KNOTS LANDING

[Soapsuds]

I thought the 1988 season finale was good as well. I think that's when Joan complained about Val being dumbed down.

 

[Vee]

I don't know that everyone hated her (the director was a big fan), so I have no idea if she was difficult anywhere else. I thought her character was kind of a drip but as she was written to be the heroic waif in the movie that's unavoidable. She is definitely one of the more accomplished actors in the whole silly movie, lol.

[DRW50]

Oh that's right - "poor Val." I think that story was not great in the long term, but certainly a strong set of scenes for a finale.

[Vee]

Season 6, Episode 15 (Inside Information):

• I'm not sure if Lorraine Ferrara has directed for the show before, but there's a fantastic opening to this episode which begins deep inside grainy handheld video playback via TV news cameraman from the Gary Loder (he of the Tidal Basin mythos) murder scene. We don't initially realize this is not a 'live' sequence until we hear Mack asking them to roll it back in voice-over, the footage pauses and rewinds and then the camera pans out of the monitors to show Mack, Abby, etc. at Pacific News watching the old footage. There's an equally wonderful holy shít moment as Abby silently clocks Scott Easton in the footage, standing in the crowd. What do a string of dead Galveston Industries secretaries (apparently dummied up to seem like a serial killer case - unless it is a serial killer) add up to? I would expect maybe something involving the Empire Valley conspiracy, but who knows.
• Abby's bob is fortunately back to God-tier this week, which serves as a bit of a panacea for Galveston riding herd on her over the Val secret. Abby cleverly but perhaps hastily plays the Tidal Basin card immediately to fight back, and the look in Galveston's eye is deeply unsettling; you can’t help but wonder if he's telling the truth that he's enjoying their game. I think he is but could also kill her without a thought. A genius story choice has the bedridden post-op Karen, annoyed with being stuck at home, stumbling upon the Loder news tape. There, she spots not Easton but another Galveston man from the recent Lotus Point meeting - and dimes the Galveston connection out to Mack, despite Abby's best efforts to play dumb.
• Are patrons at Isadora's really supposed to be avidly eating up Joshua's TV sermons? I guess the Bakkers were pretty big back in the day too. At least Cathy is singing another banger. Joshua is jealous of Cathy's fans while shrugging off his own, and jealous of her opportunity to go on tour; when Lilimae and Cathy talk their musical dreams, it's a smart use of Lilimae's candor about her past regrets that enables Joshua's controlling behavior by convincing Cathy to back off the tour. There are more and more hints of the darkness under the surface with Joshua over these last few eps: The couple's easy physical roughhousing at the club with their last less serious tiff, then his very coolly dismissing Cathy's acquiescence this week with little more than "good" and an embrace in which he piously tells her "all is forgiven." I think the puritan streak in Joshua, the authoritarianism has always been there, even when he was innocently asking the others if Val losing the babies was punishment by God for her sin. Meanwhile:

Val (to Abby): Boy, you're pretty.

