KNOTS LANDING

[DRW50]

@Vee I am so glad you have kept these recaps up. You have provided us better analysis than many paid reviewers have for any show, let alone a 40-year old soap. You've also given me so many insights into characters I generally saw as plot devices, like Lillimae. And when you have no real use for a character I liked (such as Ginger) you don't beat a dead horse about it. 

Seasons 5 and 6 may be the show's overall strongest, if my memory serves, a time when I could invest in the travails of nearly every character and the umbrella stories flow naturally. I hope you enjoy them. 

I am glad you have appreciated Richard so much as a character. I tend to agree with you that he had to go in order for Knots to evolve, but John Pleshette was easily the best actor on the male side of the character, and Richard was an endlessly fascinating  character even at his most pathetic. His exit from the show is very moving. He does get a few good little moments when he returns, although, unfortunately, the lazy choice to never properly age or develop Jason blunts impact that would have been there if the show had been more invested in Laura.

[Vee]

Yeah, Jason is easily the least important of the neighborhood kids. I had heard Laura takes their boys to Richard, wherever he is, and leaves them with him when she dies. I'd hoped that would lead to a final series of scenes with Pleshette and McCashin and went looking for them (I haven't watched any actual episodes ahead) but it seems that's all actually just background information given after the fact unless I'm mistaken.

I don't think he necessarily had to go, unlike Pleshette, but I'm not sure what he could've done next so I guess that's that. Plus, William Devane is coming on and I've seen plenty of William Devane in other shows and films I've watched to know how much of a powerhouse presence he is. That's gonna be a shift.

I will say I don't think Shackelford has gotten enough credit for some really great performances this past season, especially when he begged Abby to be honest with him and talk things through before fully going off the wagon. I've already begun S5 and his Gary is even better now, sober and more increasingly assured in himself.

[Soaplovers]

@VeeIt's interesting that you talk about how Val leaving him at the end of season 3/early season 4 started Gary's downward spiral.  It underscores the dysfunctional bond that exists between the two.  From watching Dallas and earlier seasons, Val is a pillar of strength.. and anytime she's fallen apart, Gary was unable to man up to be a pillar of strength for her.

And it isn't an accident that during most of season 4, Val was more assured/stronger willed once she tossed Gary out.  It's only in the last few episodes of season 4 and being back in his orbit does her more fragile tendencies come back out.

As was hinted in 'Three Sisters' and explored in more detail in season 6, you'll see that Gary not being in Val's life doesn't cause her downward spiral... but losing her children is what causes her downward spiral.  

Edited June 27, 2022 by Soaplovers

[DRW50]

Devane is a massive shift for the show, albeit in a direction they were heading anyway (especially Abby).

1982 Michele Lee interview:

https://twitter.com/cbsKnotsLanding/status/1541013409101033472

Edited June 27, 2022 by DRW50

[Paul Raven]

It was not one I enjoyed.

I found Greg smarmy and generally unlikeable. And him being a 'big name' meant that he became the defacto star.

 

 

[yrfan1983]

Agreed… Greg and Paige…I’m supposed to root for this couple??

[Vee]

Episode 1 (The People vs. Gary Ewing):

So, here we are. There's a scene I don't recognize from Season 4 in the recap at the opening of this episode: Laura in the cul-de-sac, hysterical over Richard leaving and telling Mack he killed Ciji. Did SoapNet cut it?

I didn’t realize Baines would last into Season 5, but I'm happy to see Joanna Pettet even if the detective is increasingly ineffectual. Lankford/Houghton/Pleshette are gone but Claudia Lonow is in the (even more musically amped-up) opening credits now, which is probably an early warning sign of the end times in some other cultures who have more foreknowledge than the rest of us. Plus Doug Sheehan, a.k.a. GH's Joe Kelly! I've been waiting for this and I've heard a lot about him as Ben. I've always really, really liked Sheehan any time I saw him on classic GH episodes, and wondered why that show never made better use of him; others who are more versed in that era of GH can differ or correct me, I just was surprised it seems like they didn't go for supercoupling with him and say, Jackie Zeman or somebody, as opposed to keeping him yoked to Heather Webber and his lusty stepmom til his exit. Anyway, I'm very happy to see him; he's always both hunky and earnest, sexy and sweet. (Even if Sheehan did apparently complain his way off the show years later)

