SEASON 4 ( and 3 KL) RECAP Identity vs. Experiment: Why Knots Landing, Dallas, Dynasty, and Falcon Crest Hit Different

Four colossal soap worlds. Four very different ways to bring heat. We dive into a season where Knots Landing leans into the quiet power of neighbors and consequences, Dallas turns a hospital room into a war room, Dynasty weaponizes wit and glamour, and Falcon Crest splits the deck, then wins both hands with action and adult ruthlessness. If you’ve ever wondered why some finales feel like true cliffhangers and others feel like revelations, this breakdown will change how you watch.

We start on the cul-de-sac, where Lily Mae’s nosy wisdom, Abby’s precision, and Gary and Val’s silence say more than any twist. Richard Avery’s descent and unexpected accountability become the spine of a season that proves slow burn can sting. Then we head to Southfork, where JR orchestrates chaos from bed with a rotary phone and a devilish grin while Sue Ellen quietly levels up, Bobby shoulders duty, and Pam’s thread wobbles. Timeline quirks around Jock’s death pop up—but Dallas still crackles because legacy rivalry is the fuel.

From there, it’s shoulder pads and sharp tongues. Dynasty decides to be prettier, wittier, and proudly outrageous, letting Alexis, Adam, Dex, Kirby, and a returning Sammy Jo turn every room into a chessboard. Dominique steps in and widens the arena, proving style can be strategy. Finally, we pour a glass at Falcon Crest: explosions, hidden treasure, a mid-season pivot, and Angela back on her bully remind us why older power players make the best television. Richard embraces the dark, Chase inches toward necessary ruthlessness, and Maggie anchors the heart under the heat.

By the end, we stack the villains—JR, Alexis, Abby, Angela—and ask you to crown the chaos champion. Ready to argue, rewatch, and relive the most iconic prime-time moves? Hit play, then tell us your pick and your biggest gasp moment of the season. If you enjoy this deep dive, subscribe, share with a fellow soap fan, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage & Season Jitters
• 1:16 Rethinking Prime-Time Soap Formulas
• 4:52 Knots Landing’s Identity vs. Through-Line
• 10:45 Lily Mae, Abby, and Gary’s Drift
• 16:42 Richard Avery’s Break and Rise
• 22:47 Is That A Cliffhanger Or Not?
• 27:39 Dallas: After Who Shot JR?
• 33:20 Power Plays From A Hospital Bed
• 38:12 Pool Mystery, Jock’s Death, Timeline Weirdness
• 43:05 Dynasty Chooses Camp and Claws
• 49:00 Adam, Kirby, Dex, and Alexis
• 54:10 Sammy Jo’s Return and Dominique
• 58:55 Falcon Crest’s Double-Season Feel
• 1:04:20 Angela Back On Her Bully

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Good morning, and all welcome and welcome back to Soapboard with Digital Gathering PlayStation, these novels and OG dialogue and with Golden A Climb D. I'm your host today, viewing viewing the Sophia Sophia Prime Time Season 4 phenomenon LEAD. Didn't think about that before I started talking, but here we are. So what are you going to do with this one? We're going to sit back and enjoy helping this time to play outside or outside. Delpha, no questions of that one, or the time for the next 25 or 35 months. Everyone else that you have to talk about is that I only have to meet something down. I hope your day is shaping up well. We are back for another fun filled edition of Soap Lore. This is gonna be an easy, breezy, super quick episode because I, as we speak at the time of this recording, am just about ready to press play so I can start watching season five. Can you believe it? Season five. I cannot believe we're already here. Well, I'm already here. I'm so glad you decided to revisit or visit for the first time some of these shows with me. Shout out to Elena who's watching these for the first time. And thank you for all of you OGs sharing your your love for this, for these shows. I fully, fully get it, but it's been racking my brain since all the finales. Everything was wonderful. I don't know if we can count Knott's Landing as a cliffhanger. Do you guys count that as a cliffhanger? I didn't, considering. Well, we'll get into that. Go ahead and pour yourself up something bubbly and bright. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go find me something to drink. I forgot to bring it in here before I started recording. But let's buckle up and decide how are we gonna define season four and season three? Yeah, my drink isn't gonna be bubbly today. It's gonna have to be a little bit more flat. I need some hydration. I realized. I didn't realize until I had scrubbed all the floorboards in my car, which was totally unnecessary because it's carpet. After I'd done that for about an hour, I thought, oh wow, maybe I should cut back on the espresso. I think I should. Now my eye is twitching. I'm just gonna I'm gonna chill with some coconut water or something. Get my get my levels back on normal. But you pour up whatever you see fit to do. What a ride, what a ride, what a ride. I was going back over non-slanding, and I've come to a conclusion. I want to shout out Jupiter for bringing this to my attention. For those of you who are re-watching this in real time, or if you've seen these seasons several times in the past, let me backtrack just a little bit before we get into that because I I feel like when I started this whole process, when I started watching all these shows, I did have a rough idea of what primetime television does and what it will do based on shows from the late 90s, 2000s, etc. I knew what daytime soap operas did, and so my thought process going into watching these is that it would be a hybrid of both. I expected this to be a lot more innocent than it has been. I did not expect these to be impactful, hard-hitting storylines. I had for some reason I thought this was the age of innocence. I don't really know why I thought that. But what I came to discover with seasons one, two, and three for the other shows, that's Dynasty Dallas and Falcon Crest. Season one, across the board, I think you could say this with any television show, whether it's a comedy, a sitcom, or whatever, season one is very experimental. The only exception to that rule is if it is a spin-off, then you have to have several sort of winks and nods to the original show because you are invested in someone from that. But with Dynasty Dallas and Falcon Crest, season one is very experimental. Season two seems to be sort of stacking on the things that worked in season one, removing the things that didn't, and you're still sort of experimenting there, but now you you probably have a better vision of where you want to go. Season three, for the other ones, this is where you know, okay, you're not afraid of being canceled at this point. You're not afraid of not having a job. You're not as experimental because you know what people like, but now you have to be more creative. So I feel like you started season one is the super adventurous throw spaghetti at the wall see with sticks. Season two is let's add a few more ingredients to that. Season three is like, okay, we got our recipe. Now we're gonna need some variants to keep this interesting. I cannot say the same thing about Knott's Landing, it is the strangest thing. I've been thinking about this long and hard. It could be because number one, Knot's landing is a spinoff, or at least season one reminds us a lot that it is a spin-off, but it's also another type of show. It already has its own identity in some aspects, it is going to be more dramatic. You could tell that from the first three episodes. And I don't think they've actually strayed, I think they've really held on to that identity, and it doesn't