Pandemic Report
The latest stats from WaPo:
The latest stats from CDC:
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About 127K new cases daily as this is definitely the BA.5 wave. The biggest news of the week is how our 79-year-old POTUS got diagnosed with mildly symptomatic COVID-19 (mostly z runny nose, fatigue and dry cough), despite being fully vaxxed with 2 booster shots.
Other Notes
I finally finished the Dallas marathon, except for 2 TV movies a few years later and a next-generation reboot about a generation later. Of course, the series revolves against one of the greatest anti-hero characters in television history, JR Ewing, Dallas oil magnate and oldest son of Jock Ewing, founder of the Ewing Oil empire. It's perhaps an oversimplification to summarize 14 seasons in a few sentences, but the key conflicts are between JR and his youngest brother Bobby, for much of the series rivals for control over Ewing Oil; Cliff Barnes, son of Jock Ewing wildcatter partner Digger and brother to Pam, Bobby's first wife (Cliff carries a family grudge that Ewing Oil's success was at the expense of Digger's efforts), and West Star, the largest Texas independent oil producer, constantly scheming for a hostile takeover of Ewing Oil. Also, JR's first wife, Sue Ellen, s former beauty pageant winner, is an alcoholic and embittered by countless JR affairs, and their only child, John Ross, is the target of custody battles. JR is also motivated by a strong belief in the Ewing family and an attachment to the family sprawling Southfork ranch.
To explain the setup to JR's suicidal finale on his collapsing world, I have to summarize other parts of the plot. Jock had a younger brother Jason who had left Texas for Alaska decades earlier, with 2 children, Jamie and Jack. Jamie eventually moves to Southfork and marries Cliff Barnes. Alienated by JR, Jamie produces a document showing s 3-part ownership of Ewing Oil among Jock, Digger and Jason. JR and Bobby can't find relevant paperwork for what happened after the split. This is where Jack comes into the picture. JR and Bobby each own about 35% of Ewing Oil; It's clear that Jason and Digger were all but penniless at the end of their lives, so it's obvious that multi-millionaire Jock had reacquired their shares. Jack knew of living sources for the missing information; if they came forward, his 16.67% stake would go to 0. So he negotiates for 10% of Ewing Oil, split between JR and Bobby's shares.
Jack's ex-wife April becomes aware of this and grabs half of Jack's shares; Jack initially tried to give all his shares to Jamie. Jamie's 5% goes to Cliff Barnes; she died in some mountain climbing accident, estranged from Cliff but her divorce wasn't finalized by the time of death.
Pam had divorced Bobby, mostly over the ongoing Barnwa/Ewing feud and Bobby's involvement with the oil business but remarried him after Bobby had gotten engaged with old flame Jenna Wade. Jenna eventually remarries Ray Krebbs, the Southfork ranch foreman who eventually had learned that he's Jock's illegitimate son. Jenna's daughter Charlie has school disciplinary problems and the family moves to Europe unknowingly selling their Southfork adjacent homestead to West Star operative Carter McKay, with designs on an oil-rich but undeveloped Southfork piece of land. In the meanwhile Pam's car collides with a tank truck which nearly kills her and she suffers disfiguring burns, including her face. (They never show us her face, but Pam is sufficiently horrified by her reveal to divorce Bobby, leaving custody of adopted son, Christopher, Sue Ellen's nephew, son of sister Kristen, best known for having shot JR in a season cliffhanger.)
JR permanently lost control of Ewing Oil in the aftermath of a failed plot to blow up Saudi oilfields to help spike Texas oil prices. He pulls the rug out from under Calhoun whose operatives are taken out via the JR tip to the CIA. The assets of Ewing Oil are seized by the government and sold on the cheap to West Star. JR eventually regains control of the assets, but the government is dead set against JR regaining the Ewing Oil name. Bobby wins back the Ewing Oil name and lets JR back into the company but no oil deals, which is sort of like going to a steakhouse and being told you can eat only veggies.
