KNOTS LANDING

[te.]

I'm not too surprised that ML had mixed feelings about the storyline, because for better or worse, once you give a character an addiction storyline it's just not something that they can shake off but is ultimately an on-going character trait. I could see why she would've felt conflicted with going down that route as it means no more getting carelessly drunk with "the girls" etc.

[Vee]

I just watched Episode 19, where it comes crashing down on Abby. She's at both her absolute worst in this episode (laying out the scope of her plans to discredit Gary to Westmont) and her most sympathetic at the same time at the end of the hour when she's banished from the ranch, and that simply should not be possible but somehow Mills and the writers manage it, which is amazing. I don't know how to reconcile Abby's love for Gary with everything she's done to him this season, but it's clearly still there on some level, remote from the rest of the insane things she's done to him with Cathy, Apolune, etc.

There is no comparison to me with the portion of Dallas I've watched (admittedly only so much). That show is repetitive, stodgy and prioritizes the men and above all J.R. The personal struggles often seem about three inches deep.

[Vee]

Woof - it has been very difficult to turn away from the final eps of Season 5 and not just binge straight through, which means my material on them is piling up considerably. I'm about 3 eps from the end, and I'll see about starting to parcel out posts about the previous 4-5(?) over the next few days as IRL allows.

I do intend to take a bit of a breather before diving into Season 6, but we'll see how long that lasts since the show is so great. I will say that I actually really like Gary and Cathy together - sue me - and I was surprised to see they actually hit the hay. Lisa Hartman is legitimately creating a different character (sometimes in broader ways than others) and her butch vibe suits Ted Shackelford's more internal and at times softer masculinity.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Vee

[Vee]

So I've got like seven episodes banked here. We'll go through them in small groups or pairs over the next few days, and I've still got two more to go to wrap this wild season. From Tommy Krasker's indispensable KL essays, and his interview with longtime staff writer Richard Gollance:

Episode 17 (Second Chances):

Bill Duke Hours again!

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Ben and Mack are hot on the trail of Apolune this week, with Karen looped in fresh out of rehab. She's the one who remembers the Abby link through the haze of her pill months and Laura's fateful visit re: Lotus Point. But both she and Ben come up empty - Ben in his search for the poor old Marcuses who have been frightened into silence after having their beachfront home burnt down by Wolfbridge, and Karen by getting straight up gaslit by Laura about the Lotus Point offer. Laura pretends it never happened and suggests Karen imagined it due to her addiction. Cold as ice! Laura and Greg Sumner are increasingly made for each other.

For as despised as he was at OLTL, Arthur Burghardt did do some good work in film and TV over the years and he's good again this ep, returning as the compromised DA who warns Mack his law license is in danger. And to add insult to injury, Barbara - the oldest living Confederate widow and known Wolfbridge mole - is back in the crime commission offices now that Mack is out, all but taunting him with glee as his office keys don't work anymore. When Mack goes to Sumner, Greg makes one very true statement amidst his endless stream of charm offensive: "I'm just a cog in a big wheel that's gotta keep on turning." Mack has a nice small beat with Karen and the boys that seems to me to build off of his and Karen's fight last time and his breakdown in her arms, where he acknowledges 'we're family' - perhaps finally understanding and fully embracing it for the first time himself - and admitting to his wife he's scared, while Karen is in this moment the quiet and strong rock vs. her streetwise macho husband, again a departure from Dallas. Next he's on to staking out a Wolfbridge shell business that is essentially a listening post/communications hub for the central powers.

All this Wolfbridge stuff is a lot for Abby, who futilely tries pushing back on the quietly terrifying Mark St. Claire, a fruitless pursuit she will return to again and again over several episodes. She has a limit, but St. Claire is consistently unfazed, disinterested and implacable - Joseph Chapman's performance just keeps topping itself as the eps go by. Abby tries to put on a carefree face with Sumner - "I've won! But then I usually do!" - but it's a show of bravado in the face of danger to a man she's still trying to impress. Greg warns her to not get in too deep with Wolfbridge, but Abby isn't ready to admit how much help she really needs and how serious her situation is becoming. (BTW, I think that's a for sale at Abby's old house in the cul-de-sac but don't quote me.)

