KNOTS LANDING

[Vee]

Episode 18 (Celebration):

Fairly certain I don't need to tell any regulars in this thread what time it is. Even I knew this episode's name and key twist beforehand thanks to longtime lurking. But it is also that time again:

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That's right: Bill Duke is back behind the camera once more! And it shows, although it definitely creeps up on you more this time. The opening is a bit famous as well and has been referenced many times both here and elsewhere - Ciji biking through the brilliant sunshine over her rollicking "New Romance". I've never seen this sequence before myself but upon revisiting some of the thread, I've seen Khan and others discuss it as well on varying blogs. It's clearly a deliberate and ironic counterpoint to what is to come, not unlike the opening of an even more famous and fateful episode of Twin Peaks seven years later, which has a long, slow journey through a family home to the strains of Louis Armstrong's crooning "What a Wonderful World", offsetting the hints of a vicious murder that takes place in that house and with that family the very same day. And Lord, yes, Gary the drunk is literally collapsed out front of Ciji's building and drunker than I've ever seen him, comically so. All he needs is Andy Capp's hat. Shackelford's slurring of words is apex level.

Laura's planned outfit for Ciji's big bash is straight outta the planet Krypton, but that aside the disintegration of the Avery marriage has really been backburnered all season - probably because the writers felt "Night" said it all about them, and Richard maneuvering her back into the home with what I still think were deliberate manipulations could not lead to anywhere truly reformative or healing for either of them. It's all over but the crying and signing now, but I don't think it ever really got back together despite a few feints. Laura said what she really thought of Richard during the agony throes of birthing Daniel at the start of the season, long before the other Daniel opened its doors, and while I like Richard when he's at his best IMO she was right, as Laura, to feel that way. She was shotgun-wed back into that house and looked like a prisoner headed to the gallows when she did it - I will never forget the look on McCashin's face as the pregnant Laura walked back into the home Richard had held her hostage in weeks or months before at the end of Season 3, seeming like a caged animal. Everything since has been a coda, even Richard's dream bistro, which has actually, sadly been a success.

First, Ciji's purple couch, neon lights and electric blue walls are stunning. God bless the '80s. Second we have more lesbian-adjacent drama with Laura's kaleidoscopic sweater and Ciji's fire-engine red 'I am the man now' workout getup - sapphic superhero drag for both of them. Then of course Richard gets physical again and now everyone is threatening Ciji this week. (It is not lost on me that Ciji getting involved with these nice, well-to-do upwardly mobile monied yuppies is essentially what destroyed her life.) Why does Laura not call the cops on Richard after he throws Ciji out? Why does she not kick him out? Given "Night" she has cause.

Karen and Val wandering along the beachfront in their new cosmopolitan outfits - no braids or suspenders on either of them like in Seasons 1 or 2, with Val to the nines and Karen in stylish suit and hat - are once again shown to be visually fundamentally different from the women they began as, go-getter soccer moms or hippie-dippie country girls who both married young to men who consumed their independent lives in very different ways. This feels like part of the continued long metamorphosis for the show and its characters first into and through the heart of the '80s, stylistically and perhaps idealistically, that's an ongoing process and endlessly fascinating to me. Which brings us to Lilimae.

Lilimae: Where I come from, anger is better than helplessness any day of the week. Anger is real live feeling! And if it's the only thing my girl's got to lash back with, then she needs to stay angry. 

Lilimae speaking for us and the times we live in! God bless.

Dear God, Diana's hair in this episode. First with Chip, then in rollers in the kitchen when she tells Karen about her brilliant plan to move with the Monorail Salesman from The Simpsons and presumably try to squat with Jessica Walter from Season 3. Interesting that even Lilimae seems over Chip. I was going to ask when Val will finally kick Chip out, but Chip now seems prepared to get while the getting's good after trading looks with Val. He's gonna split before she boots him. Which begs the question: Allowing that Chip killed Ciji, was it this premeditated, this far back? I don't think so, not until she threatens to expose him later in the episode. Which means he was potentially prepared to pick up stakes and head out again simply because he'd worn out his welcome with the Clements women, I think.

Then there's the soon-to-be-fired Ward family funeral walk, beachside through (presumably) Santa Monica as Lankford and Houghton ponder their future residual checks. Kenny is still sulking about Ciji, but Ginger won't have it. Erin Molly (sigh) with her giant eyes and adorable scrunched face looks like a literal anime character brought to life while No Longer Grinnin' Kenny and his inexplicable Indiana Jones drag stare off into the barely middle distance and ponder a career working at Roy Rogers. Incidentally, Mack is a shameless flirt with Ginger when he comes by their place to pick her up and it's cute, as his bashfulness and self-deprecation when he watches them shamelessly make out later. Dobson has a gift for comedy and also poking fun at Mack's flaws and/or idiosyncrasies.

