Dallas (TV Series) A House Divided (1980) User Reviews

The episode that elevated "Dallas" to cult status!!!

[garrard · 9/10 · 4 July 2006]

Contrary to popular belief, "A House Divided" is the actual title of the episode that is mistakenly called "Who Shot J.R.?" Though the question is raised on this season-ending cliff-hanger when the oil magnate (Larry Hagman) is shot, the resolution would not be answered until several episodes into the next season.

As all are familiar, this installment has J.R. as his devilish best, ruining Cliff Barnes' (Ken Kercheval) intent on making a killing off of oil field Ewing 23, destroying former ally Vaughn Leland (Dennis Patrick), alienating himself from the members of the oil cartel, driving his brother (Patrick Duffy) and his wife (Victoria Principal) from the family home, threatening to send his wife, Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), back to the sanitarium, and running both his assistant (Randolph Powell) and his mistress, Kristen (Mary Crosby), out of town.

And all this is done in under an hour.

J.R. was definitely a ruthless businessman and Hagman played him to the hilt for thirteen glorious seasons.

Iconic episode

[Kingslaay · 10/10 · 8 May 2020]

This was the episode that captivated the world. Dallas was the number 1 show at this point and JR was riding high. An example of truly great writing and acting. The build up, intensity and eventual climax was beautifully shown. This made cliff hangers a big thing and so many shows today follow this. Dallas and JR is truly a joy to watch. 10/10

It's Not Titled "Who Shot JR", who knew?

[DKosty123 · 9/10 · 1 September 2017]

This is the top episode of this CBS series. It made JR and Dallas a top rated show for a good while after it aired. Yet, looking back, the title suggests no one had any idea the stir this would cause when it was made.

An inspiration for "Who Shot Monty Burns?" on the Simpsons, this one episode cemented Dallas as a fixture in the 1980's on CBS. This is the ultimate Larry Hagman. While it had been building all season to this climax, the shock and awe this episode inspired bounced into the big time here.

Forget all the barbecue's, all the oil Barron's balls. Forget JR's favorite Bourbon and Branch drink. Even forget the constant bed hopping prior, there's nothing like a good shooting to set this show apart from the other prime time soap operas. All the clones of this one would try shootings and even mass shootings to try to recapture this type of hype on their series.

None of them ever did it. That's because without old JR, they just did not have the straw to stir the drink.

J.R. At His Best (and Worst)

[pv71989-1 · 9/10 · 3 April 2012]

"A House Divided" is, of course, known by the more familiar nickname "Who Shot J.R.?" In only its third season (and just its second full one as the first season was just a five-episode mini-series), "Dallas" had cemented itself as a top-rated fixture on American nighttime television. However, it needed just one more thing to get it to number one and that was a season cliffhanger that would keep viewers guessing until the following season debut.

This episode did that. J.R. (Larry Hagman, far removed from Major Nelson on "I Dream of Jeanie") is at his evil best, somehow managing to finally and fully alienate not just the Cartel, but Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), Bobby (Patrick Duffy), Kristin Shepard (Mary Crosby), Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval) and Alan Beam (Randolph Powell), all in less than an hour. And he does it convincingly, unlike future rivals like "Dynasty" and "Falcon Crest."

The Cartel: Like idiots, they let their greed get the better of them and buy most of the Asian oil wells. Just about all of them, including Jordan Lee (Don Starr) lose their shirts and one commits suicide. The worst is Vaughn Leland, who loses everything but true to his nature, blames J.R. instead of himself.

Alan Beam: Thinking he can take on J.R., Alan is brought to J.R.'s office by Det. McSween (James L. Brown) and has a charge of rape of a woman to be named later hung over his head.

Kristin: Conspiring with Alan Beam, she tries to get J.R.'s right-hand man in SE Asia to send damaging documents directly to Kristin. Instead, Hank (Ron Hayes) calls J.R. Kristin then gets her own visit from Det. McSween, who has an arrest warrant in hand for prostitution unless Kristin gets out of town. Neither she nor Alan can agree who will kill J.R. first.

Cliff: He finds a document signed by Jock giving Digger and Digger's heirs half the profits from Ewing 23. J.R. acquiesces, then shuts down Ewing 23, so Cliff doesn't get a dime.

Bobby: Already disgusted at how J.R. treated the Cartel, Bobby completely breaks when he learns J.R. shut down Ewing 23. He seeks Jock's support but Jock backs J.R. Jock would never be in business with any Barnes. Bobby knows where he stands in the family. He tells Pam they're leaving Southfork. He's had it with J.R.'s schemes and Jock's lack of support.

Sue Ellen: She tells off J.R. in front of a distraught Miss Ellie. J.R. tells her he's calling the sanitarium in the morning and will personally have her committed.

End result: J.R. hides out in his office with shots of Jim Beam but, also gets two shots of hot lead.