• Frustrated with Gary's fixating on Galveston and Empire Valley, Abby heads to Shula! The above moment is great as Abby and Val/Verna come face to face. The writers once again do the right thing with Abby here by having her try to do the decent thing, level with Val and ask her if she's coming home but of course Verna is clueless. Abby is a little too thrilled Val has lost her mind, lol. Interesting that Parker Winslow is immediately onto her though, clocking the Ewing name. I was surprised that Parker is that suspicious of the whole situation that fast, but he is clearly paranoid and possessive - he tracks down an article on Val's disappearance at his local library and immediately has the connection. His solution: Propose to this mentally ill woman after a month! What a yokel. Verna is very winning in Shula but are we meant to think she and Parker haven't slept together when she adorably teases him about his wanting to buy another pillow for her bed? It seemed clear in the last couple eps they were hot and heavy.
• Back in LA, Greg and Laura see a highway bill go down for Suspicious Reasons - all Sumner's newfound Senate power is being stripped away due to pressure from Galveston. Greg confronts Daddy, but gets no ground while Laura looks on as he bobs and weaves about the tycoon with Mack. Laura finally pulls the truth out of her lover in an incredible fairy tale-flavored monologue from William Devane in which Greg is alternately a hype man, a storyteller and a cajoler. You wonder how much was scripted and how much with Devane was improv: The manic electricity never leaves Greg's eyes or his body language as he keeps throttling up and up with enthusiasm while telling Laura about walking in on his mother in bed with Galveston the day after his father died, never betraying the rage or pain that must seethe just beneath the surface. Finally, as Greg lowers the boom about who Galveston really is to him he immediately, violently jerks Laura into his arms to force a kiss and therefore control. Greg must always find control even when he’s out of control, and the move adds an even more chilling and fascinating exclamation point to an already fraught sequence. It's also made explicit after the commercial break that rough (but consensual) sex between Greg and Laura followed the revelation - Greg exorcising his demons. This is fairly shocking content and layering for glossy '80s primetime soaps. 
• The final brilliant touch of the episode comes at the end: Abby returns to Westfork to greet Galveston's threats to blow the whistle on her about Val's whereabouts, only for her to turn around and immediately disempower him by telling the just-arrived Gary all about Val. I was not expecting that at all and it was fùcking incredible, right down to the beautiful freeze-frame on Abby’s fùck you smile to the old man. They have threaded the needle with Abby in this storyline very well so far.

Episode 16 (Out of the Past):

• Finally, it is Bill Duke Hours once more! You know what that means:

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• As is custom for a Duke episode at this point, a great deal of this hour is bathed in shadow, spotlights and lamplights warming the dark corners while other key moments are shot through with ethereal light. Galveston's shadowy military(?) contact early in the episode is gorgeously cloaked in his warm half-shadowed leatherette chair by Duke, while his murky physical appearance is a kind of inverse Mack MacKenzie in type and build.
• Abby and Karen working together at Lotus Point so much lately in spite of each other is great - neither of them trust in Empire Valley or Galveston. They make a very good team.
• Gary hits Shula! Val is so carefree and fun as Verna at this point, so I can understand people's fondness for this storyline even if I have found the whole Parker angle deeply tiresome from the beginning. Of course the local hicks don't believe Gary's very sensible pleas. The beautifully-shot gauzy flashback to young Val and Gary's first meeting in Texas is a standout here, great handheld work by Duke featuring age-appropriate actors who nonetheless embody the leads. They don't try to make JVA and Ted play 16-18 like most shows of the period would do (and as KL unwisely attempted with several female leads in Season 1). It's very winning stuff, and pays off wonderfully when Gary (undaunted by his street beating by Parker and his buddy from BrutalTops.com) reprises their first meeting during Val/Verna's lunch rush. There is great cutting between past and present from frame to frame, and a fascinating, fluctuating performance by JVA as for a moment, Val knows exactly who he is and it terrifies her.
• Laura and the rarely-seen baby (toddler) Daniel are so cute, in part because I feel fairly confident that this is still Constance McCashin's IRL son Dan Weisman, who apparently played him on and off in Season 4 and 5. There is an adorable moment where the baby is pointing up at what are obviously the studio lights and asking 'what's that?' "It's the ceiling," McCashin/Laura replies. Daniel/Dan? also throws a fit when being handed off to Lisa Hartman to exit the scene. I didn't initially remember that Galveston and Laura had never really met when he arrives at her office (Greg's office, I think?) with no announcement and is pointedly avuncular and familiar re: her and Daniel - an intimidation tactic. He promises to fulfill Laura's heart's desire if she helps him with his son, pinpointing what it believes it to be - "To be richer than Abby Ewing. You can tell her where to get off." A nice historical beat. This is where I would post an IG video Dan Weisman posted a couple years ago of his mom dancing to Ariana Grande that made it onto KL fansites, but it seems to have sadly been deleted.
• There's a lot of power playing and maneuvering this ep; Abby is always recalibrating and tries to throw in with Paul Galveston and increase her leverage on him as Mack's net begins to close, while Greg is finally ready to comes through for Mack but wants no questions on his connection to the old man. The echoes of the Wolfbridge saga are very deliberate in this episode with Mack even invoking his failures there to Karen, but both he and Abby are determined not to be left without a chair when the music stops this time. I do enjoy watching the constant push/pull between Abby and Galveston; he never has her totally over a barrel, as Wolfbridge did.
• Over at Pacific World/News/Cable/whatever, Joshua has apparently pushed his favorite pastor out of his own show. I loved Abby waxing messianic to corrupt him further, boosting their shared business and driving a new wedge with him and Cathy. Their rapport - which may or may not turn overtly sexual - is very interesting work by the writers, Mills and Baldwin. It's also great to see Abby and Cathy finally properly spar again, bringing up the past that already seems so distant. Cathy tells Joshua about her past with Abby, but I have a bad feeling about where that's going.
• The other centerpiece of this episode besides the Gary/Val stuff is an excellent scene between Galveston and Greg. Howard Duff is a deceptively jovial presence, physically similar to fellow Old Hollywood star Howard Keel on Dallas in many ways with ruddy cheeks, cowboy getup and bolo tie. But unlike Keel's kindhearted and sweet Clayton Farlow, Paul Galveston is a smiling cobra. When Galveston turns over a chair threatening Mack if Greg doesn't get his old friend to back off, Sumner (outwardly, at least) coolly shrugs off the idea of Mack's death - he says anything is worth getting to his father. This could be played so many ways with sneering villainy, chest-thumping and big musical stings, but instead Duff and the writers play Galveston as instantly overjoyed, happily believing father and son to be more alike than Greg admits. I love this fuckin' show.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Vee