I kind of like Mack's grudging concern for Gary and tenderness with Abby, both in this episode and previous ones; one wonders if it goes back to Mack's own troubled relationship with his alcoholic father, the guy who wandered through a mediocre episode a few weeks back complete with his stereotypical Irish music cue. I'd like to think Abby showed real fear and upset when she then impulsively calls her lawyer trying to see how much she can protect and enrich herself if Gary goes belly-up or dies out on his endless drunk. Is her positioning herself at least partly a coping mechanism for her anxiety over Gary, perhaps? People can decide for themselves.

The Bill Duke touch is less pronounced early on this time out past the opening, but begins to spark up again when Ciji first returns home and we're viewing her through the golden bars of her bedframe in her crazy-quilt-of colors apartment, like someone's trapping her. Other glorious examples as the tension and chain of events began to build and cascade: Lilimae left behind, reflected in the mirror in Val's darkened bedroom; Richard surveying the neon-lit blow-ups of Ciji dominating his dream in Daniel ('looks like some damn cathedral to her'), and Ciji's diagonal, cross-hatched silhouette preceding her from out of the neon-blue dark, as Val beelines there for Gary.

The episode begins to fold in on itself from here both stylistically and in terms of character quadrants, all twilight shadows and growing dread, as characters are increasingly shot from behind plants or objects like surveillance, or from the eyes of a hidden assailant, as everyone comes to the party, and this is where Bill Duke gets to really flex again behind the camera. Daniel seems to get progressively darker and darker from the inside out as the night goes on, while the colors get hotter and hotter (again, we can look to Duke's own alma mater American Gigolo, or Paul Schrader's follow-up Cat People, etc, or other choice films from the era). Chip's blown-up giant face watches over Diana and the arriving Chip; Lilimae's red ensemble and amazing hat; the orange-gold tones of the powder-room as Abby (suspect #5 and counting) emerges, late, from the shadows. Later, when the deed is done and no one can find their star, Jeff arrives investigating her haunted house; Ciji's apartment is consumed in those same blue shadows and lines from when she answered Val at the door. The show has gone full neon noir. Gary calling Val, drunk, with the sounds of the beach behind his incoherent voice. You really believe it could be anyone, even if IMO Chip is still a bit too obvious. Would it be more interesting if Chip had done most of the work but someone else finished her off, or the question remained open?

Jeff's gambit with Ginger is a wild dovetailing and tying-up of both Season 3's subplot with her and the beginnings of this season - it's a nice bit of narrative symmetry, even if Kim Lankford is no Lisa Hartman. Duke excels here too at the climax, with Ciji's neon pink ghost floating over the stage, with the majority of the cast lined up in pairs like a police line-up. Ginger's literally superimposing Ciji's face in some of the blocked shots as Kim Lankford sings her heart out (meh), backlit still by Ciji's light and hair, then the camera quietly pans and rack-focuses to Ciji herself at the end of the song with an aggressive, almost accusatory stare and searing sapphire eyes. The slow dissolve from her glittering eyes almost becoming superimposed themselves over the previously-intercut dark beach shots (which almost looked like found footage of a crime scene), then down to the body, is truly haunting.

I know it's been said around here before by some that Ann Marcus supposedly plotted out the Ciji Dunne arc before leaving. I was under the impression Marcus and her husband only hung around for Season 3 before returning many years later. I've been trying to corroborate this and would appreciate any input.

Episode 19 (The Loss of Innocence): 

Karen: Murder. People like us don't get involved in murders.

Mack: People like us do. And are.

The opening discovery of Ciji is straight out of Jaws, when the cops find the dead girl on the beach. The shot of just Ciji's legs folded out behind some rocks is particularly harrowing. Also the great, cold pre-episode teaser which, for the first time I can remember in awhile, has no background music over it - just a stark laying-out of the scenes involving the murder investigation, on Ciji cold on a slab. In fact, as far as I can recall, this episode has no background music at all. And that's part of what makes it brilliant for me, stripped, brutal and sinister, and possibly better than the more famous previous hour.

Longtime producer Michael Filerman co-writes this one. This is also another Alexander Singer joint, and I love the growing atmosphere and tension ratcheting up, silently - the random kids on the beach who find Ciji and their fear (again, like Jaws); the slight angles on the Avery household kitchen as Laura walks out on another argument with Richard, who thinks they can sweep all this under the rug just like the night he took hostages; the close-ups on Val behind the stairs watching Laura and Chip leave, then the shift to the sounds of the waves and seagulls and these recurring reverie shots of the ocean, morphing to a slow pan up from Gary passed out on the sand under the boardwalk (very probably the same boardwalk he and Val came to talk/fight/make up after his affair with Judy Trent), up to a little boy just watching him a few feet away. So much is said with no dialogue or music, just the sound of the gulls. The show keeps intercutting back from various people to Gary, including and up to the post-lap audio cut of Abby at the beach house: "Dammit, Gary, where are you?" playing over him running from his fear and confusion. Again, all with zero music, right up to the cops covering up her body as Gary watches. This episode plays like a straight-up suspense film. Zero dramatic musical cues, just ramping up tension, even with some occasional abrupt, hard zooms on people as they interact - Gary telling a furious Abby that Ciji's dead, as she goes into Lady Macbeth mode and tells him to shut up, "you stupid drunk."

