Valene (Joan Van Ark) turns to Bobby (Patrick Duffy) for help in this 1979 publicity shot from “Secrets,” a third-season “Dallas” episode.
Dallas Scene of the Day: ‘Not This Time, Barnes’
May 14, 2012 by 1 Comment
You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry
In “Whatever Happened to Baby John, Part 2,” a third-season “Dallas” episode, Cliff and Pam (Ken Kercheval, Victoria Principal) are talking in his apartment when there is a knock at the door. Cliff opens it, revealing an angry Bobby (Patrick Duffy).
CLIFF: Wait a minute, before you start swinging, let’s talk.
BOBBY: Not this time, Barnes. This time, you’ve gone too far. [Enters and slams the door behind him]
PAM: Bobby –
BOBBY: And you knew he was here all along, didn’t you?
CLIFF: Wait a minute, I just got here. Can’t we talk?
PAM: He didn’t know anything about it.
BOBBY: You’d swear he could walk on water if he told you!
PAM: That’s not fair! Would you wait a minute?
CLIFF: I want my son, I’m gonna have him. I did not – I repeat – I did not kidnap him. [Bobby moves toward him, Cliff steps back] Now wait a minute, you can push me around the room all you want but that’s not going to solve anything. I think we should try to figure out who indeed took him. [Bobby growls and moves closer still.]
PAM: For God’s sake, listen to him!
CLIFF: I swear I did not kidnap him. I wasn’t even in Dallas.
PAM: He’s telling the truth.
CLIFF: Let’s stop wasting time. We can be at each other’s throats tomorrow but today – for today – let’s try to find my boy.
BOBBY: Okay.
CLIFF: Okay.
Dallas Scene of the Day: ‘Who is the Father of Your Baby?’
May 10, 2012 by 3 Comments
Daddy issues
In “John Ewing III, Part 2,” “Dallas’s” second-season finale, Bobby and Sue Ellen (Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray) are seated on the bed in her room at the sanitarium, where she tells him she wants to come home.
BOBBY: [Holding her hand] Sue Ellen, they can help you here.
SUE ELLEN: They can’t help me.
BOBBY: It takes time. You have to give them a chance.
SUE ELLEN: [Stands, walks away from the bed] Yeah, time. Sure. Why not? That’s all I have, is time. That’s what I do all day, is try to figure out what I’m gonna do with my time. I wake up in the morning and I think, “What am I gonna do all day till I go to sleep – alone?”
BOBBY: Sue Ellen. [Looks away, then looks back at her]
SUE ELLEN: [Turns to face him] Am I embarrassing you, Bobby?
BOBBY: No. Yeah. Yes, you are a little, yeah.
SUE ELLEN: I sleep alone a lot, after J.R.’s been out with his sluts, comes home smelling like their perfume, and I just pretend I’m asleep – just blot the whole thing out.
BOBBY: [Stands and grabs her arm] Then why aren’t you having this conversation with him? Confront him with it.
SUE ELLEN: Oh I have, Bobby. I have often. But your brother has that wonderful knack of finding one’s weak spot – the Achilles’ heel. Takes the knife and goes right up to the hilt.
BOBBY: Sue Ellen, what is your Achilles’ heel?
SUE ELLEN: [Turns, walks away] Your mama and your daddy, and Pamela and Lucy, and even you. You think it’s Southfork, the Ewing money, the Ewing name. But you’re wrong. [Walks back to him, touches his face] If I’d only met you first, Bobby, I would’ve married you instead of J.R. You are so kind and strong and loving. Just like a man should be. [Begins crying, kisses him] You are so understanding, Bobby. [Turns away] My men are not understanding.
BOBBY: Your men? Sue Ellen, what are you talking about?
SUE ELLEN: Oh, Bobby. I have something the doctors won’t ever find a cure for. Let’s see, how am I gonna explain this to you? Your life is so simple. Pamela loves you, and you love Pamela. And I really do love J.R. But you know what? J.R. doesn’t love me. But I wanted to have his baby so bad. I even thought we would adopt a baby, but J.R. put a stop to that. Then I thought, “Well, Sue Ellen, just go out and get yourself pregnant.” And that’s what I did. And I just thought, “But maybe I can hurt J.R., hurt him real bad.” Instead, all I did was hurt me and my little baby – and the baby’s father.
