Re-watching Season 11          

Still not quite sure what to make of the new opening credits (close ups of sea shells instead of cast members?), but you can't fault them for trying to ring the changes. Wow, I loved this episode. I love how densely plotted the Ted/Paige/Greg chase story is. I really have to concentrate to keep track of who has the key (and who thinks who has the key) at any given time, and I really like that. The way Ted keeps coming after Paige is relentless, he's almost Robert Patrick in TERMINATOR 2.

This episode has a different fresher, brighter feel after the darkness of Season 10. There are several really nice small moments that are both funny and add texture to the story in much the same way as small scenes in CORONATION STREET do. My favourite is when Paige, after reaching Spring Lake, (or whatever that small town's called) asks the goofily charming sheriff the whereabouts of the nearest motel. "Be still my heart! You big city women, you move so fast!" he replies. I love the scene in which Pat teases Gary, telling him the entire cul-de-sac has been speculating about him whacking off to some stranger's voice on the phone. It's really interesting to see the two sides of Gary do battle over Sally's Friend--his co-dependent side wants to take care of her, while his "I just wanna be left alone side" wants her to get lost. The only irritant is Penny Peyser's whiny performance, but even that makes sense in relation to Gary's increasing exasperation with her. Besides, there's always the adorable Chester to look at while she's yakking on. I love how we check in with Val after what seems like weeks to see how she's progressing with Danny. She's not in crisis mode here, but still brings all of her baggage and insecurities into this new situation. When Danny cancels a date because he's sick, Val wonders if it's just an excuse. She is relieved to find out he is sick, but would probably be less happy to know that, after she visits him with chicken soup and kisses, he feels well enough to nip round to his estranged wife's place and beat her up, while her ex-husband is listening in on the phone. (Watching these scenes in hindsight only makes them more interesting.)

The awkwardness that Mack and Paula display in front of Karen after what did or didn't happen the night before is beautifully played--it's comedic and yet totally believable. And the scene in which Mack tries to explain the situation to Karen who is sitting in the back of the car and can't hear what he's saying is just so funny. It makes me laugh out loud.
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"Up The Spout Again". OK, Ted has been chasing Paige nonstop for three episodes now, and perhaps the novelty is starting to wear off (although it's still exciting when he starts chopping down the toilet door to get to her). Val and Gary are suddenly caught up in plots that have sprung out of nowhere--she has fallen head over heels for Danny, while he searches desperately for a needle in a haystack ("Hi--Sally? You don't know me, but do you have a friend with a dog named Chester?")--but the writers keep subtly linking them together. The twins' bemused reaction upon catching Val and Danny being all kissy is funny and sweet. Danny's solution ("Let's get married!") takes Val and the audience by surprise. I guess you either buy it or you don't.

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"Prince Charming". Both Season 10 cliffhangers are resolved in this episode, as Greg buys Ted off and Mack reveals to Karen what happened between he and Paula on The Night of the Skunk. Ted has two excellent final showdowns, one with Greg in his office, (in which he compares Greg to Geraldine Ferraro) the other with Paige in the Sumner Group elevator--she hits him, he hits her and he advises her to stick with Greg: "You're his weakness." Chillingly, he denies being a killer up to the end. Greg and Paige pick up where they left off before he married Abby ("I never asked you to go skinny dipping in my pool.") He invites her to come back to work on her terms--for the first time, he's pursuing her--then when she confronts him over making a deal with Ted, he tells her to stay out of his business. And so continues the flip flop of that relationship. Paige and Mack, last seen fighting at Olivia's eighteenth, have a reconciliation at the Mackenzie barbecue, which lasts approximately fifteen seconds before Mack learns she's gone back to The Sumner Group. And so continues the flip flop of that relationship. Eric and Linda, no longer Sally's friend, return. Amanda, the singing kindergarten teacher, appears without anybody realising she's Sally's friend. ("She's adorable," coos Val). Some really good scenes between Olivia and Harold arguing over ice cream, and the episode ends with Danny turning up at the door of the kindergarten teacher!

