Dallas Recap: “Dead Reckoning”

The day after the fire brings no comfort.  Nicolas and his men set Drew’s body in a field, and plant evidence to make his death look like a suicide.  It’s quite a disturbing scene. Heartbreakingly, both Bobby and Ann wake up, alone, each clearly missing the other. John Ross walks through the burned out wing at SouthFork and begins throwing things (his father’s watch) and plans to burn his father’s last letter. Bum stops him. John Ross asked him there to find out who was cruel enough to send the video of his tryst with Emma to Pamela. We see Mrs. Ramos watching John Ross, she offers him breakfast – he refuses, he has to get back to the hospital.  Officer Derrick arrives to tell Mrs Ramos about Drew’s death.  While Nicolas, for almost a minute, looks as if he regrets being a part of Drew’s murder, his regret is gone when he sees Elena and begins defending against sending the video to Pamela – as if he did it to help Elena. He is at the apartment when she gets the call about Drew’s apparent suicide.

Bobby tries to explain that Drew was sick with grief and talked to Christopher about his regret regarding the explosion on the rig. Nicolas watches as Carmen and Elena go to identify the body and stands back as Bobby catches a falling Carmen.  The heartless bastard doesn’t break a sweat or drop a tear. 

Christopher is standing outside of Bo’s room and listens to him and Heather laugh and talk about the early days of their marriage.  We learn that Bo, who is in recovery, refuse painkillers.  He wants to stay sober.  Christopher is flying in an expert to help Bo, much to Heather’s delight.

Pamela is refusing treatment when she tells the Dr. that her mother-in-law will make sure she doesn’t slit her wrists, just as Sue Ellen walks through the door.  Sue Ellen thanks Pamela for seeing her, and is greeted by Pamela telling her it was a choice between her and Dr. “Suicide Watch”. Sue Ellen does not seem convinced that Pamela was only making a point to John Ross since there are so many other ways she could have made her point.  Pamela tells her that she is beginning to miss the Dr.  Sue Ellen reminds Pamela that she almost died to try to make John Ross and Emma pay and that she needs to come to terms with the fact that she was willing to throw her life away to get to them.  She tells Pamela that when she can come to terms with that they’ll let her out.

Meanwhile, Jr. is having his ass handed to him by a nurse who won’t let him speak to her as if she works for him nor will she let him see Pamela – he is not an approved visitor.  He offers her two weeks’ salary to put his name on the list and the nurse tells him that she is beginning to understand why it is not there in the first place.  Someone needs to hire her to run Ewing Global. Jr. needs a strong hand to guide him.  He sits down as the nurse tells him to do.

Mrs. Ramos realizes that Drew’s medal (the St. Christopher medal Nicolas ripped from him just before he was shot) is missing. Elena thinks that he may have taken it off since suicide is a mortal sin.  Carmen knows her son.  She knows that if it wasn’t found on his body, he didn’t take it off. She knows that her son did not commit suicide. The detective who gives the family his personal effects listens with interest. Elena believes Drew is dead because of her fight against the Ewings (still idiotic, in my opinion).  She wants to tell her mother everything. Nicolas, once again, talks her out of it.  I cannot wait for Carmen to keep her word.  She warned Nicolas what would happen if she found out that he let his dark side win out. 

The Ewings rally around the Ramos women. Sue Ellen offers to cook for everyone. Bobby brings them home to the ranch.  Ann stops in to see them.  When Emma and Ryland stop in to pick up her things, Carmen hands Emma a letter Drew wrote a few days before his death.  When Bobby and Harris have a heated exchange, Ann offers to pack Emma’s things and send them over  asking them to leave. Emma, who seemed to believe that John Ross was her great love, is shaken. Reading Drew’s letter, Emma realizes that Drew thought better of her than she does of herself.  He talks about the goodness in her that she can’t see and that he knows he could have been a better man with her.  She fights with her father over Drew, faulting him for hiring Drew to blow up the rig.  Harris feels no guilt.  She faults him for ending her relationship with Drew, stating she wouldn’t have slept with John Ross and that Pamela wouldn’t have tried to kill herself if it weren’t for his actions.  She forgets to add that the sun would have shone a little brighter if it weren’t for her father. Harris tells Emma that everyone makes their own choices.  She says “you’re right, we do” and walks off. He works undercover for the CIA, how is it he hasn’t asked to have Emma placed somewhere other than Dallas for the next 20 years or so?  Out of sight, out of mind with that one.

Nicolas informs his partners in crime that the police are still investigating. Nicolas is the only person concerned about the continuing investigation. Luis makes a thinly veiled threat on Elena’s life – concern that she’ll follow in her brother’s footsteps given her grief, after Nicolas says that Pozolero should step out of the shadows and face him if he is unhappy with his work.  He tells Luis he’s tired of looking at his face. Nicolas retaliates with a threat of his own about what a man who has nothing to lose is capable of since he has nothing to fear.  This is the point at which I would be hoping that Nicolas was working with the CIA and the Federales at trying to draw out the big boss – had he not stood by and watched Drew’s murder.  I would have hoped that he took the necklace to give to the family, later.

