Recap: Sue Ellen and Miss Ellie inspect one of the spare bedrooms at Southfork and agree that it would make a fantastic nursery. Sue Ellen says she can somehow sense that her love-spawn with Cliff is a boy, and that he'll be very lively and outgoing. JR pokes his head into the room and says he's off to work...then informs them he won't be able to meet up with them for lunch 'cause he's scheduled to give a speech at the Chamber of Commerce. Sounds like someone's got a planned nooner with a blonde mistress. In an apartment across town, a painting is delivered to a redheaded grumpy pants named Garrison. After unwrapping it, he growls that the quality of the artwork is the shits...then grumbles to his pretty young female companion, Kathy, that it looks cartoonish. Kathy urges him to chillax and says the painting is lovely, and he quickly apologizes for being such a crotchety dickwad and says he knows squat about art. He then pronounces, "I'm going to take it to Ellie myself." Ray reports to Jock that one of the ranch hands told him that a big truck was seen parked in Section 40 of the Southfork ranch. Jock's all, "Wuh?" and says they need to look into that, pronto. Garrison and Kathy drop by Southfork and encounter Bobby when he answers the door. Garrison asks to speak to Mrs. Ewing - then has to specify Mrs. Ellie Ewing - and Bobby tells him she's out shopping. Garrison hands Bobby the cartoonish painting, and Bobby scrunches his face in confusion and asks him who the hell he is. Garrison retorts, "I'm someone Ellie knew a long time ago" and Bobby's like, "That's all?" and identifies himself as Ellie's son. Garrison sourly remarks that he looks a lot like Jock did in his younger days, then snorts and snarls about Ellie marrying "that hard-nosed wildcat". Bobby sternly tells him to watch the way he talks about his sainted daddy in his house, and Garrison growls, "His house..? I suppose it is" then stomps off and barks at Kathy to follow him.
Sue Ellen and Miss Ellie are downtown, shopping and discussing design ideas for the nursery. Sue Ellen excuses herself for a moment and scampers over to a nearby pay phone to covertly call Cliff. She asks him what his favorite color is, and he's like, "I dunno...blue, brown, grey" then finally asks, "Why?" so she tells him she's in the process of deciding on a color for the baby's nursery. Cliff mulls that over for a few seconds and decisively says, "Pale yellow", and Sue Ellen smiles and says, "Me too." Cliff tells her she probably shouldn't call him for stuff like this, and she says she can't help herself from wanting him to share in all of her baby joy. A ranch hand confirms to Jock and Ray that he saw a tanker on Southfork's Section 40...and the two men head out there in Ray's truck. Jock says that this was where Bobby had wanted to build a shopping center during the Fallen Idol episode. ...and while they're glancing around the area, Ray spots a small pool of oil near a capped well. He lifts the well's lid and notes that the valve has been tampered with...and Jock scrunches his grizzled face perplexedly and says he has no idea what any of this means, but he's damn sure going to get to the bottom of it. During the family's pre-dinner gathering, Jock tells JR that he and Ray found a pool of oil on Section 40, and that the well head had hammer marks all over it. JR does his best to look surprised and promises to look into it. Bobby tells Miss Ellie that she had a strange visitor earlier and that he left her a gift...and Miss Ellie's all, "Wuh?" and unwraps the painting. As everyone gathers around her to view it, she explains that it's a rendering of Southfork's old ranch house. A few seconds later the doorbell rings, and Bobby rushes to answer the door...and he's followed back to the sitting room by Garrison, who looms in the doorway. Miss Ellie stares at him in stunned silence, murmurs, "Garrison.." then says she thought he was dead. She then informs her bemused family that Garrison is her long lost brother.