It was nice to see Karen and Gary chat at the ranch with her clean and apologizing for some of her remarks, but this of course leads to the sadly inevitable return of Diana from story limbo. Diana is pleasant enough to Karen in the wake of rehab, etc. but guarded, possibly because (from my lips to God's ears) she is finally starting to process her own shame and culpability in the Chip/Ciji affair. It's all polite pleasantries until Karen tries for more and Diana moves towards another fùcking tantrum when Karen tries to push her on what's happened between them. Diana's instantly back to whining about not being a child and Karen not being able to tell her what to do, just like she's been doing for every single season of this show since the literal pilot. It's the world's longest and worst teenage rebellion, with a body count, and I am just so over it.

Soon, Diana is howling away to her long-suffering brothers as they crawl across the massive vistas of Westfork. "She tried to keep me and Chip apart!" To which Michael has the perfect reply: "Yeah, she sure was wrong about him!" Gary works on Diana a bit too, invoking his tortured relationship with the Ewing dynasty, but nobody is making her face the facts about the depth of what she did for Chip, to enable and protect him; I guess the writers just want this entire thread over with. It infuriates me.

Gary works on Diana a bit too, invoking his tortured relationship with the Ewing dynasty. The final scene with Karen at the house after Mack's assault by Wolfbridge (left battered and bloodied in his car, something that must have been especially traumatic for the widow Fairgate) is good at least, as Karen doesn't kowtow to Diana or beg for her forgiveness or understanding, she's simply blunt and straightforward: "Take the label of 'mother' off me and treat me with the same respect and courtesy you treat anyone else. And don't live your life out of anger at me." That's as close a confrontation with Diana and admission of fault as anyone seems to give to or get from her, as Diana immediately melts and whines for Mommy and gets her hug as she tries to leave and I guess all is well now. Ugh. Whatever, fine. Let's move on, the show says.

Mack: Why El Salvador?

Ben: It's a great chance.

Mack: For what?

Ben: To continue the way of life I've always lived, Mack. 

Ben and Val are very sweet together as they struggle to get past stuff here, articulating their positions. I really liked the quiet and offhandedly candid exchange above where Ben admits it would be all too easy to go back to the vagabond life he knows. I also loved the big Karen and Val scene of the week, even if they were biking in long sleeves and pants in SoCal. Karen allows that Gary has really changed, and Val admits they were "seeing each other again for awhile" recently and reveals her pregnancy to her overjoyed best friend. I love how Bill Duke lets this all play in one long, unbroken shot of the women hiking up the hill with their bikes, moving in closer on them as we see the joy, relief and trepidation all on Val's face at once as she tells Karen her baby/babies are Gary's - and I love Karen's reactions. So heartwarming!

The investigator who calls Gary and gives him Cathy's murder rap while he's in bed with Abby is literally a Discount M. Emmet Walsh from Blood Simple. Anyway, Gary has a neat array of scenes here where he openly toys with Abby and Cathy while plotting his next move. There's a moment when he's out baling hay where Abby moves slightly in for a goodbye kiss, and he pulls back just subtly enough for it to be felt by her but deniable by him as him doing his work. Speaking of Cathy, her civilian wear as she visits Abby's waterfront lair is considerably more upscale-trash than the easygoing ranch girl, all zebra print, big earrings and a hot black leather skirt. Abby wants to pay her off and get her out of town but Cathy likes being with Gary too much. "See ya at the ranch!" she crows.

Another fave sequence this ep is when Sumner pulls the same rose gag and 'bonsoir' line on Laura as he did on Abby (as Duke fakes us out with the camera to think it's Abby answering the door). Hilariously, Laura immediately ignores him and goes for the liquor, leading to a very candid exchange about their affair, particularly unique re: single/divorced mothers in the early '80s and on network television:

Greg: Everybody wants something.

Laura: What do you want?

Greg: I want it to be simple.

Laura: You know my husband left me eight months ago. You think you're the first? I didn't get hung up on any of them, I won't get hung up on you.