[yrfan1983]

I’m so excited your recaps are back, Vee! My memories are a little fuzzy of this time period, so I don’t have much comment, but I’m loving your deep dives, thanks

[kalbir]

I am loving @Vee recaps. We are five episodes away from Ava Gardner. Her arc was a highlight for me. Between Lana Turner, Dorothy McGuire, and Ava Gardner, CBS soaps loved casting Golden Age Hollywood actresses as mothers to their villains.

Ava Gardner was keeping it real when she admitted taking the part on Knots Landing for money.

Ava Gardner still a star - UPI Archives

A couple of cast interviews that mention Ava's arc. It seems she was well-liked and didn't throw any diva demands.

A Conversation with Constance McCashin from Knots Landing Jan 2023

The Dallas Decoder Interview: Joan Van Ark – Dallas Decoder

Edited January 17, 2023 by kalbir

[Vee]

I'd love to read that Sentinel article but it defaults to their modern main page when I use the link and I can't find it in the Wayback Machine. I do appreciate the thought!

I'd somehow forgotten there's a whole two more seasons of Laura after where I'm at - I kept thinking she was gone in S8 for some reason. It's about to get real interesting creatively regardless. 

I also wanted to single out the lovely, now-defunct Knots Blogging site, different from Krasker's blog, run by a devoted fan with a lot of funny and often informative recaps. The site can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine but was shut down after its owner's untimely and tragic death. They seem to have had a difficult life, but their work is so appreciated.

[kalbir]

@Vee I changed the link. It should work w/o a paywall.

[Vee]

Thanks!

LOL! She just goes on like this. At least according to the cast she was very kind to them. I still love her in Night of the Iguana, On the Beach and the all-too-relevant-today Seven Days in May (and @DRW50will recall her performance in the very, very strange Technicolor fantasy Pandora and the Flying Dutchman with James Mason, a favorite of Martin Scorsese).