BOBBY: You went out and got pregnant? Sue Ellen, what are you saying?
SUE ELLEN: Yeah, but it could’ve been J.R.’s. Chances are it’s J.R.’s.
BOBBY: [Turns her around to face him] Sue Ellen!
SUE ELLEN: [Crying harder] But Bobby, he hardly makes love to me anymore.
BOBBY: Who is the father of your baby?
SUE ELLEN: Cliff Barnes. Now do you see? That’s why no one can help me. No one in the world can help me. [She collapses into his arms.]
Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 29 – ‘John Ewing III, Part 2’
May 10, 2012 by 14 Comments
Crash test mommy
What a difference a year makes!
Sue Ellen has just four lines in “Digger’s Daughter,” “Dallas’s” first episode, but “John Ewing III, Part 2,” which debuted 369 days later, features the character in almost every other scene.
My favorite: When Sue Ellen tells Bobby that Cliff may be the father of her unborn child. This really isn’t a conversation as much as it is a monologue. For four-and-a-half uninterrupted minutes, Linda Gray delivers almost 500 words of heart-wrenching dialogue. It’s a tour-de-force performance, and it makes me appreciate how far Gray has come from those first-season episodes, when all she had to do was gaze adoringly at J.R.
The most surprising moment during Sue Ellen’s monologue comes when she kisses Bobby. No matter how many times I see the scene, the kiss is always a little startling. I used to find it odd how Patrick Duffy barely reacts to it, but I’ve decided it’s because the kiss isn’t a romantic gesture as much as it is an expression of Sue Ellen’s desperate loneliness.
Gray dominates “John Ewing III, Part 2,” but the other actors have good moments, too.
Larry Hagman’s performance in the final scene, when J.R. and Bobby sit at Sue Ellen’s bedside, is one of his most memorable. Despite all the rotten stuff J.R. does in the second season, it’s hard not to be moved when Hagman purses his lips, shuts his wet eyes and bows his head. J.R. has never seemed more human.
Ken Kercheval is equally moving in the penultimate scene, when Cliff sees Sue Ellen’s baby in the incubator and tearfully collapses into Pam’s arms. Like Duffy in Bobby’s scene with Sue Ellen, Victoria Principal doesn’t have much to do here, but she makes the most of it. I like how the actress moves from exasperation when Pam first spots Cliff in the hospital corridor to tears when he begins sobbing.
That Duffy and Principal shift so effortlessly from “Dallas’s” stars when the series begins to supporting roles in this episode reflect the cast’s evolution into a true ensemble.
What a difference a year makes, indeed.
Grade: A
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Crying, shame
‘JOHN EWING III, PART 2’
Season 2, Episode 24
Airdate: April 6, 1979
Audience: 17.8 million homes, ranking 11th in the weekly ratings
Writer: Arthur Bernard Lewis
Director: Leonard Katzman
Synopsis: In the sanitarium, Sue Ellen bribes a nurse for booze, escapes and is injured in a car crash. Her doctors are forced to prematurely deliver her son, whom Jock names John Ross Ewing III. J.R. weeps as the lives of Sue Ellen and the baby hang in the balance.
Cast: Dimitra Arliss (Nurse Hatton), Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Karlene Crockett (Muriel Gillis), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Meg Gallagher (Louella), Ellen Geer (Dr. Krane), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Michael C. Gwynne (Dr. Rogers), Heidi Hagman (receptionist), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Peter Horton (Wayne), Dawn Jeffory (Annie Driscoll), Sherril Lynn Katzman (Susan), Ed Kenney (Senator Newberry), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Jeanna Michaels (Connie), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Alan Rachins (Dr. Miller), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing)
“John Ewing III, Part 2” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com, iTunes and TNT.tv. Watch the episode and share your comments below.
Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 27 – ‘The Outsiders’
May 8, 2012 by 20 Comments
Lady and the saddle tramp
“The Outsiders” is an interesting meditation on politics and marriage. It was made more than three decades ago, but it feels refreshing in ways other “Dallas” episodes do not.
For years, we’ve watched one real-life political wife after another humiliated by their philandering husbands. “The Outsiders” offers a role reversal: Donna Culver, the young bride of political elder Sam Culver, is the cheating spouse.
