Dallas: J.R. Returns
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Dallas: J.R. Returns was the first of the two Dallas reunion movies to air after the series went off the air. It originally aired on CBS on November 15, 1996, and recently was rerun as part of TV Land's salute to 50 years of Warner Bros. Television.
[edit] Plot summary
The cliffhanger ending of the series finale is resolved in the opening minutes of the movie. It turns out that the gunshot J.R. Ewing fired was at the mirror, not himself.
Several years later, J.R. is in Europe, while Bobby Ewing lives in Southfork alone with his son Christopher, and Cliff Barnes is still celebrating over his takeover of Ewing Oil (which happened during the final few episodes of the series).
However, things aren't as cheery as they may seem. Bobby, tiring of being a rancher, considers selling Southfork. Cliff, believing that J.R. is no longer a threat to him, decides that after all the trouble he and J.R. and went through during their rivalry, he wants to try and regain whatever he lost in it (namely a daughter of his he had with longtime lover Afton Cooper), and the best way to do so is to sell Ewing Oil to Weststar Oil, headed by J.R.'s other nemesis, Carter McKay. McKay promises that upon completion of deal, Weststar will completely incorporate Ewing Oil's assets into his company, and Ewing Oil will permanently cease to exist.
J.R. hears this and decides that he will try to regain his position.
After a surprise trip to Ewing Oil where he taunts a rattled Cliff with his plan, J.R. learns of a provision in Jock Ewing's will where Jock left John Ross Ewing III (J.R.'s younger son) stock in a computer company, which is worth 200 million dollars now. The stock would go to John Ross only after J.R. died. However, since John Ross is living with Sue Ellen (his mother) in Europe, and doesn't know about this, J.R. decides that he's going to sell some of this stock and buy up shares to take over Weststar, which is about to absorb "his" company.
But J.R. isn't done yet! To set this in motion, he fakes his own death in a car accident with help from several people, and has his attorney "accidentally" put the shares in his name, instead of his son's. Thinking that J.R. really has died, Bobby holds a memorial service at Southfork, with John Ross and Sue Ellen attending (where Sue Ellen realizes that she still loves J.R., and always will) and Cliff in quiet celebration, where he believes he's won the ultimate victory over J.R....until J.R. suddenly comes back during the service on the back of a pick-up full of hogs! He falsely claims to have been kidnapped and managed an escape.
At the end, Cliff is faced with an ultimatum: either he chooses control of Ewing Oil, and leaves everything he has gotten back behind, or he chooses his newfound family and gives up Ewing Oil. Cliff chooses his family, with Ewing Oil returned to the family...but not to J.R.!
In the final moments of the show, JR is now Chairman of the Board of Weststar, and begins to back Cliff into a corner, by forcing him to sell Ewing Oil to Weststar. Cliff comes up with alternative at the last minute. Cliff sells Ewing Oil to Bobby Ewing, and his new partner, Sue Ellen Ewing. JR appears shocked and crushed. Bobby, Sue Ellen, and Cliff, all believe they pulled one more over on old JR.
In the last scene, John Ross asks JR why he is smiling even though he lost Ewing Oil to Bobby and Sue Ellen. So JR points a few things out. Bobby is back in the oil business and is no longer going to sell Southfork. Ewing Oil is back in Ewing hands. JR is Chairman of the Board of Weststar Oil. Sue Ellen is back at Southfork to stay, and John Ross will remain in Dallas to learn the oil business from JR. At this point, John Ross turns to JR, and realizes his father may have actually planned everything to work out this way from the start. JR's last words, "See son, you're learning already."
[edit] Notes
Cast members reprising their series role include Larry Hagman, Ken Kercheval, Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray, George Kennedy, Omri Katz, Audrey Landers, and George O. Petrie.
This was Kercheval's last appearance as Cliff Barnes in the Dallas series, as he did not reprise his role for Dallas: War of the Ewings. This was also Petrie's final appearance on film or TV, as he died the following year.