feel to me like they've ever tried to be anything else. It is a drama, they've thrown in some soap, but it never feels over the top. You know what I mean? You could definitely feel the difference between this and Dynasty. I also okay, so going back to what Jupiter said, thank you so much for your input. I love it so much. Jupiter mentioned they've seen this show more than once, so it feels like season three, some of the stories don't actually connect, they're not really part of the grander scheme. There wasn't a bigger picture, and I think that is the difference. I totally agree with that, fully agree. But I think the difference is this, and I'd love to hear from some newer newbies, some people who've maybe watched it once, and then those of you who've seen these shows over and over. I'm watching this through the lens of someone who's never seen any of this show before this. So as things come up, I'm sort of just accepting them. I don't really have a super strong opinion about where it should not go. Like I, you know, I have opinions about the storyline, but I'm accepting it as a story. I'm not putting it all together as a cohesive story, if that makes sense. I'm sort of watching each episode, understanding that they will bump into each other at some point, but I think the way Knott's Landing has been set up, to me, it's never really felt like there was a through line. Not all the time. I really do feel like I am peeking into the living room of four different families, and sometimes there's something under the surface. So let's go back to season one. Season one of Knott's Landing. Although it wasn't, I don't feel like it was super experimental, I feel like it was just laying the groundwork. You got to know who the neighbors were, you got to understand what the city was. You know, we know there's a beach, you know, um, one of the neighbors is super active in the in the school district. One of the husbands is a music producer. You know what I'm saying? Like you kind of get the lay of the land. You gotta Sid and Karen owning a business. Gary's working at said business because he just came out to LA with no thought in his mind. Laura's a housewife, Richard's a lawyer, ginger's a teacher, Kenny's a record producer, and then you get to see how all these things come together. You start to see which neighbors are really close, which ones aren't. You you learn Laura has a little bit of a secret from her past. You see that Karen probably had a different vision of her future. Val and Gary are just trying to figure their lives out. You know, they they're finally away from drama, they're just trying to figure things out. Kenny and Ginger are trying to figure out their new marriage. It doesn't feel like all those stories, all of these could be totally separate stories on totally separate shows, and it would make no never mind. The fact that they are together does create knots landing, but it there's not really a through line. You you see what I'm saying? I'm just sort of watching it, enjoying these people in this community within this town having different things happen to them. Sometimes the neighbors know about it, sometimes they don't. I wonder, though, as an as an OG, though, if you because you know the entire story, how how different seasons one, two, and three read from each other. Because for me looking from the outside in, recently discovering this show, I can't say there's much of a major difference. I don't really feel like I feel like they have their own voice, they definitely have their own tone, but I don't feel like they've had to fight for an identity the way that the other shows have. Knott's Landing seems to be because the premise is this is a neighborhood, these are neighbors, and this isn't like a family tearing each other apart, it's already set aside, it's already very different from the other shows, but also these are four individual families um with two adults a lot of times on different pages, so it just reads a little differently. I'm just curious for you, OGs, if you if you felt the same way about season three. Because yeah, there was definitely the the ghost episode was strange, but also I'm like, no, that was just weird. Let's just be honest. That one was weird. I fully enjoyed it, but also it felt like one of those Save by the Bell episodes. Do you know, remember the episode where they go to the Haunted Mansion or the not, it wasn't really haunted, it was the murder mystery dinner. It felt like one of those side quests on Save by the Bell, or the time that they got the record deal and they were flashed. You know what I mean? They did that mockumentary. It felt like that, and because I'm a kid from the 90s, maybe that's why I accepted it so easily. Like, okay, that was weird, but also in the grand scheme of things, there's always like a dream sequence episode. There's always somebody sort of fainting. I'm actually surprised there hadn't been more dream sequences. We haven't come across a single one. You know what? No, I feel like dreams are for daytime, nighttime TV, whatever's happening is really happening. Ain't no such thing as a this is all an illusion, you got this all wrong. Like it's really happening, you just have to deal with it. One thing that Knot's landing does have in common with the other shows by season three is that you still have to fold in a new character or two. In this case, we have the return of Lily May. She showed up for one episode early on, and she came back as a totally different person. I really, really like her addition to this because she's she's okay. Think about this, y'all. Gary and Valen's home is probably very, very quiet. Never mind the fact that they don't have children, never mind the fact that they are um able to keep themselves busy for the most part, but they don't seem like a couple who chats with each other very much, especially after season two, as things are progressing. It feels like Gary is sort of stepping back, focusing more on work to keep himself busy. You have to remember he's still a recovering alcoholic at this point, he could just be keeping himself busy. Valen is keeping herself busy with school and stuff, but there's not a lot of dialogue between them that I have noticed, unless she was sick, you know, when she had the cancer scare that happened. But folding in Lily May as this other voice has been very, very helpful to me this season. Her input, her ear hustling, the way she's sort of in everybody's business all the time. You know, she knows how to she knows how to work country down better than anybody. Plus, she is Abby just older. I'm fully convinced after the last episode, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Same person, different font. No, no, no, not even different font, just different paragraphs, same font, different paragraph. Folding her in has been awesome. Also Jupiter thanks again. This is the Jupiter episode, I'm just gonna keep talking about it. Um pointed out that this is so season three of Knott's Landing. You lose a major, major character in a major way. I didn't forget about that, obviously. Didn't forget, but I think I was focused on how well Karen and her family were doing versus how the rest of the cast has to sort of overcompensate or the story had to change. You know what I'm saying? Like it had to become slightly different, but I think they did such a good job of allowing it to play out slowly. So I didn't really. How do I say this? It's not that I felt like Sid was easily replaceable, but Sid was also not the most impactful character. Not on season one, not on season two. The best part of Sid was his his relationship with Karen, having her having