Dallas: Trial and Error Recap

The latest installment of Dallas Season 2 , Trial and Error, (2/18/2013) began with Ann Ewing storming into Harris Ryland’s hospital room to fuss about his false accusation as to who really shot him. Everybody knows this is ridiculous, don’t we? She can’t just barge into anyone’s hospital room like that. But not as ridiculous as Judith Ryland fluttering around calling for security. If Ryland’s haggy mom is any kind of menace, it’s an incompetent one. While Ann and Harris exchange unpleasantries, baby girl Emma shows up in the hall and gets a hint that her daddy just may not be the hero she thought. We see the first crack in her cold facade.

When Ann leaves, she drops her keys and notices she’s wearing the same boots she had on when she shot Harris. Lo! and behold, there is blood splatter on them that she didn’t notice when she put them on earlier. She turns the boots over to the police with her confession. And that’s only the beginning of the incredulous stuff in this episode, but let’s just go through it, shall we?

Cliff takes his daughter to task for Frank’s death and sleeping with John Ross. Weepy Pamela promises to clean up her act and be an asset in the Ewing Energies grab. He reminds her that “John Ross is as Machiavellian as his father,” then he calls up J.R. to inform him of the duplicity of John Ross.

Bobby is cleared and Ann is indicted for the attempted murder of Harris Ryland. Their attorney Lou is confident a “sudden passion defense” will get them jury nullification. Then we skip right to the trial a month later where the whole Ewing clan shows up, even Sue Ellen. And we’re wondering what the hell Pamela Barnes is doing there, too. And why she continues to NOT look like the product of Cliff and Afton’s relationship and where she got that big scar between her eyebrows. (A childhood accident suffered by Julie Gonzalo).

Harris Ryland’s mother Judith took the stand, spewing false and defamatory statements with such bitter venom that the judge kicked her out and ordered her testimony stricken. It turned out Pamela was there as a character witness at Ann’s requests. Christopher went into attack mode as usual while Elena tried to play referee as usual. Pamela tried to be reasonable but warned Christopher if he kept it up, she would take her company and babies to Bermuda. Then Pamela ran into John Ross who mistook her thankfulness for telling her daddy about Frank as a reconciliation gesture. It wasn’t.

Clyde was still tailing Drew Ramos, who has been back and forth to Laredo 4 times and Clyde is sure he’s “riding dirty.” When Drew makes a quick stop at a BBQ joint, Clyde sneaks over and knocks a tail light out.

Sue Ellen, in the meantime, prevailed upon J.R. to forgive their son for cozying up to Cliff and cops to giving Cliff’s number to John Ross. J.R. wants to stay on Sue Ellen’s good side, so he tells John Ross he’ll do it. The little snot says he doesn’t need J.R.’s forgiveness. “You don’t need my wrath either. We dinosaurs are known to bite,” J.R. rejoined. Right then, John Ross got a call from Clyde about Drew being arrested. J.R. said that violated the morals clause in Sue Ellen’s contract with Elena. John Ross seemed surprised that J.R. knew about that and J.R. observed that his son still doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.

Bobby and Christopher see Vicente Cano in the halls of justice. (That wasn’t Carlos Bernard playing him, was it?) Christopher is about to blow another gasket to learn Vicente is getting an extradition hearing. Do we need to go into why they would bring Vicente back?

As the trial proceeded, a detective described the difference between premeditated crimes and crimes of passion and a trauma surgeon backed up that testimony. Harris Ryland was wheeled in to describe Ann as a seriously unfit mother he had to save his child from. Even Bobby was beginning to wonder who the bleep did he marry. On Ann’s side, Pamela testified that Ann was good. Only extreme provocation could have driven her to shoot someone. Ann got to tell her own tale of how Harris took her ugly, tall, penniless ass out to fine restaurants, then married her and everything was hearts and roses until Judith poisoned their relationship. After Emma’s birth, she was on medication for postpartum depression, made worse by the combined abuse of the Rylands. All this seemed painful for Emma to hear and she must have thought the truth was somewhere in the middle of these polar opposite stories. Christopher was surely checking out her confusion because outside, he took it upon himself to try to persuade Emma to be honest.

But on the stand, Emma confirmed she heard Ann say she shot Harris and wished he was dead. Emma praised her father for helping her become a professional horsewoman (after all, dressage is so much more important than a mother) and said she is grateful he rescued her from her mother everyday. Christopher came to the conclusion that his little babies were not going to go to be put through terrible parental tug-of-wars so he agreed to mediation with Pamela, who let him feel the babies kicking in her belly. Christopher almost burst into tears and it even looked like there might still be some feelings for Pamela he hasn’t dealt with. Back at home, Cliff was exultant that Pamela “got” Christopher “to the table.”

The next day, Ann was found guilty of attempted murder. And that, at least, seemed pretty credible because she did after all go over there with a gun. We think lawyer Lou was blowing smoke with the sudden passion defense. No matter what else happened, the jury knew she didn’t have to go to Ryland’s house with a gun.

In the previews, somebody’s holding a gun on Elena. We saw Drew with a gun, too. (Elena bailed him out of jail). We’re not taking any guesses on who shoots J.R. this time, are you? You know they cut up those previews to deliberately mislead you.

Dallas Trivia: “Trial and Error” was also the name of Episode 23 in Season 8 of the original Dallas, when Jenna Wade was on trial for the murder of Naldo Marchetta.