Pamela
Pamela deals with her grief by putting together the twins' nursery. I know she's grieving, but I have notes. Like, she really should have moved the changing table so that the door doesn't open right smack into it.
Christopher
Christopher, meanwhile, is taking apart the Southfork nursery. And when his old bassinet breaks accidentally, he decides to smash it up completely. So: contrasts. For once, the Ewing is destroying while the Barnes is building.
John Ross
John Ross checks in with Pamela a lot, but by phone, so he doesn't know that her mother isn't there anymore and that she's sitting aimlessly in an empty apartment with a full nursery. He's just making smoothies and flexing his pecs, enjoying reminding us all -- and her -- that he's now a 50 percent owner of the ranch.
History
Bobby is upstairs packing up JR's room, when he finds this. I assume this wasn't in a vault somewhere from the old Dallas set, and that therefore it's not JR and the old actor who played Kiddie John Ross, but in fact a Photoshopped picture of Hagman and Young Josh Henderson. Regardless: MUNCHKIN. Aw. If it's Hagman and Henderson, then I hope Henderson steals that from the set and displays it in his home forever.
Bobby and John Ross
Bobby welcomes John Ross to the house with a super respectful handshake, and John Ross seems EXTREMELY touched by this, and now I'm all misty. Henderson has really grown into the role and grown on me, but I think maybe just Patrick Duffy smiling paternally at people is all I need to get verklempt. Remember when he was on South Park as part of the Scuzzlebutt, which had celery for an arm and Patrick Duffy for a leg? Lucky Scuzzlebutt.
Bobby and John Ross
Meanwhile, Christopher is being snappy and ragey at everyone because he wants to absolve Ewing Energies in The Case of The Death of his Babies. These two are sympathetic but there's also a lot of, "Sheesh, THAT GUY," in their swapped facial expressions.
Boardroom
So then the Ewing Energies folks go into the Death Star and find out that the environmental people officially blame them and slap them with a one BILLION dollar fine. Nothing about an explosion, and Sue Ellen's lusty old friend/informant is nowhere to be found. Christopher encourages them all to bite him, and John Ross agrees, and eventually even Bobby says that they are welcome to implant their findings deeply within their own anal cavities.
Pamela
Christopher wants John Ross to pump Pamela for information, but when John Ross arrives, he finds that Pamela is pulling a Demi Moore from St. Elmo's Fire, except that she's outside on her terrace instead of locked in a room with all the windows open. He snaps her out of it with a cup of tea and some sympathetic bug-eyes and all becomes well.
Christopher
Chris could use some tea and eyes, because he's busy incorporating the product-placement by rage-drinking a Miller Lite. MILLER LITE: When you are too upset to taste what you're swallowing, might as well make it cheap.
RAGE
"I AM NOT DRINKING THIS MILLER LITE IDLY, GOOD SIR. I AM DRINKING IT BECAUSE I WANT TO PUNCH YOUR BRAINS OUT FOR TELLING US THERE WAS A BOMB AND THEN LETTING EVERYONE BURY THAT AND LIE ABOUT IT. DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE MILLER LITE PART? MY FURY IS REAL."
Old Guy
"Son, your breath stinks of MILLER LITE. You are clearly out of your mind and therefore I will not press charges even though you're about to take a swing at some people. MILLER LITE is the sign of a tortured mind. MILLER LITE."
Elena
The following is a rough paraphrasing:
"You've been drinking MILLER LITE again, haven't you?" "So what? You never wanted my babies in the first place." "This isn't you. It's the MILLER LITE talking." "I don't need MILLER LITE to tell me what I already know. YOU'RE GLAD MY BABIES ARE DEAD." *slap* "GO TO HELL. I HEAR MILLER LITE IS FREE THERE." The end.
Shh, don't tell, but I actually don't hate Miller Lite.
Emma
Harris intercepts Emma while she's on a ride on Southfork -- it's THIS easy for people to sneak on to Southfork in their trucks? -- and tells her to stop seeing Drew. He never once asks her why she's wearing what for all the world looks like a maternity sweater.
Emma and Drew
This, naturally, sends Emma careening straight for Drew, whom she asks out on a date before scraping some plaque off his teeth. But of course, this was a setup -- Harris was testing her, he's having her watched, and now he wants to have Drew DEAD.
Drunk Extra
So, Drew is late to his date with Emma. This old guy is hitting on her and we see a very clear shot (that I accidentally deleted) of her texting Drew, "I need my knight in shining armor!"
Drew's Phone
Somehow, Drew's phone translated that as, "I need my shining Knight." This show is not so good at phone continuity.
Harris and Thug
However, Drew doesn't have time to send a reply to her because Harris clubs him over the head, throws him in the trunk of his car, and then -- while Drew is STILL AWAKE -- leans over the trunk and talks to him. So let me get this straight: Not only isn't he using hired goons, but he's making sure Drew can ID him? This seems... the opposite of cunning.
Sue Ellen
Meanwhile, Sue Ellen puts on a groovy coat and gets a drink with Former Paramour, and lectures him on allowing the truth about the accident to be buried. She also puts an extra shot into her cocktail. Earlier she noted that she'd work on him because "he's sweet on me; I can use that." I LOVE that this show is willing to use its old guard in saucy ways, still. Even if she DIDN'T seduce him, they're making the older characters vibrant, and that's the best.
