Recap: Miss Ellie is hanging at Matt Devlin's place as she and Matt enjoy a glass of wine. She tells him she probably shouldn't be here, not least 'cause she's been married for 40+ years, has children and grandchildren, and feels as though she's betraying Jock. Matt nonsensically replies that it's not a betrayal to fall in love, and Miss Ellie breaks it to him that she's not in love with him, but rather flattered by all the flirty attention he's been paying her for the last couple of episodes. Matt tells her that while he's disappointed, he's decided to not move forward with his low income housing project - hurray! - and a few seconds later, Bobby calls to inform Miss Ellie that Jock just got arrested for murder by the sheriff, and that he'll pick her up at Matt's and ferry her over to the police station. Jock, his lawyer Harv Smithfield, and the rest of the Ewing clan are immediately swarmed by the press as they make their way out of the police station once Jock is released on bail. When a young male reporter asks the Ewings if they have a statement regarding the arrest, Jock growls, "I'm mad as hell, boy!" LOL. Digger regains consciousness and apologizes to Cliff and Pam for his two day drinking spree. Cliff gleefully tells him he just had Jock arrested for murder, and Pam's all, "Wha-a-a-a?!" and asks him if he's lost his damn mind. As she rushes off to Southfork to see how her in-laws are handling the predicament, Cliff grins and tells Digger he finally got Jock for him, and Digger mulls that over and mumbles, "I could sure use a drink." Back at Southfork, Miss Ellie is scoffing at the notion of Jock getting arrested for murder...and Bobby and JR concur and assure her, "No one's going to convict daddy." Pam enters the room and sheepishly apologizes to Jock, and JR glares at her and cattily says, "You can be proud of your brother today." Pam pulls Bobby aside and tells him she has no idea what's gotten into Cliff and that she hates it when he and the Ewings are constantly at each other's throats and perpetuating the show's relentlessly tedious Ewing-Barnes feud. Scotty Demarest, trial lawyer extraordinaire, arrives at Southfork for his first consultation with Jock. He points out that, in theory, anyone who was alive twenty-five years ago could have killed Hutch McKinney - but then tells Jock it would really help if he had an alibi for the night of the alleged killing. A few seconds later, JR gets a call from the apartment manager of Sue Ellen's love nest in Forth Worth, informing him that his wife was picked up by the police after drunkenly trashing the apartment. Bobby scrunches his face concernedly at the distressing news and offers to go along with him. Jock recounts for Scotty the fight he got into with Hutch McKinney around the time of his disappearance...and we get a fake flashback of Jock entering a saloon on that fateful night and confronting Hutch about all the kickbacks he was getting at Southfork's expense. When he growls, "You're fired!", Hutch is all, "Wha-a-a-a?" and the two start punching each other. Hutch vows to get revenge for his firing, and Jock threatens to kill him if he doesn't leave Southfork immediately. Jock then follows Hutch back to the Southfork bunkhouse, where the two get into a second brawl (!) - and Scotty grimaces and says his story is far too damning for it to make sense to call him to the witness stand. The next morning, Jock is reading the newspaper...and the story of his murder arrest is splashed across the front page. Miss Ellie comes outside, tells him to put the paper away, and assures him there's no way he'll be convicted. When he asks whassup with the Mimosa Park project, she tells him that Matt Devlin decided not to move forward with his plans to demolish the park to build low income housing. Jock perks up at that and asks if this is the end of her and Matt hanging out...and when he remarks that she seemed to be spending a lot more time with the man than was reasonably necessary, she explains that the mastectomy left her feeling insecure and unattractive, so she was pleasantly surprised and flattered when Matt developed a romantic interest in her. She assures Jock that she loves only him and could never be unfaithful...and he tears up as the two clutch hands. Sue Ellen is sitting up in bed drinking coffee when JR enters their bedroom and snarks about him and Bobby having to drive all the way to Fort Worth to bail her out of jail. She shrugs unconcernedly and says she has no memory of trashing her love nest, then points out that her alleged antics pale in comparison to the trouble that Jock currently finds himself in. JR says there's no way his daddy is going to be convicted on the flimsy evidence that Cliff Barnes has concocted, and Sue Ellen says she figured he'd be happy if Jock got hauled off to prison, 'cause it'd mean that he'd be fully in charge of running Ewing Oil. JR shakes his head in dismay and chides her for knowing so little about him even after nine years of marriage...meaning that despite the fact that he's a fully formed adult, he continues to act like a man-child who's comfortable with his subordinate place within the Ewing patriarchy and his constant need to strive for the approval of his grizzled, misogynistic tool of a father. Bobby drops by the hospital to check on Digger and finds Pam reading the newspaper while sitting vigil at his bedside. Bobby tells her he hired a full time nurse to hover over Digger all day instead of her having to do it, then urges her to return to Southfork so she can get some much needed rest. Lyle Sloan tells Cliff that the higher ups in the DA's office are growing concerned that he's letting his personal hatred of the Ewings prejudice how vehemently he's pursuing the criminal prosecution of Jock Ewing. Well duh. He then informs Cliff that he (Lyle) will be the lead prosecutor, but that he (Cliff) will be allowed to assist. Scotty Demarest asks Jock if he knows how his .38 revolver, which was used in the killing of Hutch McKinney, disappeared - and Jock shrugs and says he has no clue when or how it went missing. Scotty mulls that over before recapping the circumstantial evidence that Cliff Barnes has cobbled together thus far...