Sue Ellen eventually divorces JR again and moves to Europe. Eventually John Ross, JR's pride and joy, allowed to stay at Southfork, gets alienated by JR's crumbling empire promised to him eventually and by his father's interest in others, like James Beaumont, JR's unknown adult love child with the earlier love of his life, Vanessa, and decides to join his mom in Europe, part of JR's collapsing world.
JR's womanizing gets him in trouble while on a hunting trip with Bobby when he seduces a naive 25-year-old rural waitress Cally. Cally's brothers want to kill him; JR agrees to a shotgun wedding but also gets sentenced on rape charges to some prison work farm. JR eventually escapes and returns to Southfork. Cally shows up some time later, falsely claiming to be pregnant. JR eventually remarries Cally at the ranch. Cally works on her painting hobby, and her art draws interest at local galleries. However, she becomes paranoid over JR's philandering ways and implies to JR she's having an affair with one of her art contacts. Calley befriends James. JR is obsessed with getting voting rights to stepdad Clayton Farlow's West Star shares held for son Dusty. JR gets himself committed to a mental hospital to get access to crazy Clayton sister Jessica who holds the actual rights for Dusty. James, with an up/down relationship with JR and is estranged at this point, intercepts an envelope for JR secretary Sly which contains instructions and release papers after 5 days. Cally forges JR's signature on a replacement letter not mentioning the release instructions. James does a quid pro quo to win a divorce settlement for Cally, but when JR threatens consequences for James in handing over his agreement, James tears up his release papers. [Eventually JR gets word out via another patient to Sly, and Sly locates Cally with a second set of release papers. Cally was not happy with James tearing up the original papers but didn't come forward, worrying about JR's payback.]
What nobody else realizes is that Cally is pregnant with JR's child, and she knows JR will never let her leave Southfork with his baby. At some point JR becomes aware she's pregnant but is led to believe James is the father, He learns the truth at the end when his world is imploding. James in the meanwhile had been married in the past briefly but thought the marriage had been annulled. Nope. His first wife shows up at Southfork with his unknown son, JR's grandchild. JR wants them at Southfork but his daughter-in-law isn't interested, nor does James want to be part of Ewing & Ewing. He's leaving. JR vents about James' responsibility to Cally's child when James tells him he's JR's boy. JR finds out Cally is living in Palm Beach, FL and spots mother and son. He decides against intervening.
April Stevens in the interim has become JR's silent business partner, like the "good cop" alternative to oilmen not wanting to do business with JR. April has a younger sister Michelle who arrives and wants to do a real estate development deal that doesn't work out when they can't get a zoning variance for their location. Michelle has bad luck in the romance department, first a loveless marriage to James Beaumont and then Cliff Barnes, mostly attracted to her late ownership stake in Ewing Oil.
Bobby eventually reciprocates April's interest in him and they marry. A very weird storyline unfolds on their European honeymoon. (Around this time two well-known stars, "Jeannie" and "Erica Kane", join the series for extended appearances. I'll discuss the former below.) Hillary Taylor/Sheila Foley is the embittered mistress of an Odessa oilman who committed suicide over hard times resulting from OPEC actions. She has been radicalized and is out to execute some OPEC figure at an oil conference in Paris. The question is how she gets into the conference. Bobby had no plans whatsoever to attend the conference. Hillary bumps into the honeymooners at the airport and later at their hotel. Long story short, April is kidnapped, and Hillary impersonates her to attend the conference with Bobby. April herself shows up with her armed kidnappers at the coference, apparently to make sure Bobby plays along. No explanation as to how they all got past security without Bobby's cooperation. Bobby sees Hillary attempt to shoot the target and hits her shooting arm, deflecting the shot. At this point, the kidnappers across the room shoot at the target. Security shoots back, and April is killed in the crossfire. Hillary escapes.
Bobby is obsessed on vengeance with Hillary. He discovers Hillary has a young adult daughter, an aspiring actress on the West Coast and befriends her in the hopes Hillary will visit her at some point. He saves the daughter's life at one point over some pawn shop ticket to a case full of smuggled cocaine that she had gotten by some mistake in her purse. The girl has fallen for Bobby, and at some point talks to Hillary and discovers what had happened in Paris. Long story short, she shows up at Southfork and one day brings Hillary with her. Hillary promised to turn herself in to authorities. At this point, Michelle, still mourning April's death, recognizes Hillary (how?); she had shown `up with a gun to kill JR, but kills Hillary instead . (Note the timelines are somewhat blended/overlapped with details below.)