Edited January 17, 2023 by Vee

[kalbir]

You're welcome @Vee and glad you liked the articles 

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[Vee]

Wrapping the second third/Block 2 of Season 6 now - I'll talk about it soon enough, but I think the Verna storyline lasted just long enough. The wrap-up is fine and the therapy work in subsequent episodes so far is excellent, but I cannot imagine them extending the Shula interlude even longer (which they had allegedly planned to do until viewer response) unless they intended to do something more nuanced plot-wise than 'local hick snows Val'.

[Vee]

Episodes 17-19 (Lead Me to the Altar/Fly Away Home/Rough Edges):

• After his first beating by Parker Winslow and the Shula Neighborhood Watch, Gary is bunked down in a Tennessee motel with KFC and honestly that resembles many of my midweek days in the ongoing pandemic. Reduced to sending flowers and mash notes, Gary eventually tires of letting Parker and his cornpone goons show up and ineffectually threaten him more and starts turning up in the park to accost Val/Verna like a cheery and amiable stalker. There's a cute character beat as he tries to get Val back to jogging, one of her California passions, but Val shies away from those familiar touchstones as though she knows what they mean - until her close encounter that night with trippy Ghost Groom Gary in her living room mirror and their spectral matrimonial dance! This is an eerie scene that evokes shades of the ghost episode from Season 3, "The Three Sisters" and is allegedly Ted Shackelford's favorite scene in the series. When Gary and Val/Verna do finally have it out there's a great confrontation where he forces her to look at the book jacket photo on Nashville Junction. JVA pitches everything perfectly at Val's various stages of knowing, not-knowing and half-knowing herself.
• Ah, the Galveston Industries spa and showers! All white tile with blue racing stripes and beefy naked men of power plotting about the Empire Valley. That's more of Howard Duff than I ever expected to see on this show. Anyway, the heat is turning up for Galveston thanks to Mack's relentless Tidal Basin investigation and he's angered enough to barge in on Greg and Laura at Sumner's office, where the couple hangs about in matching chunky '80s glasses. I did love Greg's reply when his father demanded info on his connection to Mack: "We’re having an affair!" Speaking of the Tidal Basin saga, I don't blame Tom Jezik for pacing nonstop in Mack's office as his boss/pal interrogates the Galveston drones. He's clearly fearing for his life expectancy on this show, having lasted at least one season longer on the canvas than I'd ever expected. It's really fascinating what tertiary characters they seem to hold onto long-term.
• Joshua is running his sermons by Abby now, apparently. Abby in turn continues to fuel his worst impulses, ego and control, as she lies about Cathy while Joshua begins to hold forth to anyone who will listen (mostly poor Cathy and her mullet) about his growing power and influence at Pacific World Cable. He's even micromanaging his favorite pastor's sermons and coming down on Cathy about her singing again. Lisa Hartman's voice is still amazing BTW, but Joshua isn't into it. "I don't think it would be fitting for my viewers to see me in a saloon," Joshua sniffs, talking past her about "someone like herself" and the need for her to "mend her ways". Cathy should dump him and not look back, but if she does that there's no story. I can fanwank it as Cathy being desperate for the love of a good, uncomplicated man after the epic drama with Gary and the years with her abusive first husband Ray (whose controlling behavior had similarities) but still, what an ass.
• It's interesting that Laura once again sniffs out power and is unashamed of it - she pushes Greg to work the angle of being the Galveston heir, to use it to his advantage, which he is reluctant to do. Meanwhile, Greg remains outwardly cavalier about the risk to Mack as he flirts with Laura; only Laura openly takes it seriously. They fit together but they're either in sync or filling in the gaps in the other person.
• Late in this ep, Galveston pulls what must be one of the G moves of all time as he casually orders his underlings to sign Tidal Basin murder confessions over an outdoor public lunch. I guess the IRA and vacation time is just that good. Death hangs like a surreal pallor over this sunny tableau as old Galveston downs his (nitro?) pills and promises to keep their salaries and families cared for. It's well done and wild stuff.
• Mack has a mysterious parking lot confrontation with an unseen informant who tells him not to be fooled by the fake Tidal Basin confessions - who was in the car? Several eps later, I still don't get it.
• The cliffhanger for 17 is simple but solid: Gary arrives in the church for Val and Parker's ridiculous wedding and sidles into frame at the key moment of these insane vows and just says one special word: "Valene." It's so fraught with meaning for longtime fans and for Val that you already know what it means.
• Episode 18 (Fly Away Home) is Bill Duke Hours yet again!