“Dallas” meets the Syfy channel.  Bo, if sent to a program in Tel Aviv, can undergo a stem cell procedure, three surgeries in 18 months, that will increase the chances that he’ll walk soon.  We’re told that there is no reason he won’t dance at his son’s wedding some day. Christopher watches Bo, Heather, and Michael bonding.  This pretty much means, to me, that Nicolas’ days are numbered, Christopher will be back to boring me to tears when he gets together with Elena again, and I will suck it up because so much else is right with the show.  There is another reunion of sorts taking place in the hospital. John Ross is finally added to the visitor’s list. He rushes to Pamela’s side.  He pledges to be a better man, he doesn’t want to be the monster he was before.  He apologizes to her for everything. She tells him that she let him in to tell him to stop waiting outside, not to try to fix their marriage – it’s over.  She tells him she tried her entire childhood to get her father to love her and that she continued that pattern in adulthood.  She fell for men who put greed and ambition before her. 

She tells him that she was willing to do anything to get him to love her but she sees now that marrying her was his way of getting her shares of Ewing Global.  She says there will never be enough success or money to fill the hole where his heart should be. He swears he loves her and will be different for her. He asked her earlier what she wanted. She tells him she wants him to leave because their marriage is over. I want to believe that he means it and that he can change.  I love this couple. We may learn, in time, that John Ross is a much better man than his father could have imagined being. I want to believe that. I can’t see the writers making that happen.  I think, as written, John Ross believes he can be a better man – until a better option comes along.

Emma plays dress up in her best semi-professional suit, with her hair slicked back, to meet with Luis.  She informs him that given her arrangement with her grandmother, she’s next in charge at Ryland. She knows he got her father out of prison. She wants his help to put her father back in prison. If Ryland was smart, he’d fake DNA evidence and pull a “switched at birth” move. Given that she’s as evil as Judith, it probably wouldn’t work.

Pamela is being discharged. She tells Sue Ellen that she didn’t plan to kill herself, but she realizes that she was willing to and it scares her. Sue Ellen admits her fear that because of her drinking she nearly lost her life.  Pamela refuses to divorce John Ross because of the lack of a pre-nup.  She refuses to leave the marriage with less than she came into it with and plans to make sure she protects herself. Sue Ellen looks worried – but it’s not clear what scares her most, what Pamela has become and seems capable of doing, or what her son will do in response to the new Pamela.

Christopher hand Heather the paperwork for Bo’s treatment. He pays for the entire family to go with him. He tells her that Bo needs Michael and Michael needs her.  Seriously writers?  Really?  ARGH!  She responds by giving Christopher a tear soaked good-bye kiss and leaves. I’m heartbroken.  I loved their brief romance.

The Ramos women are saying good bye to Drew.  The investigators examining Drew’s suicide and the SF fire each seem to find new evidence. As the Ramos women arrive home, they learn that the autopsy confirms that Drew committed suicide, but found chemicals which suggest that Drew set the fire at the ranch.  They realize the fire was arson because the same rocket fuel in the plug in air freshener that started the fire was found on Drew’s body.  Elena holds Carmen as she breaks down. So much for Luis’ perfect crime, he was convinced that his men handled every detail. They tried to cover his involvement in the fire and ended up handing the police every bit of evidence they needed to begin to ask why he would commit such a crime. So now the big question: WHY did they dump Drew’s body in a place where it could be found?  Is this the out the writers are leaving for Nicolas? He wasn’t able to stop Drew’s execution, but he could at least make sure that Drew’s secret was found out launching another investigative arm? Yes, I’m desperate to have Nicolas be something other than an absolute low life. Am I a little too desperate, at this point?

Elena decides to tell Mrs. Ramos everything. She even tells her mother that the Ewings framed Cliff for JR’s murder. Carmen remembers the handwritten letter from JR. She remembers Bum giving it to Bobby and that John Ross had it earlier that day.  Elena thinks it has the proof they need but doesn’t know how she can get the letter. She begins drinking when she sees John Ross stumbling around with a bottle… turn away, Dallas fans, turn away.  You know where this is going.  John Ross is whining about having JR’s DNA and what a curse it is.  He whines about his marriage being over. Elena is cozying up to him when it happens. Elena cries for Drew, lays her head on John Ross’ shoulder, and the next thing you know, they’re in bed together. 

Will we end up with a “whodunit” paternity suit? Nicolas has sabotaged Elena’s birth control. She’s slept with him and John Ross on consecutive nights. What would Pamela’s reaction be? Christopher’s?

Next week? Elena confronts the Ewings and Cliff smells freedom coming.  It will be interesting to see if she reveals how she got that letter.   

Tune in next week and find out.

 

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