Donna may not be a good wife, but she isn’t a bad person, either. She turns to Ray because she feels sexually unfulfilled. Donna is 28, while her husband is probably supposed to be in his 60s of 70s. (In real life, when “The Outsiders” debuted, Susan Howard and John McIntire, the actors who play Donna and Sam, were 35 and 71, respectively.)
I like how “Dallas” doesn’t try to justify Donna’s indiscretion by making Sam a bad guy. In fact, the show goes out of its way to depict the marriage as loving, even if it isn’t physical. Sam and Donna are also partners in a way that feels wonderfully progressive: Sam, a onetime governor who still wields a lot of influence in state politics, boasts about how he makes no decision without first consulting Donna.
(You might even say the Culvers’ marriage presages the real-life union of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Sam’s bragging about his wife’s intelligence and political savvy recalls Bill Clinton’s famous pledge in 1992 that voters who elected him would get “two for the price of one.”)
Sam and Donna’s sense of partnership isn’t lost on Sue Ellen. When J.R. suggests Donna is probably physically neglected, Sue Ellen retorts, “If they never made love, J.R., she has much more than I have. He cares about her. He takes her advice and he listens to her.”
“The Outsiders” concludes with Ray and Donna’s heart-wrenching farewell, but but my favorite moment in this episode comes in an earlier scene, when they sit in a bar and she asks him why “happy endings” seem so elusive.
This conversation is nicely written by Leonard Katzman and beautifully performed by Steve Kanaly and Susan Howard, who is rivaled only by Patrick Duffy when it comes to delivering breathy, soul-searching dialogue.
With this episode, Howard becomes a welcome addition to the “Dallas” constellation. Her performance leaves us wanting more, and fortunately, we won’t have to wait long for Donna’s return.
Grade: A
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Old man out
‘THE OUTSIDERS’
Season 2, Episode 22
Airdate: March 16, 1979
Audience: 14.2 million homes, ranking 28th in the weekly ratings
Writer: Leonard Katzman
Director: Dennis Donnelly
Synopsis: When J.R. learns Ray is sleeping with Donna Culver, the young wife of political elder Sam Culver, he tries to blackmail her into persuading Sam to oust Cliff from his government perch. Instead, Donna ends the affair and comes clean to Sam, who forgives her and backs Cliff.
Cast: Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Fern Fitzgerald (Marilee Stone), Meg Gallagher (Louella), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Susan Howard (Donna Culver), Dawn Jeffory (Annie Driscoll), Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs), Joan Lancaster (Linda Bradley), John McIntire (Governor Sam Culver), Jeanna Michaels (Connie), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Clint Ritchie (Bud Morgan), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing)
“The Outsiders” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.
Dallas Scene of the Day: ‘I Married a Fighter’
May 4, 2012 by 1 Comment
Winners reconciled
In “Call Girl,” a second-season “Dallas” episode, Pam (Victoria Principal) is leaving her apartment, suitcase in hand, when Bobby (Patrick Duffy) arrives.
PAM: Bobby, what are you doing here?
BOBBY: It’s time to come home, Pam.
PAM: Didn’t you see the paper?
BOBBY: Yes, I saw it. So what?
PAM: I’m leaving Dallas. [Turns to walk away; he grabs her arm]
BOBBY: First Southfork, then me. Now Dallas, Pam?
PAM: I can’t live with the scandal.
BOBBY: Come on, Pam. It was a setup – and everybody knows it.
PAM: How can I go back to Southfork with this hanging over my head?
BOBBY: It’s the only thing you can do. Are you still looking for excuses to stay away from me?
PAM: I don’t want to stay away from you. I never did.
BOBBY: Then give some credit to the people that love you – to Mama, Daddy and me. Now, we know you wouldn’t be involved in something like that.
PAM: Well, how can I face them? What do I say to everybody at The Store?
BOBBY: You take it one step at a time, Pam – and the first step is to come back to the people that love you. For a while, nothing else matters.
PAM: I truly wish I could believe that. [Turns away from him]
BOBBY: Do you know I love you?
PAM: I know you love me, Bobby.
BOBBY: But you don’t know why that picture was taken, do you?
PAM: [Turns and faces him] To embarrass Maxwell.
BOBBY: Honey, if it were only to embarrass Maxwell, why were you involved in it at all?
PAM: J.R.? J.R. did that to both of us?
BOBBY: I don’t know who else – except I couldn’t prove anything.