Lord, Abby is really out here preaching her horny corporatist gospel about “a sense of destiny” (courtesy of J.R. Ewing, whose name she invokes to impress) in order to shine temp recast attorney Jim Westmont on, hoping to make him be her puppet lawyer to send Gary to the cracker barrel for what she deems His Own Good. She’s through the looking glass here, just like she was last time, and I’m pretty sure she believes at least half her bullshít about destiny too. She’s at her moral worst in this hour, right after her braying to the prison guards that '[Gary] never wants to see Val again!' in the S4 finale. When Gary's original, far more skilled layer Mitch Casey (played by cozy character actor Barry Primus, who I know best from recent MST3K '70s disaster campfest "Avalanche" with Mia Farrow and Rock Hudson) turns up at the hearing, Abby panics and starts literally begging Gary to fire Casey and take her fake shemp on instead. Embarrassing for her! How do they get married after this?! I am still down for more Gary/Abby but this is kind of A Lot.

Val looks amazing at the courthouse BTW, all sleek jet-black glam with shades. She really has fully transformed and I'm all for it. The highlight midway through this episode is Val and Ben Gibson's meet cute as he helps her escape the reporters. Sheehan won me over here with his chemistry with JVA in about 15 seconds. What a hoot. They notably don't give his name in this episode, IIRC.

Hot take: Laura and her incredible black and white power suit of marital vengeance should hook up with Baines. They look sporting together. But Karen and Laura's conflict over Richard is getting ugly fast, because Karen is completely losing it over Diana's vanishing act with Chip. The extreme close-ups of Mack and Karen's eyes as he shakes her back to some semblance of functionality are unsettling, as is Karen later coming apart at the dinner table in her bathrobe in front of the boys. I’ve never seen Karen like that and it’s sudden, jarring and scary, and very well-played by Michele Lee.

We also see Laura alone in this episode with Jason, trying to carry the load without Richard. It's a nice little scene and the most we’ve ever seen them alone together, I think. I did think they were chemistry-testing her and Mitch Casey in that scene where she goes to visit him at his home and implicate Richard. I've no idea if we see him again.

“Is there anything that we’ve done that [Gary] shouldn’t see?” Abby is really in it now, trying to cover her tracks with Westmont, but it turns out she hasn't done anything too nefarious with Gary's business (yet). While talking with him, she brings her overbearing scheme re: institutionalization and firing Casey back to Gary's drinking. I believe she partly believes that's the reason she has for doing these things, at least (in truth, it's about so much more than just his alcoholism), but she still comes off utterly brazen and off her railroad tracks. Westmont brings it back to putting a ring on it to protect her own position, an idea he first raised last season, and for Abby the wheels are turning once again.

Karen asks Val about Lucy! Wow. It's lovely to see them reminiscing about the early days of Season 1; it's this connective tissue to the past that’s so different from the show in Seasons 4-5 that is important. I love the changes in the show but I think these kind of throughlines are essential, like any soap. And the devastating reveal at the end:

Karen: Val. How long has it really been since you’ve talked with Lucy?

Val: Not long. Seven or eight months.

Anyway, Gary's hearing is great fun, though poor Baines is probably in for it with her boss for telling the truth about this cockeyed case. And the final shot is killer as Gary looks to Val, not Abby, over Abby’s shoulder on the freeze frame. The game with these three is still on, but in a much, much more interesting way than Val's brief relapse at the end of last season before she got her game face on in the finale.

Episode 2 (Fugitives):

After the Gary Ewing fail, Baines and the LAPD is still taking it hot from Karen over Diana. We have never seen Karen like this, even when Sid died and it is staggering to see her disintegrate. People are not doing enough for her right now.

From Tommy Krasker's indispensable blog (I have not read all of this S5 entry; I am very judicious on carefully reading bits and pieces of these until I finish a season):

Is this Karen reacting with a kind of PTSD to the double-whammy of Sid and Diana too close together, as Krasker suggests? I can buy that. It's really jolting and at times hard to watch, if spellbinding. I would love to say more about it but honestly I'm just in awe of the unhinged performance, which doesn't feel like too much to me, it's just incredibly disturbing because it's so unlike the Karen we know.

Back at Gary and Abby's, it's also going bad! Once again the show makes wise use of the Cunningham kids as a kind of onstage audience, watching Gary and Abby go at it (not for the first time) over her insane machinations re: his case. She clearly lays out her reasons re: his drinking and depressive state and how it could've potentially landed him in prison for murder if she hadn't tried to intervene, but that's not the half of her motives vs. the Val and the empire-building of it all. Still, it's good for Abby and the audience to at least attempt to make them understand she is still a nuanced character, even if I think this is her worst move so far as a person. Gary's the one who finally points out the presence of the kids and takes them out of there. Abby got emotional during that confrontation, though - she believed what she's saying. Or at least part of it.

