Episode Report Card Pablo G: A- | 467 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Homecoming
By Pablo G | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2011.09.21
Cut to Conrad Grayson popping out from under the sheets of a hotel bed on top of Lydia Davis. They're totally trysting. This is what a tryst looks like. Big smiles and passionate kisses. Conrad throws on a hotel robe and gets up to get some champagne when he suddenly clutches his chest in pain. He collapses into a chair and blurs as we sharpen focus on an empty bowl of food in the foreground.
We're at a seaside bar. Jack Porter is bartending and teaching little brother Declan how to charge credit cards as a group of high school girls come in and sit at a table. Dec happily volunteers to wait on them when a co-worker balks at the prospect. As he takes off to wait the table, a man in a suit comes into the bar, asking Jack for the owner. Jack's dad intercepts the man, who is from the bank it turns out, and takes him back to his office. Jack seems troubled by this. Meanwhile, Dec greets the girls and they immediately order alcohol. He dutifully asks to see ID and they offer some bullshit excuse about simply leaving their IDs at the beach and offer money instead. Dec declines the bribe, so the girl who's been doing all the talking pulls out her ace in the hole. She offers her phone number. Dec is all doofy smiles.
Conrad is carted out of the hotel on a stretcher and into an ambulance. Lydia is by his side and asking questions of the paramedics that seem more like she needs information to cover her tracks than they're out of concern for Conrad. Just then, Amanda runs up to Lydia and innocently asks if that's her husband and if she needs a ride to the hospital. Lydia doesn't know how to respond for a moment and just says she doesn't need a ride and runs off. Amanda stares into the back of the ambulance with the beginnings of a sideways smirk on her face.
Amanda has left the Southfork Inn and is coming out of a dress boutique. She stops when she spots Jack playing fetch with his dog Sammy. FLASHBACK: Amanda meets Jack on the beach when she was a kid. They introduce themselves as they play fetch with Sammy, but back then Sammy was Amanda's puppy. /FLASHBACK. The dog naturally wanders over to Amanda out of recognition. She utters his name and he jumps up on her, but she hides her emotion of being reunited with her puppy when Jack tries to call his dog off of her. They both crouch down over Sammy. For a brief moment, Amanda's face goes blank when she gets a good look at Jack's adult face for the first time, but he doesn't notice because he's preoccupied with the mess Sammy's caused. Jack offers up a nearby dry cleaners that will give Amanda a discount if she just mentions him and offers to put Amanda on his tavern's official comp list if she'll just give her name, but Amanda's emotions start to catch up with her and she awkwardly bails in response to Jack's complete good guy package. Jack stares at her as she gets in her car and a look of, "Where have I seen that face before?" slowly washes over his face.