Between the Lines and Behind the Scenes of "Dallas"
This summer, the “Dallas” fans at Dallas Decoder and Cook In/Dine Out are offering “Dallas Drinks,” a series of cocktails inspired by the characters from TNT’s new series. This week: The Bobby, a drink that’s as all-American as Patrick Duffy’s classic character.
J.R. (Larry Hagman) is seen in this 1980 publicity shot from “Nightmare,” a fourth-season “Dallas” episode.
Cold shoulder
In “Dallas’s” fourth-season episode “Nightmare,” Ray (Steve Kanaly) visits J.R. (Larry Hagman), who is seated in his wheelchair in the hospital’s rehabilitation center.
RAY: Look, something I gotta say, J.R. Been quite a few differences between you and I over the past couple years. Before that, we were friends for a long time. I just wanted to tell you, that if you need me, I’m here.
J.R.: Thank you, Ray. Thanks. [Begins wheeling away]
RAY: Hey. [Touches J.R.’s shoulder] I just keep thinking of all those good times we had.
J.R.: Like in Waco?
RAY: Yeah, like in Waco. Or how about that time down in Houston when you had them all convinced that you were the talent scout for the Miss Texas contest and I was the front man. [Laughs]
J.R.: [Chuckling] Yeah, they almost killed us with kindness, didn’t they? Yeah, we’ve had some pretty good times, haven’t we, Ray?
RAY: Yeah, you helped me out of some pretty tough scrapes, J.R. More than once. I just wanted you to know, you can count on me if you need to.
J.R.: Well, Ray, I don’t want to ever have to count on anybody but myself. Thank you.
J.R. wheels away.
Exposed
“Nightmare” refers to the bad dreams that plague Sue Ellen in this episode, but the title also describes J.R.’s change of fortunes. The shooting has weakened him, physically and otherwise. His friends pity him; his enemies taunt him.
As “Nightmare” gets underway, we learn J.R.’s surgery has restored feeling to his legs, but he’ll have to learn to walk again. In the episode’s most memorable scene, Jock and Miss Ellie stand in the back of the hospital’s physical rehabilitation room and watch J.R., clad in a bathrobe and black orthopedic shoes, struggle to put one foot in front of the other. It proves too heartbreaking for Ellie, who turns away.
If J.R. knew his parents were in the room, he undoubtedly would be embarrassed, which is how he feels when Ray visits. At first, the onetime friends wax nostalgic about their days carousing and chasing skirts. Then Ray turns serious, puts his hand on J.R.’s shoulder and tells him he can count on him if he needs a friend. “Well, Ray, I don’t want to ever have to count on anybody but myself,” J.R. says before wheeling away.
The hits keep coming. Jordan, who raged at J.R. before the shooting, now provokes him. Bobby, who quit Ewing Oil in disgust over J.R.’s tactics, now runs the company. Kristin, whom J.R. tried to run out of town, now looks him up and down as he lies in his hospital bed and declares, “You’re just not man enough anymore.” (J.R.’s muttered response – “Bitch” – must have been pretty provocative back in 1980.)
You have to hand it to the “Dallas” creative team. At this point during the show’s run, J.R. was something of a national folk hero. Americans by the tens of millions watched “Dallas” each week to see him do despicable things. Exposing the character’s vulnerabilities made for rich storytelling, but there’s no doubt the show risked alienating his fans.
And the worst is yet to come. For J.R., the single silver lining since his shooting has been his reconnection with Sue Ellen, who has barely left his side. But in “Nightmare’s” final moments, that crumbles, too. On the night J.R. returns to Southfork, Horton, the cop investigating his shooting, arrives and reveals J.R.’s own gun was used in the crime – and Sue Ellen’s fingerprints are all over the weapon.
For J.R. and Sue Ellen, the nightmare is just beginning.
Grade: B
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Uh-oh
‘NIGHTMARE’
Season 4, Episode 3
Airdate: November 14, 1980
Audience: 27.8 million homes, ranking 1st in the weekly ratings
Writer: Linda B. Elstad
Director: Irving J. Moore
Synopsis: J.R., while learning to walk again, interferes with Bobby’s efforts to run Ewing Oil. Cliff tells Pam he went to J.R.’s office to shoot him, only to find someone else beat him to it. The police find the gun used to shoot J.R. – and Sue Ellen’s fingerprints are on it.
Cast: Michael Alldredge (Detective Don Horton), Tyler Banks (John Ross Ewing), Barbara Babcock (Liz Craig), Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), David J. Bowman (Tom Selby), Christopher Coffey (Professor Greg Forrester), Jeff Cooper (Dr. Simon Elby), Mary Crosby (Kristin Shepard), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Meg Gallagher (Louella), Hugh Gorrian (Gil), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Laurence Haddon (Franklin Horner), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Leigh McCloskey (Mitch Cooper), Jeanna Michaels (Connie), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Don Starr (Jordan Lee), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing)
“Nightmare” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.