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"Close Call". Apt title. This episode's full of them: Val dropping the kids off at kindergarten only minutes before Amanda arrives with Danny. Gary unaware that he's knocking on Sally's friend's door when there's nobody home but Chester. Gary abandoning his search for her to pick the kids up from the kindergarten where she works. Then he takes the night off to sit through this frumpy chick bellowing out Disney covers in a moody jazz club, whom he then sees with Danny ... then it all comes together in the closing moments with Gary pulling his "Holy ****! It's the twins' teacher/Danny's bird/Sally's friend!" face. Paula gets taken to task by Karen over her crush on Mack and she's like a little balloon that bursts in front of our eyes. Bless Melinda Culea, what a lovely actress. This could so easily have been her last scene. Paige moves into Abby's office, to the envy of Mort, demanding and getting a $120,000 salary, an expense account and a parking space near the elevator. OK, she's not Abby, but there's something of the pleasurable wish fulfillment fantasy there was when Abby moved into her fancy offices in Season 5. But Paige won't have dinner with Greg. "Don't worry, they'll all still think you're doing me," is the gist of what she tells him. Michael accepts a job offer at The Sumner Group--wonderfully horrified reactions from Karen and especially Mack: is Greg set on taking all his children? The only person who's happy for Michael is ... Linda.

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"Best Interests". There's something deliciously complicated and, well, knotty going on in this episode: Gary is obliged to ask Danny in front of Val for the number of the woman he was kissing the night before who is also the woman Gary has been looking for for the last few months. Not only that but, "she's my wife," Danny informs Val who strides back into the house in her Eric Von Stronheil johdpurs and bitch slaps a box of cereal. Gary tries to help but Val is in her post-Jill "Poor Val no longer" phase and sends him out of the house, where Danny is waiting to taunt him over the twins. Grazed knuckles and brusied egos ensue.

Sure, this is a plot device to keep Val and Gary apart for another season but what makes it more than that (unlike the Val bump on the head/virus romp of season 12), is that these two outside characters - Danny and Amanda - unwittingly tap into Gary and Val's insecurities about each other. In this episode, we see Danny explaining his life with Amanda to Val (how would Val like to live with someone so unreliable and untrustworthy?), and then Amanda describing Danny to Gary as suffocating and needy. It's clear that these descriptions serve to remind Gary and Val of the worst of each other, and the reasons they split in the first place. It's almost as though Danny and Amanda are subconscious voices, articulating Gary and Val's fears of what would happen if they were to give into their true feelings and reconcile. (The only drawback is Penny Peyser--the worst piece of KNOTS casting since Peter Reckell.)

Over at The Sumner Group, Paige plays the part of the unattainable ice cold blonde to perfection. Greg, bouncing wittily off his minions Bob, Mort, Harvey and Polly spends this episode sealed off from the object of his desire by that glass wall that separates their offices, and spies on her through shutters, window frames and shadows. (How voyeuristic! How ... noir!). He watches as she negotiates with Peter Christopher, the handsome young head of acquisitions at who-the-hell-cares-which company and (in a witty call back to Season 10) sends out for croquet mallets.

Greg (on Peter Christopher): He's very tall. How tall is he?

Paige: I'll ask him.

And I love the way, out of nowhere, Ginny goes to visit an old friend and walks straight into a storyline about pension fraud and murder, which goes on to impact all the major characters and end up, quite unexpectedly, as an American remake of EDGE OF DARKNESS.

