Dishing about "Dallas"

** SPOILER ALERT!**

OK, has anyone else been watching "Dallas?" 

Did anyone else in the ALI world find it as excruciating as I did last night to watch at the very end of the episode, as not just one but both of Pamela's twins' fetal heartbeats flatlined on the monitors?? 

I KNEW that at least one if not both of the babies was a goner... that's just the way the soaps work. :p  (Especially when everyone else survived the bomb blast on the oil rig -- engineered by none other than Cliff Barnes, Pamela's father & the babies' grandfather -- who KNEW they were there, but gave the go-ahead to detonate anyway. Good grief...!!) 

But yikes -- even though the situation was absolutely nothing like my own personal loss experience, it was hard to watch. Dh was in the living room with me & he found it hard to stomach as well.

The entire episode leading up to that point was a roller coaster ride. We started off with Pamela being diagnosed with a stomach aneurysm and partial placental abruption that was threating both her life and that of the babies. The dr recommended terminating the 20-week pregnancy as the best chance of saving Pamela's life. Pamela immediately went hysterical, begging the dr and Christopher (the babies' father & Pamela's still-husband, albeit estranged) not to kill her babies. (Ouch.) 

Things were stabilized, but mid-episode, the aneurysm burst, & we got another round of hysteria as Pamela writhed in agony, clutching her stomach. Both Pamela & babies survived the surgery, but at the episode's end, a "code blue" sounded over the hospital intercom, and Christopher and John Ross raced to Pamela's room, standing by helplessly as first one and then the other fetal heartbeat flatlined. Bye-bye babies. :( 

On the one hand, by the end of the episode, I was a little exhausted from the up & down dramatics. But at the same time, I'll give the writers credit. Life is messy and grey, not clearcut shades of black & white, and that's how this pregnancy loss thing works sometimes, people. :p 

By the way, does anyone know what the laws regarding medical terminations are in Texas?  I thought they were pretty restrictive. When the dr first recommended terminating the pregnancies (albeit as the best chance to save Pamela's life), dh said, "Can they do that in Texas??" "Good point," I said.

I appreciate the symmetry the new series is keeping with the old. For example, the original Pamela Barnes (Victoria Principal) -- aunt to this series' Pamela Rebecca Barnes -- had a miscarriage after falling from the barn hayloft during an argument with JR. The episode this season where the Venezuelan thugs held the family hostage at Southfork seemed like a nod to a long-ago hostage-taking incident in the very first season of the old series. And Ann's daughter Emma seems to be picking up where Lucy left off on the troubled teenager/young adult front, popping pills and going after both John Ross and Drew Ramos.

OK, just had to get that off my chest. ; )  Did you watch? What did you think? -- about last night's episode, and how things are going on the series generally?