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Val: We've always loved each other, haven't we?

Gary: We had some good times.

• This one wastes absolutely zero time dispensing with Shula: Val is the runaway bride! Parker is exposed and dispatched with a single right cross (why didn't Gary just slug him to begin with?)! Gary walks Val out of there in her wedding dress awful fast, all in five minutes or your pizza's free. Val is in hysterics for reasons she doesn't understand, and the writing neatly plays with it as she describes her bifurcated personality as though she's "tuning in and out, between stations. I think I'm happy... why do I feel so lonely?" "Maybe Verna's going away and you know you'll miss her," Gary reasons, playing armchair shrink. "She got you through a pretty rough time." In any event, Valene ends their getaway curled up in his lap and Ted Shackelford does a pretty good job showing Gary as both uncomfortable and perhaps titillated.
• Greg and Laura seem to get cozier and cozier each time Galveston hustles in on them. Explaining that he's "doing business with some pretty nervous people" (i.e., the CIA/NSA, the Pentagon or both) who even he is clearly afraid of, Galveston offers Greg his Senate committees back if he can call Mack off. Galveston's fear of his military connections, the men above him he's in too deep with, has distinct echoes of Sumner's entrenched struggles with Wolfbridge and Mark St. Clair, and later on we'll see the show is aware of this and plays with the parallel in a smart way. Suitably tempted, Greg dabbles in his old ways and tries to deftly get Mack to throttle back on Galveston Industries. Mack, who like us can actually remember last season, wisely is not buying it.
• Next surprise: Laura actually visits Valene’s and joins the rest of the family and friends waiting on her return! When was Laura last in the Ewing house? JVA gives Karen, Lilimae, Joshua, Laura, etc. a great thousand-yard stare when she arrives home, processing them slowly and somewhat remotely. "You look just like my little sweetpea," Lilimae enthuses, a clear nod to how much Val's hair, wardrobe and style have regressed back to Season 1 and the further past. Val seems caught between recalling and not recalling, and gives us two huge oof moments: One, shaking the chagrined Ben's hand as a stranger, and two, clinging to Gary and talking about welcoming them all more "as soon as Gary and I get our life back together again." Everyone is clearly put off by the deeply uncomfortable situation and the show lets that discomfort breathe. But not long enough for Joshua to not mandate a kneeling prayer in the middle of the living room! What a guy.
• Poor Abby spends most of these last few eps doing a ton of brinkmanship between Karen, Mack and Galveston over her growing intel on the Tidal Basin murders while also trying to insulate herself from blowback over the Val mess, only semi-successfully. We're obviously meant to boo when she orders Gary to end his relationship with Val and make a clean break when they return from Shula - telling him to let Ben take over as the man in Val's life - but the thing is, she may be right that it's best for Val, and you sense that while the show is giving her the black hat they know there's a ring of truth to what she says about the codependency beyond her fear and jealousy (something echoed in Gary's guilty, deflecting quote to Val at this top of this discussion). Meanwhile, Galveston keeps antagonizing Abby, telling her he intends to "get Gary to his heirs". I still want to know how all this happened with the baby swap and Scott Easton apparently behind Galveston's back, and why it was done. Desperate for defense against Galveston's threats, Abby goes to Greg and tries to squeeze him with all she knows, begging for help. Turns out sex is back on the menu as they angrily make out! I was not expecting that with Greg and Abby again at this juncture, and I have no idea if they actually had a roll in the hay here or if it will come up again. Sure enough, Abby follows this up by going home to have sex with her husband. In fairness, Val did lie in his lap probably all the way home from Shula.
• "It's not the same," Joshua rationalizes about his career vs. Cathy's. "She's an entertainer and I'm a communicator. And look what happens to people in show business when they make it big. They go away. They leave the people who love them. And I don't want that to happen to me." "Again," Lilimae adds quietly, unable to look at him. Great little scene.
