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# Fug the Show: Dallas, episode 1
- URL: https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/fug-the-show-dallas-episode-1/
- Published: 2012-06-18T19:00:54.000Z
- Updated: 2012-06-19T19:21:23.000Z
- Author: Heather
- Tags: #wp, #wp-gallery, #slideshow, #Import 2026-10-07 07:30

## DALLAS

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/b9/bfb99790-924d-4e41-a7e6-5e3c6e04fe57/content/images/static-gofugyourself-com/uploads/2012/06/img_2775.jpg)

My affection for the return of *Dallas* doesn't mean I don't have notes. This opening didn't include cast images like [that badass old triple-split-screen of yore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iYjgMygIag&feature=related&ref=go-fug-yourself.ghost.io). I need an updated version of J.R. doing a shot, for one thing. Hagman, you are the magic.

## John Ross

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2762.jpg)

Meet John Ross Ewing, a.k.a. JR's offspring. He's in the middle of drilling for oil on Southfork, which we later find out was specifically forbidden by matriarch Miss Ellie in her will. I am not sure why anybody expected John Ross to abide by the rules, since he's J.R.'s son, and has spent the intervening years cultivating a stereotypically mischievous goatee. The theme of the new *Dallas* is Nefarious Facial Hair.

## Texas Tea

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2765.jpg)

The show does not do a very good job at making oil look sexy. It looks like land vomit.

## Elena/Jordana

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2769_1.jpg)

This is Elena, John Ross's geologist girlfriend, played by *The Fast and the Furious* actress Jordana Brewster. I'm going to call her Jordana so as not to confuse her in the hearts and minds of our readers with the other brown-haired Elena who's over on The CW pining for a pair of vampires. That won't happen be this show until at LEAST season three. Anyway, Jordana is so excited that they've struck oil that she can't even be bothered to check the continuity of her face splatters.

## Bobby

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2772.jpg)

This is the part where I got all excited, because Bobby Ewing went all Bobby Ewing on us, rasping under his breath about stuff that's For The Good Of The Family. Here, it's about how he needs to hide his recent cancer diagnosis until he takes care of business. This is TV code for, "Unless we run out of money to pay Patrick Duffy, he's totally going to be fine," but on *Dallas* it could also stand for, "Don't worry, if Bobby dies, it just means we can go batshit for a few episodes and then plonk him in the shower and undo everything." I decided they should end EVERY episode with Bobby turning around in the shower, so that week-to-week, viewers have to guess at whether anything they just saw actually counts.

## Rebecca

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2776_2.jpg)

"Hello, sir, I worked really hard with my on-set language tutor," says Julie Gonzalo. "Dude, in case you can't tell by the fact that my alleged proficiency sounds like I'm reading the words phonetically off a cue card, I totally blew that tutor off so I could go to Shirt Buttoning School because my last two major jobs never required me to know how to do that," Jesse Metcalfe replies.

## Christopher and Rebecca

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2779.jpg)

This is Bobby's son Christopher and his fiance, Rebecca, wearing the world's least flattering tennis outfit (it's worse when it's not grainy -- seriously, the waistband cuts into her torso like a knife to bread). They're supposed to be having sexy shenanigans in the women's locker room, except the whole rest of he episode she's portrayed like the world's most angelic angel in all of Angeldom, so this doesn't really track -- like the network note was, "Great stuff, but we need to see someone's panties hit the carpet in the first five minutes."

## Brenda Strong

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2782.jpg)

This is going to be confusing for everyone. Because aside from being the voice of Mary Alice on *Desperate Housewives*, Brenda Strong is well-known for being The Braless Wonder Sue Ellen Mischke on *Seinfeld*. But I can't CALL her Sue Ellen because there already IS a Sue Ellen, and I can't call her Brenda because there is only one Brenda and her name is Walsh, and I can't call her Mary Alice because I don't care. So I'm going to have to go with her actual character name of Ann. It feels so weird.