someone to spar off of, someone who's totally opposite of her, them raising their super brat and their two sons. It was very interesting, but I feel like the show would have been impacted so much more if Karen had actually died versus Sid. Again, not saying he was easily replaceable, but his, you know, things moved on. The business still ran. Gary was there to run it. The neighbors were able to step in. Karen had many people coming in and out of her house. They they managed to keep her really busy, she managed to keep the brave front up. But the fact that the show didn't rush anything also sets Knott's landing apart from other soap operas. You don't have to bounce to the next storyline as quickly as you would on another show. They took their time with it, and it it I'm not saying that it was seamless, but yeah, I am. I am actually gonna say that. It was a seamless transition to the point where by the end of the season, I'm not even thinking about Sydney more. That's just how that is. Like I said, I think if Karen had been the one to to die, then it would have been a completely different story. Okay, so season three here on Not's Landing, they definitely upped the Annie as far as as far as the scandal very, very seamlessly folded Abby in. We already had a little peekaboo on season two. This is shame on me for not picking up the clues that were there. I wasn't taking Abby's um interest in Gary all that seriously. I forgot about the two side chicks when she confronted the other lady that one time. I didn't really take her that seriously because once the IRS came in at the end of season two, she immediately sold him up the river. It was quick. There was nothing left of that. So I you know, I'm not really thinking too much about it, but it was a it's an interesting development that we're just where they took they gave Karen a lot of time to navigate this the her life without Sid. I feel like the Abby Gary buildup was probably slower than I thought. And I'm I'm very confident that I probably missed, I'm very confident that I missed some things because I I wasn't taking it seriously. So as I go back and watch this on, you know, each episode back to back to back, I'm starting to see things a little bit differently, but mostly I think Nazlane just sort of expanded on itself. They they brought in a couple new characters. I really like the addition of Joe. I like Lily Mae. Um I didn't even mind Abby's ex-husband. Abby's ex-husband was really important because you got to see. I I was kind of thinking when he showed up that you would see a different version of her behind closed doors, but she is as steady as Karen is. That's the other thing I'd written down. It's season three. I can't say I really know these people any better than I did on season one. It's all starting to slowly reveal itself, but I will say this: the most solid, the most unchanging people, and by that I mean they're the exact same in front of a crowd as they are when they're by themselves. Karen is number one. She doesn't really seem to fluctuate one way or another. She's got something on her mind, she says it. She wants to keep quiet, she keeps it to herself until she doesn't. She is very consistent, and I'm not saying she's not growing, but if I had to say you know one character, I would say I know that one pretty well. Laura, same way. She doesn't talk as much as Karen, but you saw her sort of fortify her own spine this season. She decides I'm gonna keep this baby, I'm gonna draw off this husband, I'm gonna get me a condo, I'm gonna draw off this neighborhood until she couldn't anymore. But behind closed doors, and whether she was behind closed doors or whether she was with a group, she's even to be the same person all the time. I will say the same thing about Abby. The rest of the characters have shown bigger parts of themselves this season. It okay, I hate on Kenny a lot, but let me just say this. He's Mr. Rogers this season. It still does not make a lot of sense to me considering he was this magical playboy, but something about since when does a baby save a marriage? Since when? But I guess in this scenario it does. I don't know. To me, it feels like he was probably looking at other contracts. Maybe they're gonna get rid of him sooner rather than later, but he wasn't as impactful as he was this last season. That was a little bit unusual. All the characters usually have a pretty solid um storyline where you get to see some of their flaws, some of their secrets come to come out. Not really for him this season. Ginger, she's a new mom. She's bored. That is very normal. She's singing. She'll do, I think she really just wants to get out of the house. She do a little bit of anything. I bet if they if she had a couple of shifts down at the IHOP or Red Lobster, she would take that as quickly as she would a singing gig. That's just my opinion. I will say this though. In a sentence, I never thought I would say Richard freaking Avery showed up and showed completely out this season. I feel like he stole the show. I think his story was even bigger than the Gary Abbey, we're finna bang each other, or no, we're not gonna bang each other over this uh bourbon alcohol gas or whatever we're trying to make. And when are they this okay, we'll get to that at some point, I guess. I I I loved him. I I fell in love with Richard this season, did not see that coming, but that development man, that oh god, you got to see every part of him. We're used to him being this sawed-off, mouthy, overcompensating gremlin of a man, season one and two, to being this really vulnerable, but also stronger than I thought. Yeah, I I don't know. I again, this is someone who hasn't seen the whole story. What I see now, yes, he had a mental breakdown, yes, he held his wife captive, which is absolutely unforgivable. He went nuts, but also his ability to sort of accept it has really surprised me the most, even more so than him going nuts. Him going nuts was actually right on it, was on brand. It wasn't season three, Richard, it was definitely season two, Richard. I could see having you know something snap upstairs, but I've been impressed. I also one of you guys told me I can't remember who I think it might have been Bob. That I'm gonna get this guy's name because I'm tired of calling him just Richard. Whoever the rig the actor is who plays Richard. Oh my god. Rich uh Richard Oh my gosh. Hold on. Mr. John Plaschette Plusette, is that his name? Yeah. Is that he directed the the Sid Dies episode or he wrote it or something like that? First off, if you're gonna kill me on a soap opera, can we can we do it subtly? I'd like to maybe fly off a cliff so I have the option of coming back at some point, but kudos to him. You want to talk about character development, character arc. I fully enjoyed him. I, in my opinion, he he Lily May. Yeah, he and Lily May kind of stole the show for me this season. They really wow, love it. Yeah, love it. Season three of Knox Landing was amazing, it was wonderful, but again, it's more of the same. I don't think it follows the same formula. We could chalk it up to it being the spin-off, although you guys let me know this was actually supposed to be the first show, but Dallas happened first and then they had to sort of spin backwards in order to make it work. They did wonderful. I see this more as a a very um, it's a drama. Heavy, heavy on the drama. And I can't wait to push play on season four. Part of me wants to sort of floor through season four so that I can be on season five with all of them, but I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna continue to let it play out the way it has. I have not noticed any sort