Joanna Pettet debuts here as Detective Janet Baines, I know her best from "The Group" with Candice Bergen, Jessica Walter, Kathleen Widdoes, etc. Didn't she fall out of a window in that? She's instantly stylish and coy with Mack (clearly an old flame, clearly still interested) in the grim but not maudlin morgue scene with Ciji's body, which is reduced to cool, tough procedural-esque essentials and dialogue; Dobson is great here. "What are you doing here?" he asks Ciji. Baines thinks he's talking to her.

There's an interesting beat with Karen shutting Mack down when he tries to play mediator between her and her daughter, Sid's daughter, for the first time as her husband. She wisely apologizes, but when Karen says her and Diana clashing in their typical loud off-Broadway showdowns is 'their way' he's right to suggest another way, for the sake of all our inner eardrums. This leads back to the past, though, when she accidentally calls him "Sid" as they banter, and the look on his face is really something. The issue seems settled midway through the episode as Ciji's death takes precedence, but I'm not sure it really is just yet judging by the look on Mack's face as they embrace.

Though the relationship would seem to be confirmed to be platonic, it does beg the question of why Laura has a key to Ciji's place. I was a bit unsettled to see her there alone with Chip, too. The lighting, angles, etc. as Mack and Baines look upon Richard insisting his wife is hysterical over blaming him for Ciji's death - Laura asking if he got what he wanted - indicates a suburban murder mystery is already afoot and that everyone behind the scenes is absolutely in love with it. Four seasons of buildup has made this a very fertile playground. Interesting, too, that Lilimae already seemed pretty much over Chip to me both last episode and this one in the opening scene - it may be partly how Julie Harris plays it. There's also a great little scene in this episode that did not need to be there and many primetime soaps would not have bothered with - Diana and Lilimae in the middle of the night (Diana is bold for walking right in, but I guess that's these two families and the times) and having tea, talking about life and death. Julie Harris still has the best smile in the business, ever since East of Eden.

Kenny and Ginger continue to loiter by the studio fire exits as her music career hits up. Leave quickly.

The Ewing-Cunningham family Monopoly rituals are back at the beach house! The game continues to allow Olivia and Brian to emulate their mother's learned ambition, while Gary shatters the tenuous frame by brusquely saying in front of the blithe, too-used-to-it kids "if I don't get a drink my head's gonna explode." This situation is not tenable. Again, suspense pervades as we're lost in the darkening beach house, as Abby takes the kids up to bed in the shadows and Gary heads for the decanter. Later, there's even more L.A. noir unfolding at the station: Singer does a great pan across the geometrically-bisected police station waiting area, as we see Chip, Mack, Ginger, Richard and Laura and more of the cast waiting on their turn in the barrel with the cops - and still, there's no music anywhere, and it's perfect. Under the popping colors of the brilliant blue ocean at the beach house, sunshine noir intensifies as Gary and Abby conspire in coordinating red-on-white outfits. There's a tear in Abby's eye you can just barely catch on the sunlight when Gary says he doesn't think Ciji was having his baby because he can't be certain they actually slept together. Is it hurt and pain, relief or both?

The various interrogation scenes in the stark white chamber with the hardboiled cop and the graceful Baines make them a very good double act, with British-born Joanna Pettet's lilting Anglo-American voice as the subtle blade. Kim Lankford is really not nearly as good as either of these guest actors; her bug-eyed acting is often Eight is Enough-tier at best. Is no one going to bring up Richard taking his family hostage over their last attempted breakup while they have him in the box? Seriously? Is this not public record?

You can see Chip's mind working when Mack enters the Fairgate/MacKenzie house and announces Baines to the family - a cop. His face shifts quickly. Pettet is pretty good, hidden accent and all. Everyone puts the finger on Gary this week, but the beauty of both the story and the case against Gary is that virtually everything people are saying about him is true. Gary is a drunk: True. Gary has a violent temper, especially when loaded: True. Gary was infatuated with Ciji: True. Gary has a history of domestic violence: True. Today he might well be classed as bipolar. Baines plays Gary and Abby beautifully, dropping the bomb about Ciji's pregnancy on her way out the door and watching both their unguarded reactions. It's not often someone can get the drop on Abby. I dunno if any thought was ever given to Joanna Pettet staying with the show longer than what I know is a short stint (I don't know anything else about Baines, and I assume her past career and money was enough to keep her out of the need for a ton of primetime in those days), but it might have been interesting. And of course, Gary incriminates himself and initially, in confusion, answers 'yes' to killing Ciji.

