Tommy
So, the cliffhanger from last week is resolved: Tommy's dead. And in my professional opinion, so is that rug. Rebecca immediately makes a panicked phone call to a mystery person, and a cleanup crew arrives immediately to take the body and restore the crime scene to its original state. So we know Rebecca has Powerful Friends who have Powerful Stain Removers.
The Ewings
Meanwhile, everyone congregates at the hospital to fret about Bobby, relieved that they were all conveniently already clad in something suitably morose yet comfortably sensible.
JR
Hagman, meanwhile, gets an awesome little scene where he walks into Bobby's room and says, all choked up, "I love you... I don't know who I'd be without you." It's fantastic. Even his eyebrows developed tear ducts.
John Ross / Tony Almeida
Meanwhile, Tony Almeida calls to blah blah about the Crystal Methanol yada yada and to remind John Ross that he's in a hurry to acquire it for Venezuela -- poor old Venezuela does not come off very well in this show -- and John Ross is like, "WE'RE BUSY," and Tony is like, "BUT I AM PROFESSIONALLY MENACING," and so John Ross pouts some more until he blows actual fire out of his nostrils.
Rebecca and Christopher
Rebecca shows up at the hospital to comfort Christopher, but he notices all her bruises, so she tells him Tommy hit her and then left town. After she leaves, Christopher summons John Ross and tells him to get Bum on the case and make sure Tommy isn't still in Dallas. None of it is funny except for watching Christopher jerk his head at John Ross, as if to say, "Come here," and how John Ross responds by leaping to his feat as if recently tamed.
Rebecca
Rebecca breaks into Tommy's seedy motel room -- at some place whose sign claims it's called the Motel Couple 19, which reads like it was translated into English from Japanese, which itself was a bad translation of something French. She wants her wedding rings, but instead she finds a bunch of old photos of her and Tommy, from back when they had friends who would stand around voluntarily taking close-range photos of them kissing.
Tommy
So, Rebecca goes to a warehouse, climbs into the back of a van, and actually UNWRAPS Tommy's dead body and digs around in his pockets. She finds a pawn shop receipt for her rings, and presumably a welcoming smell.
JR
Trust JR to bring his bedridden brother a bottle of bourbon. ALthough I guess they do have to celebrate the fact that Bobby had brain surgery without seeming to lose any of his lustrous grey hair.
JR
Ah, but Bobby is unmoved: He tells JR that Marta's cloud drive -- the new-era USB, which unfortunately is a nebulous thing that they can't pass around to each other like on other shows (RIP Ringer) -- had all kinds of videos on it that she secretly took, all of which incriminate him and John Ross in the essential theft of Southfork and other shenanigans. JR is displeased that baldly lying to Bobby about his involvement did not work, because it almost NEVER fails when he baldly lies to people's faces. Maybe that's because at this phase of his life, his eyebrows do not allow him to do ANYTHING baldly.
The Sue Ellens
Sue EllAnn is upset that Sue Ellen has decided to pull out of the gubernatorial race, all because of her ex-husband Mitch Pileggi's blackmail. She is like, "My cardigan WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS BALONEY."
Sue EllAnn
So she strips off her cardigan of passivity and confronts Mitch in sexy leather pants and a blazer -- seriously, if this is what nonstop yoga does for legs, I am signing up tomorrow.
Sue EllAnn and Mitch
She scolds him about his money-laundering blackmail and says he won't get away with it. He sleazily suggests that if she'll have sex with him right then, he might forget all about his blackmail and leave her family alone. So, looking as though she is going to vomit all over his face, she slowly strips down...
Sue EllAnn
... until BOOM, he hits her bra and there's a microphone there. (Sorry for the anticlimax, but it seemed a little pervy to put a close-up of her bra on the site.) She looks up at him with the hate-fire in her eyes -- and also, can we discuss how hilariously committed-to-the-cause it is that she curled her hair for this? -- and spits that she's got his confession on tape and will send him to jail if he keeps harassing her family. I LOVE you, Sue EllAnn.
Sue EllAnn
And THEN, when he lunges at her, she clocks him in the nose. AND THEN, she hisses, "If you ever try to give me another hug, you'll find yourself hugging the business end OF MY SHOTGUN." Between this and the fact that in the last episode she threatened to blow off JR's nuts -- for real -- I think I might be in love with her, and I say that as someone who does not generally support people waving around firearms. She is AWESOME. Someone on Twitter pointed out that she's one of the strongest female characters on TV right now, and that's true -- like, Aaron Sorkin could legitimately stand to take a page from good ol' Dallas.
John Ross
John Ross takes Jordana up to a big barren office floor. She is typically dense about what they're doing there, but of course, he has leased it for Ewing Energies. It's the old Ewing Oil floor. As John Ross describes the old layout, it doesn't match up to my memories of the old Dallas, but they are admittedly sketchy so I will relax about THAT. My favorite thing about this photo, though, is that he looks about two seconds away from throwing down those tiny smoke poppers, then hurling pennies into the air and trying to disappear while "The Final Countdown" blares. I deeply hope this show pursues a path wherein John Ross moonlights as a terrible illusionist.
