Dallas: Sins of the Fathers Recap

The third episode of the second season of Dallas (2/4/2013) was entitled “Sins of the Fathers” and it began with Christopher hauling Becky down to the police station to report Tommy as a missing person. Becky doesn’t want to but Christopher puts the pressure on with his favorite threat – you’ll go to jail. She tells the cop that Tommy was 5’8″ and weighed 200 lbs. Christopher corrects that to 6′ and 175 lbs. Christopher plays the tape for the officer with Rebecca, whom he is now calling Pamela Barnes, threatening Tommy. He doesn’t play the part with Becky asking for her cut.

Becky goes to Pamela Rebecca and demands a million dollars, in front of Frank, so she can disappear to a Christopher Ewing-free zone. If she doesn’t get paid, she will assist Christopher in her destruction. And we’re sitting there thinking, who does that? You just found out that it’s quite possible this woman killed your brother and you go and try to extort money from her, right in front of scary looking Frank? Whatever, Rebecca tells Frank to just pay her and get rid of her. It sure looked like Frank skipped straight to the last part. Becky never made it to the hearing to recant her prior testimony. Poof! There goes Christopher’s annulment petition.

Bobby informs Ann that Emma was never kidnapped and it was Harris Ryland who took her from the fair. Bobby set up some kind of meeting at the police station, but Ann says it’s too late. Bobby convinces her to fight for her daughter, who has a right to know that she is not the monster Ryland made her out to be. So Ann, of the weepy, mushy face, goes to the police station where she runs into Ryland’s evil mother, who tells her she’s been waiting 20 years to let her know this: “You were nothing but an egg donor for Harris. You were never good enough to be his wife.” Ann gets in an Oedipus dig and Bobby promises to get even with all the Rylands. Then Ann pleads with this Emma kid who is a real cold-hearted smart ass (and no wonder, with such wicked role models).

Ann admits to being quite the tranquilizer-addicted mess, driven to such a predicament by Harris, but Emma’s not buying it. Ann produces her box of Emma’s baby things to prove her love. It did look like Emma might be moved for a moment, but instead she coldly told Ann to hit the bricks. Later, a detective informed Bobby that the police couldn’t touch Ryland because it wasn’t kidnapping. It was custodial interference, and the statute of limitations had run out. Shoot, and speaking of that, Ann slips out the back and heads over to confront Ryland who sadistically taunts her after making her prove that she’s not wearing a wire. Ann pulls out her gun and shoots Harris Ryland. We’d like to say dead because he surely deserves it, but it looked like Ann is a bad shot under extreme emotional duress. She was close enough to him to get him straight in the heart but that bullet hole was on his left side. Whatever, there goes her chance to prove to Emma that she’s not a monster.

Being pregnant with twins hasn’t put a damper on Pamela Rebecca’s libido one bit and she’s been sweating up the sheets with John Ross, but she warns him not to think she’s weak just because of a little roll in the hay — it’s business and she likes to be on top. Later J.R. shows John Ross the clause in Elena’s contract that will enable Sue Ellen to call in her loan and puts his son up to turning Sue Ellen against Elena, who stomped all over John Ross’ heart like a “brahma bull going after a rodeo clown.” Sue Ellen must be bored because John Ross didn’t even have to use his puppy dog eyes to get her to waltz over to Elena’s office and make “bitch on wheels” demands.

Who knew Elena had a brother? Well, she does and his name is Drew, and Elena isn’t all that keen about his return. But Drew is over his wild days and now he just wants to drill on the land their father owned to carry on daddy’s legacy. He is pretty miffed when Elena discloses that their mama sold the land to Bobby (but thank goodness he didn’t say it was his birth right!) Elena brings him in on her little oil drilling problem with Sue Ellen, but John Ross is out bribing foreman Brian to make sure it’s going to take a long time to hit that oil.

The police were not fooled by Pamela Rebecca’s little act, trying to insinuate that if Tommy met with foul play, it was probably Christopher’s doing. They found Tommy’s blood in the condo, but without a weapon or body, they can’t do much about it. J.R. pays Frank a visit and tells him that it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that Frank knows where the body is and, after pushing Frank’s insecurity buttons, he wants Cliff’s protegé to join forces with him in destroying Cliff’s progeny. Frank points out that if Tommy’s body suddenly turned up, Cliff would know Frank betrayed him, but J.R.’s got his back — he can make a body turn up in the middle of a Sunday church service with no one knowing how it got there. Frank still can’t see why he should trust J.R. (and neither do we). J.R. says it’s because there’s nothing sweeter than two enemies working together against a common enemy. J.R. is not the only one to get wind of the high velocity blood spatter at the condo – John Ross drops by to ask Rebecca what really happened, but she doesn’t tell him, at least not in this episode. She has some more sex with him.

Before Ann shot Harris Ryland, Bobby went to J.R. for help in fixing Ryland’s wagon and J.R. told him not to worry — it would be his masterpiece. We do think Harris is going to live — but J.R. ought to save any tricks he’s got up his sleeve for saving Ann from a long jail sentence. Then you’ve got the coming attractions, showing handcuffs being slapped on Bobby, not Ann. Is that why the next episode is entitled “False Confession.”?