Karen and Mack holding hands back to back in the dark, unsettled and uncertain, is a great capper to end this on for me. I always love when they return to moonlight fears and secrets in Karen and Mack's marital bed, like this scene late in this episode where the opening quote comes from - murders in Knots Landing, in the cul de sac, among the people we've gotten to know for four seasons? Couldn't be! But as the audience knew a bit about in the early '80s but knows all too well now decades later, with cases like Dennis Rader/BTK or the Green River Killer (both active during Knots Landing's run, both noted members of their suburban communities), Mack is absolutely right. Which also makes me wonder what it'd be like if a show like KL today pursued an actual story along the outline of a prolific serial killer hiding within its canvas, although obviously that's not what the Ciji Dunne case is (even if Chip Roberts/Ted Fenece has killed before).

Anyway: It's hard to stop watching now. I've been preoccupied IRL as I think we've all been, but we'll see how many I get through however quickly. I may take a bit of a breather once I hit Season 5, after an episode or two, but I doubt it'll be long. Amazingly, this show is a testament to the changing mores in more ways than one: Today, most primetime dramas (particularly those still on network TV) are on fumes or close to it by Season 5, recycling themselves with part or half the episode count. Here, churning out between 20-25 or perhaps later 30 at the peak of network content burn in the '80s (which produced a ton of chaff and bad fodder in most shows, particularly procedural or episodic ones like the Trek shows that had to fill space), KL feels like it has barely begun to hit its heights. That doesn't happen anymore. Anyway: Cheers.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Vee

[DRW50]

@Vee Wonderful writeups, as usual. I don't tend to go  back while reading these but I did seek out a few parts of these episodes to refresh my memory, especially the Ciji biking scene. That was so unusual for Knots that I do wonder how people felt at the time, if they knew what was coming. The visuals of the last act of the episode you make clear enough to where they enhance my memories of those moments. And of course the psychological disturbance of Ciji staring right at us, into a future she will never see, all through Ginger's performance - shades of Laura Palmer's photo at the end of the Twin Peaks closing credits. 

I do think the Richard and Laura angle of the Ciji story was underwritten - a hasty friendship and some homophobic jeering - but  everyone involved sold the hell out of it, leaving more of an impression than some other, heavily played aspects (like Diana/Chip). 

Pettet has some physical resemblance to Lisa Hartman, which adds a certain unease when we cut from Mack reacting to Ciji on the slab to reacting to Baines. I wonder if that was intended. 

Even in the underwhelming and borderline aimless late '80s (which was around the peak of the bloated episode orders, I believe), I do think Knots managed to make those extra episodes work. I was never a fan of the talking point that less episodes = more quality, and I notice fewer and fewer people say this due to the mediocre state of so much network and cable programming.

[Vee]

I think it's more evident in episodic TV (like Star Trek) than serialized shows. The Trek shows sometimes had upward of 25-30 episodes a year and a lot of dross got through, and many of their writers have cited burnout and lack of quality control due to that. I think less episodes is for the better for many shows, but not all. I do think network order bloat is still a problem on conventional TV.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Vee

[DRW50]

I noticed it most with late '80s sitcoms and the myriad flashback episodes (which inspired a good SNL sketch, if nothing else), but you're right,  Trek is blatant too. 

[Vee]

How many flashback episodes did Golden Girls have? And I don't think their episode orders were some of the largest, either.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Vee

[Franko]

Four clip shows, all hour-long, one per season from 1988-1991, usually near the end of the season. The show had about 25-26 episodes per season. It was about as long as a season of Cheers or The Cosby Show. L.A. Law, on the other hand, never got higher than 23 episodes per season.

[Chris 2]

“Family Ties” was the worst when it came to flashback episodes. They did 6 or 7 of them, and many were an hour long. NBC actually refused to accept one of them as part of the show’s regular episode order at one point, and it sat on the shelf for several years until NBC agreed to accept it later on.

Witt Thomas (Harris) also loved the flashback episodes. In addition to Golden Girls, they did one flashback episode each year when they revived “It’s a Living” in first-run syndication.

[Vee]

I understand doing some sometimes, but I could've sworn GG had way more than that lol. Family Ties sounds egregious.

[AbcNbc247]

Yeah, there were more.

They also had a few episodes where the roommates were flashing back to stuff, but it was all new footage (the Mother's Day episode, the episode where they all first met and moved in together, etc.)

[Franko]

In addition to the four clip shows I counted previously, The Golden Girls had nine flashback episodes (when they moved in, unusual places they've slept, times they celebrated birthdays, moneymaking schemes, when they visited a therapist, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, times they got ready for a springtime party and bad dates). The flashback episodes have some of the show's best moments, but I've often wondered if they were used as a way to include scenes/jokes that just couldn't sustain their own episode.

[Vee]

Jesus! That's what I was thinking of.

[DRW50]

Yes, Family Ties is the one I was thinking of with the good SNL sketch. Mad Magazine also had a very  good rip on those. 