Miss Ellie tearfully recounts that, for the last forty years, she assumed Garrison perished after the military ship he was serving on sunk in the middle of the ocean. Garrison says he got fed up with Southfork during the '30s - what with all the dust, dying cattle, and constant arguments with his father. He expresses remorse for faking his death and saddling his sister with the deteriorating conditions on the family's ranch...and Miss Ellie angrily wails, "How could you do that to me?!" then immediately backs down and gives him a hug. Garrison tells Jock he read about him and Ellie getting married, then says it must have been a giant blow to Digger Barnes. He asks if the old drunk is still kicking, and Pam chirps, "Yes, he is" and identifies herself as Digger's daughter. Garrison looks amused by that and asks Jock if he choked on that marriage, and Jock just shoots him the stink-eye. JR asks Garrison why he came back to Dallas, so he says that he and his good friend Kathy talked it over, decided that he missed the ranch, and that he wanted to see his sister again. JR asks him if Kathy talked him into it, and Garrison gets testy and insists that he made the decision to return. Miss Ellie tells Garrison she'd like to hear what's been going on with him for the past four decades, and he promises they'll get fully caught up tomorrow...but right now he needs to head back to the apartment 'cause Kathy is waiting for him. After he leaves, JR tells Jock that Garrison showing up out of the blue could mean trouble for them...but that it's not a problem 'cause they know just how to handle this type of pesky disruption in their privileged lives. The following morning, JR tells Sue Ellen that Garrison was named sole heir in Grandpa Southworth's will...and when he was presumed dead, everything got passed down to Miss Ellie. He says he's concerned that Garrison may seek to reclaim Southfork, and Sue Ellen haughtily snarls, "That old man is not going to cheat my child out of his inheritance." JR assures her that Garrison would have to pry the property out of their cold dead hands, then heads off to work. JR tells Ray that Jock got himself all in a tizzy about finding a pool of oil on Section 40, and breezily says it's probably an oil leak from a random truck that just happened to be driving out there for no reason. He then tells Ray that he ever hears about something amiss on the ranch again, he should report it directly to him...and Ray's like, "Yeah, dream on, douchewad." Miss Ellie reminds Jock that he was the one who urged her to go to court and have Garrison declared legally dead, and says she now feels as though she stole her brother's inheritance. Jock's like, "Well that's a dicked up mindset" and says he's off to have lunch at the club. Miss Ellie asks him why he dislikes Garrison so much, so Jock tells her that back in the day, he was the outsider while Garrison and Digger were friends...and thinks Garrison only returned to Dallas to claim a piece of the Ewing fortune. JR calls up Willie Joe and Jeb to admonish them for the sloppiness of their crew while they were poking around Section 40. He says they left a pool of oil in the middle of the field, and warns them to not let it happen again. Ray enters a roughnecks' bar to meet up with an old friend, Matt. He asks Matt to look into any recent drilling that may have taken place on Southfork...and to keep his investigatin' on the down-low. Miss Ellie and Garrison recall how horrible life was during the Depression, and how sad it was when Papa Southworth got so broke that he had to sell off everything he owned. Garrison says he figured it was best for everyone concerned that he be presumed dead. Miss Ellie tells him it was a stroke of luck that she hooked up with a rich guy like Jock Ewing, 'cause he had ample money to buy Southfork before it was foreclosed on. She then invites Garrison to stay at the ranch...and when he grumbles that it isn't his home anymore, Miss Ellie argues that it is. Miss Ellie calls a meeting with Jock, JR, and Bobby and says she has an important announcement to make. She says that despite how much she looooves Southfork, she has to do what's right...however illogical it may seem forty years after the fact. She reminds them that Garrison was the heir to Southfork in her father's will, but that the property was passed down to her when he was declared dead. However, now that he's suddenly back from the dead, she feels a responsibility to hand over the property to him. Jock growls about how nuts that is and reminds her that it was his money that saved the ranch, and JR agrees and dismissively says, "What's done is done." Miss Ellie disagrees and stubbornly insists that it was her father's wish that Garrison inherit the ranch. JR snarls, "This is why he came back to town" and says that Grumpy Pants Garrison sounds a lot like Digger, whining about how the Ewings have taken everything away from him. Jock snaps, "There will be no more talk about giving away Southfork!" ... and when Miss Ellie says they need to continue beating this dead horse of a storyline a little while longer, Jock bellows, "You're overstepping your place, Miss Ellie!" [Is it me, or is it kind of weird that the man calls his wife Miss Ellie?] She glares at him and angrily retorts, "My place? What is my place?!" and Jock growls that her place sure as shit ain't running Southfork or any of the Ewing businesses - plus it's still the 1970s and he can declare things like, "As head of the household, what I say goes!" without getting smacked or laughed at. Miss Ellie stubbornly tells him she invited Garrison and Kathy over for lunch tomorrow and snaps, "Do I need permission for that?!" (um, probably) and storms out of the room. When Jock trails out after her, JR tells Bobby he can't help but think that this is somehow all Kathy's fault and suspects she's after a cut of the Ewing money. Bobby says he'd rather not jump to conclusions and suggests they talk all this over with Garrison, but JR says he's pretty comfortable with the conclusions he's jumped to and fully intends to give Kathy the what-for.