Unlike Abby, Laura does not view power as an aphrodisiac because she is no longer romantic about men, or about power or perhaps anything else at all. Laura is also concerned about construction being sped up on Lotus Point; given Wolfbridge's history with cutting corners on development projects and getting people killed, she should be. Sumner plays it cool with both Laura and Abby throughout the hour, never letting on to Abby as he blows her off for Laura. Laura can't seem to care less either way, yet.

The close of the ep is great as Mack stakes out the Wolfbridge listening post while using Eric(!) as his inside man to take a project in for Apolune. It's a family affair! Does Karen know he drafted her son? Sure enough, Laura shows up to pick up material for Apolune and Mack is on her tail. What a cliffhanger.

Episode 18 (Lest the Truth be Known):

This episode and the next couple were written by (or at least credited to) Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, known in modern Internet parlance as "CowLip," the IRL partnered creative team who were the showrunners for the 2000s-era American Queer as Folk as well as Sisters (and the early gay-themed TV film An Early Frost with Aidan Quinn)! Those are two names I was not expecting to see, and two I know many of us have mixed feelings about lol. Apparently they were one of a number of freelancers for Knots. And these are great eps, regardless of who penned them - I know often on TV the showrunners and core staff do many passes to rewrite freelancers for tone, character and house style, so it's anyone's guess, really.

This is Constance McCashin's week, as Laura comes into tight focus and into the sights of the Wolfbridge Group. The episode opens as Laura unwittingly brings Mack's dummy bait right to Sumner's pleasuredome suite, where the chewed-up and spit-out Mack confronts them about Apolune. Laura, losing it, mentions Mark St. Claire, but Sumner denies all and tries to bluster his way out of it by insisting he can get them all out of the 'mess [Mack's] put them in' - and here's where I begin to believe Greg believes it, that he can make everything right and outmaneuver Wolfbridge in his own way if Mack just lays off. This is teeming arrogance if true and sociopathy if he's performing, but it soon becomes clear he is not. Greg believes his own hype.

After the incident, St. Claire calls the Apolune officers to threaten the frazzled Laura re: Mack, dropping a mention of her sons in his vacant and officious way. Abby asks her what it was about with genuine concern, but Laura can't let her in. This is the world they're in thanks to all their choices.

Bruce Fairbairn makes a memorable debut this episode as Ray, Cathy's hunky but very bad news ex, who has arrived at Westfork to stalk his girl and get into some wild vehicular-related hijinks. My new favorite blonde on blonde couple of the season is drifting apart due to Gary's well-earned distrust of Cathy; he tries to get her to level with him but they're talking past each other most of the time. Pretty soon she's got bigger problems though, as Ray is chasing Cathy's horse with his car through what must obviously be not-very-well-traveled portions of Westfork! Smashing through fences and no one comes running! Okay. Ray is very hairy and very attractive but clearly first a little and then a lot nuts. Initially there's a relentlessly sunny, unsettling lovebombing angle to his behavior with a controlling mania beneath. His whole fetish for calling her "my cat" is a lot too. Ray is equal parts charismatic and suffocatingly menacing even as he maneuvers Cathy (his wife??) back into bed with some trepidation on her part. I hadn't realized Ray has been planned for a long time; he was mentioned when Cathy first met Gary, asking him if 'Ray' had sent him.

Somehow I wasn't surprised to hear Ray and Cathy first met when she was 13 (oof). Ugly as it is, it fits the characters' dark background and the predator nature of Ray - the look on Lisa Hartman's face in the 'afterglow' as they reminisce is deeply haunted, equal parts twisted longing, codependency and pure fear and despair. Not sure you could get away with this kind of subtext and casual sex framed around grooming and abuse on network TV today. They sing together at his firm urging; she's clearly frightened of him but can't resist his gravitational pull and control. Ray wants to take her 'home,' and there's no arguing as he oh so gently insists.

Ben and Mack make a hell of a team at this point, strategizing about Laura and Apolune at none other than KL Motors (would Sid be proud?). At the same time, Ben and Val are still working their way back to reconciliation while Lilimae clucks over him going to El Salvador. They make out by the fire later and are just very easy and cute. Ben wants her to go with him but she thinks he's uncomfortable staying there with her situation as it is. "I feel like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle," Ben admits. "Your life is all set up, it's all arranged. You've got it set up exactly the way you want it." But there's a lightness and flirtation to their energy despite the subject matter as Val teases, "I'm not inflexible. I could change." Keeping it more playful and easy is good for this couple vs. the past often dour dramas of Gary and Val from some prior seasons.