The SNL sketch starts at about 15 minutes:

https://archive.org/details/saturday-night-live-s-13-e-11-justine-bateman-terrance-trent-darby

[Vee]

That sketch is hilarious. Another reason I enshrine the late '80s/early '90s cast.

[Vee]

Episode 20 (The Fatal Blow):

Abby: Gary, more than anything I want you home.

Gary: Abby, more than anything I want a drink.

Okay, so why on earth did Gary want to plead guilty? Does his self-loathing run that deep? He doesn't know for certain that he killed Ciji any more than Val does. Both of them are made for each other in some ways (and completely not in others), in that they have several fatal flaws that sometimes link together: To them as they are now, suffering is still always honorable in the face of injustice; even if it's undeserved, they somehow feel it's what they deserve or are meant to do.

Anyway, the word is out about Ciji Dunne and Gary Ewing, and reporters are swarming the cul-de-sac (is its official name Seaview Circle? I'm not sure it's ever been mentioned onscreen thus far) for the second time in a year, with Lilimae peering out from the curtains at the kind of attention even she doesn’t want. There's other neat little uses of the ever-present and ever-versatile suburban arena stage that the show sits on here too, with Eric being accosted while putting the garbage out. The newly wealthy Val has really turned the house into a miniature manor at this point vs. the humble little home with donated furniture she and Gary first moved into, but now it's under siege.

They did not fùck around on showing Gary in detox - Shackelford looks beyond awful. The seizures, the convulsive vomiting all feel too real. I’ve rarely seen anyone drying out on TV, especially network TV, look that bad or get that ugly, even years later. I wonder how many watching back then had; it feels almost like a gritty period documentary of the era. To the writers' at times unsung credit this season, they also do not play Abby like the conniving, disdainful executrix only out for herself here, looking to see if her ailing beau is mentally competent to sign papers or sign over stocks or whatever else, a la an Alexis Carrington or Amanda Woodward on Melrose Place (who had a heart but rarely let hers show in public even in the most extreme situations). When she sees the state Gary's in Abby is clearly shaken, horrified and beside herself. She manages to put on a bright face for him, though: “You’ll be better than ever," she promises. "I’m your partner, remember?” To Abby, future success is part of how she expresses her love. I am glad they addressed the Ewing of it all and brought up Dallas, but while I can believe Gary and his shame spiral personality would try to keep the family out of it I cannot believe that the Ewings wouldn't know about the developing case, which would make national news (though it's not clear here if they do know or don't), or that they wouldn't act independently if Gary and Abby failed to.

We haven’t seen Knots Landing Motors in forever! (Well, we saw it very briefly last episode but still) I was surprised and thrilled to finally see Richard and Karen together again as a duo; it’s been too long. He's his old self with his old friend, but it disturbed me that Richard is still in denial about Laura, suggesting they’ll go away together any day now, unable to accept the reality of their finished marriage - just like he was last season, except then he had a gun. I’ll miss Richard and Karen together, and even the car lot whenever it goes; it already feels like a bit of a remembrance of a wistful past.

There are a duo of shockingly unexpected and beautiful bonding moments with the Averys this week, even after they've long since hit their bottom. First and foremost there's the story about Richard's brother; John Pleshette's emotional yet underplayed monologue is very good and some of his very best work on the show. The camerawork and his performance, as well as Constance McCashin's teary reaction shots, are understated and incredibly touching. It's the last thing I expected from Richard and the show re: Richard at this point, but it keeps surprising me. Then there's the scene with Ciji’s Bible Belt mom, a surprise visitor at the dead girl's apartment, in which he passionately defends the young woman to her scornful mother. Richard is being wonderful here, and that's the fascinating thing about him and Pleshette's work on the character, here or with Karen or others, he’s such a complex chameleon, with so many facets and possibilities within himself and for love, yet keeps succumbing to his worst self. He should’ve let Laura go and not taken the easy way out on his therapy and rehab in Season 3; maybe then they’d have had a shot to reconnect for real. This episode is one of his shining hours, even if it may have been intended to cast more suspicion on a possibly penitent murderer Richard.

Another moonlit confessional as Karen amusingly fishes for info on the case in bed with Mack - all the fear for Val is very effectively in Karen's eyes. There's more suburban noir in this episode too, sleekly directed by Larry Elikann throughout, as Val’s newly stately house is plunged into darkness with the reporters still endlessly chattering outside. It's the suburban manse as prison or nightmare dungeon of fear, with Val glittering in her still new finery and hairstyle but trapped inside. The twinned glamour and shadowy expressionism evoke not just the films of Douglas Sirk, a common touchstone for these sort of things, but also Nicholas Ray and his series of very dark suburban dramas, most specifically "Bigger Than Life" with James Mason (Google it). Anyway, it looks like it’s the Apollo Theater hook for Jeff Munson. He's not setting the world on fire, but he actually turned out to be a real classy guy with a charming streetwise candor. The look on Jon Cypher's face as Munson tells Val he’ll always be there for her is very open and really something. I think he also sheds a tear in his last, half-shadow closeup. A bit dull and old for her or not, Val is a bit of a goon to give Munson up for Gary.

