On the eve of the big IPO for Ewing Global, everyone— family, friends, and foes—are all jockeying for position to gain control of the energy conglomerate. Cliff calls Nicolas Trevino to find out the ETA of his pardon so he can be in Dallas bright eyed and bushy-tailed for humiliating the Ewings once again, only to be told that his daughter, Pamela, now has it in her possession. Christopher and Bobby delve deeper into Trevino’s backstory; from Carlos del Sol they discover that he had changed his name to hide his criminal activities for the Cartel, and that he’s in hock to them for $600 million. Chris tries to call Elena to warn her of the potential danger from shacking up with this douchebag, but Trevino is screening her calls.
Bobby’s handpicked overseer of the IPO gets an uninvited guest at his grandson’s birthday party: John Ross. Junior has also been up to some digging and has discovered that the man has made some very unfortunate investments that could be alleviated if he makes sure that Junior’s pal Sheikh Ali (remember him?) gets controlling shares of Ewing Global. The forthright Cal later tells Bobby of his nephew’s laughable bribery scheme (John Ross Ewing III, ladies and gents: possessing the drive of the Trix Rabbit, but with half the success rate). Before Bobby can fully enjoy watching Junior’s plans go thud, an unforeseen problem arises as CNN’s coverage of the IPO (Wolf Blitzer just happened to be in town, looking to cover oil company IPO announcements at Neiman-Marcus, I suppose) reveals that Hunter McKay, the CEO of Git-It Games and nerdy scion of an old-time Ewing nemesis, has swooped in and taken majority control (48%) of the company. The Ewings later suss out that Hunter is merely the front for the Cartel and Nicolas, who takes Cliff Barnes’ 3% stake and throws it in with McKay to consolidate their hold.
Elsewhere, Harris Ryland tries to get his CIA handler to give him more time to extricate his family from the deal Emma made last episode with the Cartel to amp up the smuggling that Ryland trucks perform for the drug ring. Agent George nixes this telling Ryland that the boss of the Cartel, “El Pozolero” (“The Soup Maker”, who is based on another really bad guy of the same name), just murdered 75 villagers earlier that week- not at all the sort of people that the Central Intelligence Agency wants to work with. No, sir. John Ross later shows up to threaten the Rylands to use their contacts with the Cartel to dig up dirt to overturn the IPO or he’ll make sure that Candace (remember her?) reappears in Dallas at an inopportune time. Everybody’s favorite meemaw from Hell, Ma Ryland, makes a deal with cartel henchman Luis to send more trap-trucks on the road in exchange for finding Candace before Junior does.
Pamela goes to visit Cliff in Mexican prison. Instead of the Get Out of Jail card that he is expecting, his daughter instead gives him the deed to Ewing Well No. 6 that she received from Elena (via Bobby) last week. This is the same claim that Jock Ewing cheated Cliff’s drunkard dad out of decades ago, starting the Ewing-Barnes blood feud (well, that and stealing Miss Ellie’s hand in marriage away from Digger Barnes. . . but that was the style at the time, like tying onions to one’s belt. Guess stayed up late for the Simpsons marathon!). Turns out Pammy never forgot that her dad is behind the bomb that killed her twins- Cliff’s own grandchildren. With a sad farewell, she leaves him to rot.
Bobby drops in on ex-flame (post-shower scene) Tracey Lawton, to discuss what her nephew Hunter McKay has been up to. He tells her that he has contacts in the State Department that will help Hunter if he agrees to turn snitch on Trevino and the Cartel. They head for Hunter’s nerd loft in Deep Ellum only to discover that the head of Git-It has been gotten-to as his body hangs from the rafters.
At Dysfunction Junction, the Rylands’ nightly game of Squabble is interrupted by Luis bearing a gift of ladyfingers for Ma, but it’s not the tasty spongecake treat. Nope, looks like Luis ran into Candace after all and … chopped her hands off as evidence of keeping up his end of the bargain. Just to make sure that things go swimmingly thereafter, Luis ran into some more mutual acquaintances while out: Annie and Emma, bound, gagged and trussed up inside a semi-trailer. Southbound and down, amigos.
And that’s Episode 12 of this season of Dallas, entitled Victims of Love. A lot of callback to old-school Dallas, with ruthless Carter McKay’s grandson Hunter striking a blow for his Paw Paw, and the character of Tracey McKay (not the original actress, who I seem to recall having some kinda Beauty and the Beast-era Linda Hamilton thing going on) showing up. Remember when Hunter needled John Ross about putting the swerve on Junior the same way Carter did to J.R. to get control of Ewing Oil? Nerdlinger was right on that, and it’s also the same plot that drove J.R. to suicide in the series finale. He got better.
See y’all next week.
