Unraveled
All season long, TNT’s “Dallas” has used Marta’s hair and wardrobe to telegraph her shifting moods and evolving identity. This practice continues in “Collateral Damage,”when the bipolar vixen goes off her medication – and eventually, off the deep end.
When we meet Marta in TNT’s “Dallas” pilot, “Changing of the Guard,” the character pretends to be a wealthy land conservationist who wants to buy Southfork and turn it into a nature preserve. She wears her hair up, but once her true motives are revealed – “Marta” is actually Veronica Martinez, who is secretly plotting with John Ross to seize the ranch – we begin seeing her with hair down, literally and figuratively.
By TNT’s sixth “Dallas” episode, “The Enemy of My Enemy,” Marta is in full “Fatal Attraction” mode and determined to steal John Ross from Elena. The tightly wound Marta shows up on his doorstep in a skintight dress, hoping to seduce him, only to be rejected once again.
When John Ross sees Marta again in “Collateral Damage,” she has come undone. The skintight dress has been replaced by something much looser; it falls off Leonor Varela’s shoulder, which seems appropriate given how her character is falling apart.
The dress’s metallic color is also telling. Until now, Marta has been depicted as a duplicitous villainess, but in Varela’s haunting final scene, it’s hard to not feel sorry for her. Marta is neither good nor bad; like all great “Dallas” characters, she lies somewhere in between. It’s another reason why the gray dress is fitting, even if it doesn’t quite fit.
Dallas Decoder 
Interesting point! I noticed that too about her dress and hair. She’s completely lost it by this point.
Poor Marta. Did you feel sorry for her too? Even though she’s done some bad stuff, I feel like she should be pitied, not scorned.
I did a little, but she unfortunately turned out to be the example of ‘lie with dogs, get fleas’ analogy. Her greed is what killed her in the end. Then again, John Ross did play a part in it. Maybe those men were only coming up to ‘spook her’ as John Ross asked and because of her disorder she jumped.
Hopefully the camera in her room caught what really happened!
Ooh, that’s right! It was still on (I presume) when John Ross stormed out and the other men came in. Hopefully they didn’t destroy it. And we know Christopher’s gonna have another face scrunching, confused moment where he has to decide what he knows about John Ross’s relationship with Marta.
Ha ha!
I am not sure if how i felt about her. Really never gave much thought to her clothing. You are right, though, it all somehow ties together. Remember in Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close wore the baggy sweatshirt that the neck had been cut out so it would fall off her shoulder.
That’s true! I had forgotten about Glenn Close’s sweatshirt. It was similar to Marta’s dress.
Gray dress? Another reference to Julie Gray?
Yes, I think so!
Who makes the gray dress she wore in the sixth episode?
I’m afraid I don’t know, but I’ll see if I can find out.