PAM: Well that finishes it. Don’t you understand? It’s over. [Turns to walk away; he grabs her and makes her face him]
BOBBY: It’s only over if you want it to be! It’s only over if you stop fighting! Pamela, J.R. has been trying to do this to you ever since I brought you to Southfork. And if you leave now – if you run – then he wins, finally and completely. I married a fighter. Are you ready to let J.R. win? Or do we stand together and fight him? Together, we can win. And I want you with me.
PAM: I love you, Bobby.
BOBBY: Then let’s go home.
They kiss.
Dallas Scene of the Day: ‘God, J.R., How Low Can You Get?’
May 2, 2012 by 1 Comment
Why, he never!
In “The Red File, Part 2,” a second-season “Dallas” episode, J.R. (Larry Hagman) is seated on the edge of his office desk, talking on the phone, when Bobby (Patrick Duffy) enters carrying Julie’s attaché case.
J.R.: Yeah, no fooling Dave. I think we got Cliff Barnes out of our hair permanently. Yeah, that’s right. [Chuckles]
Bobby snatches the phone out of J.R.’s hand and slams it onto the receiver.
J.R.: [Angry, to Bobby] Now what the hell was that all about?
BOBBY: You’ll have plenty of time for that when I’m through – if you’re still president of Ewing Oil.
J.R.: You know, I think one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life was letting Daddy talk me into taking you off the road and putting you into an office next to mine.
BOBBY: No, J.R., that was your second biggest mistake! [Tosses materials off J.R.’s desk, slams down the attaché case] That’s your first!
J.R.: What is that?
BOBBY: [Opens it] Julie was gonna set you up. She Xeroxed all your confidential files and she was gonna turn them over to Cliff Barnes.
J.R.: Where’d you get ahold of this? [Starts rifling through the case]
BOBBY: Oh, it’s all there, J.R. Everything. [J.R. studies a document and sits in his chair] Records of payoffs to senators, congressmen, photographs of judges. It’s all there.
J.R.: Why, that cheating little tramp.
BOBBY: That’s your red file, isn’t it J.R.? I mean, that’s everything that you didn’t think I was ready to see.
J.R.: Well, you are my baby brother. Some of this stuff’s pretty gamey. I suppose you’re ready to face the realities of life.
BOBBY: Yeah. [Reaches into his suit jacket, unfolds a document and shows it to J.R.] Well, I wasn’t ready for that.
J.R.: It’s a copy of Daddy’s will. Now what is she doing with that? You know, sometimes I can never figure out what makes a woman’s mind work. I –
BOBBY: [Disgusted] Yeah, J.R., it puzzled me, too. I mean, it wouldn’t have meant a whole lot to Cliff Barnes, would it? Just part of the package. I think the one that would’ve found this most interesting is Daddy.
J.R.: Now, what are you talking about?
BOBBY: I’ll refresh your memory. [Begins reading] “This codicil amends paragraph 37. In the event of my death, I hereby grant to my son, John Ewing Jr., full drilling rights to all oil found in Section 40 of Southfork Ranch, as described in said paragraph.”
J.R.: Bobby, I can explain that!
BOBBY: To who? To Daddy? To Mama?
J.R.: Well let’s not bring them into this!
BOBBY: J.R., this is a forgery!
J.R.: It was a business maneuver!
BOBBY: A bu – it brought an oil crew to Southfork. Ray was damn near killed on account of it! And to make matters worse, you were trying to con your own mother and father. God, J.R., how low can you get? [Turns away from J.R.]
J.R.: [Rises from his seat] I was trying to make Ewing Oil into the most powerful independent in Texas! I needed the muscle!
BOBBY: [Faces J.R., looks stricken] Do you mean that somebody else in the cartel knew about this? J.R., you’re the one who knew that Julie was going to give these, these papers to Cliff Barnes!
J.R.: I didn’t know about that!
BOBBY: [Slams the attaché case shut] Don’t lie to me!
J.R.: Bobby, I never killed anybody in my life. I’m not a murderer. I didn’t kill anybody, not even during the war. Now, if you don’t believe me, you talk to Dan Marsh. He had a tap on Barnes’ phone. He brought me those tapes the next morning, after Julie was dead.
BOBBY: The next morning?
J.R.: That’s right.