• Wendel Meldrum's P.K. Kelly returns! Curled up coyly in Ben’s convertible as he tries to get his mind off Val, they are still flirting heavily and get a convenient flat out in the country. Kelly flashes her legs to flag down some truckers in what initially appears to be an interminable comic sequence, but like most throwaway scenes on this show it has a cleverer purpose - as soon as Ben clocks a bunch of high-tech radio receivers ('for monitoring satellites') in the bed of the truck, destination Empire Valley. Nice work by the writers. I think this may be Kelly's last appearance, which is a shame as I was getting very used to her being one of the recurring repertory players like Tom Jezik or the dear inexplicably departed Jim Westmont. Meldrum has such a great voice.
• Val now seems to be going forward in time - "this is [Gary's] house!" she tells her baffled family. Gary breaks the bad news to her by the ocean shore which by now she remembers, so I'm guessing she's cycled up mentally to the first two seasons or so. And Lord, does she not take it well. We neatly get back to the cul-de-sac canvas for the first time in awhile as Ben goes to the MacKenzies about Empire Valley, only to get interrupted by Lilimae rushing across the street to ask the neighbors for help with Val going full Verna Mode, compulsively Cometing the kitchen floor. Mack becomes the talk-to as Val tries to disassociate back into Verna and he basically brute-forces her out of it, and they embrace. They've always had a neat relationship. I get why the baby theft story is so beloved, and it is great so far, but I also think some of these elements of Val's collapse and recurring mental breaks throughout this section of the story fundamentally weaken the character. Val has come such a long way since the early seasons of the show, and my concern is about the general opinion that she will evidently never quite recover all the way back to where she was as a character in S5 and early this season. The question remains, would she have fully reunified in a stronger way had most of the current creative team not quit? (That said, the following episode has some excellent therapy and character work for Val which is still promising for her future.)
• Episode 19 (Rough Edges) opens on what appears to be a huge setback for Val as we watch "Verna" in her apartment back in Shula, but it turns out to be a flashback or recollection of a dream instead of some hallucination, with Val narrating to her new therapist in voice-over. This is another Nicholas Sgarro and Richard Gollance episode, and it's apparently Gollance's last credited script for the show as he and many other longtime creatives vacated at the end of this season, allegedly owing to micromanagement by Michael Filerman. Losing Gollance, who wrote Val so well and waxed rhapsodic about giving JVA so many silent scenes of thoughtful repose, is likely to be a huge blow. This ep, his swan song, is very good.
• It is nice to see Ben back in the mix, and the return of the Ben/Mack ambiguously gay duo. Their friendship has always been great, but more on that in Ep 20 (another great episode).
• I got spoiled for Abby's Tracy Quartermaine moment at the end of Ep 18 - sneaking out in the night to raid Galveston's office for his evidence about the babies - but fortunately it's not quite the same. Yes, she does walk out on his request to call his doctor as he finally strokes out, but as he's not gasping for breath on the floor she clearly doesn't know how serious it is. By the next ep we're in "Weekend at Bernie's/Death of Stalin" territory, with the shadowy men of power all colluding in Galveston’s office as he is dying including the curious Mack doppelgänger "Nielsen", who I shall heretofore refer to as "Evil Mack". Sumner is approached by Evil Mack who gives him the news and requests a "transition of power" - they're really going with the king/royal parallels here and it is well done, grand opera and all. Greg of course continues to refuse it all, for reasons far deeper and more visceral to him than he's thus far been willing to admit to.

Laura (to Greg): Why is it you always tell jokes when you're upset? […] All he wanted was for you to love him. Is that so terrible?