Midway through the show- “Next on Knots: Val is held in police custody!” Thanks again, SoapNet.

Anyway: The card game with the women at Val's is neat, with them low-key processing Val’s losses alone in the kitchen. But events quickly escalate, just like SN promised, as Val tells Karen everything and then spills the beans to Mack. But will Val hire a lawyer? Will she take that lawyer to the LAPD with her? Of course not! She's Val, and in her and Gary's vision of their lives they are made to suffer and sacrifice. It's pure opera in the cul-de-sac's suburban arena again at the close of the episode as Val heads out to foolishly incriminate herself ("I killed Ciji." Please!) while Lilimae rightly pleads and begs for her to stop. It's absolutely heartbreaking work by Julie Harris, who ends up no less than clinging to the house's iron fence. Funnily enough, it's almost a parallel to the finale of Season 3 here. Then, Val sped out of the cul-de-sac to get away from Gary Ewing. Here, she's speeding towards attempting to doom herself, for Gary Ewing. Oy vey. What a relapse.

[Vee]

Episode 21 (The Burden of Proof):

This is John Pleshette's last episode as a cast member - I didn't realize he left before the season finale, and I wasn't prepared. Richard evidently is already planning to split as the episode opens, cashing out his insurance policy for Laura, etc. (God knows what becomes of the restaurant.) I'm not sure what was the straw that broke the camel's back (and Richard's noted denial last time) between last episode and now. Was it Ciji's death? The realization of her mortality and how he treated the innocent young woman while trying to cling to a marriage in tatters? Or something else? Another great Pleshette moment: Richard sardonically quipping to baby Daniel, "you're gonna have to learn how to cook, you know."

Interesting too that Laura is pleasant enough to Richard this week but seems to be on autopilot at the house; is she staying, is she still going? She also bluntly makes it clear she will not take over running Daniel when he floats the idea. Is she just back to checking out on him, continuing their studied apathy in the wake of Ciji's death? It's hard for me to say.

Whatever reasons spurred this sudden shift, Richard takes to his final hours by finally making all the fixes to the house he always promised Laura he would, lurking in the background of other scenes in the cul-de-sac, tinkering away the minutes and seconds. His final interlude with Karen, giving her more helpful advice then watching her leave, is great. I also loved his last scene with Kenny, hilariously gonging that imbecile offscreen with the new garage door slamming down behind him. Richard's fixing everything up one last time while still letting his friends and neighbors plan for nights with him and his family that will never come, and it's very poignant to watch.

Gary is still adamant: No Dallas crossovers! Okay then, nobody's calling Miss Ellie. He's sober and just plain surly now, until it's time for Gary and Val's dual returns to the scene of their alleged 'crimes' with the LAPD, and both JVA and the Shack promptly go hogwild when it's time for the suspect traffic jam at Ciji's and the exes are reunited, both screaming and hollering and throwing fits. Embarrassing. Am I supposed to want them back together like this? I don't! I feel for Val's pathos but I think it's a regression from who they have become, at least at this juncture, and I wonder when exactly in this process the writers decided that no, they would not be reuniting Gary and Val at the end of this saga after all, which is clearly the original trajectory for at least part of this storyline. I wonder when they broke that down: Before or after Season 4?

Abby laughing at Val’s confession and her subsequent reaction to it is hysterical - "it’s so Val! It’s just the kind of thing she’d do!" Abby is right and she should say it, and props to the writers for seeing through that part of Valene. Even funnier that Abby then slips up and implicates Gary a bit more. That said, as much as I like Joanna Pettet's classy demeanor this investigation is a shítshow so far. Baines and Great Value Harvey Bullock are flailing here: Hold both Gary and Val, who clearly has no clue what she's saying and no real evidence she killed Ciji, when it's clear those two couldn’t premeditate their way through sneaking into the movies. I don’t see a clear theory the cops have settled on, and Mack was right to tell Baines so. (An interesting beat, BTW, when poor simp Val is booked: The booking officer is both gentle and firm with her as he takes her mugshot and it's a layered performance that feels very true to life.)

With Ciji dead and Val simping hard for her drunken ex, Kenny and Ginger now are the apple of offscreen Jeff Munson's eye and pondering their equally offscreen future. Again: Wrap it up!

Can no one come sit with Lilimae at the LAPD for hours, days?? At least she finally went home, just in time to finally unload on Chip. I saw it coming in Julie Harris' repeated performance several episodes ago and I was right - she just tick-tick-ticks away at the dinner table with them, then explodes and tells him to GTFO. And thank God! St. Julie really sends it.

A great throwaway line by Karen as Chip passes by with Diana back at the house: "I can't stand that schlub."