BOBBY: Well, then I guess I’d better talk to Dan Marsh.
J.R.: You’re not gonna say anything to Daddy about this, are you?
Bobby walks to the door, pauses and then slams it behind him.
Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 23 – ‘The Red File, Part 2’
May 2, 2012 by 13 Comments
Split decision
“The Red File, Part 2” plays a lot like a ’70s crime drama, with Bobby in the role of the dashing detective. He spends much of the episode tooling around town in his red convertible, chasing clues in his investigation into Julie’s death.
This installment also features some terrific “Perry Mason”-style legal theatrics, with the wonderful Walter Brooke commanding every courtroom scene as Cliff’s perpetually incredulous attorney, Cole Young. (Trivia: In “The Graduate,” Brooke portrayed Mr. McGuire, who famously advised Dustin Hoffman’s character to go into plastics.)
But “The Red File, Part 2” is mostly notable because the events of this episode change Bobby’s character, hardening his edges and forever altering his dynamic with J.R. The script demands a lot from Patrick Duffy, and he more than delivers. This is one of his best “Dallas” performances.
Bobby throws himself into his investigation not so much because he wants to clear Cliff’s name but because he needs to find out for himself how far J.R. is willing to sink. In the scene where Bobby confronts J.R. with the phony codicil to Jock’s will, Duffy makes Bobby’s indignation palpable. The character’s disappointment is downright heartbreaking.
The episode’s other pivotal scene comes at the end, when Bobby tells J.R., “For the first time in my life, I know exactly what you’re all about.”
This is the moment Bobby appoints himself J.R.’s guardian, the role he’ll occupy through the rest of “Dallas’s” run. It isn’t a job he wants, but after finally seeing J.R.’s red file, Bobby knows he’s the only member of the Ewing family with the moral compass – and the muscle – needed to keep his older brother in check.
It all culminates during “The Red File, Part 2’s” poignant finale, when Bobby tells Pam he isn’t willing to leave Southfork to save their marriage. The man who talked about wanting to “resign” from his family at the beginning of this episode knows that’s no longer an option, now that he’s charged himself with protecting the world from J.R.
Grade: A
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Error and trial
‘THE RED FILE, PART 2’
Season 2, Episode 18
Airdate: February 9, 1979
Audience: 16.2 million homes, ranking 18th in the weekly ratings
Writer: Arthur Bernard Lewis
Director: Leonard Katzman
Synopsis: Cliff’s past is scrutinized at a hearing before his trial for Julie’s murder. Bobby uncovers J.R.’s red file and uses it to clear Cliff and squelch J.R.’s scheme to forge Jock’s will. Pam tells Bobby she isn’t ready to return to Southfork.
Cast: John Ashton (Willie Joe Garr), Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Walter Brooke (Cole Young), Jordan Charney (Lieutenant Sutton), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Meg Gallagher (Louella), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), John Harkins (Judge Potter), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Jeanna Michaels (Connie), John Petlock (Dan Marsh), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Charles Siebert (Assistant District Attorney Sloan), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing), Sandy Ward (Jeb Ames)
“The Red File, Part 2” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.
Dallas Scene of the Day: ‘I’m the Head of this Household!’
April 26, 2012 by 1 Comment
OK, big guy. Calm down.
In “Home Again,” a second-season “Dallas” episode, Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes) is seated in a chair in the Southfork den, where she has called Jock (Jim Davis), J.R. (Larry Hagman) and Bobby (Patrick Duffy) together for an announcement.
ELLIE: This is very hard for me because you know how I love Southfork – and all of you. But I have to do what I think is right. My brother was named heir to Southfork in my daddy’s will. When he was lost at sea, your father and I declared him dead and claimed the ranch. It was right that we did that then. Now that he’s back, Garrison must have what is really his. We have to give Southfork back to him.
JOCK: [Angry, rising to his feet] What do you mean give Garrison Southfork? What kind of reasoning is that?
ELLIE: Jock, even when I thought he was dead, that day in court when we made it official, I felt I was stealing something from him.
JOCK: Miss Ellie, it was my life, my sweat and my money that saved this ranch. When Garrison ran away, he was bankrupt, the sheriff was knocking at the door.
ELLIE: Jock, I know how hard you worked – but it’s still ours by default. We have to correct that.
BOBBY: Mama, you are talking about giving up our home – a place we grew up in.
