Hour two opens with Chrelena cooing over each other at Southfork while he paints his childhood crib for his unborn twins. John Ross arrives and "commends" -- pu-huh! -- Elena for being so willing to raise another woman's children.
Jr. also mentions that he and his pops are about to visit his mom, who lost the election to become the governor of Texas.
Speaking of dejected mamas, Ann has taken to bed with a case of the vapors and is in need of a daily injection of lorazepam, so melted down is she over being cruelly rebuffed by her daughter. (Note to Ann: That drug didn't work out so well for Michael Jackson. We're just sayin'.) Bobby is on the case, though, and as he suspected, Harris is up to no good. No damn good. Bobby learns that it was actually Harris -- and his meddling mama, played by Judith Light -- who kidnapped Emma, because they didn't think Ann was good enough to raise their little princess. They had her swiped and let Ann feel guilty and heartbroken for the next two decades while they raised Emma the "proper" way in Europe. Who's the boss? Yeah, still Angela. Er, Judith. Er, Harris's manipulative mom!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or rather, Sue Ellen's house, J.R. and John Ross arrive to console her just in the nick of time … the humiliation and disappointment of her election loss have led Sue Ellen to pour herself a glass of hooch, and she is seconds from taking a drink when her Ewing fellas arrive. J.R. reels off a list of Sue Ellen's post-divorce accomplishments and tells her that he's going to help her, J.R. style, to avoid jail time and rebound from her scandal.
"Darlin', I'm only going to say this once, and I'll deny it the minute I leave this room, but the best decision you ever made was the day you walked away from me," J.R. says in a moment that -- the writers couldn't have known at the time -- proved to be a particularly touching encounter between two original "Dallas" stars before Hagman's untimely death.
And then it's annulment-hearing time, and the real Rebecca Sutter takes the stand and pulls the switcheroo on Christopher's plan to bury BeckyPam. She testifies that BeckyPam had changed her ways and put a stop to her fraudulent identity. And since Christopher had temporarily reunited with BeckyPam after she confessed to faking her identity (but before she revealed the truth about being Cliff's daughter), the judge rules that there are no grounds for annulment and that Christopher will have to rid himself of BeckyPam via divorce.
As for the rest of the premiere, we'll summarize in the interest of getting to our list of J.R.'s best lines from the two hours:
- Chrelena celebrated Elena's deal that will save them millions of dollars for their methane business and give John Ross the cash to buy the trucks he wanted.
- J.R. visited BeckyPam and tried to warn her against going up against the family.
- J.R. stuck his hand into his bag of tricks and blackmailed the state attorney into dropping any thought of legal action against Sue Ellen.
- Christopher, Bobby, and John Ross each rewarded Elena with some of their shares, which resulted in the four of them being equal partners in Ewing Energies.
- Christopher shared with Real Rebecca a voicemail that implicates her and BeckyPam in the plot to defraud him (and it's underestimated Barnes employee Frank who sold BeckyPam out).
- J.R. and Sue Ellen celebrated her lack of legal woes with tea at her house.
- Enemies-turned-allies John Ross and BeckyPam sealed their partnership to destroy Chrelena -- and make sure that she gets her hands on Christopher's methane patent and he gets her share of future Ewing Energies shares -- with a … well, not handshake.
Finally, in honor of J.R., his best lines from the premiere:
- Upon trying to woo the Ewing Energies secretaries with a big pink box of muffins and finding out that many of them are male: "Now where's the sport in that?"
- To the state's attorney who was considering prosecuting Sue Ellen for her bribery: "A state attorney needs a secretary with tighter lips, you know that?"
- To BeckyPam: "I'm here to look my enemy in the eye. And since your daddy is about two feet shorter than I am, I guess you'll have to do."
- To BeckyPam: "If you've got it in your pretty little head to go after Ewing Energies in the divorce, you won't be dealing with Christopher, you'll be dealing with me … you're not the first Pam to fox her way into the henhouse. I'm one-for-one on flushing out Pamelas. And I plan on being two-for-two."
- To Frank, Cliff's former driver and now corporate advisor, whom J.R. likes to deride as being nothing more than a Barnes family tool: "How does it feel to be a poodle?"
- To John Ross, as they broke down their plans for making sure that Sue Ellen has to call in her loan to Elena, which would put her shares of Ewing Energies in their hands eventually: "Son, you've got the devil in ya." John Ross: "Takes one to know one."
- Upon watching John Ross mope over Chrelena being all lovey-dovey at Southfork: "Love, hate, jealousy: mix 'em up and they make a mean martini. And when we take over Ewing Energies, you'll slake your thirst … with a twist."
Slake! Your assignment for the next week, "Dallas" fans, until we get another batch of new J.R. lines to quote: Use the word "slake" as often as possible, in honor of the only actor who could have delivered that line that deliciously.
"Dallas" airs Mondays at 9 PM on TNT.