Everyone manages to pull off their parts with aplomb and total believability. Jim Davis is especially effective at expressing equal parts ruthlessness and dismay as Jock. Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie makes naiveté completely believable.

Though we wonder what's taken Bobby so long to get a clue, when he finally does, it's heartbreaking. The only disappointment is Victoria Principal as Pam. She still seems to be sleepwalking through her role.

The rest of the cast is serviceable. Randolph Powell (Beam), Mary Crosby (Kristin), James L. Brown (McSween), Dennis Patrick (Leland) and Don Starr (Jordan Lee) only need a few words to communicate threats and they pull it off.

The most important part is they create enough reason that, when J.R. is finally shot down in his office late one night, we don't know who could have fired the shots.

And, with that, Lorimar Productions cemented the legends of J.R. and "Dallas."

"Take A Number. There Are A Few Of Us Ahead Of You. "

[JosephPezzuto · 8/10 · 28 February 2015]

So answers political fixer Alan Beam (Randolph Powell) to Kristen Shepard (Mary Crosby) regarding exacting revenge on the greedy, egocentric oil businessman J.R. Ewing (a clean-cut Larry Hagman, amidst other actor's 80's hairstyles of the day) 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." With a heart the color of the Texas tea he holds dear, he had become to be known, despite a neat appearance, as greasy and watery as they come for an American TV drama set in Texas...just a rich man's son spoiled rotten.

Directed by Irving J. Moore and written by Rena Down, the twenty- fifth and final episode of the third season of 'Dallas' aired on March 21, 1980, spawning an eight-month whodunnit hysteria of "Who Shot J.R.?" due to its POV shot of the assassin in the last scene in which the fictional Texan miser is fatally gunned down upon working late in his office, only emerging upon hearing the off-screen killer outside. And, of course, the assailant would not be revealed or the murder mystery resolved until the fourth episode of the next season, entitled "Who Done It", which continues to be the second most-watched episode in television history. The eponymous episode, named after the biblical passage of Mark 3:25, and cited by President Lincoln describing a half free and half slave America at the time, reveals that the nationalization of Asian fields has caused financial ruin, affecting the cartel members of J.R. Ewing's banker, leading to the suicide of one cartel member in particular named Seth Stone (Buck Young). J.R. plans to run Kristen, also his ex-mistress and sister of his wife, and Alan out of town as they both plot their revenge against him due to his dirty dealings. He also plans to move his spouse Sue Ellen Ewing (Linda Gray) back into a sanitarium, threatening to re-institutionalize her for alcoholism. J.R., breaking his promise to marry Kristen and giving her twenty-four hours to leave town, had also framed her for prostitution in response to some business pressure she had put upon him. Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval), after realizing Jock Ewing (Jim Davis) and Digger Barnes (Keenan Wynn) had sought revenge on J.R. based on an agreement, J.R. has the fields stopped up of their flow to keep Cliff from earning any royalties. J.R.'s rival and mild-mannered brother Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) and wife Pamela Barnes Ewing (Victoria Principal) are fed up and disgusted with J.R.'s poor life choices and plan to move out of Southfork altogether. In the end, J.R. gets his comeuppance, and it was not until the summer of that year was over until the murderer was finally revealed on November 21, due to all of his enemies of whom could of been responsible and all the suspense and anticipation of whom it could possibly be.

"A House Divided" served as both an introduction to the now common practice of season-ending cliffhangers and also the beginning of an eight-month international media frenzy, as oddsmakers created a set of odds for possible and plausible suspects. Even Jimmy the Greek posted odds of various suspects. Tony Schwartz, also of The New York Times, described the episode as "the most promotable television suspense since David Janssen was vindicated after a four-year run on The Fugitive in the mid-1960s". Schwartz also estimated the episode had been seen in fifty-seven countries. In 2011, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly named the episode number one of the seven most "Unforgettable Cliff-Hangers" of prime time dramatic television. The episode deservedly earned Fred W. Berger an American Cinema Editors Eddie Award for Best Edited Episode from a Television Series and earned Irving J. Moore a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series nomination. With that, Lominar Productions had indeed drilled into the recesses of the creative fields that were their minds and, upon discovering/creating this episode, shot upwards like an oil spring, providing the American nighttime drama we needed just so we could tune in again for more, allowing the legends of J.R and 'Dallas' itself to gush forth into television history after this memorable episode with a maddening murder mystery tagged on to the end.

Who shot JR?

[dtucker86 · 10/10 · 30 September 2023]

I'm old enough to remember the summer and early fall of 1980 when Ronald Reagan was running for President, when the American hostage were still being held in Iran, when CNN premiered as a news network when moviegoers were lining up around the block to see The Empire Strikes Back and The Shining AND when the question on everyone's lips was who shot our favorite tv no goodnick John Ross Ewing. It was even on the cover of Time magazine. You would have thought he was an actual person. This is a good episode of Dallas that built up the suspense very well showing that there were many people who hated this guy even among his own family.