I laughed at Ben trying to come off casual running into Val on the beach and jogging with her - I know who he is and it’s obvious he’s no runner. They’re really playing Sheehan for comedy, and he has great facility for it. I was also thinking Ben has a pretty remarkable home for a hustling reporter, but then we discover he’s actually a world-class globetrotting journalist. Everything's going great for these two til Val learns the truth. There's a great moment where JVA snaps, "I know now what I’m worth!" She won't put up with bullshít any longer. I know it doesn't stay this way forever with Val as a character, but I really love to see it. I also already quite like them together.

Gary clownIng with Abby's kids, including the increasingly mischievous Bobby Jacoby as Brian (later to become an infamous troublemaker in a ton of classic '80s/early '90s film and TV such as Tremors), was sweet. We’ve never really seen Gary with them acting as a real parent before, it’s new and interesting to see how he relates to children in that role. He’s pretty straight up with them about what's gone on with him, which is an interesting tack to take, and smart work from Gary. They can sense he's no bullshít when he chooses not to; kids have a sixth sense for that. He could’ve been good for Lucy as a father, if Lucy had half the brain cells of Olivia and Brian combined.

Another surprise combo this week: Gary and Laura, at a... ranch! This is apparently the much-touted future site of 'Westfork' (really, Gary?) which I’ve heard some about, and per the opening credits with Shackelford looking absolutely jacked in a nicely snug tee astride a horse on his own fertile land, this is Gary's next stop. I hear the amazing beach house set is leaving us and I will seriously miss it; it seems like a waste for it not to be kept by someone. What a set! But this also makes sense for Gary - it's a working ranch, just like he always wanted to be part of on Dallas, just like Miss Ellie longed for him to come back and do on the homestead like her father. I wonder if Miss Ellie ever visited Westfork offscreen and got to see it. I hope so. I hadn't realized at first this is Laura acting as the realtor again! (I wonder what happened to poor Scooter, they haven't mentioned him since his last episode which did not write him out.) Gary and Laura's connection is relatively new, and they both seem like a kind of a pair - wounded, damaged people with a kind of sardonic candor about their past mistakes and injuries. Their bonding over the shared fascination with Ciji was neat. I like watching them together, and even a hook-up might be interesting.

Is Richard really calling Laura at the house? Eeesh.

Olivia is becoming a real force; she’s distancing herself and sees through Abby, as was implied in last season’s finale, shrugging her off as she goes to bed after spending a day with Gary. Abby rolls with Gary's ranch news (and props to the writers for remembering the brief ranch beat with the both of them from last season, which Abby brings up) but looks almost as crushed to be saying goodbye to the beach house as I am.

Uncle Joe calls Karen! Good for him. Meanwhile, Chip and Diana are on the lam at what initially seems to be an increasingly atmospheric series of neon and pastel roadside stops a la Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas". Chip is already starting to deteriorate as he tries to cut off any points of outside access. Diana should not be this stupid but she never surprises me anymore. But hey, even she's got a limit because there he is on TV as Tony Fenece! Diana's lame attempt to cover for her obvious terror by making up something about a 'news story on baby seals' is one of the worst dodges I've ever seen. She's got zero poker face from then on, and Chip sees through her ruse to call home immediately, leading to a harrowing sequence with poor Diana (how often do I get to say that?) weeping in bed with her back to her deranged man as he keeps spewing increasingly objectifying Hallmark platitudes, “I knew right then and there that I had to make you a part of my life," Chip coos. "That you had something - " - then corrects himself - "that you were something that I had been looking for all my life.” While Karen talks about Diana's determination and strength since she was a baby with Mack in a really touching interlude, Diana is completely trapped.

Even when he confesses to removing the car battery to prevent Diana's escape, Chip almost never lets his mask slip, not fully. As a person he is an unbroken, placid mask of cheerful, loving control and overbearing intimacy; he just keeps smiling and soothsaying, but almost seems to get off on glibly admitting his machinations to Diana (as he previously did at times with the exec he hoped to impress, or Ciji on occasion) while wrapping them around a syrupy rationale. Almost like challenging her, or Lilimae or Ciji before her, to break from the pleasantries and cordial, loving tone and see what happens. The only time he changes tactics is when Diana almost calls out to a passing cop on the road - he pulls over and bursts into tears, telling a tall tale about the circumstances and claiming "I killed Ciji for us to be together!" The end shot of Diana makes me wonder if she's even dumber than I thought.