Bobby now is fed up with Ewing Oil over the industry's part in April's death and over JR's objections sells to Lee Ann De La Vega. Now by this time Vanessa, JR's first love, is engaged to him after Cally's divorce. Lee Ann is the widow, I believe, of some Venezuelan oil magnate. It turns out JR had chased Lee Ann during his university days and left her pregnant. She ended up getting an unsafe abortion and had complications not allowed her to get pregnant again and is obsessed with revenge against JR. JR doesn't recognize her which infuriates her. Lee Ann renames the company, agrees to give him 10% to stay. It's weird because she explicitly recognizes 60% of the assets belong to JR. She is out to sabotage Vanessa's engagement and promises JR she'll give him control of the company if he'll just go to bed with him once, and she gives Vanessa a copy of her room key. Ultimately it doesn't happen, but Vanessa no longer trusts JR and breaks off the engagement. Having gotten the revenge she wanted, Lee Ann sells the company for a song to Michelle.
At this point Cliff has married Michelle and essentially has half of the renamed Ewing Oil. Michelle sells the other half to JR, and Cliff and JR are shocked to discover they are co-owners.
Now comes the final knife in JR's back. In the interim Clayton has returned to Southfork to award JR the voting rights to Dusty's West Star stock and the title of Southfork to Bobby, who has reinvented himself as a rancher. JR thinks he deserves the title of Southfork as first-born, but Bobby, other than guaranteeing him a room in the house, no split with JR. A couple of major West Star stockholders want to be CEO and President and are willing to support JR's becoming chair of the board in exchange for his supporting their positions. Oh, just one string: you can't own a piece of Ewing Oil; it's a conflict of interest. So JR figures he would have more pull as part of West Star, seeing himself as the "real" Ewing Oil and sells his half of Ewing Oil to Cliff.
So now JR shows up to meet the major shareholders to take the West Star board position. Only guess who shows up? Dusty. And Dusty, a one-time boyfriend to Sue Ellen, decides to blow up JR's deal.
So now JR's world is in a downward spiral.
His sons John Ross and James are estranged from him. He hasn't even met his youngest son in Florida.
His beloved Ewing Oil is now owned by his enemy, Cliff Barnes. No one wants to work for him or make a deal with him. His favorite brother and possibly his best friend Bobby barely tolerates him as a house guest and doesn't want to work with him in any capacity.
So JR is flirting with killing himself by gun; here comes Dallas version of "It's a Wonderful Life", only instead of angel Clarence, we suspect JR's angel comes from a different, hotter place. And we play the bit of what would have happened if JR had never been born. It's a bizarre world where Bobby, burdened with gambling debts, is living on the run. But it's not clear JR's existence was for the better across the board. At the end the devil is pleading for JR to shoot himself, and Bobby hears a shot from inside JR's bedroom. We hear some horror from Bobby as he enters the room, but we don't see inside.
I haven't found the TV movies or the TNT reboot in my streaming services, although I did see several episodes of the TNT reboot (I believe Hagman, i.e., "JR", died during the run) at the time). The very title of the first movie ("JR Returns") makes it clear JR didn't commit suicide; I read a posted synopsis of the plot which suggests JR shot the bedroom mirror.
I think the reason the series worked is because JR constantly faced conflict, interpersonally and professionally. Similarly "I Dream of Jeannie" didn't quite work after Jeannie and Major Nelson got married (similarly, "The Nanny"), the students in "Saved By the Bell" graduated, or the castaways on "Gilligan's Island" got rescued. Not to mention JR had a complex personality; it's endearing to see him play with his baby grandson, mentor his sons, break down over the passing of Jock Ewing. He was much more of a faithful husband/fiance to Cally and Vanessa. He moved past betrayals from Sly and James.