of discrepancies between this and well, only one, only one or two between Knott's Landing and Dallas at the time of me watching these. Jock has officially died on Knott's Landing, which is very confusing to me considering the years aren't that different. So season like he, you know, he clearly would have made it through 1982, right? Season four of Dallas seems to have shot around okay, so it was like 1981. And Knott's Landing, I think we're still in 1982, so you know, could have been a few months. I'm not really sure how they they filmed everything. If he passed away in April, then we are to assume that Knott's Landing, perhaps this is the tail end of 1982. Yeah, I'm gonna assume it's it's probably the beginning of 1982 when that whatever. The point I'm trying to make is there's not a huge discrepancy. I imagine as I finish or start or excuse me, as I start season five of Dallas, they'll probably line up a little bit better. To me, it doesn't spoil anything. I have I don't really think about Dallas that often. I am now because I want to figure out if Val and Gary are gonna try to work it out. Part of me thinks they will, which is a little bit obnoxious, but whatever. I gotta let it play out, right? I gotta let it play out. We'll see how it goes. All in all, fantastic season. We just got to learn a little bit more about everybody, learn a few more talents, a few more desires. You got to see the cracks in a few things, but ultimately it was more of the same. They just expanded the story a little bit. I want to circle back to this being a cliffhanger. I don't consider this a cliffhanger because there's really no one else involved. You know what I'm saying? Karen and Laura and Lily May all know that Gary is having an affair with Abby. Everybody kind of thought that anyway. Diana even knows at this point. The only other people to find out is is Richard, Ginger, and Kenny, which is probably not gonna be very difficult for them to believe that, but nobody's really invested in Abby like that. I don't think that's a cliffhanger. Even if Valen drove off, I mean, where's she gonna go? Where's she gonna go? She done have a job, she's kind of dependent on this fool. That ain't no cliffhanger to me. That's just a revelation. Yeah, that's a revelation, not a cliffhanger, as opposed to last season when the car was literally flying off the side of a cliff, and I don't remember what season one. Oh, yeah. Gary was running amok, running out in the streets drunk and whatnot for two and three weeks at a time. Now, I do remember the cliffhanger at the end of season three of Dallas. I think we all do. I am so glad. I was a little nervous. I guess I can tell you guys this now. Everybody had heard, or at least at some point had heard about who shot JR. Magically, never had a clue, never had any inkling, nobody ever said anything. I tend to believe that people actually forgot who shot JR. Coming into this, I wasn't sure when that was going to come up. I was a little nervous that it would have been much later in the series. I was thinking, you know, around the seventh season or so, much, much later in. Didn't expect it to happen on three, but I'm so glad it did. Okay, if season one is throwing things at the wall and season two is building on it, season three, you know who you are. I think Dallas decided to absolutely smash the mold. If any of the shows is solid, unshakeable, unmovable, undeniable, it has its own signature look. It is Dallas. You know who Dallas is, you know who Dallas isn't. You know who these characters are, yes, they're growing and they're expanding, but you already know what it is. It's the family tension on this show that makes it so interesting. My girl, Sue Ellen, has a girl. Girl, she's been up, she's been down, she's been humiliated. She had to sing Barbara Streisand in her bathing suit. Poorly, might I add. She's had to deal with her husband having all these affairs running up and down and all around. She's got to hang out with her mother-in-law all day. She's struggling with babies, she got a baby. She don't know if that's her baby daddy. Uh, she's been in love four or five times at this point. Lost a man, only for him to crawl back over the invisible mountains of San Angelo, Texas to survive. How far did this fool crawl, by the way? You ever heard of that? You ever heard of somebody crawling over a mountain? I think when I was probably in like I was definitely in elementary, that movie Alive, do you remember that? Where the soccer team, um, their plane crashed in the Andes somewhere and they like were freezing for a long time and they had to start. Making these makeshift houses and whatnot out of plane equipment and then they had to eat each other. Oh my god, where was I going with that? That was random. Oh, mountains. Yes. Yes, of course. Um, they didn't crawl to safety. We can argue that, okay, the Andes, they were the higher elevation, it was colder, and these invisible mountains over San Angelo are not that high. I don't even think we consider San Angelo Hill Country, but whatever. Soap tax, soap tax, soap tax. The point I'm trying to make is Sue Ellen has been through it all only to have a lover crawl back from the grave, tease her for a little bit, save her life. Let's kind of wind back on that because I had forgotten. So at the beginning of season four, JR is laid up in the hospital. We don't know if he's gonna be able to walk. Him getting a cat busted in him has reunited or re-sparked the flame between him and his wife. They're on again, off again, on again, off, off, off, off again. She went from being in love to being hopeful to hoping that um JR would rise to the occasion, knock Bobby off the throne. She had played a hand in hoping and helping Bobby be dethrone. She spent 90% of this, the first part of this season, in a bathing suit. Tell you what, they had to sell at Kmart or Neiman Marcus or something, because she had a new bathing suit every other episode. Despite it being a new season, it was it still managed to be interesting, even though they were falling into old habits. This show was going to be lather, wrench, repeat, from what I can tell. Brother against brother, brother against brother, trying to keep it away from mama and daddy, wife trying to be her husband's side, uh good cop, bad cop, Bobby works too much, Pam is lonely. You know, more of the same, but it managed to be interesting, except for Pam this season. Besides her Rick James hairdo, I can't really say a lot was interesting, even though they brought her mother also back from the dead. It kind of fell flat for me. It fell flat because I got offended. I got my feelings that Rebecca JG Wentworth and Pam are trying to rewrite history as if Cliff is his money-grubbing, power hungry. He's a lawyer. Obviously, he wants power. Obviously, he was almost in the Senate. He had a pretty remarkable career built brick by brick by him from the sweat of his own brow. And as far as he could tell, the only time he was knocked off of his path was when one of the ewings jumped in. So let's not let's not come with the man. As if he stayed up and he he made up all these things about this family. They brought it up, they they started it. He's finishing it. I don't think he's money hungry. I really don't like that setup. And as far as I can tell, Dallas is pretty consistent. Dynasty might throw a couple things out there and then they just don't talk about it. But in this show, I don't they don't really do that as much. They don't always tie it up in a nice neat bow. But I'm not a fan of the revisionist history about Cliff. I am excited that Cliff is no longer working at the DA. I need him to be in