Anyway, Ann's point here is to let you know that Bobby has married a lady who looks bangin' in a pair of jodhpurs -- seriously, those pants are never going to have it that good again; my own pants just shed actual tears -- and also that she doesn't know he's dying. Which is code for, "She's totally about to find out that he's dying."

## John Ross

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2784.jpg)

After John Ross celebrates his drilling and how Southfork's hidden riches will make him a miiiiiiiiillionaire and whatnot, a mystery sports car pulls up in the back of the run-down tavern -- because when you want to be covert, your best bet is a red hot rod with a license plate ending in "HEX2" -- and John Ross leans into the window and purrs something about how his daddy taight him to expect the best but plan for the worst. "Stay tuned," he metas. HEX2 drives off without saying anything, which is actually kind of a boss move. JR Ewing would NEVER have let anyone have the last word unless he was catatonic.

## J.R.

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2785.jpg)

Oh, wait. JR is catatonic. But let's not get to worried because they didn't pay Hagman to stare out windows. He will be back soon. WELCOME TO THE PARTY, GOOD SIR. And you brought the money shot. So courteous. Bobby is apparently visiting J.R. at his Cheesily Appointed Convalescence Home for Depressed Catatonics, although really, he's J.R. EWING. Shouldn't he be living in a mansion somewhere with three young personal nurses, instead of staring out a stranger's window waiting for his eyebrows to a vine he can use to escape?

## John Ross and Jordana

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2786.jpg)

This is where we figure out that Christopher and Jordana have A Significant Past, and where we understand that anyone who thinks John Ross is sincere and gentlemanly is not using their eyes. I keep imagining Josh Henderson practicing that eyebrow thing in the mirror forty times a day until it stuck there.

## John Ross

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2796.jpg)

I mean, COME ON. If this dude tried to sell you a watch, you'd have him arrested, much less what he's ACTUALLY doing -- which is, trying to sell his girlfriend on being the lone bridesmaid in the wedding of your cousin/her ex-somebody and his French-speaking fiance whom you've just met. They exposit that Rebecca's parents died when she was 12 in a plane crash and yada yada yada it still makes no sense to put Jordana in this wedding, but of course everyone pushes it until Jordana says yes.

## Sue Ellen

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2794.jpg)

Well, Sue Ellen doesn't push it; she just makes this face the whole time. Sue Ellen is the only smart person in the room. She's all, "GIRL, if one of J.R.'s other wives made me her maid of honor I'd have shot her dead with a champagne cork."

## Bobby and John Ross

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2803_2.jpg)

So, Bobby announces that he wants to sell Southfork to help finance Christopher's fancy-pants alternative energy research. John Ross is pissed, so he confesses that they struck oil on Southfork, and that makes BOBBY mad because Miss Ellie banned it and so we get a) John Ross throwing it in Christopher's face that Christopher is adopted; b) a lot of threats and the sherriff being brought in to stop drilling; and c) this awesome scene, where Bobby crawls up on Mount St. Righteous and then John Ross searches his brain for the best comeback and then wrings the pea dry of enough juice to come up with this sucker: "This isn't over... *UNCLE*." That's right, John Ross burned him with TRUTH. Unless he mistakenly believes Bobby is secretly The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but I'm pretty sure he's just incapable of creative banter.

## Rebecca and Jordana

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2808.jpg)

"Oh, hey there, Sudden Maid of Honor, let me show you my dress and make you tell me how pretty I am in it, before we have an emotionally loaded conversation about how I'm marrying someone we both know you've seen naked. This seems super fun and productive."

## The Sue Ellens

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2809.jpg)

Ostensibly the Sue Ellens are gasping at how pretty Rebecca looks, but you know Sue Ellen Ewing is looking at Jordana and thinking, "WHY IS SHE IN THIS WEDDING? If I had a Twitter account, I would write, 'She's got a Master's in energy resources but she flunked Backbone 101\. #BadIdea #WTF #AtLeastGetOutYourCleavage.'"

## Christopher

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2810.jpg)

"Aw, man, did my groovy alternative energy project accidentally cause a massive earthquake halfway around the world that killed a lot of people? That, like, totally harshes my shirt-buttoning buzz. I can't even finish this one now."