Greg: Yes.

• Joshua sits in the darkened Ewing/Clements kitchen, feeding poison to a tense and fragile Val. He's like a coiled predator now, stirring up all her angst over her trauma and subtly mocking her need to confront her issues and forgive their mother. "Father was against psychiatry," he notes almost as an aside, but of course it's not an aside, it's his judgment. Alec Baldwin (and what a week to talk about him - what a mess that whole tragic case is) is wonderful here, with Joshua clearly using the damaged Val as a proxy for his own renewed anger at Lilimae - his newfound fame, fortune and power has loosed all his worst impulses and neuroses and allowed them to take full flight with the same ironclad conviction as his father's worst moments. Jonathan Rush, like Joshua, had a heart too and pathos which were revealed during his first appearance in his tender parting with Lilimae, but Joshua can't seem to see his way clear to that now which makes you wonder just how ugly Jonathan potentially got too. I personally don't feel the Joshua shift is rushed or out of nowhere; I think it's been baked into the character's neuroses and narrow worldview since his introduction and early months, when he innocently suggested Val was being punished by God with a miscarriage. I think fame and power is shifting him just enough, bit by bit and inch by inch (with Abby's influence at Pacific World), to start solidifying into his worst self and flexing his power, lording things over first Cathy then his family and household, and the viewing public. Anyway: Joshua manages to charm Cathy into somehow taking back thanks to his riding around on a scooter. K.
• Val keeps telling her shrink she is "strong as an ox," but it's clear none of us believe it. The dark thoughts Joshua has fed her make her regress to neat freak madness again, turning puritan and excoriating Lilimae with her hair pinned up and taking a page right out of her brother's gospel, calling her mother a tramp. Later she's regretful as she listens to Lilimae weeping behind closed doors. This leads to the centerpiece of the episode, and Richard Gollance's great finale: Val in an extended series of time-dissolved monologue-montages with her therapist, retelling the story of her past, her childhood and discussing life with and without Lilimae. There's a lot of slow pans in on JVA as Val goes from happiness to anguish to the golden moments with her mother as a small child, and back again, finally processing her feelings in a healthy and functional way as she tells a beautiful little story about connecting with Lilimae over their dreams, mother to child. This sequence (and the episode) cap off wonderfully by revealing Ben waiting on her outside the office - he took her to her appointment, not Gary - and Val (her more mature and fashionable hair and wardrobe restored) finally remembering him at the episode's close. After an extended absence from much of the middle portion of the season, Ben's primacy as a character is restored; he is clearly positioned here as the stalwart good man who has waited and suffered for Val to come around and is now being rewarded. This again suggests that the outgoing Peter Dunne team's commitment to Ben and Val was actually real (much like the beautifully recursive loop of the Gary/Abby marriage after it seemed doomed last season), no matter how hard they have pushed the Gary Ewing destiny angle lately. I believe it was Gollance among others who said that in these years they had no intention of actually reuniting Gary and Val. It's not that the heat between Shackelford and JVA is not still intense, because it is these last two seasons, more than ever before, and they were right to do this baby story and play the eternal triangle/quad. But it's also refreshing to see a soap - any soap - apparently commit to real, three-dimensional viable alternatives, which just generally does not happen today, on daytime or primetime.

Anyway: Next time, Ben and Val go walkabout and Ava Gardner descends.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Vee

[DRW50]

Laura is definitely in season 8 but isn't an especially important part - there is one very interesting conflict (if one that never gets to be as developed as it could have been) though.

Always enjoy reading these writeups as I remember or vaguely recall pieces I forgot (especially involving characters like Joshua). 

As for Val, the character stabilizes for the next few seasons, even if she isn't at her heyday. It's more around season 9 that the main problems JVA had with the character become the norm.

[Soaplovers]

wasn't the actress who played Laura pregnant during season 8 hence the reduced presence that season?

[DRW50]

I believe so, yes.