positions of power so that he can challenge JR. Now, is he ever gonna win? I am very confident in saying he never will. He might get lucky a couple times, but I love the tension between the two of them. I love the all-out unapologetic hate for one another over something that really ain't got nothing to do with them. This is between their dads, honestly. But you know, I respect I respect generational beef. It's kind of fun or whatever, but no, what a what an iconic season. What an iconic time, from what I can tell. Who shot JR? One of the biggest storylines in history, as far as I can tell. And boy, oh boy. I'm trying to remember who I thought it was. I think I thought it was the wannabe senator kid whose name escapes me at this point. I really thought it was him, but JR managed to piss off 57 people. I love that when he came back and when he got back on his feet, nobody cared. It's kind of funny to see how everybody was like, oh damn, JR's back. What a character. I enjoy the season because of all the tension, too. So Bobby taking over, trying to be there for his dad, be there for his mom until the till JR was on the mend, and then having JR have all this power bedside without a Blackberry flip phone, um, MP3 player, no sort of electronic device. He is wreaking havoc from his bedside with nothing more than a rotary phone and the reputation for being, I guess, good in the sack or wealthy or something. I don't really know. This man managed to sabotage four and a half people from his bed. Incredible. I like how devious he's becoming. He's really embraced this villain thing. I I don't think there's a better villain at this time if I'm comparing all three, and you know how I love Big Perm. He just does it a little better. I'm wondering though, he doesn't strike me as a killer. I can't wait to figure out who this is in this bathtub, not the bathtub, in this pool. So I had a little time to think about it. And like I said, the lady in the pool had short hair, so that immediately eliminates like Kristen. I don't think Lucy was in the runnings to fall in the pool. I don't think Lucy dies. I hope not. That would suck. But this lady tend to have she sort of had short hair. So I'm like, it could be Pam. I seriously doubt that, although I have noticed when I looked into going to the Dallas thing, she wasn't on there. And if you look at New Dallas or the newest one, there's other people on there. Like Sue Ellen's on there. I haven't actually seen the show. Let me be very clear. I am going strictly off of posters and little snips. Sue Ellen's on there, and then that weird lady who um the one who was dead on Wisteria Lane on Desperate Housewives, she's on there. So I'm like, I don't know if that's supposed to be Pam. I don't know if Victoria Principal didn't want to come back. I don't know. But anyway, I hope Pam comes back. JR did threaten her because she wanted to help. Oh no, Pam's not even at the house. Pam's not even at the house. Pam is taking the baby to Sue Ellen. It was the easiest kidnapping ever. It definitely ain't Sue Ellen. Okay, I'm back at square one. I guess it could be his secretary. I was thinking about that. The one that he fired, but I don't know why she would go all the way to his house. Especially if she wrote her own letter. Who knows? I can guess all day. I'm gonna find out here in the next day or so who hopefully who that is. Man, this is interesting. So on where Nod's Landing has to over has to build this season around one of the main characters being gone fictionally, Dallas is going to have to dance around that IRL. You had one of the major players actually pass away, and they're gonna have to figure that. So I think going forward, I still feel really confident just considering the sheer number of seasons they got through. I think they'll be able to navigate that pretty well. I mean, Ellie's still here, everybody else is still here. It'll be very interesting to see how that comes to pass because I'm thinking at the time of the finale, and I guess when on episode one, season five, Ellie and Jock are in Paris. So I wonder what they'll do. I wonder if they use his voice. You have to be really delicate with that. I'm sure I don't know. I'd love to, once I'm done with all this, I'd love to go behind the scenes and just sort of see what their thought process was. It seems like it'd be cool if you could do his voice, like if they have recordings of him where you can kind of hear him talking sometimes, or just maybe hollering from upstairs. I don't know how long they're gonna be able to keep that up, especially considering we know on 1982 on um Knott's Landing, they're already saying that he's gone, that Jock is gone. This is wild. I don't know. What else can we say about Dallas? Just fun, all in out fun. Stuel and stole the season. I love she's probably the most interesting. I love to watch her sort of fight through fight through this, like she has these moments where she's really hopeful. And this season, she she definitely grew. She wasn't letting JR bait her once she really saw his true colors. She accepted that her sister did what she did pretty well, way better than I would have. She kept going to Dr. LB, she just sort of resolved to be a good mother, and then her booski comes crawling out of the grave. Man, it's a good season. She's by far one of the most interesting. The the boring part of this to me was the Lucy and Mitch thing. I love that Mitch hates money, but also who wants to work 47 and a half jobs? Like, relax, relax. But I mean, he's a man, he wants to make his own way. It was cool. The Miss Dallas thing feels funny to me. I I stand by this opinion. They really do not know what to do with a young girl on their show, or a young woman rather, between the ages of 18 and like 22. They don't know what to do with her if she's not sleeping with older men. Speaking of sleeping with older men, my favorite person to hate on sometimes from the great state of Colorado. Dynasty, okay. Season one, you throw things up against the wall. Season two, you build on things. They were bright enough to bring in Alexis, who, in my opinion, probably helped save the show once they really got her going. Season three, we're introduced to Kirby and Mark Jennings. They folded in these new characters really, really well. So by the time season four rolled around, you were good and used to them. Still didn't really trust them, but used to them nonetheless. But season three solidified it, solidified Alexis as a Kobe. We had some marital issues. Is this I'm I'm trying to remember. Marital issues with yeah, with Crystal and Blake. Is this the Tuscani season or was that two? I think Tuscani was two. Oh, it's New Face Steven. Okay. Folded in a few new characters, blah blah blah. We end the season with the bang. Literally. Random meeting in the woods, big fire. I think Dynasty, by season four, thought, okay, listen, we're never gonna be as dramatic as Knott's Landing or Dallas. I'll say that about Dallas, too. Dallas is very, very dramatic as well, but their tension feels a lot different than Knott's Landing because it's it's sort of concentrated within the family. Yes, there's a few other outliers who have problems with the Ewings, but ultimately they fight harder between themselves than they do with anybody else. And passive aggressively, by and large. JR's humor really sort of coats that, sugarcoats everything he says, but ultimately, this is the Cain and Abel all day, every day. Dynasty said, you know what? Okay, we're not gonna have that. That we don't have. But what we do have is an incredibly witty woman who is not afraid to take a punch, not afraid to have a little cat fight. So