## John Ross and JR

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2814_2.jpg)

"Daddy, Bobby wants to sell Southfork and he won't let me drill and Satan called and asked me for grooming tips and I don't know what to do and I'm just SO AFRAID that your eyebrows are genetic."

## JR

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2817_2.jpg)

"THEY ARE. Hah, scared you, eh, son? But they are. RIght now there's a little man named Jack crawling up one of them in the hope of killing a giant. Now, let's go make Bobby cry, okay? And I forgive you for never visiting me." Actually, he really did say that last thing. It was awesome. He just grabbed John Ross and laid down the passive aggression the way only J.R. Ewing can.

## John Ross and Jordana

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2821_2.jpg)

John Ross's next move is to ask Jordana to spy on Christopher, and for some reason she agrees, presumably because his facial hair emits mind-controlling drugs.

## Jordana

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2824.jpg)

Jordana has spent this entire episode -- and most of the next one -- in casual pants and stuff. So Christopher should've smelled a rat when she showed up at his Science Lair dressed like an episode of *Alias*. Instead, he tells her all about his earthquake problem, and she feels sorry for him so she doesn't give any of that info to John Ross.

## Plaid

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2826.jpg)

"La la la la la, nothin' to see here, I'm just a masked man rootin' through Bobby's desk, wearin' my loudest orange flannel coat. Lord, I hope I remember to burn this so that nobody identifies it in a future episode. Also, this dude has a LOT of porn magazines involving oil wells."

## Ann

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2827.jpg)

"'Sup, Plaid. I shoot lumberjacks for breakfast."

Plaid, of course, gets away by diving through the window (which we assume gets fixed immediately, as nobody mentions it again). After, Ann stays awake and finds Bobby's medication and Googles it and reads all about stomach tumors and starts to cry, which coincidentally is what I do every time I get a weird headache and I'm tired and my throat hurts and Dr. Google tells me that I probably am knocking on Death's door without a muffin basket.

## Marta

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2829.jpg)

This lady is from the conservancy that wants to buy Southfork and preserve its dignity and prevent it from being felt up by handsy oil rigs. Because Bobby has taken leave of both his health AND his senses, he lets this lady land her chopper on Southfork at Christopher's wedding so that she can fly him around in a circle and talk business while wearing white and probably blowing away half of the outdoor ceremony's flower arrangements. The chopper rotor drowned out the sound of a wedding planner howling in agony.

## Bobby

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2831.jpg)

It also drowned out the sound of Bobby howling in Cancer Agony. The lady is all, "I see no reason the deal can't go through, AS LONG AS NOTHING CHANGES HERE, BOBBY." And his stomach tumors are all, "YOU RANG?"

## Ann

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2832.jpg)

"Sigh. I'm so bummed out that my husband has secret tumors, but at least my streak of looking awesome in everything remains unblemished, and in the end, THAT is what everyone will remember."

## Lucy and Ray

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2833_2.jpg)

And then up pops Charlene Tilton, a.k.a. Lucy Ewing. She is remarkably cheerful despite attending the wedding with her ex-lover Ray Krebbs (on the left down there), who two seasons later turned out to be HER UNCLE. Although that didn't stop her from sleeping with Ray's cousin at some point. Clearly Lucy should have been born in Tudor England.

## Sue Ellen and John Ross

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2839.jpg)

Sue Ellen pops up again to apologize to John Ross for sending him off to boarding school, or something. She should ALSO apologize to him for that time she drove drunk when she was pregnant with him and then crashed the car and caused his premature birth, but it doesn't come up, and he never asks her why her smock appears to be held together by a hair clip, so. WHY IS NOBODY SAYING WHAT THEY MEAN.

## John Ross and Christopher

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2849_2.jpg)

"Hey, adopted cousin, if Bobby sells Southfork then I'm totally going to tell him all about how your energy thingamy started an earthquake of death." "Oh yeah, John Ross? Well, thanks for shaving for my wedding. Does your contract with the devil prohibit the use of razors?"

