ewing-Barnes children. There’s three episodes left in the season… and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

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