See you at the souvenir shop
Call it the TNT Effect: Since the cable channel’s new “Dallas” series debuted June 13, tourists have flocked to the Southfork Ranch in Parker, Texas.
The number of weekday visitors to the property has doubled to about 300, the Austin-American Statesman reported last week. Southfork’s attractions include daily tours of the ranch house, as well as a museum where props and other memorabilia from the old show – including the gun used to shoot J.R. and Lucy’s wedding dress – are displayed.
“I’ve seen people cry when they get here and say, ‘Oh my Lord, I’ve tried to come here my whole life,” Sally Peavy, Southfork’s sales manager, told the Abilene Reporter-News.
The ranch also evokes a lot of nostalgia for the “Dallas” cast, who filmed several outdoor scenes there for the TNT episodes, just like they did throughout much of the original show’s 1978-1991 run.
“It’s very interesting to drive down that driveway at Southfork because it brought back so many memories,” Linda Gray told me and other bloggers during a recent press call. “And it’s still small. People are always surprised at how small it is. But then on film, they made it look so big and expansive.”
Just Go
Speaking of that press call, it yielded a cute moment that’s too good to not share.
TNT set up the call so folks like yours truly could interview Gray and Josh Henderson, and while Gray was telling us about the camaraderie among the TNT show’s older cast members, two unexpected visitors popped into the room where she was seated.
The transcript:
Larry Hagman: Hello lovely lady, this is Larry Hagman here.
Patrick Duffy: And this Patrick Duffy.
Gray: See what I mean? … Get out. I love you. Get out of here. Go into the other room. Go.
Hagman: I’ve been thrown out of better places than this.
Ratings, Please
Since “Truth and Consequences,” this week’s TNT episode, debuted on Independence Day, the show’s weekly Nielsen ratings have been delayed. Hopefully they’ll be announced sometime today.
A word of caution: Television viewership always plummets on the Fourth of July, so the numbers for “Truth and Consequences” are bound to be lower than usual. “Dallas” averaged 5.2 million viewers during its first three Wednesday telecasts, although the numbers go up when people who record the show and watch it later are counted.
The good news, of course, is TNT announced last week it has renewed “Dallas” for a second season. For the show’s second go-round, the cable channel will produce 15 episodes, five more than we’re getting this summer.
Filming is expected to begin in the fall; no word on when the season will be telecast.
Line of the Week
“I know all the things Daddy used to say.”
Bobby’s line to J.R. in “Truth and Consequences” made me laugh aloud. As much as I love it when J.R. quotes Jock (even though Jim Davis’s character probably never said half the things his eldest son attributes to him), it’s about time someone told J.R. to quit using those down-home euphemisms to justify his schemes.
Drink and Be Wary
A reminder: This week’s “Dallas Drinks” offering is The Rebecca, a refreshing summertime cocktail inspired by Julie Gonzalo’s character.
The recipe comes from Andrew, the devilishly handsome and clever blogger at Cook In/Dine Out. The essential ingredient: Bénédictine liqueur, an herbal beverage from France whose recipe is so secret supposedly only three people know it.
How many people know Rebecca’s secret? We can hardly wait to find out.
“Drill Bits,” a roundup of news about TNT’s “Dallas,” is published regularly. Share your comments below.
She wears them well
On the original “Dallas,” Miss Ellie’s pearl necklace symbolized her role as wife, mother and fount of wisdom. Along with the beloved matriarch’s sack dresses, those little white beads became Ellie’s most enduring signature.
On TNT’s “Dallas,” Ann’s beads serve as visual shorthand for her role as Bobby’s wife and the new woman of Southfork. The first time we see her wearing them, during that terrific dinner scene in “Changing of the Guard,” TNT’s first “Dallas” episode, we know instantly what kind of character Ann is supposed to be.
Of course, putting Ann in pearls automatically invites comparisons to Miss Ellie, which is a bit risky since Barbara Bel Geddes is so revered among “Dallas” diehards. Indeed, while I tend to see Ann’s pearls – along with her Ellie-esque penchant for guns – as affectionate tributes to Bel Geddes’ character, some of my fellow “Dallas” fans seem to view them as cheap mimicry.
Perhaps this explains “The Last Hurrah” scene where J.R. gives Ellie’s pearl necklace to Sue Ellen. It’s as if the “Dallas” producers, anticipating there might be some Ann skeptics in the audience, wanted to make sure everyone understood the character doesn’t have a monopoly on white beads. In other words: Brenda Strong might be playing the new lady of the manor, but Linda Gray has inherited Bel Geddes’ mantle as “Dallas’s” elder stateswoman, so Sue Ellen gets the honor of possessing the pearls Ellie actually wore.