it's like, let's build this tension between Alexis and Crystal. New face Steven is back. He is booed up with Claudia the Stallion, who is bullied into high fashion this season. And I think that was probably the best thing that ever happened to her, aside from Matthew disappearing into the jungle. She don't even realize she dodged a bullet getting away from him. I like that they're just sort of playing, they're playing with Alexis. Alexis carried this season. Let's go ahead and say it. Alexis and Adam. Okay, it's all coming back to me now. Season three was very heavy on the bit players. The bit players still carry this a lot, it was never one of the Carringtons except Adam. Jeff was front and center a little bit more. And let me put aside my my bias. Yeah, actually, Jeff was way more interesting this season because of Kirby. Joseph being off at the beginning still does not make sense to me. I'm trying to figure out what okay, let's think about this objectively. Joseph hates Alexa, she hates him too. He can't stand her. He doesn't want her to tell Kirby that her mother died much later. It didn't seem like they knew that at the beginning of this season. Am I right or am I right? That doesn't seem like that. I feel like somebody written that wrote that in much later. And they're like, okay, yeah, we gotta figure out how to make this Alicia lady relevant. We'll say she went to jail and then she died like three months ago. Which, based on this timeline, if you based on the time Kirby was pregnant and and she was showing, that would be a four or five months. Joseph wouldn't have had that information right there, right? Unless it happened like a week before. I don't know. That's what I'd be talking about. Soap tax, soap tax, soap tax. Somebody didn't think that through. They just wanted this man off the show. So, like, okay, he's gonna he's gonna be so devastated by the news that his ex-wife isn't dead because yeah, that would be a devastating blow to Kirby to know that she has a living, breathing mother, right? It was confusing, but watching Kirby try to get rid of Adam's Demon Seed was entertaining, even though it shouldn't be. That's never anything I would say in real life. On the show, it was hilarious. I forgot we have the introduction of Peter Crackpipe, the filibuster, who wooed Fallon with the body of an 87-year-old woman in a booger sugar habit, managed to sweep this billionaire daughter, billionaire heiress, off her feet with Nary a check, no diamonds, no nothing. Oh baby, can I can I borrow two million dollars? I'll give your mom and them this horse. Shut up, please. But you know what? I laughed on each and every episode of this season. I look forward to it. I can't even talk about Dynasty without smiling. If nothing else, they decided this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna look good. Amen. We're going to be cutthroat, we're gonna talk real crazy to each other, and we're gonna have a good time. If every other season building up to this was building on more and more, by season four, dynasty made a decision. I don't know if they've solidified it yet, but they made a decision. We're gonna be prettier, wittier, and if we gotta throw in a couple, two, three fist fights every other episode, so be it. We had people fist fighting in penny loafers at the top of a skyscraper. We had mud slung in faces, girls falling off horses. Who else fought? Did they fight again this season? I feel like I'm missing a crystal and Alexis fight, or somebody had a cat fight. I just can't remember at this moment. It's a blast. Season four for Dynasty is fun, so entertaining, a little bit outlandish, but I like that. I feel like if you're gonna be silly, if you're gonna go there, let's go there. We did have a few too many weddings, in my personal opinion. Enough is enough. Blake once again played himself. That was the best part. The oh yes, okay. That was a fight. The introduction of Dex Dexter, who has fast become one of my favorite characters on this show. He and Alexis got into a cat fight. I've never met somebody so pretty who loves to fight who wasn't like on the bad girls club. She loves to talk slick and take a punch. You gotta those type of people are scary. Because it's like she's never gonna shut up. She doesn't care if we slap her. Oh well. She's been slapped a lot before. I had that same thought. Y'all remember when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock? The way Chris Rock took that slap, I knew immediately. He's used to getting hit in the face. He must have he must have gotten beat up a lot as a kid. Oh, that's neither here nor there. Dynasty was all kinds of fun. We're still gonna need to develop some of these stories. I think bringing back Sammy Joe is gonna be so impactful because she, within the what, two or three episodes, she's already pissed off. 90% of the staff, the house people can't stand her, her own auntie can't stand her. She's running among, but we do need to get a blood test because I'm starting to believe that baby ain't Stevens. Why would you believe that? She was running around LA doing any and everybody. Okay, so because she had been gone, I love this when people do this. On a soap opera, when you leave and then you come back, or even a drama, if you go away and come back, there's the whole storyline about what you were doing in New York. So I think it's only a matter of time before some sleazy pimp name slip back type boyfriend comes crawling out from underneath a rock, shaking her down for money once she gets good and settled in Denver. Also, we have the addition of a new Carrington, Miss Diane Carroll, who was I wanted to call her mahogany. What is her name? What is her name? Domin Dominique? What's the what's uh yeah Dominique Deborah? I'm trying to see who she is. So I'm thinking I'm I've thought about this more. Either Blake has a brother, or she is related to him in some other capacity through mom or dad or something, or um who knows? Maybe there's a whole nother branch. Maybe there's black Deborah's or the black carringtons, I don't know. Either way, I I'm I'm excited to see. This season was fun, top to bottom. Sad to see Mark go, even though he was kind of a dud. He was just fun to be. I loved him being sent to his room and being insulted. Who she wants to insult now? Shout out to Dynasty. Dynasty just had a good time, they threw caution to the wind, and it's probably one of the best things they could have done. Because of what I can tell, it seems like they got more popular from this point on. And I get it. Dynasty is a type of show you need to watch with a bunch of people. Gosh. I wish I had gotten into the new one a little more. I know it's off the air, but who knows? Maybe they'll resurge it again. But this is it's a type of show you you need to watch in a group, it's to be fun. I might hit up my local library and play, we're gonna host a dynasty night. I think it'll be fun. Speaking of fun, Indiana Chase in the Vineyard of Doom, I thought was going to be an action-packed, full-on blockbuster season for Falcon Crest. They did not let me down. Let me be very, very clear. They definitely didn't let me down. But Knott's Landing is really who I thought Falcon Crest was at first. Falcon Crest is more drama-driven, but because it's it's surrounded or it's the focus of this show is the family, it's already a little bit different. They're also more action-driven. There's there's it's much more physical. There are much more stunts, they're outside more, and I feel like on any show, if you're outside a lot more, there's just a lot more action. But where um Dallas has this complete and total identity, Dynasty