You know it's gotten real when the Avery house is back! With Westmont as a guest no less, as he and Laura discuss Mark St. Claire, the Wolfbridge skullduggery and generally saving their asses. Even Jason No. Whatever appears as Laura keeps him at home and starts furtively watching the windows while getting way too many hang-up calls. Her paranoia builds as night falls over Seaview Circle, and a shadow crosses her curtains and sliding doors - it's Karen, who finally has some stuff out with her old friend over Wolfbridge and Apolune. The "R" word is mentioned as Karen says Mack was there for Laura when she lost her husband, but doesn't quite go so far as to acknowledging Karen herself wasn't, though once again I would note Karen had other concerns at the time, like her fugitive daughter and getting high, and Laura was awfully myopic about her belief that Richard killed Ciji. 

There's also a series of nice little character vignettes throughout this episode: Diana and Karen at the dealership as Diana gets a new car, admitting she needs a little financial help from her mom without a lot of high theater whining. A fun, normal convo with Karen and Val in the kitchen as they discuss their men and their pasts, and Karen admits sometimes she still compares Mack and Sid. There's Ben and Lilimae bonding over their shared wanderlust. "You’ve lived quite a life," he tells her; "I still am," Lilimae replies. She says this is the best part of her life, not the endless traveling - "at some point you have to be able to look someone in the eye, and know that they know you." Great stuff. There's also a funny moment where Diana belatedly realizes she may in fact be Aunt Abby's nepotism baby in her new and presumably short-lived position at Gary Ewing Enterprises, which I strain not to call GEE. Abby is maternal again as she gives her niece a little office wardrobe advice on her sleeves: "Roll 'em up." She also pales when Diana mentions Mack getting beat up - she still has a heart and soul, and once again we see she did not sign up for what Wolfbridge brings to the table, and is perhaps reminded again of Sid.

Meanwhile, Mack is back at Sumner HQ haranguing him in public! There has to be another angle on this because he is making himself a considerable liability. Karen and Mack strategize over Laura and Greg, getting one of them to break, and there's a morbid touch as Karen realizes the dead men on Apolune's fake board of directors are all from the plane crash which killed Sid's uncle who bequeathed her the 'quadraplex' at Lotus Point. Woof.

Anyway, Lotus Point is all Apolune's now. Abby tries to placate the frightened Laura with the promise of a long business lunch, and tries to focus discussion on how they got Lotus Point for a song vs. much higher costs, to talk not only Laura but herself into feeling better about Wolfbridge - it clearly turns Laura's stomach. Laura finally confronts Greg about St. Claire and how he could've knew about her mentioning his name to Mack. Sumner denies spilling the beans and tries to throw her out because in his mind the simplicity of their arrangement is over, but Laura isn't Abby and isn't so easily deterred; when pressed, he denies they could've threatened her kids. He wants to believe it, wants to find a way to control the situation: "I personally guarantee your children’s safety," he soothes. Like Mack's? When Laura finally leaves she has Sumner rattled, snapping at his guards.

A creepy beat late in the ep comes when Ray corners Abby - he was her first contact point for Cathy in Arkansas. Meanwhile, Cathy returns to her and Gary's beloved sex gym on Ray's orders. This story is pure film noir at this point. Cathy tries to reunite with Gary, but Gary makes her confess about her past - and her murder rap.

There's great shadows and angles by director Larry Elikann throughout this ep, but especially near the conclusion, shooting the Avery house from above as Laura comes home in the dark. More phantom callers finally push her to flee right across the street to the MacKenzies and admit that yes, Apolune is Abby's. Won't Wolfbridge see her? They have to have a bug and a tail on all of them by now.

Episode 19 (…So Shall You Reap):

Gary (to Abby): You're so damn good it's terrifying. I've never seen anybody lie as well as you do.