Bobby lounges by the pool with Pam and looks despondent. Pam tells him to stop stressing about the situation until he knows for sure that Garrison is taking over Southfork, and Bobby explains that he's far more concerned about the rift between his parents, 'cause apparently it's the worst fight he's ever seen them have. He tells her that if they're forced off the ranch, they may have to get a place of their own - and Pam somehow refrains from doing a happy dance at the prospect of no longer living under the scrutiny of her shitty in-laws. JR calls up his private investigator and orders him to dig up some dirt on Garrison. Garrison and Kathy arrive at Southfork and are warmly greeted by Miss Ellie...and lukewarmly greeted by the rest of the family. JR acts pretend friendly with Kathy and offers to give her a tour of the ranch. As JR and Kathy stroll around the grounds, Kathy marvels about how vast Southfork is and calls it lovely. JR's like, "All right, let's cut the shit" and tells her it's "funny" that Garrison decided to return after all this time, considering how much he hated the ranch. He asks her if the two of them have plans to get married...and when she firmly says no, he snorts and says he figured this whole thing was a scheme on her part to marry the crusty old ogre and get herself a sweet chunk of Texas real estate. Kathy looks indignant and says, "Of course not!" and JR remarks on how weird it is for a pretty young woman to hang around an aging uggo like Garrison. Garrison asks Miss Ellie if she'd really let him have Southfork, and she smiles serenely and says, "It was daddy's wish." Jock chimes in, making it gruffly clear that he and his wife don't agree on that sentiment one damn bit. Kathy, meanwhile, storms back to the house...and JR is close behind, accusing her of playing the dirty game of hooking up with an old guy for his money. When Garrison gets all defensive and snarly, JR threatens to fight him in every court in the country. Garrison growls, "Good! I could use a good fight. But this time it's Southworth versus Ewing!" then says he's not just going to roll over like that lightweight Digger Barnes. After he and Kathy storm off, Miss Ellie gets all in JR's face and shrieks, "How dare you talk to my brother that way! You run Ewing Oil - but you do not run me!" She then flees inside the house, and a sheepish looking JR tells Jock he merely has the family's best interests at heart. Bobby and Pam drop by Kathy's/Garrison's apartment to probe into the matter further. Kathy tells them that Garrison is asleep and that she'd rather not wake him 'cause it took him a long time to calm down and then doze off. She says, "He's in the anger stage" then explains that she's his nurse, not his May-December floozy, and that he's in her care 'cause he has a terminal illness and came home to die. Back at the ranch, Bobby tells Pam he opted to not tell Miss Ellie about Garrison dying 'cause he doesn't know how to break the news to her that she's going to lose her brother for good. Pam says if it were her brother, she'd want to know. JR learns from his private investigator that Garrison recently withdrew a substantial amount of money from his bank account. He gleefully tells Sue Ellen he probably doesn't have the resources to pay for a lengthy court battle against the Ewings. Bobby joins Miss Ellie on the patio and tells her that he and Pam dropped by Garrison's apartment last night, then says there's something he needs to tell her. The scene then fades out, so I'll assume he tells her about Garrison's grim health status off-camera. Miss Ellie pays Garrison a visit, and he snappishly asks her what she's doing here. She counters by asking why he's being so damn crotchety, and he says he's irked that she made a home with the Ewings - plus he hates what Jock did to Digger Barnes. She asks him if the tedious, forty-year Ewing-Barnes feud is what's really what's bugging him...and he tells her he didn't return to town to disrupt her life. He says he can leave anytime, so she says, "You shouldn't run away from life" and he replies, "I'm running away from death" and tells her his days are numbered. Matt meets up with Ray in the roughneck bar to report that some flunky named Charlie Waters might be willing to talk to him about whatever nefarious thing took place on Southfork's Section 40. Yawn. Charlie Waters drops by Ewing Oil to inform JR that he heard some cowboy (aka Ray) is investigating who ran the reserve oil test on Southfork land. He admits to being on the sloppy-ass crew, then tells JR he figured he'd want to know about it before he talked to the cowboy. JR grins, thanks him for coming to him first, and says he'll make it worth his while. Miss Ellie gathers the family together and informs them that she's invited Garrison to move in with them...but before Jock and JR can launch a bitchy protest, she says he won't around for long 'cause he's pretty close to kicking the bucket. She shoots her menfolk the stink-eye and icily says, "Not everyone is motivated by greed." Jock apologizes for his crusty dickishness, backpedals when he says, "How could we have known?" then says it's A-OK with him if Garrison wants to spend his dying days at Southfork...so long as viewers don't have to endure his grizzled unpleasantness in any future episodes.
Miss Ellie and Garrison enjoy a stroll around the stables. He natters about how he could never live up to father's expectations, blah blah...and when Miss Ellie tells him that Papa Southworth made him the sole heir in his will, he wistfully says he wishes the old man had told him how he felt about him. He then glances around the estate and waxes on about how beautiful, lush, and green it is, then bellows, "It's good to be home!" Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
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