has said, you know what, we're just gonna go this way. Y'all gonna like it, or you're not? Knott's Landing is just showing you a peek of people. I don't really know them that well. I feel like I know the characters on Falcon Crest really well. And this season, it's like they went back to the drawing board a little bit. Angela falling in love, allegedly, last season, marrying Philip and all that. That wasn't really her style. She was back on her bully this season, and that's exactly where we needed her to be. Richard, too. Richard was tearing up the planet, looking for leather pants. Pam, at the end of season three, he's fighting the cartel, he's almost getting run over all these things. Season four, he said, you know what? F it. I am a bad guy. He did the wrecked Ralph. Villain talked to himself in reverse. I am a bad guy. I'm gonna do bad things. Angela's the same way, and Chase, God bless him, he's self-righteous and always blind. That's the thing. He's blind to the the happenings around him, always trying to do the right thing. And sometimes you gotta sometimes you gotta do the wrong thing. You gotta be the wrong guy for the right thing sometimes, or the right guy for the wrong thing. Yeah, I think that's a thing that's the difference between that's Falcon Crest thing. This season, everybody who was a villain said, F it, I'm gonna be that. So we had an unprecedented amount of people on the show going for each other's neck. Chase got a little bolder, I will say this. He got a little bolder. He's still not quite where he needs to be as far as being cutthroat. He's he's making people nervous now. Okay, so the so bringing in Maggie's dad at the beginning of this season seems like a little bit of a red herring. They didn't really tie that up. That's Maggie's dad, he is some archaeologist. He basically showed up so that Angela could tell the whole world that Maggie was adopted. And we can bring in her gambling mother with all these vices. Nothing really came of that. The only thing I can think of, they're laying the groundwork for another relative to pop up at some point, or this was just an attempt to give Maggie or Susan Sullivan more camera time. We needed to have a story built around her that wasn't her investigating someone else. This is the only time she gets to just kind of hang out and be a little bit drunk most of the time, from allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. But it upped her Annie a little bit more, especially when you think about her sister Terry. Now, Terry being a call girl with this coked out Florida man ex-husband coming and shaking her down for money, her still not knowing how to navigate this world of real money. She's lonely, she's vulnerable, she's still trying to hold these secrets. That's just much more interesting. But it was a little bit weird to me that we started off with the um God, what was that guy's name? Diversity. I don't think I ever got his name right this whole season. It doesn't matter. The Nazi child blows up his father only to systematically and very quietly buy up real estate surrounding Falconcrest, only to discover that the treasure was in a cave. He didn't have the wherewithal to send and do dirt dudes or at least workers or you know construction. There's a million ways to skin a cat, and he he he he would rather eavesdrop on these people at Falcon Crest rather than just go into this cave. All you needed is blueprints. It's a little sloppy, it's a little sloppier than I'm used to for Falcon Crest, but I still enjoyed it. I just thought the whole season would be about that. But this man dies by episode 20, and nobody is any the wiser about all the gold and jewels and the goony loot that is trapped inside this cave forever, along with two bodies that nobody managed to go in and check on. They're like likelihood is very slim to none. So but it was fun. That was a fun little storyline. I'd much, much, much prefer though the Cassandra and Riker storyline to that other one. Here's the thing with Falcon Crest. I've always been a huge fan of the writing on this show, and I still am. It's like they double-dip, though. They just it's almost as if this was two totally different camps of writers. They had to flip a coin or they wrote Chambeau to see who was gonna get the first part of the season, who's gonna get the end of the season, and they made two totally it felt like two seasons. Didn't help that it was also 30 episodes, it definitely felt like it could have been two very different seasons of the same show, equally as good. I just happen to prefer the latter. It was great to see Angela back on her bully. It was very entertaining to see Lorenzo. I always want to call Lorenzo Lamas Laz Alonzo, to watch Lorenzo Lamas squeeze out tears. But he matured this season. Lance was a much more mature character. He's getting away from sort of that douchebag era, and he's he's actually becoming a young man and all the things that that come with that. The Lorraine love story was it was entertaining, especially towards the end where their acting got just really, really bad.

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I don't know why.

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I I I really enjoy I enjoy cackling at them. Glad to see Bad Girl Melly Mel back on her bully. I wonder how she's gonna do in jail, though. I really wonder how she's gonna do in jail. Oh, also, I love the introduction of an Italian relative. Falconcrest has been the exception to the rule twice as far as bringing in a relative. They brought in Cousin Michael last season, and he was just a stand-up guy all around. All through season three, he was a stand-up guy. And then when they brought in Francesca, the Italian baddie, at the beginning of this season, she was a stand-up lady too. Usually a relative means horrible bad news, but not in this case. Not so far, not with them. Trying to think who else showed up. Oh, Julia came back from the not dead. I'm not surprised by that though. She you remember she crawled under the little tunnel in the spring house. Everybody knew there was a trapdoor in there. I don't know why no one checked it, but she tried to turn herself in after she couldn't stay in that RV anymore. She's been one of the more interesting characters on this show because from season one to season two, she turned into this from this mousey lady to this almost femme fatal who's brandishing weapons, threatening people's lives, falling in love with these weirdos and whatnot, but it being able to keep it secret. It's an interesting twist, especially when they do that with women. You don't often see that, like, oh, she was she was able to hide that she was madly in love with this man, and you know, she was she was keeping everybody close to keep an eye on him. But I mean, so far on this show and on Dallas, person brandishing the weapon has been a lady, probably because they're unassuming. Kristen actually wasn't. The more I think about Kristen on Dallas, that's quite obvious that it was her. But Julia on season, end of season two, early season three turned out to be the shooter was wild, especially with the backstory of um almost call this woman Lana Del Rey. You know who I'm talking about, Lana Turner, Tanner, Turner, and Jane Wyman allegedly not getting along, and it's either her or me. You know who it is. Falcon Crest was fine. It was just it was it was so different from itself. Like they have they established a long time ago. We're gonna we're gonna bank on our acting, we're going to bank on the writing, we're gonna be gorgeous, and we're gonna we're gonna have more action-packed sequences. They did. They had a guy almost