John Ross and Emma
Emma pounces on John Ross while he's in JR's room, having a little middle-distance time with himself, and propositions him for sex. It takes him ten seconds to agree, and they basically do it on JR's bed. Dead JR's empty, sad bed. He would be so proud. I mean that sincerely. The problem with Emma is, I can't tell if we're supposed to think she's high on Klonopin all the time, or that she's just... horny and enjoying not being repressed, or a little bit crazy for real. Possibly all of the above.
The Ewing Gang
Also, Bobby -- this is pre-sex; he didn't call a meeting in the middle of John Ross probing Emma's Situation -- tells everyone that all the Barnes Global paperwork JR purloined for them proves that his erstwhile wife Pam is a half-owner of the company, and that's got to be why JR was trying to find her. He might have struggled to find her because he doesn't remember what she looks like, as -- unlike Victoria Principal's constant wrong assertion that Pam died in a car accident -- she was in fact badly burned and then recast so that Pam could a) decide she didn't want Bobby and Christopher to see her so disfigured, then b) contract a fatal disease, and c) pretend to be in love with her doctor so they could disappear together, and then d) possibly actually be in love with him; I don't know. It's one thing to say, "To me, Pam is dead," and another thing entirely to pretend everything that happened ON TV after you is a lie, and ALSO, even if she WAS dead, how does she know Bobby didn't just deal with it by taking another magic death-cheating shower?
Coach Whitey!!!!
And then we get a cameo by my favorite person ever: Barry Corbin, a.k.a. Brenda's dad on The Closer, a.k.a. COACH WHITEY ON ONE TREE HILL, and to me, always and forever, General Beringer from WarGames, in which he uttered the line, "We are AT DEFCON 1." He is here ONLY to be JR's lawyer -- we have seen other Ewing lawyers and this is totally just stunt casting -- and to basically deliver the reading of JR's last wishes exactly the way JR would want: Dripping with skepticism of these people, total disapproval of everything their faces are doing, and a lot of crabbyness. It's DELICIOUS.
JR leaves Bobby his boots. Yes, his cowboy boots. He clearly redid his will like a week ago, because he leaves Ann his shotgun, unless the reason he's dead "is because she used it on me." Hee. He leaves alcoholic Gary a bottle of scotch (HA) and he leaves Sue Ellen his heart. She seems touched and also a bit like, "... Okay?" And he leaves John Ross whatever else he could have left anyone, and some compliments. Delivered with razors by the tongue of this fine, fine man. I love you, Barry Corbin. If you ever die I CANNOT.
John Ross
John Ross has the good grace to look humbled when Defcon 1 opens up a letter Miss Ellie left when she died, to be opened only upon the death of her son JR. That's morbid, Miss Ellie. Anyway, it says that the son shouldn't be punished for the sins of the father, so now that JR is gone, she leaves his half of Southfork not to Bobby but to John Ross. If you're keeping score, this means John Ross just became a man.
Cliff Barnes
Ol' Cliffie is reveling in the joys of outliving JR, and tells Harris "X-Files" Ryland that they can join forces to take down the Ewings once and for all. His spindly, Grinchy heart has grown three sizes and inflated itself with venom.
Mitch Pileggi
Cliff baits Harris into working with him by saying he'll pay for Harris to assume control of his own company, which his mother currently runs. Harris is like, "I'LL DRINK TO THAT. HONKY GRANDMA BE TRIPPIN."
Bobby
Bobby tells he boys that he's reopening drilling on Southfork, because the company needs to be in a strong financial position. He also tells John Ross that his inheritance of half of Southfork means he's a man now, and he should freaking act like one. Good point, and John Ross takes it. Christopher tells them that Barnes Global has made a move on the energy contract he wants for his methane thingamy. When he tried to talk it out with the lady who used to be on 24, who has influence over this, she hit on him and he turned her down and she stormed out of there. The three of them decide to come up with a plan, and that can mean only one thing: John Ross's wang is being drafted into action.
John Ross
John Ross is tickled at this idea. Actually, it is HIS idea, and Bobby and Christopher are both silently kind of like, "Yeah, you know what, okay, it's nice to have a man-whore on our side sometimes."
John Ross and Annie Wersching
So he takes the woman, who is married to a senator, and has a torrid affair with her on a hotel balcony. Well, this is after a lot of verbal foreplay involving lengthy discussions of running drenched in double entendre, and John Ross pretending he's asking for her help in defeating Christopher. I really do feel like John Ross's crotch should get a percentage of ownership in Ewing Energies. It is replete with Ewing energy, after all.
Bum
And Bum's camera captures the whole thing, as he looks on and appears satisfied that his lens is longer than anything in the photographs it's taking. Christopher takes the pics to the lady and successfully blackmails her into killing the Barnes Global bid, so that Christopher's methane hooey is still the frontrunner.