But give Ann her due. In “Truth and Consequences,” the character begins coming into her own, especially in the scene where she meets Rebecca for coffee and offers the confused young woman comfort (“You’re young, Rebecca. You make mistakes when you’re young. It doesn’t mean you can’t change.”), as well as a little tough love (“Your choices are yours.”).
Strong is terrific in this scene, which demonstrates how, even though Ann doesn’t have children of her own (that we know of, that is), she has the potential to become a significant maternal figure to “Dallas’s” younger characters.
I also think it’s notable that Ann is sans necklace when she visits ex-husband Harris Ryland in “Truth and Consequences” and asks him to help slow down the drilling on Southfork. Since Ann’s pearls symbolize her role as Bobby’s wife – and since her meeting with Ryland takes place behind Bobby’s back – it’s probably best she leaves the beads at home.
Elena and John Ross (Jordana Brewster, Josh Henderson) talk during the Ewing Barbecue in this publicity shot from “Truth and Consequences,”the fifth episode of TNT’s “Dallas.” Photo credit: Zade Rosenthal/TNT.
The road back
In “Truth and Consequences,” a first-season “Dallas” episode, Bobby and Ann (Patrick Duffy, Brenda Strong) confront J.R. (Larry Hagman) over the deed that lists him as Southfork’s owner.
J.R.: You know, I always felt a little funny about that Marta del Sol girl, ever since I saw her at the Cattle Baron’s Ball. Daddy always said beautiful women were the most dangerous.
BOBBY: I know all the things Daddy used to say.
J.R.: Well, a couple weeks ago, I heard she was planning on selling Southfork to Cliff Barnes. I was surprised she could put it right back on the market after buying it from you, but hell, I figured that was just the deal you and Lobell made with her.
ANN: That wasn’t the deal, J.R., and you know it.
J.R.: Bobby kept me out of the deal, so no, I don’t know it, darlin’. When I heard that vulture Barnes was trying to steal Southfork and get his hands on the ranch and all the oil my boy found under it, I got a group of investors together and swooped in and bought it from del Sol. Well, I don’t think Cliff Barnes knew what hit him. And I guess, maybe neither did you. [Grabs his hat off a table, holds it] Now that she’s mine, I’m going to start sinking more wells as soon as I can. Ewing Oil is back in business, Bobby.
BOBBY: [Steps closer] That’s not going to happen, J.R. [Holds up the deed] This is not going to happen. That’s why I wanted to sell Southfork in the first place, to stop all this feuding, and leave a legacy to Mama.
J.R.: You wanna carry on Mama’s legacy? Well, I wanna carry on Daddy’s. I’m taking back what should have been mine in the first place.
BOBBY: That’s how you justify this? How twisted can you get?
J.R.: Now, why don’t you settle down and accept what’s what? The deed is real, and this place is mine, but you can stay here as long as you like, Bobby. We’re family.
BOBBY: I’m going to make this right. And then I’m going to take you down, brother.
Ann begins to follow Bobby out of the room.
J.R.: [To Ann] Always did get a little hot under the collar when he didn’t get his way. But he’ll come around, you’ll see.
ANN: [Turning to face him] They warned me. My whole marriage, they told me about you. But in my wildest imagination, I never thought you could stoop to this.
J.R.: Well, Annie, you’re just going to have to work on your imagination.
The ex files
“Truth and Consequences” offers a nice showcase for Brenda Strong and Julie Gonzalo, who haven’t had much to do on TNT’s “Dallas” until now. Both actresses make the most of the opportunities they’re given, delivering solid performances that add dimension to their characters, Ann and Rebecca, the newest Ewing wives.
Throughout this episode, Ann reminds me of “Dallas” heroines past. Seeing her stand up to J.R. (“They warned me. My whole marriage, they told me about you.”) recalls some of Pam’s best confrontations with him, while the scene where Ann, clad in her signature pearls, offers Rebecca some much-needed motherly advice evokes warm memories of Miss Ellie. This isn’t a coincidence. Ann exists to fill the void left by both Pam and Ellie, two of the old show’s most beloved characters, which means Strong might have the most thankless job of all among TNT’s “Dallas” cast.
This is why Ann’s visit to smug ex-husband Harris Ryland, played to the hilt by Mitch Pileggi, is so pivotal. With this exchange, Ann begins to come into her own as a character. She may not share Pam’s history with Bobby or Ellie’s connection to the land, but at least now we know Ann is willing to stick her neck out to help her husband fight for Southfork. This is the kind of wife our hero deserves, and the classy Strong fills the role nicely. Bravo.
