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Episode Recaps: Season One
Episode One: The Return to Southfork

John Ross returns to Southfork with his fiancee Karen…J.R. learns that Karen is Alan Beam's daughter and Sue Ellen learns that he is planning on using that against them...Ray, Jenna and Lucas return to Southfork…J.R. plots to get Ewing Oil back from Sue Ellen and Bobby with a mysterious folder…Bobby will be coming home soon…Mitch and Lucy are having problems, and Mitch heads to live with Afton for a while while Lucy returns to Southfork…Afton and Cliff are married…Christopher is coming back to town and Pamela Rebecca is psyched.

Episode Two: Marriage Ewing Style

John Ross and Karen are to be married at Southfork the next day…J.R. continues to plot to break up the wedding, and Ratigan says that everything is going to plan. At the wedding, Alan Beam shows up and screams that the wedding cannot continue…Pamela Rebecca and John Ross are both hiding a secret…Sue Ellen gives John Ross 25% of Ewing Oil…Is there sexual tension between Bobby and Sue Ellen? Sue Ellen hires Sly, who is secretly working for J.R…Pamela Rebecca likes Christopher…Lucy sees Mitch at the wedding and the interaction is not pleasant…after an altercation with J.R., Cliff decides he wants back in the oil business…Jenna gives Bobby looks…Patricia Shepard returns for the wedding.

Episode Three: Like Father, Like Son

Alan Beam storms the wedding, with pictures revealing a one night tryst between John Ross and Pamela Rebecca that resulted in a pregnancy…Pamela Rebecca is devastated and confirms this...Christopher is really heart broken....Karen goes off the handle and gets really drunk and depressed, so Ray eventually finds her...Sue Ellen overhears that J.R. was behind this all and is pissed...a drunk and depressed John Ross loves Karen but feels really stupid...John Ross gets drunk with J.R., who manages to get him to sign over his 25% of Ewing Oil...J.R. gloats about this to Sue Ellen, which causes Patricia to be so pissed that she bitches out J.R. on the stairs. Later, a crash is heard, and Patricia is lying at the bottom of the stairs, with J.R. looking down...Carter McKay approaches Cliff about going back into the oil business together.

Episode Four: Lifelines

At the hospital, Patricia lies in a coma...Christopher overhears Sue Ellen telling Jenna about Christopher being Kristin's child after she sees a picture of Kristin…Cliff bitches out John Ross for what happened to Pamela Rebecca…Karen manages to make it back to her father's hotel...J.R. and Anita plot to get the rest of Ewing Oil...Sue Ellen and Bobby still share sexual tension...Bobby swears that J.R. will not get the rest of Ewing Oil...J.R. makes a promise to John Ross that they are going to make Alan Beam pay for what he did to John Ross.

Episode Five: Down to Business

Sue Ellen and Christopher have a heart to heart about Kristin being his mother, but obviously he is still sort of upset about it…Christopher makes plans to go find Pam…Christopher overhears J.R. talking to Ratigan about how he set up Alan Beam to break up the wedding, and Christopher is appalled…Christopher gives J.R. a note to give to Bobby explaining why he has left Southfork...Patricia remains in her coma...John Ross goes to Karen and professes his love to her, promising that he will make things right. Karen is rude to him, but admits to herself that she loves him too....Pamela Rebecca goes to Karen and tells her she can have John Ross. A bitter Karen tells Pamela Rebecca she's a whore and the two get into a mini catfight...Cliff and Carter plan to start NorthStar oil and J.R. just laughs them off....J.R. and John Ross continue to try to ruin Alan Beam.

