In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Everything seems to have been pretty peaceful on Southfork in the years since we last checked in on the Ewing clan. This doesn't last, of course. Bobby, whose been running things with his wife Ann, finds out he has cancer, but doesn't want to tell anybody until he's had a chance to dramatically clutch at his abdomen in pain a few times. His adopted son Christopher returns home looking for investors to fund his new alternative fuel project. When the investors shy away, Bobby decides to give him the money by selling Southfork. Like these people don't just have jillions of dollars at the ready. He aims to sell Southfork to a conservancy that will keep the land pristine, just like his mama wanted. His nephew, John Ross, has other ideas. Weaselly ideas. He and his girlfriend Elena sneak around and discover a huge amount of oil on the Ewing property, but Bobby forbids their drilling it.
John Ross goes fussing to his daddy about it. This is J.R. Ewing himself, once Dallas's foremost oil baron and ladies' man, now sitting unresponsive and alone in a (very fancy) nursing home. He's roused from his coma-like depression upon hearing Junior's news. He puts on his thinking cap – his cowboy hat – and starts coming up with ways to get Southfork back for himself. This involves all manner of shady double-dealings.
Meanwhile, Christopher is getting ready to marry his fiancée Rebecca. She seems sweet, but girl has some crazy eyes on her. Disappointingly, fisticuffs do not break out at the wedding, even though there's plenty of bad blood between Christopher and John Ross. It turns out Elena and Christopher were once engaged, but Christopher broke up with Elena via a shitty email. Except he didn't! So maybe it was John Ross who really sent the email so he could have Elena for himself! Except he didn't! It's the dullest subplot of the episode.
Christopher begs his father not to sell Southfork. For one thing, it's the family's heritage! For another thing, his new methane extraction process is totally causing earthquakes and killing people in China. Oops. Also? Sue Ellen Ewing looks amazing. Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Welcome back to Southfork Ranch, everybody! Hidden among the trees, a crew drills for oil. A computer beeps out a warning and a woman with long black hair wakes up and starts shouting at them to pull the drill. "Wake up, John Ross!" A young man pops up in his cot and everyone goes running over to the drill. Crude oil geysers out and rains down on everyone as they gaze skyward, their mouths agape. After everybody gets their stomachs pumped, the woman asks John Ross how he's going to tell Bobby. Apparently, nobody's ever been allowed to drill on Southfork. John Ross isn't worried, though, because he's cocky like that.
Elsewhere, Bobby is getting the news from his doctor that he has a gastrointestinal stromal tumor. Bobby reminds his doctor not to tell anyone, because he knows doctor-patient confidentiality is kind of an iffy prospect on TV. He'll tell his family himself after his son gets married in a couple of days so that his whole impending death drama doesn't bring everybody's mood down.
Cue the opening credits. The music, the imagery, even the lettering pay homage to the original. I didn't think I had any attachment to the original, only vaguely remembering it, but I may have clapped and giggled a little here.
Nostalgia's over. Bobby's son Christopher tries to talk some investors into funding his quest for alternative fuels. In this case, it's methane, which he demonstrates by setting a frozen chunk of it on fire over their country club lunch. (As an aside, I am shocked to discover Jesse Metcalfe is 33. He looks like he's barely out of high school.) The investors offer him a crap deal, which he doesn't take, saying, "I ain't a virgin, but I ain't a whore, either." A young lady in a sexy tennis outfit saunters up to him, speaking French, and drags him off to the women's locker room for some tonsil hockey. Or, as they say in France, le hockey du tonsil. They act like they don't know each other, but she's actually his fiancée Rebecca and she's not actually French. Seems kind of rude of her to have interrupted his meeting, seeing as how she couldn't have known it was over. Also, her bra is totally wrong for tennis.
Back at the ranch, Bobby and wife Ann let us know that there's some triangle-shaped history between John Ross, Christopher and Elena. Bobby also proposes the two of them go on a cruise together, even though he hates traveling. He wants his tumor to see the world.
Meanwhile, John Ross and Elena (his drilling partner from the scene) celebrate at a bar with their wildcatting buddies. John Ross seems like a pretty great guy, offering to treat his workers and their families to a weekend trip. It doesn't last. He sneaks off to hand a wad of cash to some guy, saying, "That's for not telling my uncle about drilling on Southfork." The guy says, "Betting against J.R.'s son would have been like betting against the Dallas Cowboys -- downright unpatriotic." John Ross gets a call and goes out into the alley to meet some unseen co-conspirator in a fancy red car.