Sure enough, Laura tells Karen and Mack all. "Your husband died; he left you with a flourishing business, right?" Laura explains to Karen, reasoning out her choices. "I just wanted mine." She acknowledges she did indeed sell Daniel (only breaking even). Karen, to her credit, doesn't judge Laura. Yet, anyway. I wouldn't blame her.

Yes, things are going south quickly but don't worry - Smilin' Greg Sumner has a plan. He's "working on" helping Mack, really! Abby, for her part, has a self-serving solution: Sell Karen's last scrap of owned Lotus Point property to her! Greg is clearly tired of her finagling, increasingly tired of her, and still sore about betraying his best friend.

Armed with Laura's dirt, Mack busts in on Abby and Westmont, full of threats to expose them. But in the aftermath Abby initially is unfazed, leading to her unmasking herself in perhaps her most heinous scene in the entire series so far: "I don’t care about Gary," she breezily tells Westmont. "Even if he does find out, even if he takes me to court, I'm covered" - because of Cathy, who she procured to seduce Gary and make him look like a dangerous obsessive over Ciji.

Abby: Tell me: What would you call that kind of behavior?

Westmont: Sick.

Abby: Exactly. Now, I'm supposed to entrust my affairs to someone who’s running around trying to recreate a dead girl?

She even invokes Gary's alcoholism, and insists she can 'protect' the business from him. I think Abby believed some of this line once, last season and perhaps early in this one, but not any time lately. She really has thrown the man she loved over and I think I know why (but not quite when). But I'll get to that later.

As expected, Cathy has taken the murder rap for Hairy Psychopath Ray. What I did not expect was her confessing most everything if not all to Gary. They really are cute together, but they'll get even more appealing in the next ep which I'll dig into another time. Gary swiftly confronts Laura, having presumably discovered the truth from Mack offscreen (that happens a lot this season) that Abby owns Apolune and Lotus Point; Laura admits all and gives Abby up. Gary's response is great: "Thanks, I always wondered what friendship was worth." So she's fired, right? 

But never fear: Smilin' Greg Sumner has great news for the MacKenzies - he's finally bailed out Mack by diming out Abby on the land variance! Incredible. Mack and Karen are not amused. Greg is the ultimate politician, trying to schmooze them and eager to happily gloss over the details of whoever framed Mack to begin with. Mack of course isn't having any of it, but William Devane is amazing here. The mask simply does not slip, period; he is firmly convinced, at any time, that he can control this rapidly spiraling situation, that he can restore his friendships and relationships and that he can win the day through sheer force of personality and will. Greg and Karen alone together at his campaign office is another story; Michele Lee and Karen can match him because her energy is different than Mack's, in her intensity. When Karen warns Sumner she won't leave him alone until he makes things right for Mack, I believe her.

There's some nice camerawork as they pull around the raging fireplace in Gary and Abby's bedroom at Westfork as he waits for his traitorous wife, then boils over on her in short order, throwing her out in a great scene. "I don't ever wanna remember that I loved you," Gary seethes. Abby retreats to her office lair and tries to strategize with Westmont, refusing to accept the possibility of divorce. Not long after is a classic exchange I think everyone knows:

Westmont: Half of Gary's money is a fortune.

Abby: All of Gary's money is a fortune. Half of it is half a fortune.

Her odd, flirtatious but mostly platonic friendship with Westmont is always fun. Abby kicks back alone in her home-sized penthouse but can't get Greg on the phone. Later, there's a moment of real danger as creeper Ray drops in on her penthouse loft, scoping out the joint and drinking her wine while she is visibly uncomfortable, increasingly in over her head in every area. 

At the other end of the canvas, Ben casually proposes to Val over a good sandwich lol. He's ready to raise her baby/babies! Ben and Val have been on a low burn til recently but are still very sweet, and there's an adorable scene with them cuddling and listening to her babies kicking. There's another great doubles sequence with Karen and Val and Ben and Mack paired off again, having some lighter times amidst the relative chaos, cross-cutting back and forth between each pair of men and women as they discuss the situation. Both Ben and Val explain that they craved and guarded their independence and then found more: "The more he lets me know him, the more I find out about myself," Val says. And with Mack's coaching (and presumably his talk with Lilimae last time), Ben says that "being intimate, being open with someone you love, that's the only kind of freedom there is." The whole sequence is a lovely little tone poem for the couple, but FWIW I think they're getting shotgun wed a bit too soon.

