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The police formally charge John Ross with the murder of Marta/Victoria. For some reason, John Ross doesn't ask for a lawyer. Instead, he only talks to Elena, so that he can tell her he confronted Marta after he thought she would hurt her. He denies having any other dealings with her and for some reason, nobody searches his home for evidence to the contrary. For some reason, he also "can't make bail," so he ends up in the county jail. It's all kind of weird and not very well explained. Vicente is not pleased because John Ross can't drill oil while he's in the pokey, so he gets some inmates to beat him to a pulp. At some point, John Ross realizes that Vicente is behind Marta's murder and that he has the secret camera recording that could exonerate him.
While John Ross recuperates in the hospital, the rest of the Ewing family rallies to his aid. When Vicente threatens to take Southfork, even Bobby decides it's time to start drilling on Miss Ellie's land. The plan is to pay off Vicente by honoring his shady deal with J.R., but wussy little Christopher finally makes himself useful and offers up his methane, instead. Vicente is placated, at least for now, and hands over the secret recording. Alas, this happens too late for Sue Ellen, who has bribed and blackmailed the medical examiner who's in charge of Marta's autopsy. The doc rules it a suicide when it's clearly not and everything promises to explode in Sue Ellen's face like a freshly tapped oil well.
All these troubles have made Christopher realize that life is too short to be mad... or something... so he decides to give Rebecca another chance. He has a background check run on her and it comes up clean, which seems to surprise even Rebecca. Christopher asks her if she's keeping any other secrets and she totally lies and says she isn't. There's a big Tommy-shaped secret that threatens to ruin everything... with sexy results! Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Police headquarters. John Ross has a chat with Elena in an interrogation room. The lighting makes her look even more disturbingly gaunt than usual. She looks like she's in a horror movie in a couple of shots. John Ross turns out to be a pretty decent liar when he explains what he was doing in Marta's hotel room. He leaves out the parts about his history with her (sexual and otherwise) but still manages to keep in the stuff that makes him look like a hero for trying to protect Elena. Well done, little bastard. Well done. A detective comes in and rattles off a list of incriminating evidence they've found. To John Ross's dismay, the camera Marta was using to record the meeting is not on that list. The detective arrests him and carts him off for his mugshots. Cue opening credits.
Sue Ellen visits her baby boy at the county jail and tells him she's hired the best criminal defense lawyer in the country. Why didn't he ask for a lawyer when the cops were questioning him? This whole subplot is kind of weak. Anyway, Sue Ellen says that Elena thinks he's holding something back. "You better not be protecting your father, John Ross. I will not let you fall on that sword." John Ross insists it's not his father's fault. He admits to having an "affair" with Marta after Elena accused him of sending that damnable email. When he's reluctant to say anything else, Sue Ellen wonders if J.R.'s investors are involved. She wants to track down his father, but John Ross insists he can handle things for himself. He can barely do up the buttons on his own jumpsuit.
Christopher drives Rebecca home from... someplace. This isn't still the same day as the ultrasound, is it? As they sit in the car, they talk about relationship stuff and parenting. What it boils down to is that Christopher will be a father to his kids, but he doesn't want to get back together with Rebecca.
The morning, some sheriff guy shows up at Southfork to give Bobby and Ann a bit of background on Marta/Veronica. For some reason, nobody ever mentions that the police had been looking for her in connection with the shady conservancy deal. John Ross is their only suspect even though everyone knows she works with criminals. Elena walks in from outside (nobody ever knocks even if they don't live there) and says John Ross's lawyer "doesn't even know if he'll make bail." That seems unlikely, given his rich, well-connected family. The only thing that could possibly hold him back is a plot point. Christopher starts to leave all in a huff when Elena calls him back and asks him to say what's on his mind. He says John Ross has nobody to blame but himself. "You play with snakes long enough, you get bit." Unless they're egg-eating snakes. Those will just gum you, and then only if you're an egg. Anyway, leave it to Christopher to make what should have been a "true dat" moment and turn it into a "shut up, whiny whiner" moment. Elena tries to appeal to Christopher's past friendship with John Ross, but Christopher would rather cling to his current bitterness. Everyone gives him disappointed looks as he leaves for work. On his way out, he catches up the sheriff and asks him to do a background check on Rebecca.