...and concludes that, yep, it's definitely possible that a jury could convict him for murder. Bobby returns to the hospital after Pam calls to inform him that Digger has finally regained consciousness. He confronts Cliff in the hall and angrily shoves him against the wall, demanding to know whassup with him trying to convict his daddy of a thirty year old murder...and Pam emerges from her father's room to see what the commotion is all about, and snarls at the two to quit fighting. Bobby enters Digger's room and asks him if he really wants Jock to go to prison and leave Miss Ellie all alone, and Digger says he likes the idea of that first thing, but would never want to do anything that hurts the sainted Miss Ellie. Back at the courthouse, JR tells Bobby he's skeered to take the witness stand for fear it'll hurt Jock's defense, and Bobby scrunches his face concernedly. Lyle Sloan tells the judge he wants to submit the head bust that Cliff's anthropologist buddy made of the now deceased Hutch McKinney...and a few seconds later, the bailiff wheels it in, covered with a sheet. Lyle dramatically unveils the bust, and the jury and courtroom spectators titter and gasp with repulsed fascination at the grotesque representation of dead Hutch's head, which someone took a sharpie to and drew in a black bullet hole between the eyebrows. Scotty Demarest cries foul at the "mutilation" of the bust on the grounds that it's an unnecessarily icky and prejudicial visual for the jury, and the judge asks to confer with counsel in his chambers and barks at Lyle to get that revolting thing out of his courtroom, pronto. LOL. JR spots Sue Ellen lurking around the courthouse hall, sneaking a drink from her flask, and asks her whassup with her boozing it up during Jock's trial. She says she just took a sip to calm her nerves, and he glares at her in disgust while handing her mouth spray so that the courtroom spectators don't smell the alcohol on her breath. Ray takes the witness stand and testifies that Jock willingly handed over the thirty year employment records for Southfork, which led to the unfortunate discovery that it was former ranch who had been buried on his ranch. Digger's sister Maggie arrives at the hospital, and Pam greets her with a hug and tearfully tells her that Digger's not doing so well. Maggie wryly says she pretty much assumed that her deadbeat wino of a brother would one day end up like this. Kyle Sloan puts JR on the witness stand, holds up the murder weapon, and asks him if he recognizes it. JR confirms that it's the .38 service revolver that was formally presented to Jock by his father-in-law during a presentation ceremony...then is forced to admit that he has no recollection of Jock ever mentioning that it had gone missing sometime after Hutch McKinney's disappearance. It remains unclear why he refrains from reminding Kyle that he was five years old at the time, which makes the testimony he just gave wholly irrelevant. After JR's testimony, Kyle puts a former Southfork ranch hand named Virgil on the stand, who testifies that Jock burst into the bunkhouse around midnight, pulled Hutch out of bed, and threatened to kill him if he didn't leave the ranch this second. The two exited the bunkhouse...and a short time later Jock reentered the bunkhouse to wash off blood that for some yet unexplained reason was splattered all over him. When someone quietly tiptoes into the courtroom and discreetly tells Cliff that Digger is likely to kick the bucket any second, he requests a recess...and the judge agrees to adjourn until tomorrow morning. Cliff ambles over to where Miss Ellie is sitting and tells her that Digger is dying and has requested her presence, and she promises to head over to the hospital pronto. As Cliff, Pam, Maggie, Miss Ellie, and Bobby hover over Digger on his death bed, he announces that he's about to drop a huge bombshell on all of them. He starts off by telling Miss Ellie he still looooves her and can't, in good conscience, let Cliff ruin her life by railroading Jock with a faux murder conviction. He then tells the story - with the aid of a fake sepia-tinged flashback - of a three day bender he went on thirty years ago...and that when he finally crawled home was startled to find Hutch McKinney canoodling his wife Rebecca (a-ha! mystery solved about who RB is with respect to the belt buckle inscription To HM, With love, RB). Rebecca (who's played by Victoria Principal so she can eerily resemble Pam) tells Digger that she's running off with Hutch, the love of her life, who 1) knocked her up and 2) just got fired by Jock Ewing. Digger shrieks, "Whore!" and backhands Rebecca across the face, which provokes a fist fight between him and Hutch...and Digger ends the brawl by reaching for the [stolen from Jock] pistol he has in his pocket and firing, hitting Hutch squarely between the eyes. Digger then snaps out of his fake flashback and recalls that he dragged Hutch to his car, drove to Southfork to bury the body and murder weapon, and moved to Corpus Christi with young Cliff. Pam stares at him in tearful horror and asks what ever happened to the baby that Hutch fathered, and when Digger just stares back at her mutely, she moans, "Meeeee..?" Digger nods, assures her he always loved her as if he were her bio dad, then stops talking when his head suddenly flops to one side and the machines he's hooked up let out a flatline beep noise. Pam is in bed at Southfork, looking zonked after being given a mild sedative. The doctor tells Bobby that she's physically OK, but will likely need counseling to overcome the shock/relief (?) that she was never Digger's spawn. Jock informs his family that the DA dropped the murder charges against him...and when JR apologizes to him for having to testify, Jock assures him it's OK, then gruffly grizzles, "You did it like a man." He then muses about how grateful he is to Digger for pulling his fat out of the fire at the eleventh hour, and Miss Ellie just shakes her head incredulously and says she simply can't believe that the wino who's been slowly killing himself with binge-drinking for the last forty years has finally slipped away. Cliff, Pam, Maggie, and Bobby are in attendance at Digger's funeral...staring despondently into space as the minister recites Psalms 23. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
1 Comment
Amina
4/24/2020 03:13:12 am
Digger did the right thing, but poor Pamela
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Dallas homepageRecapper: Isabel K. French
Your contributions help keep the site ad-free
|
|