Next we have Gary sitting down with yes, Olivia at the duck pond on the ranch, and I absolutely love that they've returned to this relationship and character thread so unexpectedly after it being absent for awhile. Olivia heard Gary and Abby fighting and knows what's going down, but she continues her quiet reverie over the ducks she watched grow up here, having gone through so many homes and families. They discuss the different ducks and their idiosyncrasies or physical characteristics, like one 'needing glasses'. "Maybe that's what we need," Gary muses. "Rose colored glasses." Olivia finally breaks down in Gary's arms and begs not to leave, and oh, it's just heartwrenching stuff. Other primetime soaps simply do not do this shīt with the supporting characters and kids, not back then and generally not in the '90s. (Interestingly, on Krasker's blog Richard Gollance suggests that the whole duck pond sequence might have been a Peter Dunne creation, as using ducks was often a favored signature of his.)

With the rest of her life basically in meltdown, Abby bravely tries to imitate Greg's rose maneuver and comes to his hotel suite throwing game. She gets a bit more than she bargained for; Greg is flummoxed as she opens the bedroom door to discover a clearly delighted Laura in his bed. Ha! They don't show us the fallout though - really, what more is to be said? - and instead cut to a gorgeously shadowed meeting with Greg and St. Claire, with Greg once again playing schmoozer-in-chief to sell Wolfbridge on his taking Mack back into the fold, promising he can defuse Mack and contain him. Sumner is playing every side against the other, supremely confident in himself. I'm surprised Wolfbridge doesn't just kill Mack tbh. But somehow Greg sells it and announces Mack's return to the crime commission with great fanfare on live TV, and to Mack's chagrin.

Abby doesn't have to go home but she can't stay here! You can see the play of conflicting emotions on Donna Mills' face when it's finally real for Abby as she packs her things at the ranch vs. her gaming her strategy out for Westmont early on; her choked voice as she calls for Gary one more time and then tries to swallow her tears is authentic. Reality, it seems, has begun to sink in. Olivia waits for her outside, but tells Abby that she and Brian aren't coming. "I don't want to live with you," she says. "I'd rather run away than be with you." (She makes good on that soon.) Suddenly you have two extreme character poles presented in a single episode: Abby at her most awful at the top of the hour as she lays out her scheme to discredit and neutralize Gary, and also her most heartbreaking as she's cast out, dejected and alone, from Westfork, without her children and the man she still loves despite what she's done and all she blusters and threatens. Yet somehow the show make it totally plausible and emotional for the audience, totally organic within the same deeply contradictory antiheroine. You condemn what she has done and said while also feeling for her consequences. Nobody could do this but Donna Mills - GH and Melrose Place never had her measure.

And now, my armchair psychoanalyst hot take on Abby this season: All of this has happened because Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing doesn't just want Greg Sumner - she wants to be Greg Sumner. As she will explain to Olivia in an upcoming episode, if a man does what Abby does in the Me Decade '80s  he is hailed and celebrated as a conqueror; if a woman does it she is a conniving whore. When Abby first met Sumner she was instantly infatuated, not just with the man IMO but with the power, the prestige and the force of will. Everything she's done to burrow herself into Lotus Point and Wolfbridge has embedded her deeper with Greg Sumner, to play the game like Sumner, at stakes and with gamepieces she is IMO not yet capable of playing with. She does Sumner-like things not just in business but to the people she loves, thinking she can make it all right later (just as Sumner is trying to do now with the MacKenzies). Abby is clearly infatuated and sprung for Greg, but I don't believe she fully stopped loving Gary (hence her vetoing Cathy and Gary sleeping together); I think she has just sectioned off that aspect of herself and her psyche so much at this point after so many months as to make it toxic, cavalier and remote. Yet it's not gone from her heart; she turns wrathful in this episode when challenged early by Mack, but crumples when faced with the actual blowback upon the reveal. (I don't know when she first came up with the Cathy scheme, but Richard Gollance surprisingly claims they knew from the start Abby would be behind it - I have my doubts she thought it up before meeting Greg and seeing how he operated.) That's my take anyway, and it's not meant to be charitable. What Abby has done to Gary and said about him in this episode was despicable. Yet she still loves him in her way, still loves her kids. But her ambition, her drive and her dream of being a woman for the '80s - like Greg Sumner's campaign ads call him 'the man for the '80s' - of being Greg Sumner - have overtaken everything. Just my ten cents.