"Keep her on the line for five minutes"? Jesus, sign of the times.

Also: I haven't read all of this given it reflects on her entire run, but I'm fascinated Camille Paglia interviewed Donna Mills. God knows Paglia is a polarizing and thorny figure, but there's a lot to unpack here in a great read.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Vee

[DRW50]

Normally I would agree as I tend to find this type of role, and takeover of large portions of a show, offputting, but I never mind Greg that much...I think because he's usually called out for his actions and he does suffer, while not being defined by suffering, all of which makes him more relateable to me than Val, Mack and Karen as the years pass. I do think  the Greg and Paige stuff got too much focus but I'm not sure how much of the  last 4-5 years of the show I would have finished if not for Greg.

[DRW50]

@Vee I think Doug Sheehan was hurt by that period of GH so often focusing on "dangerous" or exciting men, while Joe was safe and stolid. He certainly could have been more, if he hadn't been hung up on Heather, or on perpetual virgin Anne. 

Gary and Laura are one of those relationships you couldn't have gotten in the early seasons, not until the show became more upwardly mobile and the class systems shifted. Yet it's also the type of relationship the other "rich" shows wouldn't have bothered with. Constance and Ted work well together and she helps bring out the subtler side of his acting. 

[Franko]

I vaguely remember reading somewhere (Telly Talk?) that one of the unproduced scripts for Season One had Gary confused after getting aroused while dancing with Laura. Of course, who knows if they ever actually approached Ted and Constance with the idea.

Also, at the risk of spoilers, this is all bringing to mind Karen's line from several seasons later, about how every woman in the cul-de-sac at some point ends up having a crush on Gary.

[Vee]

"Confused" indeed!

You don't have to worry about spoiling me, as I've said it's a 40 year old show, an all-purpose thread and I know a fair bit of major stuff. Make your own choices but it doesn't matter to me if you mention something from years later.

[Chris 2]

I think one of the great things that Knots did was write out characters when they had reached the end of the line, and brought new people in. It really helped keep the show fresh. Apparently David Jacobs pitched a reboot for a potential 15th season, with just the Mackenzies and the Ewings continuing, with a group of new neighbors. Would have been interesting, but I’d argue you didn’t need Gary and Val to continue, because they had come full circle. And you only needed one stable older couple.

I do think dull Ben was a good match for Valene. But Doug Sheehan seems like he thought a bit highly of himself. He was lucky to get KL, IMHO. And I didn’t like his opening credit picture with his mouth hanging open. Nerdy.

I liked Joanna Pettet a lot and when I saw her in the credits at the beginning of the episodes, I was hoping she’d become a regular.

[Chris 2]

Re: Gary and Abby’s beach house. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I remember thinking it wasn’t a set, but an actual house. If so, I can imagine they phased it out due to the expense of the location shooting.

[Vee]

I do too. But really, Westfork has more big, lavish exteriors than Southfork on Dallas, which looks rinky-dink by comparison. The new ranch is vast and gorgeous. Was it really a money issue?

[DRW50]

I think of the four characters, Gary and maybe Val are the two I might have kept. Mack was ruined for me in the late '80s, I just...had seen enough of Karen, and Diana and Michael weren't compelling enough to be leading figures. If they had brought Sid's daughter back, maybe, but Karen Allen probably wouldn't have returned and there would less point in bringing the character back if you couldn't have Karen Allen. 

Season 13 was something of a revival for Valene (although I'm not sure Joan Van Ark would agree...but I think she was just demoralized by what had come before), and I think Valene would have made a better mentor figure for younger neighbors than Karen, who had become very cold. 

Underneath the sea of questionable choices made with Gary in the last 2 seasons, there was still a compelling character, plus the Ewing name meant potential appearances from various Dallas figures.

I would agree with you about Knots up to around 1988, but after that point I feel like they started either writing out the wrong characters, or squandering potential until they had little choice but to write out the characters. And one character in particular (Claudia) lingered on two years after possibly the all time worst decimation I've seen on a soap.

As for Doug Sheehan, I would agree he was lucky to get a job on a well-written (at that point) show after taking a risk on leaving daytime, but I do think he did a good job and did a great deal to help keep the Val/Gary dramas sustained for 3-4 more years, while being a viable partner to Val. I feel like it's very easy to take for granted how good he was  until one remembers just how many poor male characters there were to come.

Edited June 29, 2022 by DRW50