Vicente Cano, Venezuelan oiligarch/crimelord/and all-around bad guy, finds himself in his country’s consulate building in the norteamericano city of Dallas. The consul is quite embarrassed by Cano’s actions during his summer vacation last year — murder, extortion, and corporate espionage just to name a few — and would leave him to rot in a yanqui prison if not for the long reach of Cano’s corrupt politician friends back in the mother country. A sweet extradition deal has been worked out and by tomorrow, Vicente will be back in Venezuela sipping tropical drinks surrounded by exotic round-bottomed girls (as Telemundo telenovelas have shown us). But first, he must serve a cold plate of revenge for his enemies, the Ewings.
Christopher and Pamela Barnes are in divorce mediation: Chris with good ol’ Lew Rosen and the Anti-Pam represented by a guy who appears to be Maurice Levy, the slimeball lawyer from The Wire (run, Chris!). Pamela plays hardball at first, wanting half of Ewing Energies and full custody of their unborn twins. Chris counters with 7 percent of shares, joint custody and an annulment. Finally, they agree on 10 percent and whatever else Chris wants. Chris shares the happy news with his fiancée Elena — an annulment means that they can finally plan for a Catholic wedding. Pamela shares the news with her eff-buddy John Ross, who is ready to proceed with earlier plans: he will give Ewing methane patents to Pamela and her father Cliff in exchange for their shares in the company. But Chris’ talk last week about burying hatchets for the sake of their children seems to have gotten to her and Pamela balks, opting to keep the shares. Junior (who has gone to bat for her against his dad’s express wishes) is livid and warns that he will get payback.
Sue Ellen tears into Elena, demanding the return on her loan. John Ross reminds his mom about the morals clause in the loan contract, which Elena’s brother has violated by getting busted with stolen goods in his trucking adventures. Drew decides to man up and sign a confession to his charges but not before telling Chris that he had no idea what he was schlepping, but he does know that he had to have been set up to get popped. Chris does some snooping at the office and discovers that Junior is involved. He calls Elena, who is literally right behind Drew, to report what he has found. If he admits guilt then she’s screwed. But she’s seconds too late as Drew signs the confession. Seriously?!!? I yelled at the screen. With millions of dollars on the line, couldn’t you just run in, grab the paper and eat it? Fake a seizure? Something??
Annie has her sentencing hearing and Bobby gives an impassioned plea in her defense. He then meets Emma at the stables and extends a welcome into the Ewing family. Some cracks begin to show in her icy exterior and she goes to see Annie in lockup, where Mom shares a whimsical anecdote from her years of mental cruelty suffered from Harris. The next day, Annie presents her case once again in front of the jury for leniency followed by Harris Ryland’s contractually-obligated douchebag speech to lock her up and throw away the key. The jury comes back with probation, with the judge taking special time to tell Harris that if he had a jerkface ex-husband like him, he would’ve shot him too.
Back at the ranch, the whole family is up in arms as news of Junior’s swindle of Elena hits home. Bobby’s none too pleased; he goes to his office to get the one item of leverage that he has against his brother and nephew’s nefarious schemes (the “cloud drive” that carries the info on the fraud that J. R. and Fredo committed when trying to steal Southfork last season). Bobby tries to insert the cloud drive and watches in horror as the files are deleted. It seems that J. R. (in a cute and funny scene seen earlier) sent Bobby a trojan concealed in a video that has hijacked the files. When Bobby storms into J. R.’s room, he finds it empty, but soon they will have bigger fish to fry. . .
Cano and his thugs bust in, taking the Ewings hostage. He demands that Chris return to the office with one of his men and bring back the prototype for the methane extraction thingumabob. If he’s not back in an hour then he will start cappin’, starting with Elena (I couldn’t help but note that one hour would have been a whole episode on his old show 24). Chris returns with the device and Cano heads out to a waiting helicopter with Elena as insurance. With John Ross’ help, Chris manages to overpower the mooks and goes out to confront Cano who gets shot by a sniper in their tussle. As cops descend upon the scene, Bobby is reunited with Annie and the family high-fives each other on a job well done. Pointing out that the family works best when they’re not going for each others’ throats, Bobby trusts that Sue Ellen will do the Right Thing and give back Elena’s shares.
Stupid trusting Bobby. The next day Sue Ellen is introduced as the new managing partner at Ewing Energies by a very smug John Ross. No more Mister Nice Guy, Bobby declares. If war is what they want then it’s about to get Full Metal Jacket up in here. . .
*****
And that’s Episode 206, “Blame Game!” Not much in exterior shots this episode, so we’re gonna leave our Mapscos on the shelf this week. Instead, I wanna talk about something that bugged the heck out of me: the cloud drive that Bobby was holding. Not saying that I’m the most tech-savvy guy, but a cloud drive isn’t a physical object, right? When you save something to PutLocker or Dropbox, et cetera, you’re saving to the web itself. Isn’t that what makes it a “cloud?” Wasn’t what Bobby had a flash drive (and a really bulky one at that)?
And how cute was that dog playing basketball video that J. R. IM’d Bobby with? Does anyone know if that clip was real or something the production team came up with? Even though the scene allowed us to see a touching moment between the two brothers (even if was part of an evil plan), it totally would have been keeping with J. R.’s usual level of villainy to have sent 2 Girls 1 Cup instead.
See y’all next week!