Karen and Mack have another great scene at their house running through all the suspects in the cul-de-sac while also bantering about dinner, cooking and Mack keeping in shape. I laughed at the cut from Mack protesting that he couldn't get Karen in to see Val and Karen giving him the eye to Karen right there with Val downtown, just in time to hear Val's hopeless and frankly pathetic testimony to Gary's lingering love for her because hey, why else might he have moved Ciji's body, Ciji who I clearly did not kill? Karen has more patience with this than I do. Please God, I prayed, move Val on soon, but they did something stronger - and more surprising for me personally - in the season finale (below).

There's another wonderful, layered interlude for Abby late in this episode as she struggles to tell Olivia the truth about Gary's drinking. It's the kind of scene few other soap bitches in that era or later would often get with their children, and she's allowed to be vulnerable and open, then struggling, both during and after Olivia leaves and she loses her cool. Later, Abby works the phones, spinning the case to Miss Ellie. The question now, like so many questions with Abby this season, is does she choose to keep the Ewings out of it in order to respect Gary's (stupid) wishes, or in order to keep Gary inside and away from Valene - or both?

Richard's final scenes with his family are beautiful and lovingly understated as always from John Pleshette, who only loses composure once when Jason Number Whatever's face is turned away from him. His work on the show is consistently gritty, grounded in unprecious and unfussy reality, plainspoken even when Richard is being either grandiose, viciously sarcastic and wounding, charming and sweet or simply broken. Even when this vaguely unsavory, balding careerist was the show's de facto antagonist early on, even at his darkest, when you thought he could kill, Pleshette never lost an inch of authenticity or consistency in what is a very flawed, very difficult but very layered and soulful struggling man - it's all behind the eyes. I will miss Richard terribly. I'm still wondering why he chooses to leave now specifically. His last moment with his family is Richard watching Laura with Daniel, giving his second son a little one-finger goodbye, and it's perfect. Richard was always a meticulous planner, often a control freak, and he ends his engagement with his wife and children on his terms just as he attempted to last season, only not with a gun and instead, as a thief in the night. I am already dying to see Richard again though I know we don’t for many years - I’m almost tempted to peek ahead.

The picture left behind of Richard is him lost in half-shadow with his son, leaving what could've been a mystery to his children forever. The only other question I have is, was his emotional exit partly meant as a red herring on Ciji.

Episode 22 (Willing Victims):

Gary: I will never be not guilty.

Kind of sums him up, doesn't it?

Season finale time. This episode is written by S4 showrunner Peter Dunne and surprisingly directed by series creator David Jacobs, and Knots Blogging astutely points out that it - like the premiere, which was a kind of soft reset for the show at large from the first three seasons - begins with Val jogging into the future. And Val's reset again a bit as well this episode, dressed to the nines, looking amazing, and now tough as nails with Mack in some great scenes downtown, shrewd enough to ask if Gary's lawyer is working for him or Abby, planning to get through to Gary out of his ennui and spiraling mental state. This is a shift from the soppy, struggle Val of the last few episodes who has been preoccupied with Gary-Gary-Gary at the expense of all of her new, better self, and it is a portent of what's to come in this absolutely boffo episode. Jacobs also plays beautifully with the shots and editing, cross-cutting back and forth from Val’s run to the various homes in Seaview Circle, including Laura and Justin discovering Richard gone. Jacobs' style and choices are very assured throughout, particularly in the pair of swooning dissolve shots at the close of this episode which I will discuss later.

LEAVE, CHIP! How is he still in this house?! It's day! Get out!

But I digress. Over in the hoosegow Gary's still lost in himself, with Abby watching him watch the visitors' aisle beside them when she and their absolutely put-upon lawyer Mitch Casey come to visit yet again. A dreamy sort of series of angles and pans on this whole sequence give it a distanced touch c/o Jacobs. Back at the beach house, Abby (looking fabulous in a Billie Jean music video-esque ensemble) tells her attorneys that Gary will be "drunk in an hour" if he's released and will get himself convicted in his current state. She's probably right. But the question continues to linger: Is Abby doing all this because a) she knows Gary is going to self-destruct and either get himself convicted or drink himself to death without intervention, b) because she's trying to get access to the Ewing money or c) because committing will keep him from Val? The lazy answer would be the latter two options. I think it is ultimately, as it so often is with Abby, a bit of all of the above. She loves Gary in her way, on her terms, cares for him, suffers and cries for him, we've seen it in the last few eps - she wants him to survive and thrive, and believes she can do what is best for him (and herself, and his money) by keeping him from destroying himself by any means necessary. That that loving if conditional and flawed motive dovetails with the other more mercenary and cold ones is simply convenient. But I'm sure many people watching and maybe some of the writers thought Abby did this all for the green or all to keep him from Val. I don't. I could be wrong.

