If you were glued to your TV every Friday night in the late 1970s and 1980s, you already know exactly what Southfork Ranch looked like. You knew the Ewings like they were neighbors. And when Dallas finally ended on May 3, 1991, after 14 seasons and 357 episodes, it went out the same way it lived, with a bang.
Literally.
How It All Began
Dallas premiered on CBS in 1978. It told the story of the Ewing family: matriarch Sue Ellen, played by Barbara Bel Geddes, her husband Jock (Jim Davis), and their sons J.R. and Bobby, played by Patrick Duffy. What started as a Romeo and Juliet love story between Bobby and his wife Pamela quickly shifted focus to a far more compelling character: the scheming, charming, thoroughly rotten J.R. Ewing, brought to life by Larry Hagman.
The show changed television. Competitors scrambled to keep up, and an entire genre was born, the primetime soap opera. Dynasty, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest all followed in Dallas‘s wake.
The Question That Stopped a Nation
You remember the cliffhanger. Everyone does. Someone shot J.R. Ewing, and for an entire summer, nobody knew who did it. The suspense was so enormous that President Jimmy Carter reportedly joked about it at a fundraiser in Dallas, saying he had come to town to find out confidentially who shot J.R.
The answer finally came in the Season 4 episode called “Who Dun It?” More than 83 million viewers tuned in, one of the largest audiences in television history. The shooter turned out to be Kristen Shepard, played by Mary Crosby. She was Sue Ellen’s sister and J.R.’s mistress. Of course she was.
The Finale CBS Promised Would Be Unforgettable
By 1991, CBS knew it was time to say goodbye. They promoted the finale as J.R. Ewing’s “Judgment Day” and teased the return of six beloved characters from across the show’s run. They promised viewers it would end with a memorable bang.
They were not wrong.
The finale drew its inspiration from It’s a Wonderful Life. J.R. is visited by a spirit named Adam, played by Joel Grey, who shows him what life would have looked like for his loved ones if he had never existed. Bobby, Gary (Ted Shackleford), rival Cliff Barnes, Sue Ellen, Kristen Shepard, all of them appear in this alternate vision.
After the journey, Adam urges J.R. to take his own life. J.R. refuses. He tells Adam to go back to heaven. Adam’s chilling response: what made J.R. think he came from heaven?
J.R. wakes up, but he’s still not at peace. Adam returns, this time dressed in red, and shouts at J.R. to act. The scene cuts away. Bobby comes home, hears a gunshot, rushes through the house, and finds something that stops him cold. “Oh, my God!” he cries. The screen freezes on Bobby in the doorway. Fade to black. J.R.’s fate: unknown.
The Mystery and the Answer
Over 22 million viewers watched that finale. TV Guide Network later ranked it among the top 15 most unforgettable series finales of all time.
Fans were still talking about it years later. One viewer, reflecting on it recently, called it “truly one of the more bizarre series finales” they could remember, adding that they liked how it ended on a cliffhanger.
The answer came five years later in the TV movie Dallas: J.R. Returns. Bobby finds J.R. in conversation with the devil. The gunshot, it turned out, had shattered a mirror. J.R. was alive.
Dallas came back once more when TNT revived the series in 2012. It ran for three seasons before ending again in 2014, 21 years after that first unforgettable goodbye.
If you want to revisit Southfork Ranch, the full series is available on YouTube TV, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV. Some things are just worth watching again.