Gonzalo does impressive work in “Truth and Consequences,” too. The young actress is moving during Rebecca’s tearful confession to Christopher in the barn (“You need to believe I love you!”), and her desperation is palpable when Rebecca turns to Ann for comfort and counsel. I’m not convinced the audience should trust Rebecca, but Gonzalo is helping transform her into “Dallas’s” most intriguing character.
Given this episode’s emphasis on the women of Southfork, it seems like this would have been an ideal time to let viewers continue getting reacquainted with Sue Ellen, but she doesn’t appear in “Truth and Consequences.” This is the second TNT episode in which Sue Ellen is missing in action; the character is also absent from “The Price You Pay.”
I find this astonishing. Like I wrote last month, with the exception of Larry Hagman, no actor on TNT’s “Dallas” has as much presence as Linda Gray, and it’s a shame the producers have struggled to find a meaningful storyline for her. The good news is this begins to change with next week’s episode, and not a moment too soon.
Overall, “Truth and Consequences” is a strong hour, with good writing from Robert Rovner and stylish direction from Randy Zisk, whose past credits include “Revenge” and the David Jacobs-produced “Lois & Clark” and “Bodies of Evidence.” I especially like the “Truth and Consequences” scene where J.R. quotes Jock (“Daddy always said beautiful women were the most dangerous”), which prompts an exasperated Bobby to respond, “I know all the things Daddy used to say.” This might be the season’s best line.
Other highlights: the scenes where John Ross and Christopher each show up on Elena’s doorstep at different points during the same night. (Some girls have all the luck.) Elena’s exchange with John Ross is particularly good. I love when he tells her, “You’ve accused me of awful things that I did not do, and yet I’m still here, at your door, asking you to take a chance on me.” Josh Henderson really makes me care about John Ross here; this is probably the actor’s best scene so far.
Moments like these compensate for some of “Truth and Consequences” shortcomings, beginning with J.R. and John Ross’s silly scene at Cowboys Stadium. On “Dallas,” J.R. is supposed to be a prominent Texan, but I don’t think he’s famous enough to warrant having his face flashed on a Jumbotron. The sequence makes TNT’s “Dallas” too self-aware; J.R. is a folk hero in real life, not within the context of the narrative. Not helping matters: Jerry Jones’ cameo, an unwelcome reminder of his appearance in “War of the Ewings,” “Dallas’s” abysmal 1998 reunion movie.
J.R.’s purchase of Southfork, just days after Marta bought it from Bobby, strains credibility, too. It reminds me of “The Decline and Fall of the Ewing Empire,” the next-to-last episode of the original series, when Ewing Oil changed hands two or three times in the course of a single episode.
Likewise, I find it hard to believe Bobby’s hands are as legally tied as Lou, his new lawyer (played by terrific “24” vet Glenn Morshower), claims. The sale to Marta was fraudulent because Marta isn’t really Marta, yet her sale to J.R. is perfectly legal? I wanted Lou to run that by me one more time, but alas, the show moved on instead.
That’s the thing about TNT’s “Dallas:” It’s always moving on.
Grade: B
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Double life wife
‘TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES’
Season 1, Episode 5
Telecast: July 4, 2012
Writer: Robert Rovner
Director: Randy Zisk
Audience: 5.1 million viewers (including 3.4 million viewers on July 4, ranking 16th in the weekly cable ratings)
Synopsis: Rebecca confesses Tommy sent the e-mail to Elena, prompting Christopher to kick the Sutters off Southfork. Bobby vows to reclaim the ranch after J.R. reveals he’s the new owner and departs Dallas, leaving John Ross in charge until he returns. To slow down J.R. and John Ross, Ann persuades her ex-husband, trucking magnate Harris Ryland, to not haul the oil pumped out of Southfork. Christopher discovers proof John Ross knew Marta’s true identity before she tricked Bobby into selling the ranch.
Cast: Jordana Brewster (Elena Ramos), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Julie Gonzalo (Rebecca Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Callard Harris (Tommy Sutter), Josh Henderson (John Ross Ewing), Jerry Jones (himself), Jesse Metcalfe (Christopher Ewing), Glenn Morshower (Lou), Kevin Page (Bum), Mitch Pileggi (Harris Ryland), Brenda Strong (Ann Ewing), Leonor Varela (Marta del Sol)
“Truth and Consequences” is available at DallasTNT.com, Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.
Jock (Jim Davis) welcomes Gary (Ted Shackelford) home to Southfork in this 1980 publicity shot from “No More Mr. Nice Guy, Part 2,” a fourth-season “Dallas” episode.
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