run somebody off the side of a cliff. Explosions, two explosions. The last minute buzzer beater's romances threw me for a loop, but um when I tell you I'm the most excited about that, I suddenly really like Richard and Maggie together. I do. There's no reason for her to leave Chase because you know Chase thing, Connie. Come on now. There's I don't he really likes her for her mind. He really, really does. She knows how to make champagne, he knows how to make wine barely. I just don't see that being much of anything. But Richard and Maggie have been cool for like two seasons at this point. They're both adopted, they both have daddy issues. She's like the only real friend he has outside of Leather Pant Bam, but even that wasn't genuine. Him and Maggie are being real cool. He even didn't break her mother's kneecaps when she was gambling too much at his establishment out of respect for Maggie, of course. But it was interesting. I love all the twists and turns here. That's all that's basically what I'm saying. Falconcrest jam-packed so many stories into one season, and it still managed to make a lot of sense. There's a couple of plot holes here and there. I do wonder what they're going to do with Julia because she is so she's so sporadic. I kind of forget she's there and then she just shows up all of a sudden. I think she's at a convent with the nuns or something, isn't she? I also don't think that cousin Robin is Prego. I also do not believe Melissa's gonna sit in jail. I just I don't see that happening. I imagine she's gonna escape. They love a manhunt on this show. That's true. They love a Nazi storyline, an explosion, and a manhunt. And on this show, in they will turn each other in at the drop of a hat. I am especially Especially fond of Angela. I I really enjoy when they have full grown men and women on shows. I don't think they're quite senior citizens, but I do love when when the older people on the show aren't just props. I don't really like to see them sitting around doing nothing, waiting to babysit kids and whatever. I like you outside causing trouble, making people nervous, buying up land, destroying your nephew, doing all those things. That's what you need to be doing with your life. Who wants to wait till you get to the end of your life to just be like, oh, I'm just gonna knit? No. I'm gonna buy up property and make people nervous, make people uncomfortable. I'm gonna put my grandson in a shipping container and send him to Italy. I'm gonna make my other nephew tuck in his whole life. I'm gonna bankrupt him and then I'm gonna tear down his hideous house because I can't stand it. Or I'm gonna turn it into my personal closet. Either way, I am forever and always a stan for Miss Angela Big Perm chanting. All in all, I would say season four was bigger, it was bolder, it was shinier, and it was a whole lot more fun, I would say, than any other seasons. If we're talking about Dallas Dynasty and Falcon Crest, it was just a lot more fun this season. Dallas knows exactly who they are, they are exactly who they think they are. Dyne of Falcon Crest is two. They're in an experimental phase, though, with the addition of all the new characters and all the new plots. It's getting a little bit thick. All of their stories kind of bump into each other, where on the other shows, I guess they do, but the consequences aren't as prominent. Like Dynasty, yes, okay, Joseph, the Joseph Kirby, Adam, Jeff storyline ran parallel with the Jeff and Fallon storyline, which was also parallel with the um Steven and Alexis versus Adam and you know what I'm saying? Those all did they're yeah, yeah. There's really no major consequence or just kind of at each other's throat a little bit or comp competitors. But on Falcon Crest, it is a cutthroat dinner every single night. And on Dallas, it's the same way. So I appreciate the deep-seated hatred and rivalry from Dallas and Falconcrest. I love the shininess, the camp, and the just sort of breakneck storyline on Dynasty. And I love the slow burn of Not Sanding. Can't wait to see what season four of Not Landing is about, though. So I can kind of compare it across the board. At the rate of which it's going, I don't know if I'll ever feel like I know all the characters. It seems like they give you just enough each season and then they develop into something else. On Dallas, it's just sort of a race against the clock. Who's gonna be on top and for how long? How long before JR takes the throne back is all you're really worried about. Especially with Jock being gone. That is that's another thing. I'm very curious to see how that unfolds because JR already runs Ewing Oil. I can't imagine what he would do. I don't can't imagine he can do too much because Ellie is still here. Yeah. But, anyways, guys, I'm very curious if you would like to reach out to me and answer this question. I would love to hear your opinion. Number one, I want to know you um from you OGs of Knott's Landing, especially people who really, really are fond of knots landing. Did you find season three to be a little bit all over the place? I definitely did, but also I don't know what's coming next. And it felt just like, oh, okay, they just needed to kind of get that out of their system. And it didn't really feel that different from the other seasons, but I also, yeah, I I I'm going back through it. So I just want to kind of look at it through the lens of knowing what happens at the end of the season to see if it changes my mind a little bit. But I'd love to hear from you guys about that. Also, who do you think the best villain is? Is it Abby? Is it Angela Channing? Is it Alexis Carrington or is it JR Union? I would like not Union, Ewing. I would like to point out that all the ladies have the exact same initials. AC versus AC versus AC versus J R. Alright, guys, I think that's enough for now. I can't wait to start season five. I am just write all the names in a bucket, pull it out, and see who I watch first. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Soap Lore. I hope you continue to watch these with me in real time. If this is your first time, let me know how you stumble upon this. I think Elena told me that she was looking for the other dynasty. Whoops. I'm glad you found it, girl, because the original, I as far as I can tell, is better. I haven't watched the other one. Oh, that's another thing. One last thing. If you do want to watch the new dynasty, from what I can tell, they don't really carry on to what was going on before. It's like a reimagining. So it's new characters, same characters, new cast. I think Sammy Joe is a dude. You know what I'm saying? Like they change a few things, so it won't spoil anything. But I think if you try to watch Dallas, it does. Because it's a they're continuing on. All right, guys. Remember, if you'd like to reach out to me, you can send me a text. Check the show notes if you're on your mobile device. There is a link that says send me a text. I can't text you back, but I will always respond to you. Or you can reach out to me the old-fashioned way via email at soapplorpodcast at gmail.com. That's S-O-A-P-L-O-R-E-P-O-D-C-A-S T at gmail.com. In the meantime, in between time, rewatch your favorite shows. But yeah, if you love it, let's just keep watching and let's run this up. I really do feel like we need to, I don't want to say evangelize, but spread the word far and wide about some of these shows. This is where it's at. Where else are you gonna get 20 plus episodes of prime time? Fantastic drama each and every episode. Where else are you gonna do that? Stay hydrated, stay moisturized, mind your own business, and keep all of your drama on TV.