Who Done It (Dallas)
episode of Dallas (S4 E4)
"Who Done It" is the fourth episode of the fourth season of the American television series Dallas, and the 58th episode overall. It first aired on CBS in the United States on November 21, 1980. The episode was written by Loraine Despres, and revealed who had shot J. R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman) in the third season finale "A House Divided". The perpetrator's fate was revealed in the subsequent episode one week later.
Overview
For an eight-month-long period of media frenzy after the broadcast of "A House Divided" episode (wherein Dallas archvillain J.R. Ewing was shot by an unidentified perpetrator outside his office), oddsmakers created a set of odds for the possible culprits. The favorite was Dusty Farlow, who was Sue Ellen Ewing's lover (Sue Ellen being J.R.'s wife), with odds installed at 6:4. Sue Ellen herself was given 25:1 odds, as was J.R.'s mother Miss Ellie Ewing. At 4:1 were Sue Ellen's sister and her husband's mistress, Kristin Shepard and banker Vaughn Leland, who fell victim to a J.R. swindle. After Sue Ellen's fingerprints were found on the gun in subsequent episodes she became the favorite at 3 to 1 according to some oddsmakers, while others listed Kristin and Cliff Barnes as favorites (Cliff being J.R.'s rival from childhood).
J.R. Ewing is a fictional character that William K. Stevens of The New York Times described as "the nastiest man on television, the Iago of Texas oilmen, the smiling snake of a star of Friday night TV's Dallas, a man so venal, so low, so mean, so diabolical that he has become an absolute delight to an estimated quarter of a billion viewers around the globe." His New York Times colleague John J. O'Connor described him as "the eldest son of the oil-rich Ewing family..." who is "...a sadistic bully and a swindler" that "captured the public's imagination".
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