Bobby drops by an upscale nursing home to pay brother J.R. a visit. (Lord help me, but I thought Larry Hagman had died many years ago, so I was just a little confused when I heard he'd be on this show.) J.R. stares, unresponsive, out a window at the parking lot beyond. A nurse says he has clinical depression. Maybe he'd cheer up a little if he had a better view. Bobby makes an emotional speech about family and their times fighting each other and how he doesn't want Christopher and John Ross to be like they were. He tells the silent J.R. that he loves him and gives him a kiss on the forehead, just above his magnificent Lorax eyebrows. The whole thing has the flavor of a "goodbye" visit.
Everybody gathers back at Southfork for Bobby's birthday. Carmen, the Ewing family cook, is also Elena's mother. When Elena walks in on John Ross's arm, Carmen looks to Christopher and sighs, "See what you did?" Everything's all weird and awkward and Christopher stares at Elena and Rebecca has to introduce herself. Sue Ellen pulls up to the party in a hot white Porsche, looking like time forgot to have any effect on her. The Ewings need to forget about drilling for oil and methane and start prospecting for whatever it is that's keeping Sue Ellen in mint condition. Over chocolate cake, the birthday conversation turns to how Rebecca's family is all dead except for her brother and her bridesmaid can't make the wedding. John Ross decides the whole get-together wasn't quite awkward enough already, so he volunteers Elena to be Rebecca's bridesmaid. Everybody looks at him like he went to a Polaner party and asked someone to pass the jelly. Rebecca graciously accepts, but she's smiling just a little too hard. Bobby changes the subject and tries to get John Ross to go visit his father before it's too late, but John Ross would rather argue with Christopher about fossil fuels vs. alternative energies. Bobby interrupts them by announcing that he's decided to sell Southfork. He didn't want to bring everyone down with his cancer, but this was on the approved conversation list?
John Ross decides to make a case against the sale by bringing everyone to his secret drilling site. Elena thinks there are a couple billion barrels of light sweet crude down there, but Bobby doesn't want the family tearing itself apart over money again. He reminds them that his mama forbade drilling on Southfork. John Ross says, "I think we're long past caring about Miss Ellie's precious little wishes." In my mind, Miss Ellie appears in a heavenly shaft of light to slap the Dirty Sanchez he calls a mustache clean off his face. On my TV, Bobby quietly warns John Ross against ever speaking his mama's name in his presence again. The version that happened in my mind was better. Then John Ross and Christopher come to blows after John Ross snits that he's not really a Ewing and Christopher's father sold him. I... do not know the history of this. Bobby stops the fight and throws John Ross off his land.
Later that night, John Ross and Christopher gripe to their respective ladies about each other. They have the common decency to do this without their shirts. Rebecca senses that Christopher is upset about John Ross and Elena's relationship, even though he denies it.
The day, Bobby and Christopher talk to a lawyer named Mitch Lobell about selling Southfork to a land conservancy when a sheriff walks in. Reluctantly, he serves Bobby with papers. John Ross is trying to stop the sale of Southfork and is contesting Miss Ellie's will to do so. Bobby promises to give John Ross the fight of his life. Everyone makes worried faces. So Bobby turns around and kicks John Ross and all his workers off Southfork. John Ross looks like a little pipsqueak when he sulks up at Bobby and promises, "We're not done here, Uncle." I wouldn't bet on this guy on anything bigger than a game of Quarters.
Elena meets up with Rebecca at the dress shop. She compliments Rebecca's choice and then, for some reason, asks about her dead parents. Rebecca gets around to letting Elena know that she knows Christopher and Elena used to be a thing. Rebecca smiles the whole time, but her eyes look just a little too intense.
Christopher is at his office when he gets a video call from a team member in China. The guy tells him they triggered an earthquake while tapping into a cache of methane and warns him their methods aren't safe. Perhaps they should try dropping a little Beano down in there first. One of Chris's employees overhears the convo with interest.
John Ross pays his daddy a visit in the nursing home and makes an impassioned plea for help. And by "impassioned," I mean "whiny and desperate." He complains that Bobby's selling Southfork in order to fund Christopher's project. J.R. sits there without moving, seemingly having heard not a word. Then with a quiet rumble, he pronounces Bobby a fool and calls Christopher a "foundling." J.R. gets a gleam of fire in his pale, old eyes and commands his son to fetch them up some fried chicken and red Jell-O. There's bellies to be filled and plots to be hatched!
John Ross convinces Elena to go check up on Christopher. When she resists, he plays on her insecurities by telling her she'll always be just the cook's daughter to the Ewings. He reminds her Christopher just used her and threw her away. So she drops by Chris's office, makes him some coffee, chats about the old days, notices the news article on his laptop about the earthquake... He explains the whole disaster to her. She asks him if he's happy with Rebecca and they make hurt eyes at each other. She gives him back her old engagement ring and leaves near tears.