Drew
Drew asks Bobby if he can buy back their father's land, while holding his head at this angle the entire time. Elena promises to take full responsibility for whatever happens, and nobody ever offers Drew a chiropractor or a stabilizing collar.
Judith Light
I swear, Judith enters every scene as if she has just moisturized her hands. She tells Harris that he WILL apohlogiiiiiiiize to huh foh his siiiiiiins. And when he's like, "Um.... nope," she tells him that she is going back to London, where she sweaaaaahs she WILL remoooooove him from the company and ruuuin his laaaaaaaahfe. Once he picks through all the extra vowels, he's cheesed.
Sue Ellen
Sue Ellen is still a big old boozy mess, and when Gary tries to confront her, she rolls her eyes that she was only PRETENDING to be interested in him to get him on her side for the oil blah-blah, but now that Bobby's turning it back on, she doesn't need to turn on Gary (those are my words but I wish they had been hers). I am curious why nobody in the office notices that she suddenly keeps alcohol on the desk and that the level changes every hour.
Gary
McGary Is Not Impressed.
Valene and Lucy
Charlene Tilton must have had more to do that got cut out, because otherwise, this is all she gets: escorting Valene to Southfork. Turns out as soon as Gary left her office, Sue Ellen decided to call Val and lie to her that Gary wants her back, because she's sick of hangdog Gary and his interest in her blood-alcohol level.
Gary
McGary Is Not Impressed.
Valene
Val smells this rat almost immediately and storms into Sue Ellen's office by snapping, "Once a bitch, always a bitch." Point to Val.
Sue Ellen
McSueEllen Is Not Impressed. In fact, she seems extremely bored by Valene's existence. A lifetime of points to Sue Ellen.
Emma and Drew
Emma hits on Drew HARD, because he's the only other single young guy she's ever met besides John Ross, and also, he knows how to use a gun and has a motorcycle and, okay, also he's cute. So they go on a food truck date and bond, while one of Harris's spies watches them totally unsubtly and all but whips out a notebook and transcribes the conversation.
Harris
Harris is crankypants about this turn of events -- through which we learn that, unbeknownst to Drew, HARRIS is the person for whom he was driving the trucks full of LIES. Oh, Harris. I feel like Hagman's death is forcing them to speed up a lot of the stories they were going to mete out, like this reveal, and whether Emma is into Drew or John Ross, whether she's stoned, or crazy, or confused, and most importantly, any scene at all of her mending fences with Ann, whom she actually barely knows even though she's living at Southfork.
Drew
Anyway, so Drew -- who demolition in the military -- is blackmailed by Harris' henchman into building a bomb to blow Christopher's meth lab sky high. The dude tells him they will kill Elena if he doesn't do it. Drew is not happy about this, but he hasn't learned enough to know that he should just immediately go tell Bobby what's happening and everyone will figure out a plan and nobody will have to get hurt. The moral of the story is, always tell Bobby.
Christopher
So, Chris is by himself, drinking. Elena walks into this spotless room that doesn't look like a single solitary soul has ever actually spent a waking moment LIVING in it -- can we have a pair of pants on the ottoman, at least? -- and asks what's up. Christopher tells her he and John Ross used sex blackmail to get Barnes Global off the table, and Elena is disgusted. Then she rewrites history by claiming this is why she wanted to leave Ewing Energies. Um, Elena? You were bought out and fired because your brother is a smuggler. Tell your horse to stop hanging out at Christopher's meth lab, because it is TOO HIGH.
Judith and Harris
Harris and Judith vomit some more hatred on each other here, and then Harris loses his temper because he cannot handle that it takes Judith twenty minutes to say three words.
Whoopsie
And then POOF, he shoves Judith down the stairs. She takes a huge bite out of the banister as she falls.
Drew
So, Drew casually goes back to Southfork and, in his HOUSE, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, WITH THE WINDOWS OPEN, builds a bomb and then feels really sad about it. But not so sad that he doesn't go strap it to the meth lab. They've told him it will be detonated during a shift change, but what he DOESN'T know is that Henchman is going to blow it while Christopher, Ann, Bobby, Elena, John Ross, and the energy people are touring it. Drew is going to be so very sad when he learns this. It's such a shame -- these days you just really can't trust the people who blackmail you to strap explosives to your (sort of) own family's pipes.
Cliff Barnes
But LO, Pregnant Pamela is on the rig as well, and this is the face Cliff makes when he learns this information... right before he tells Henchman to BLOW IT UP ANYWAY. THAT IS COLD, SIR. I'm not sure the Cliff Barnes of old would have done this. He was conniving, sure, but in a shyster kind of way. He was also sort of a buffoon, not an actual pure-evil genius. So this totally doesn't track. HOWEVER, I will overlook it for now because it's freaking juicy. The dude is like, "UM, and kisses his crucifix. Cliff is like, "JUST DO IT," and hangs up on him, and immediately his table in hell gets moved to a much hotter corner.
Pow
So, methplace go boom.