Man, the rules at this jail seem really lax. A guard brings John Ross into private room for a meeting with Vicente, then just leaves him there unattended. John Ross wants the camera, which he assumes Vicente's men took. "How could you do it?" he asks. "Marta had problems, but she wasn't dangerous." Well, actually, she kind of was. Vicente reminds John Ross that he was the one who told them about her thieving ways. John Ross looks shocked. Did it really take him that long to connect those two very-near dots? John Ross threatens to tell the cops everything. "Be very careful, Mr. Ewing. Pointing fingers in the wrong direction can be hazardous to you and your entire family." John Ross looks shocked again. Vicente goes on to threaten to edit the video footage to make John Ross look even guiltier. Then he asks about the oil and John Ross points out it's kind of hard to do business behind bars. That's not good enough for Vicente.
Some guy from Exxon Mobil drops by Christopher's office and tries to buy the exclusive rights to his methane extraction doohickey. Christopher damned near giggles with amusement because he's like the girl who used to be unpopular in high school and then ends up being the hottest one at the reunion. You had your chance, Exxon guy!
For some reason, Ann is helping Rebecca fold laundry and being super sympathetic. Then Tommy walks in and the awkwardness in the room jumps about ten degrees. Rebecca doesn't want him there, so Ann leaps to her aid. She offers to set Tommy up as a ranch hand at her cousin's ranch in Oklahoma. It must be a cousin she really hates. Even Rebecca's making a "WTF?" face. Tommy acts like the idea sounds totally peachy to him.
Meanwhile, Bobby is surprised to find a bunch of Venezuelans on his doorstep. Vicente explains how he holds the lien on Southfork. If he doesn't get the oil, he'll take ownership of the ranch. Bobby looks like he wants to punch him all the way back to Venezuela, but settles for telling him that the mineral rights don't come with the deal. "So you can call in your note, but you will never pump a drop of oil on Southfork," he says. "And I think it would be in your best interest to get the hell out of my house." He is kind of quietly crazy and scary. I like this Bobby better than the preachy one.
Down at the county jail, John Ross is in the middle of making a phone call when two fellow inmates approach him. "We got a message from Vicente," one of them says. "He doesn't like liars." A stunningly brutal fight ensues. John Ross is a scrappy little thing, but he's outnumbered. As he lies bleeding on the floor, one of his attackers leans down over him. "Tell your uncle he better get Vicente his oil, or time we kill you." He adds one final punch as punctuation.
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Bobby meets with the most useless lawyer in the world. It's the same guy who told him that the fraudulent sale of Southfork was somehow totally legit. He basically tells Bobby he's screwed with Vicente now, too. Bobby rails and flails and offers up some avenues they might explore, but his lawyer remains steadfastly useless. Ann interrupts to tell them that John Ross is in the hospital. Everyone rushes over to find Sue Ellen already there. "They beat him senseless!" she tells them. He was halfway there when they started. Bobby, realizing that Vicente is behind the attack, urges Sue Ellen to contact John Ross's lawyer and get him out on bail. Even Christopher looks distraught.
Sue Ellen and Ann have a chat in the waiting area. Ann tries to be reassuring, but Sue Ellen feels like she hasn't done all she can for her own son. When she says she's going to have to cross moral lines like J.R. does, Ann all but cheers her on. Perhaps Ann has crossed a few lines in her past, in the name of maternal duty.
John Ross wakes up to find Christopher sitting at his bedside. He thinks his cousin has come to lecture him, but Christopher offers his support. Christopher tells him he should tell the police, but John Ross refuses. "I've already put our family through enough. These men are dangerous, Christopher." He also tells Christopher about the video that Vicente is holding hostage. John Ross seems truly regretful for what he's done. "If I wasn't so damned desperate to drill that oil...To measure up to J.R."
Speaking of our favorite old devil. J.R., still in Vegas, gets a call from Bum to tell him the bad news.