Late in the episode, Olivia watches Abby plot to commit Gary, with Jacobs utilizing some amazing slow zooms and hide-&-seek angles from the beach house stairs, then Olivia's bedroom doorway. Upon learning that Gary will likely walk, Abby reacts and decides to fire Casey, all but guaranteeing she have Gary committed. She says it's about Gary and booze, but it's at least as much about Gary and Val, and Abby and control. She’s seen enough now to decide that if she can’t control him in the way he thinks he needs to be controlled and kept healthy, and keep him the way she wants to keep him, then she can’t let him out. This is not really very defensible, though I do think Abby's motives are nuanced as I've indicted above. It's Abby’s foulest move on the show yet by my reckoning, and Olivia heard it all. “Wouldn’t you like to understand?” a fearful Abby asks her daughter later, in another moment of unguarded candor as she fishes for how much the little girl knows. “I don’t have to know everything," Olivia replies enigmatically, but I'm pretty sure she does know. "I'm just a kid.”

Back at the cul-de-sac, something else is in motion. "Gary Ewing kills people," Lilimae says, echoing Janet Baines' suggestion that Gary should be put away guilty or not. "He's killing you now, Valene!" She has a point.

Val: Wanna know what I see? I see my mama who sooner or later, in her own way, taught me how to love.

Lilimae: I should've taught you how to stop.

Val goes on to defend her lasting love for Gary and her hope that it can be put back together after that exchange, but that's the part that stuck with me. Nonetheless, Val goes from strength to strength throughout this episode and has found her new power once again. I was not pleased with the turn back to sadsack simp for Val in the last few eps, though I understood it in terms of the character, but here she's all fire. More on that shortly.

The Wards are off to Nashville, finally, to make bad country music for Jeff Munson. Finally. Their last scene was kind of sweet and touching, so I'll give them that. Goodbye forever!

Laura’s creeping doubt as she talks to Ginger, then hears from the maitre'd at Daniel and realizes Richard is gone gone is great. "The pears, Mrs. Avery!" Her blowout with Karen, sure Richard killed Ciji, was also a long, long time coming: "Don't tell me who I'm talking about!" She finally gets to rail in public about all he's done to her, the hostage-taking, everything else and she's right to do it. No one understands Richard the way she does.

Funny to hear Diana mention going to visit Uncle Joe in NYC. I did love the other cop's comment when Val hustles her way in to see Baines: "Somebody oughta buy the film rights on this."

Another great knockdown dragout between Karen and Diana over Chip/Tony/whoever - it’s been too long since Karen whupped that ass. But there's other explosions, too: Laura at Daniel, trapped in the kitchen signing for produce orders, locked inside Richard’s dream, finally combusting and trashing the place before Jacobs' unbroken handheld camera shot. A brilliant sequence beautifully played by Constance McCashin, who as Laura allows herself to have a rare moment to crumple against the shelves not once but twice while tearing the place apart.

Chip finally leaves the Ewing house, but his final moments with Lilimae are a stunning work of manipulation, as he waxes rhapsodic about their first meeting, her New Age beliefs and charms her one more time. His monologue is a lovely song that’s almost poetry in his dialogue, clearly rehearsed by an expert con but beautifully done, and heartbreakingly reacted to by Julie Harris. “Goodbye, butterfly.” Is Lilimae really not going to drop the dime on Chip after being so strong? Oh, Lilimae. The sight of her wearing that butterfly pin on her lapel, wrestling with the truth about Chip when the P.I. arrives and after, is a lot to take.

At the station, Gary and Val finally come face to face, and despite my frustrations it feels earned because she’s so strong here, giving an absolute barn burner of a speech that redeems everything I've had issues with in the last couple eps, where she discards all her weepy homilies and platitudes from her past ride or die days for Gary and calls him what he is: A self-pitying manchild wallowing in his shame and doing absolutely nothing for Ciji. It’s enough to make you almost root for them together again (which I am 100% open to doing!) because Val is now, truly stronger than him. She probably always was but never allowed herself to comprehend it. This confrontation brings the end of last season and the start of this one full circle too, because ultimately so much of Gary’s spiral down in Season 4 goes back to losing Val the way he did, disgracing himself and their marriage. For her to stand there and tell him he’s 'not guilty' means the world. It's the definition of payoff for this couple, whatever comes next (and I know a little about that, but not much).

We end on some gorgeous, silent cinematic dissolves from David Jacobs, into Abby in the sunset, Val in the dark in her living room, and Gary in his cell burning to sepia, suspended in the summer cliffhanger. The Abby/Val dissolve was so iconic I see it ended up in the Season 5 opening sequence and possibly more for years to come.

This has been an incredible and transformative season for KL, as promised, and easily its best for me so far, unsurprisingly. I will be moving ahead very shortly indeed, though I may take a few days' break once we're a few in, and I don't know how long I can keep up this pace period or go episode by episode anymore, but we'll see. I thank you all for tolerating me.

BTW: We're at the close of Season 4 and Michael Fairgate's voice has finally fully broken. Congratulations to all involved.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Vee