John Ross
Then John Ross gets down on one knee, looks up at her with his usual over-intense crazyface (which I have grown to love for its intense crazyfaceosity)...
Chocolate diamond
... and gives her a ring that reminds him of the color of oil when sunlight hits it -- so basically, it's a poo-colored diamond...
Jordana
And she's like, "Oh. You went to Jared."
But they get engaged anyway, because it's not like she has any other action going on right now.
Mama Jordana
This is the reaction the intestinal ring gets from Jordana's mother. Hilarious. Jordana is like, "Okay, I'm going to go get him. TELL HIM HOW MUCH YOU LIKE HIM. And MAKE HIM BELIEVE IT." Honey, nothing about that exchange should make you think this engagement is a good idea.
John Ross
Meanwhile, inside, John Ross is being confronted by the lawyers about all the groovy stuff they found on Marta's invisible cloud, on which her ghost is currently dancing with glee while spreading some cream cheese on a bagel. John Ross bleats that none of what he did matters because it was ultimately JR who pulled the scam, and that he'll confess to all of it as long as nobody tells Jordana. This is the stuff Josh Henderson does really well -- the desperate, grabby John Ross, whom you really think might actually WANT to be a better person but keeps finding himself in these holes. He also does evil pretty well, but he doesn't excel at Charismatic Man Who Is Convincing You He's On The Up-And-Up, because something about him makes it seem totally unbelievable that anyone would ever trust him.
Jordana and John Ross's head
Naturally, Jordana was JUST on her way in to drag him outside for her mother's fake assurances of mild interest, so she hears the whole thing and is shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that he lied to her, even though he always has Shifty Liar Face. Maybe she is face-blind.
John Ross
So John Ross pleads with her to meet him the next day at their new office space for a fresh start, and perhaps a carrot. One thing I kind of enjoy about J.H. is that whenever he gets upset, his whole FACE turns pink, not just his eyes. He acts with his BLOOD, y'all.
The Ewings
Oh, and Tony Almeida gets busted for being shady, because JR and John Ross signed immunity deals in exchange for blah blah blah he's up shit creek with no Jack Bauer-shaped paddle.
JR
Before they leave, Bobby announces to JR that he has his own copy of Marta's Cloud of Justice, and that if JR ever f's with them again, he'll USE IT. JR awesomely tips his hat to Bobby and says, "I wouldn't have it any other way." Nor would we, sir. Life is never better than when the Ewings are threatening each other.
Christopher
Meanwhile, Bum leads Christopher to Tommy's hotel room -- but it's neat as a pin and empty. They're furious, until the phone rings and Christopher answers...
Rebecca II
... and it's the REAL Rebecca Sutter on the phone. ZING. So now Christopher doesn't care where Tommy went, and that thread will presumably be dropped as quickly as the one from the pilot where some dude broke into Southfork and Sue EllAnn shot at him and we never heard about it again.
Rebecca
Rebecca is understandably twisted up with grief when Christopher confronts her and threatens to take the babies and basically tells her to get stuffed. I'm guessing the fact that she married him under a false identity means it's invalid, right? Well, he sure hopes so...
Chris and Jordana
... because he runs off to Jordana and tells her that while he'll be a father to the babies, it's OVER with Rebecca, and besides, he can't handle the fact that she uses so many freaking FACIAL muscles all the time, and it makes his brain hurt, so would Jordana PLEASE marry him so that they can live in three-expression monotony forever?
Mama Jordana
So, like a jerk, Jordana dispatches her MOTHER to return the ring to John Ross, although at least her mother gets to wear a cute coat for the inconvenience.
Sue Ellen
And Sue Ellen throws her Stetson in the ring to be governor. I hope she hires Sue EllAnn as her campaign manager. Or as her BODYGUARD. Hell, I want her as MY bodyguard.
Rebecca (?)
And you know Rebecca means business because she puts on her Business Hair and her Business Turtleneck and her Business Jacket, and waits in a hangar to meet her mysterious benefactor/savior/cleanup crew director...
Cliffie
... and it's none other than HER FATHER, Cliff Barnes. NICE. So I have no idea what her actual name is, but basically, Cliff sighs that he's very sad she screwed up, and he hopes she does better with her second chance. Rebecca promises not to lose focus again in her task to get a piece of Ewing Energies and bring them down once and for all. And she is left behind with Hot Henchman Frank, to whom I hope she takes her Business Hair and Business Turtleneck for some serious Business Time, baby.
Jordana and Christopher
Speaking of business time, Jordana and Christopher couldn't WAIT to satisfy their latent passion by ripping off only half of each other's clothes and dry-humping on the bed.
John Ross
John Ross has decided to drink his sorrows away at the Ewing Energies HQ, where he tells JR that he wants to learn every dirty trick in the book so they can steal the company. He attempts a little eyebrow hypnosis of his own.
John Ross
"YOU FEELIN' ME NOW, OLD MAN?"
JR
And JR, like a boss, toasts him and goes, "Now THAT'S my son." So we leave them with Christopher and Jordana having safe non-sex, Rebecca Barnes (?) out for revenge and hopefully about to bang Hot Frank just for fun, Sue Ellen running for office, and Bobby still with a full head of hair. Bless you, one and all, Ewings. See you in January.