Pamela
And sure enough, everyone is totally fine except Pamela, who gets a giant I-bar to the belly. This show is not f'ing around.
Christopher
Christopher is weepy-faced because he thinks this is his fault -- that he rushed the methmatics of it all so he could impress the random old dudes -- and now his babies might die because of a placental abruption and also the small matter of an I-bar to the belly, and all he got was a couple scrapes and a white shirt that's not even dirty. Hardly seems fair.
Drew
Drew is VERY SUBTLE about his level of upset here. And you know what that means. Nobody puts Ragey in a corner.
Drew
Drew threatens the Henchman -- who pretends it was a bomb-maker's error and it wasn't supposed to go off until the next day -- that if anyone ever finds out he was involved, he will blah blah blah it doesn't matter, dude, you will be too busy frying in jail to get your revenge so maybe do something else with your time right now and just send his photo to Emily Thorne with a red Sharpie and a plea.
Judith
Judith Light is in traction. She's not too stoked about it. Harris tries to appease her with pretty words that we all know he doesn't mean, and she demands that he fix her relationship with Emma, so he tells Emma to go see her.
Whoa
When she does, Judith goes bananas. She's all, "I'm AFRAAAAAID of your FAAAHTHUH, he FORCED me to SAY these THAAAANGS about your MUUUUTHAAAH, and IF YOU WANT TO PASS BY ME THEN ANSWER ME THESE QUESTIONS THREE," etc. Harris comes in and pretends Judith is having a breakdown, so a nurse cranks up the morphine drip -- this is a wonderfully careful hospital -- and then Emma tells him, "She's out to get you, you know." Harris nods.
Judith
So the next time Judith wakes up, she's being transported to a rehab facility while a winky EMT pumps her up with EVEN MORE morphine. Checkmate? Or just Check, until the Queen figures out her next move?
John Ross
"Hey, John Ross, should we have sex in a broom closet or something?" "Nah." "Okay, then."
Afton
And then Audrey Landers shows up to reprise her role as Cliff's ex, Afton, who is Pamela's mother. I love the way this show is able to get its vets to return -- partially, let's be honest, because none of them are doing anything else. But still. The new audience never would've questioned Afton's absence and yet having her come is perfect, because of course someone (John Ross) would have called Pamela's mom in this situation, even if they're not that close or whatever. It's savvy of this show to do whatever it can to keep ties to the past, especially now that JR is gone. Anyway, Afton is amusingly chirpy and light and has very unkind things to say about Cliff. She's none too keen on Christopher, either, but she seems to enjoy John Ross, who is very much being a Papa Bear and actually a nice cousin to Christopher. He is growing on me, that little weed.
Squirrelly Dude
To no one's surprise, the investigation is starting to turn up that it was a pressurization error in the pipes. John Ross (and Pamela, later) are super upset about this, though to the show's credit, they actually have John Ross calm the heck down and wait for the evidence. He and Christopher as semi-fragile but determined allies is actually more interesting right now than the usual bickering and cross-scheming.
John Ross and Emma
"Hey, John Ross. NOW should we go have sex in a supply closet?" "Nah." "Okay, then."
Emma and Drew
Instead, Emma -- after a Stepford-y conversation with Elena where she robotically praises Drew as Such A Nice Guy -- goes to get her fill from Drew. And she catches him trying to flee town. Without him telling her why he's going, she convinces him to stay -- or at least, stay long enough to make out with her a lot.
Bobby and Ann
Bobby learns that Pamela was last seen in Abu Dhabi in 1989, with no recorded exit from the country. Ann seems sort of jealous. Of Pam being in Bobby's head, I mean, not of her being either alive or dead in Abu Dhabi.
Sue Ellen
Sue Ellen finds out through a source that the investigators believe there was a small explosion that triggered the big one, which points to a bomb. She's hella pissed about this because the only person who should be getting bombed around here is HER.
John Ross
So these two try to add up what this all means, all, "Hmm, one plus one... equals... wait, what happens when you put one and one together... Well, it means you have two ones, right, so that probably means OMG CLIFF BARNES BLEW UP THE RIG SO IT WOULD DEVALUE EWING ENERGIES AND LEAVE US VULNERABLE TO A CORPORATE TAKEOVER," and Christopher stands there and furrows, like, "One plus two... plus one... is..." until a chandelier drops right behind him.
Pamela
And then shit gets hairy: Pamela's uterus is having a rough time of it, and she starts screaming. By the way, it's interesting that they never had Cliff come visit her in the hospital. Nobody seems to question that.
OH NO
And then THIS HAPPENS. The babies' fetal heart rates tick down, down, down, until they both flatline inside Pamela's belly as she writhes in pain and panic, and it's AWFUL. It's SO SAD. I can't believe this show had the balls, but it did. So Cliff Barnes indirectly killed his own grandchildren, Elena's brother directly killed her future stepchildren, and Shit Is Getting Major Up In This Joint.