J.R.: Even if Uncle Garrison had stayed, he couldn’t have saved the ranch. I’m with Daddy. I don’t mean any disrespect, but what’s done is done, Mother.
ELLIE: What’s done can be changed. [Rising] Jock, I never told you how hurt I was when I found out that my daddy made Garrison the sole heir – but that’s the way things were done in those days: father to son. Daughters – daughters always came second. It was my daddy’s wish that Garrison have the ranch. My conscience won’t let me do differently.
J.R.: I knew he came here for some reason. He used to hang around with Digger Barnes – used to sing the same refrain, over and over again. The Ewings stole everything from them.
BOBBY: J.R., we’ve got enough problems without turning this into a Barnes-Ewing feud. Now leave it alone.
JOCK: [Raising voice] Miss Ellie! There’ll be no more talk about giving away Southfork. [Turns to leave]
ELLIE: Jock, we do need to talk about it!
JOCK: [Serious] You’re overstepping your place, Miss Ellie.
MISS ELLIE: [Screaming] My place! Just what is my place?
JOCK: It isn’t running this ranch! It isn’t running Ewings’ businesses! It isn’t saying what we keep or what we give away. I am still the head of this household – with or without your permission!
ELLIE: I’ve asked Garrison and Cathy for lunch tomorrow. Do I need your permission for that?
Jock glares at Ellie and leaves the room. Moments later, she leaves, too.
Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 18 – ‘Kidnapped’
April 25, 2012 by 4 Comments
Bobby, trapped!
New rule: If you’re watching “Dallas” and a Ewing becomes a crime victim before the second act, chances are it’s going to be a lackluster episode.
So far, crooks and lowlifes have been front and center in three installments: The first-season episode “Winds of Vengeance” (two working Joes hold the Ewings at gunpoint and threaten to rape the women), the second-season entry “Runaway” (a robber makes Lucy his reluctant accomplice) and now “Kidnapped” (three abductors hold Bobby hostage).
The first of these segments is actually pretty good. The other two? Not so much.
The problem is “Dallas’s” depiction of criminals. They’re almost always straight-from-central-casting villains who specialize in evil cackling and corny one-liners.
In “Kidnapped,” the bad guys think they’re nabbing J.R. when they tail his Mercedes and force it to come to a stop on a dusty Texas back road. They’re surprised to learn Bobby is behind the wheel, having borrowed his older brother’s car after his own vehicle got a flat tire.
“Our luck!” exclaims Fay, one of the kidnappers, while laughing uproariously. “We may have the wrong goose – but he can still lay the golden egg!”
“Kidnapped” isn’t as awful as “Runaway.” Patrick Duffy does a nice job making Bobby more vulnerable than usual, and I appreciate how the show uses Cliff as the intermediary between the Ewings and the kidnappers. It’s a clever way to involve Cliff in the story and add drama to the scenes of the family awaiting word on Bobby’s fate.
This plot device also lends “Kidnapped” some historical significance: This is the first episode where Larry Hagman and Ken Kercheval share scenes.
Today, we remember J.R. and Cliff’s bitter feud as one of “Dallas’s” defining conflicts, so it’s surprising to remember it took 18 episodes to bring them face-to-face.
Cliff also figures into “Kidnapped’s” best moment: when Jock and Miss Ellie wish him luck before he departs to deliver the ransom.
“You bring my son home safe, I’ll be grateful to you forever,” Ellie tells Cliff.
For a woman whose husband is holding a bag with more than $1 million in cash, those words prove mighty cheap.
Grade: C
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Face to face, at last
‘KIDNAPPED’
Season 2, Episode 13
Airdate: December 17, 1978
Audience: 16.5 million homes, ranking 18th in the weekly ratings
Writer: Camille Marchetta
Director: Lawrence Dobkin
Cast: Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Nancy Bleier (Connie), Byron Clark (Tom), Stephen Davies (Will Hart), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Meg Gallagher (Louella), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Bob Hoy (Mahoney), Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Paul Koslo (Al Parker), Kelly Jean Peters (Fay Parker), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing)
Synopsis: A trio of kidnappers hold Bobby hostage for $1.5 million. Cliff delivers the money and secures Bobby’s release, but they’re almost shot when J.R., Ray and several ranch hands ambush the kidnappers.
“Kidnapped” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.
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