Episode Six: The Beginnings of Revenge

The price of oil is dropping, thanks to OPEC flooding the market, and J.R. is worried. An old friend gives him a number of a banker who can help fix his oil prices so that he gets some extra cash. J.R. meets with the man, Robert Stockton, and it looks like he will do business with him....Robert Stockton has a secret associate that he is working with to ruin J.R....OPEC makes a reduction in oil prices, so the mysterious man working to ruin J.R. is worried that Stockton will no longer be needed by J.R.. However, he is still determined to ruin him....J.R. sends Ratigan to find out Robert Stockton's background…Sue Ellen and Bobby meet with Robert Stockton, acting as banker, and think about getting a loan from him...Sue Ellen and Bobby try to blackmail J.R. out of Ewing Oil by using her film, but J.R. calls her bluff, saying no one would want to watch it...Patricia wakes up from her coma…Ray calls Val and Gary about the upcoming Ewing BBQ…John Ross tells Karen that he wants to make it work, and Karen agrees that she does too...Pamela Rebecca realizes that she does care for John Ross and wants him. She tells him this and he says he only wants Karen. Pamela Rebecca is pissed...Christopher leaves in search of Pam, and Bobby gets the note Christopher left him, but not before J.R. reads it....J.R. plans to cause a diversion for Christopher, to keep him away from Dallas so he won't tell John Ross that he (J.R.) plotted to stop the wedding...Christopher goes to the hospital Pam was staying at after the accident, steals her file and overhears the doctors talking cryptically about her. What he reads in the file shocks him.

Episode Seven: A Ewing Barbecue

Robert Stockton learns that Ratigan is investigating him, and is worried that this will interfere with "the plans for J.R." He hires someone to silence Ratigan…Jenna is worried about Charlie, so she decides to fly to Switzerland, unbeknowest to Ray. Bobby sees her making the plans and feels bad that she's alone, so he decides to go with her...On the flight there, the plane has troubles and is about to crash. Jenna confesses to Bobby that she loves him and has always loved him...Christopher reads the file from the hospital which states that Pam is dead. It says she was shipped to a Sanitarium and she died there. Christopher visits the Sanitarium, which confirms this, and then Christopher visits her grave...John Ross and Karen seem to be mending their relationship, but Pamela Rebecca wants him...she convinces John Ross to come with her to the doctor, then secretly smears lipstick on his collar…Karen sees this and goes ballistic, throwing Pamela Rebecca in the pool...Lucy is served with divorce papers by Mitch....Depressed, Lucy gets drunk at the BBQ and seduces Cliff...J.R. hires a PI to follow Cliff and his new company, and they take pictures of Lucy and Cliff in bed...Afton walks in on Cliff and Lucy in bed and is pissed...Patricia is released from the hospital and is back at Southfork, but she confirms that J.R. did not push her....Val, Gary, Betsy and Bobby visit from Knots Landing for the BBQ.

Episode Eight: Tragic Reunion

Afton has lunch with J.R. and says she wants to ruin Cliff...After his night with Lucy, Cliff spends the next couple of days in a drunken haze, and gets so drunk that she starts to attack Afton. Scared, Afton shoots him...Ray learns that Bobby and Jenna's plane has crashed...John Ross and Karen make up...Pamela Rebecca plots to keep them away and bumps into J.R. J.R. says he is onto her schemes to break them apart and wants to help, because he'd rather John Ross be with her than Alan Beam's daughter...Pamela Rebecca and J.R. set up a plan that somehow involves rigging Karen's car…John Ross and Karen plan a romantic date at a hotel, but John Ross leaves a note for Karen that he will be late. Pamela Rebecca intercepts the note, secretly leaves another note for Karen telling her a different time, then goes to the hotel room, drugs John Ross, and gets in bed with him. Karen walks in, is really hurt and freaks. John Ross wakes up and is so distraught, that he runs out of the room and gets in Karen's car and drives away (he has keys to her car)...Ratigan is being followed by Stockton's men. They run him off the road, killing him...When Ratigan is being run off the road, it collides with John Ross, driving, as the brakes of Karen's car (which he is driving) are screwy...Ray announces to the family that Bobby and Jenna's plane has crashed, just as Christopher and Pamela Barnes Ewing walk in.



Welcome to Return to Southfork, a fan-created web-series dedicated to continuing the popular 80s primetime series, Dallas.

The RTS page premiered on April 11, 1998 and a little over a month later, episode one, The Return to Southfork was posted. The series ended in 2002, after 137 episodes.

We would like to thank all of you readers who have kept the memory of RTS alive over the years. RTS can now be reached here if you would like to send any comments.