More to come! Woof, I have four more of these to do (and two eps left in the season after).

Edited September 2, 2022 by Vee

[Forever8]

From Claudia Lonow's (Diana Fairgate) IG 

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[Franko]

All these years, it was staring us all in the face, but we just didn't acknowledge it ...

[yrfan1983]

Thanks for this insight. It helps to explain how Cathy could later stay with Joshua after his bad behavior starts...

= = 

Like you said, these are spotlight eps for Constance McCashin. It's super-sad to note that, IIRC, this is the last time that Laura is ever given a lead character spotlight 

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[DRW50]

@Vee These are wonderful insights, and remind me of so much I've forgotten (like Cathy's backstory). I was never that interested in the Greg/Abby relationship so your thoughts on them give me a very new perspective.

[titan1978]

Season five has a momentum and excitement that is just wonderful.

And I absolutely agree with @Vee about Abby.  Until Greg, she is not exposed to this kind of power while having any of her own.  Sure she has money now, but she’s married to Gary, not JR.  And she wants it all.  As she says about Gary- half a fortune is half a fortune.  The show and Donna Mills wisely leave her humanity intact, and allow her to have many facets.  I easily believe the Abby of this time and place loves Gary, even as she plots around and against him.  The Abby of the end of the show, while still as delicious and complex, I just do not see her as ever loving that way again.  I think the constant pull of Val on Gary plays a part in how much she can love again later too.

[kalbir]

Fall 1982 to Spring 1985 was the peak of primetime soaps and in that era, Knots Landing set itself apart from the others with high emotional stakes character driven storytelling. @Vee season 4 and 5 recaps really highlight that element.

Edited September 3, 2022 by kalbir

[Chris B]

Vee, I'm curious on what your take will be when you reach season 7 for the Dallas/Knots writers swap. In retrospect, it's such an odd thing to do considering the season six finale was the first time Knots went to #1. In the end I definitely think Knots got the better end of the stick compared to Dallas, but I still would've loved to have seen where Peter Dunne would've taken the series.

[DemetriKane]

Me too. 

!!!!! Starting with Season 5 finale. Every main character is in a tangled web except....

My Girl . She did such a great job with her role, she's still hated until thisday.

[Vee]

I am very curious about it myself - bringing in a Dallas writer to KL (or a KL writer to Dallas, which I will get to as I browse that show off and on) seems so anathema to me. I've obviously heard very mixed things about the next couple seasons after S6, but it's that sort of wilderness or experimental period that intrigues me too; it sort of goes beyond the bounds of what I am somewhat prepared for. I've also heard Season 9 is good but I have no idea. I'm excited to see the Williams family and Karen's boys growing into their own storylines, however good or bad, and Nicollette Sheridan.

I am well aware of the Latham/Lechowick team's complicated and controversial reputation, but my only experience with them firsthand was their dreadful work at Y&R. I'm not dismissing them out of hand here because I know some loved what they did at Knots, some hated it and many were inbetween. I also know the show remained popular. Either way, once I'm out of the supposed golden era with Peter Dunne I am very curious, because I know there was a lot people loved well after and I want to see what it was for myself. I may or may not do some more regular episodic discussions for Season 6, but I can't keep this up forever and will start discussing the show more in overview as I watch at some point going forward.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Vee

[kalbir]

@Chris B Season 7 is also when LML shows up in the writer credits and we all know the damage she did to Y&R two decades later.

[Soaplovers]

Season 5 was a quieter season for Val in a way.  She had a new relationship with Ben, was a supportive friend of Karen/Laura and a supportive daughter to Lillimae. 

However with her being pregnant with Gary's baby..you knew season 6 would be when it was Val's turn for drama.  Season 5 and to a lesser extent season 8 were nice calms for Val storywise...usually when she was at her best (i.e not treated like a victim or the village idiot).