Dallas season finale review: Square one

By the end of the hour, everything on Dallas has sort of just reset itself: Elena and Chris are still in love; Sue Ellen is still running for governor; Rebecca is still sneaky; and John Ross and J.R. are in cahoots. To tell you the truth, after all of the “Just wait ’til you see how Dallas ends” commercials running throughout the hour (in between oddly placed Timothy Green adverts), I was expecting a cliffhanger so jaw dropping that my cravings for more Dallas would overwhelm me.

I’m not saying that I don’t want to watch more Dallas — I am completely game, and will be back in January — I’m just saying that this season has had plenty of more finale-worthy episodes than the finale.

Perhaps the best part about this episode of Dallas is that Rebecca was finally not just boringly crying for an entire episode: she got her hands dirty. After shooting and murdering her “brother” Tommy, Rebecca makes a phone call to some guys in black who come over and clean up her entire mess. There’s blood splattered on the stuffed animals Christopher bought for their two children the episode prior. It’s eery, even in the soap opera roller coaster world of Dallas, in a way Marta’s death was not. Even the ending of the previous episode, where Tommy tries to rape Rebecca, had this insanely dark tone that carries on into this episode. And Rebecca, after getting away with murder (for now, and technically it was self-defense), searching a corpse, and revealing herself to be the daughter of Cliff Barnes, may have finally gotten interesting. Yes, now, not when it was revealed she conned Chris. She’s set out to compete against him, instead of fawning over him. Now this is a Rebecca I’m going to be entertained by.

Elsewhere, this episode really packed a punch in the emotional side as well. Larry Hagman’s portrayal of J.R. telling his brother Bobby he loved him for the first time, to then subsequently be told by Bobby he really doesn’t want anything to do with him, was almost heartbreaking. Josh Henderson’s John Ross pleading for Elena not to leave him after he’s tried so hard to please just about everyone added a great amount of depth to his character (though, we’ve always known that John Ross strives to please his dad).

Though, this episode did have its share of classic Dallas moments. I say “classic” as in this new series, not the old one. The scene between Ann and her ex-husband was absolutely the kind of show I expect this series to be — sexy, dark, and downright twisty. Besides, we’ve established that Ann is sort of just totally boss right? I might have seriously and quite literally yelped during that scene.

That said, the rest sort of just was slapped together to give an ending arc to our baddies. Whatever. We all know the best part of Dallas is the family’s own screw-ups anyway. Y’all won’t be missed.

For a season that’s been one revelation and twist after the other, Dallas‘s freshman year has probably solidified me as a fan. It’s nailed summer escapism down to a formula — but this formula doesn’t let you in on its secret. How it will fare in January for a show that seems so summer, I don’t know. But I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Dallas is one helluva ride — and if you’re not on it, you’re sorely missing out one one of TV’s most entertaining and quickly-addicting series.

Dallas returns with a second season of fifteen episodes in January on TNT.