Sue Ellen
Also, she's rocking the hell out of a leather skirt.
Emma
And, she catches Emma, liquored up and panting in the face of the old guy who had been hitting on her. It seems Harris sent her a false message from Drew that said he'd gotten a better offer, and instead of thinking, "Hmm, that sounds nothing like him," Emma bristled and decided to get drunk and laid. Couldn't she have made a booty call to John Ross?
Sigh
So then Harris, who has been lying in wait, intercepts Emma as she staggers out of the bar, and drives her to a parking garage, and tells her that bad things happen when she steps out of line. This is REALLY confusing to me -- are we going to find out that Harris has a brain tumor? Because if he wanted to continue the fiction that he was wronged by Ann, and that his daughter should trust him, he is doing a really unusual job of it. I thought the whole point of this was that he had her hoodwinked, and we were going to see her pulled between that and her growing feelings for Ann, but instead she and Ann haven't had a SINGLE conversation since she moved to Southfork and Harris is being a complete stalker. It is EXTREMELY STRANGE.
Drew
And then Harris turns on the headlights, and there is Drew, the shit beaten out of him. Emma promises to be good, but angrily. Or, GO TO THE COPS. I'm just saying.
Sue Ellen and Sue Ellen Mischke
Also, someone has kidnapped Ann's wardrobe and replaced it with Folger's Instant Sister-Wife. Do we notice? YES. Also: Sue Ellen tells her she saw Emma with the old man, and that Emma may have been high. Ann is like, "Hmm," as if this isn't news to her. WHY DID THIS NOT SURPRISE YOU. Further, Sue Ellen asks when they last talked, and instead of saying, "Three episodes or so ago," Ann says something like, "She went straight to bed." Huh?
Ann
And THEN it's the next morning and Ann is wearing a blanket and never went up to check on Emma, nor talk to her, despite the fact that Sue Ellen told her what she saw. Are they deleting EVERY scene? Am I drinking too much MILLER LITE?
Steven Weber
So, Sue Ellen's Former Paramour Or Whatever goes to talk to the new Governor of Texas, who is played by Steven Weber. And it turns out Steven is the person trying to bury Ewing Energies, and when SEFP shows a conscience, Steven blackmails him by mentioning several illicit dealings and favors and whatnot from The Past and then fires him. Well, "accepts his resignation." Potato, po-tah-to.
Demi-Hooker
Their buddy Carlos, The Most Interesting Man In This World's Version of Mexico, has located the lady who was in JR's hotel room with him. She says he was a perfect gentleman, just wanted company and chit-chat (that doesn't sound like JR), and then reveals that there was a regular client who would come to her strip club and do business with the cartels. That man? Harris Ryland.
Sue Ellen
And Sue Ellen and her awesome leather jacket discover an envelope from Former Paramour on her desk, which says, "I've picked a side," and lists Steven Weber's biggest donors. One of them? Harris Ryland. So basically, he is the root of everything bad that has ever happened to anyone on this show, except for the Barnes-Ewing Babies.
Christopher and Pamela
Speaking of them, Pamela tearfully tells Chris that she heard about the sabotage and they hug and make up, and she tells him to make the bastard who killed their babies PAY. Christopher does not tell her that bastard was probably her father. It is going to be delicious when he reveals that bastard is also Christopher's future brother in law. If there weren't only two episodes left and ZERO discussion of a wedding, I'd say maybe that would come out AT the wedding, but we'll see.
Ewings
Anyway, now that all signs point to Harris, we can reintroduce a Barnes: At Pamela's, John Ross stole a copy of Cliff's mother's will, which left 1/3 of Barnes Global to Original Pam. Basically, if the show decides Original Pam is dead now, Christopher would inherit her third, theoretically. So they still want to find her. And Victoria Principal is going to have to decide if she wants to plug her phone back in.
Drew
Elena finds her brother all jacked up and drunk, and he tells her Harris Ryland did it. And thus is the fatal flaw in Harris Ryland's plan. Presumably he THOUGHT of this, but it still seems not so smrt. Drew makes Elena promise not to tell anyone. This is also not smrt, because like I said before, everyone knows that when in doubt, TELL BOBBY.
Harris
Meanwhile, Harris tells Steven Weber the world's longest story about predators that take forever to finish off their prey. It's super snoozy but he at least gets to tell it while snacking on some bar nuts.
The Scheme Is Afoot
As Harris talks, we learn that the Henderson land is being seized -- aka, the only land on which Ewing Energies is currently drilling (and which, last we heard, wasn't yielding anything because of John Ross sabotaging Drew; they must've dropped that once Hagman died?). It takes too long to start up on Southfork, which means the Ewings are in danger of being unable to pay the one BIIIIIILLION dollar fine that Dr. Evil wants them to pay in damages because of the rig explosion. So blah blah blah cash-strapped.
Steven Weber
"Dude, I have no idea what the hell I just walked into, but this is SO MUCH better than doing a sitcom about an airport."