Bobby pays a visit to the family plot and brings flowers to his mama's grave. He's decided to drill on Southfork in order to protect the family, as crazy and dysfunctional as they may be.
He announces his decision to the living members of the family, but Christopher has another idea. "Venezuelans want oil? Well, I can give them something better." Bobby tries to talk him out of it, but Christopher is determined to have his turn with taking care of the family. It's a noble gesture, but kind of dumb. Elena listens and cries. Why doesn't she offer to hand over some of that Henderson oil? That was last week's plan, wasn't it?
we have a subplot that illustrates the importance of communication. While Christopher is hatching is nobly dumb plan, Sue Ellen visits the county medical examiner. He tells her he can't talk to her about the case, but he doesn't try very hard to get her to leave. "That woman was highly unstable," Sue Ellen says of Marta. "It was a suicide, and your report needs to confirm that." The doctor looks wary. Sue Ellen offers him the post of Chief Medical Examiner like she's already got the governorship in the bag. She also threatens to expose him for writing bogus prescriptions, seeing as how all his patients are dead. See, I would have led with that. No need to offer a carrot when the stick will do.
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Late at night, J.R. sneaks into John Ross's room. He pats his sleeping boy's hair and looks sad. Then he looks maybe a little angry. If I were Vicente, I'd be worried.
Back to Christopher's nobly dumb plot. He goes to Casa de Cano to offer Vicente a piece of his hot methane action. I think he just likes setting blocks of frozen methane on fire. Vicente is reluctant, but Christopher eventually manages to convince him that there's more untapped natural gas off the coasts of South America than there is oil under Southfork. Now he's going to be stuck doing business with these crooks for however long Ewing Alternative Energies is in business. He also gets Vicente to add the hotel video to the deal.
Sue Ellen visits her son to tell him she's spoken to the M.E. She doesn't say she bribed him, of course, and she nearly blows it when the detectives come in to tell John Ross the charges have been dropped. Sue Ellen: "Just when you're ready to lose faith in the system, somebody comes along and rules it a suicide!" Detective: "Uh, no, we found the camera." Sue Ellen: "Oopsie!" And that, kiddies, is why it's important to hatch your various dark plots with the entire family. Or at least send them a text now and then.
Sue Ellen brings John Ross back to Southfork, where Elena greets him with hugs and kisses. Sue Ellen gets a call from the M.E. He is pretty pissed at having needlessly risked his career as well as letting the real killer walk. Christopher and John Ross make nice. Christopher says he realized they have something common, that they're both just trying to make their fathers proud. They shake hands. Bobby congratulates his son on a job well done. No way Bobby can be happy with the new Venezuelan deal. Everybody's in a pretty good mood for now, except for Sue Ellen, who goes to gripe at Ann a little bit for not keeping her in the loop. Mostly, though, she seems upset at herself for being a dishonest politician, even though that kind of seems to be a job requirement.
Christopher goes to see Rebecca. He gives her a copy of the background check her had done. "It's clean," he says. She looks very slightly surprised, but tells him she wants him to be able to trust her again. Christopher says he's tired of being angry. "I want to let it go, Rebecca, but I'm not sure if I can." He asks her if she's keeping any other secrets from him. She assures him she isn't, but later, when she's alone, she goes over the results of the background check with a frown. When Tommy walks in, she hides the papers. "What part of 'get the hell out' don't you understand?" she asks. "You got your payout, now get the hell out of here." He gets all up in her face. "Sorry, sis," he says. He tells her he's got a buyer waiting for Christopher's methane doohickey. He backs her up against the wall and forces a kiss on her. She shoves him away. "Now, are you so deep in this lie that you still think we're brother and sister?" he asks. "Because if you don't steal me that technology, I'm going to tell Christopher everything." He kisses her on the cheek as she cries. The show totally should have left the fake sibling reveal for week and milked this scene for water cooler chat. This, and John Ross's jail plot, were resolved too quickly. Not that most of us didn't see it coming, but they're already running out of potential cliffhangers and could have used any amount of suspense they had left.
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