Later, she lies to John Ross that they didn't talk about Christopher's work. How is an entire earthquake a secret? Why wouldn't it be on the news?
Bobby's tumor wakes him up in the middle of the night. Ann, thinking it's nothing more than a bit of indigestion, goes to fetch him some Tums from the kitchen. That's when she hears someone rustling around in Bobby's office. She grabs a gun from the kitchen cabinet and chases away a masked intruder instead of shooting him in the face. What kind of Texan is she? When she goes back to Bobby's office, she finds his cancer meds on the floor.
The masked intruder shows up at Christopher's office, where he hands one of the workers an envelope of money. In exchange, the worker lets him download a bunch of files off the computers. In this job market, you'd think it'd be easier to hire loyal employees.
The day of the wedding. For some reason, Mitch has scheduled Bobby's meeting with a lady from the land conservancy for the same day. Neither of them has ever met her or even heard of her, but her dad's supposed to be a big deal, so hey, why not trust her with your family's legacy? Her name is Marta Del Sol and takes Bobby up in her helicopter to tour the ranch. She makes a convincing pitch for choosing the Del Sol Conservancy. Bobby's tumor tries to warn him that something is sneaky, but he ignores it.
Getting back to the wedding, Bobby starts telling people that he's going to sell Southfork. Before Charlene Tilton and Steve Kanaly can make much of their cameos, Christopher drags his father off for a private confab. They're interrupted when Rebecca's brother Tommy comes bounding up to them, having just arrived. He looks like a slightly taller version of John Ross, possibly because he doesn't appear to have his head up his ass. Meanwhile, Sue Ellen and her son chat about the sale. John Ross is bitter because his mother "hid him away" in boarding school and kept him away from his father. She offers to use her powerful connections to help him and suddenly he's not quite as bitter anymore. A member of the serving staff stops by and tells John Ross he has a phone call, but it's just a ruse to give him the flash drive full of info he stole from Christopher. Again with the shitty employees!
John Ross sneaks off to look at the drive's contents. Among the files is a grammatically atrocious news item about the Chinese quake. Still not understanding how any of this stuff is a secret. Maybe someone should introduce John Ross to Google and save him a buttload of payoff money. John Ross confronts Christopher about it. "What do you think your dad would say if he knew your little experiment caused the death of thousands of people?" He'd say, "Why wasn't this on the news?!" John Ross threatens to expose his cousin unless he convinces Bobby not to sell the ranch. Instead of putting his boot up his ass, Christopher walks away. He goes to Elena and accuses her of tattling on him to John Ross. She's utterly confused and I'm utterly distracted. This woman's skin is drawn so tight it probably sounds like a snare drum when she goes out in the rain. At some point, she slaps Christopher and it snaps the both of us back to the present. They air out their mutual hurt feelings over the past. Chris thinks Elena jilted him and Elena thinks Chris jilted her. She accuses him of sending her an email on their wedding day, breaking up with her, but this is news to him. He says he waited at the altar for her and thought she had died or something. Maybe he should have checked with her mother. Anyway, so she hooked up with John Ross in Mexico after that and they both cry and look like they're going to kiss, but don't.
Christopher goes back to John Ross and gets all up in his face. "I know it was you," he says. They glare hotly at each other. This is where a manly brawl should have broken out, but it doesn't. Instead, Christopher confesses everything to his father and plans to go back to the drawing board. He also says he feels the need to earn his way into the family. Bobby tries to protest, but Christopher cuts him off. He promises to make the Ewing name the big thing in alternative energies. So Bobby goes back to Marta and shakes hands on a tentative agreement. John Ross stomps off in a huff.
Thankfully, we don't have to sit through the whole wedding ceremony, and just cut to the "I pronounce you" part and Elena trying not to look too obviously sad.
John Ross heads to his daddy's room at the nursing home in a drunken stupor. J.R. is up and about and looking more like his old self. Marta is also there, much to John Ross's confusion. J.R. says he's known Marta since she was a little girl. John Ross realizes they've been working together all along. "What's Uncle Bobby gonna do when he finds out?" he asks. "Bobby may not be stupid," J.R. says, "but I'm a helluva lot smarter." With that, he puts on his cowboy hat and the show finally starts.
The episode ends with the driver of the fancy red sports car pulling up at Cowboys Stadium. It's Marta, and she walks out onto the field to meet John Ross. They make flirty eyes at each other. "You were right not to trust J.R.," she tells him. He puts on his cowboy hat, but it doesn't seem quite as epic as when his daddy did it. "The fun," he promises, "is just beginning."
Tippi Blevins is patiently awaiting a reboot of the TV classic about her own hometown -- Houston Knights. Email her at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her on Twitter.