## Christopher & Jordana

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/img_2852_2.jpg)

"Also, Jordana, thanks for coming to THIS wedding, since you totally skipped my last one, WHICH WAS TO YOU." "Duh, Christopher, you sent me an e-mail calling off the wedding and so I fled to Mexico because that's where people go when they want cheap mind-erasing meds and then I crawled into a bottle of tequila and made out with the worm and when I woke up it had John Ross's face." "Um. I didn't write that e-mail. You'e the bomb." "Well, so are you. Should we make out?" "Eh, let's cut to my wedding instead and not deal with this."

## Jordana

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2857.jpg)

"Yup. So happy to be here. Yaaaaay. Look at me! NO INNER TURMOIL HERE! But I wonder why every member of the Ewing clan just asked if I want to buy into their high-stakes poker game."

## JR and Marta

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2861.jpg)

This is John Ross discovering that J.R. has known Marta -- a.k.a., the lady who is buying Southfork from Bobby to preserve it -- and that they're in cahoots to give it back to J.R. This shot was so awesome. Vintage JR. His eyebrows actually grew hands and applauded.

## HEX2

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2862.jpg)

But WHAT HO. HEX2 is back, simultaneously shooting a Nair commercial and taking a covert meeting...

## John Ross

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2864.jpg)

... with Eyebrow McEvilFace. And I will get to WHERE they are meeting in a second; first, the brunette taking the meeting is not Jordana, nor Christopher's boring fiance Rebecca, but in fact MARTA. So she is acting helpful to Bobby, pretending to backstab HIM for JR, and then using her other hand to stab J.R. so that John Ross ends up with Southfork. She is a TRIPLE-CROSSER. And, spoiler, in the next episode you learn that there is A FOURTH CROSS, because she is really cross-promiscuous. I hope she goes for ten.

## I'm So Sure

![](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2012/06/IMG_2868.jpg)

And naturally, they had this little confab IN THE MIDDLE OF COWBOYS STADIUM. With no security around, no trouble getting in, and not so much as a custodial employee in sight, unless there's one up there on the million-inch Jumbotron trying to squeegee away a fingerprint. I actually laughed out loud. As if one of them called up Jerry Jones and was like, "Dude, is midfield open at noon on Tuesday? I need to hatch a scheme and I don't want f'ing Tony Romo practicing dropbacks all over my eyebrow emoting." And Jerry was like, "Tuesday... yup, I'm off getting an eye job so the team is totally going to sneak off to Cabo." But that's the beauty of this show. Why be subtle when you can be *Dallas*?

[Fug the Show: Dallas, episode 1This is how much I loved '80s soaps as a kid: The Dallas theme song was one of the first tunes I ever learned to play on the piano, followed immediately thereafter by the Dynasty theme, both of which I specifically asked my music teacher to write out for me (I never requested The Colbys, but I just ran out to see if I can pick it out by ear, and I CAN, so I consider that hitting a trifecta). So when the titular Dallas song came on, I clapped instinctively. And it helps that the show is total throwback fun. It's not always brilliant and it's not always quotable in a way that isn't for giggles. But there's no smugness. There's no irony. It's not a parody of itself, or of anything else. It means what it says, and it says what it is. Bonus: It's not trying to play to These Kids Today with stupid updates. Nobody is bragging about their blog or their Tumblr or some nonsense; they didn't reimagine Southfork with the forced color scheme of an early-2000 dot-com company (ahem, 90210); and they didn't do anything dumb like make it a modernized prequel or some foolish remake (DOUBLE ahem, Knight Rider). It's just pure soap, a generation or so removed. People scheme, people lie, people ill-advisedly piss off J.R.... really, the chief difference is that Larry Hagman's eyebrows are more complicated. Oh, J.R. Much like many of the Ewings, I didn't realize how much I needed you in my life until you returned to it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/b9/bfb99790-924d-4e41-a7e6-5e3c6e04fe57/content/images/static-gofugyourself-com/uploads/2012/06/img_2775.jpg)](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/fug-the-show-dallas-episode-1-06-2012/)