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"When Push Comes to Shove". Another Latham/Lechowick murder, another round of, not so much flashbacks, as flash-sideways as Ginny repeatedly misremembers whether or not she put the sugar in the sugar bowl before Jeri plummeted to her death. Tricksy, yes, but unpredictable and darkly fun. Val forgives Danny for being married with her "Each year I vow to be a stronger person speech." There is a very interesting Scene From An Estranged Marriage when Danny calls round to see Amanda, where they alternately snipe at another, sit in silence and embrace. There isn't really another scene like it in the whole series. Were Amanda played by a better actress, it would have been excellent instead of merely fascinating. The advent of the new Paula--short hair, smart, witty elevator sparring with Greg--coincides with the introduction of OPEN MIKE, where Karen and Greg's debate both ecology and his influence on her son. An exchange between Mack and the pathologist presiding over Jeri's autopsy is elevated from simple exposition to some very nice character stuff, as we learn they both served together in Vietnam. Clever, clever writing throughout this episode.

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"Mixed Messages". I think I've finally figured out what it is about Season 11--with Abby gone, there are no real larger than life characters left. KNOTS doesn't feel like an 80s soap anymore; until the return of Anne Matheson, no one's trying to get rich. The stories feel scaled down, more everyday. Pension fund scams instead of Empire Valley. Mack's love of the law rather than Greg's pursuit of power. I love it. It almost feels like a return to Season 2 or 3, except that the only familiar couple are Mack and Karen. Sure, there are the Williamses, but they seem to get less screentime together than the Wards. This isn't SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE anymore (unless you count Amanda and Danny's); it's all about individuals embarking on new relationships: Val and Danny, Gary and Amanda, Greg and Paula, and, starting in this episode, Michael and Linda, and Tom and Paige. Again, the benefits of hindsight with Season 11: no sooner is Mack warned by Mark Baylor about the seige mentality of Oakman Industries than along comes Tom waving his panty hose in Paige's face. Long, panty hosed legs are a recurring motif throughout the episode, if not Paige's then Paula "I'm not blonde and 22" Vertosick's. During The Sumner Group staff party, Tom's hand rides up Paige's skirt in the Elevator of Carnal Desire. Returning from the party, Michael recreates the same blonde incest game of Bedrooms and Hallways that he played with Paige back in Season 8. Clever Paige--landing her first $500,000 deal for the company; not bad for a teenage art student. Her reward is the mysterious Mrs Richfield account. We never find out what the Richfield account consists of, but perhaps it's something to do head transplants as this Mrs R sure as Galina doesn't look the same here as she does later on.

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"The Good Guys". So many layers in this episode. For instance, Mack invites Tom and Paige over for dinner. By now, we know that Tommy is working for the bad guys and is snooping for titbits on Mack's investigation, but there's so much else going on: relationship stuff (Mack and Paige barely on speaking terms because of her and Greg), Paige's sheer, almost Laura-esque, perversity (she hates that Mack and Karen approve of her date and resents Tom for being so nice to them) and father/daughter politics (Mack is quietly appalled by Paige's choice of dress: "It's underwear!"). The inappropriate clothing theme crops up in another dinner scene taking place concurrently: Harold and Olivia (what a fantastic couple) and Michael and Linda (what a ... blonde couple) are having dinner at a fancy restaurant, and Harold turns up without a jacket. This dinner scene also touches on relationships (the inherent class differences of Olivia and Harold; the inherent ... blondeness of Michael and Linda) as well as another recurring theme: credit cards. Michael's just got his first one, Harold and Olivia have been turned down for one, Karen's first OPEN MIKE is all about the dangers of them, even Mark Baylor, in a brilliant speech about conspiracy theorists, refers to them. God, I love how Season 11 writes for characters like Mark Baylor and Mr Zimmer, who we get to know and understand just before he gets beaten to crap by Tom Ryan. I don't know if there's another season that writes minor characters in such detail. Maybe Season 2. Tom Jezick and Sheila Fisher aren't as well developed as Mark Baylor. All this and KNOTS' first depiction of simulated urination--Mark Baylor is taking a whizz, Tom Ryan joins him, we don't know exactly what happens next, but all of a sudden Baylor is doing everything he can to get into prison! Layers, layers ... and Constance Colby's geritaric toyboy as a judge!!