I thought it was a very good episode. The writers didn't forget that this was JR, who pissed a lot of people off, but they also didn't forget that JR was human, and underneath all the lying, cheating, backstabbing, etc., he still valued (and was valued) by his family in a strange way. So, in other words, it felt very true to his character to have all of these mixed emotions come about after his death. Cliff crashing his wake and making a big scene, followed by that one other person agreeing with him and getting into a fight with John Ross and Christopher. Ray, Lucy, and others remembering their favorite JR-ism, Bobby realizing that JR being so bad is a big part of the reason he was able to be so good, and best of all, Sue Ellen's very emotional speech at his funeral, which made me tear up a bit.
And the writers also used his death very well in order to shake things up as far as the main storyline goes. I'm really looking forward to seeing where they take the Cliff, Harris, and Pam storylines in the rest of the season. If I'm being honest, I have felt a bit mixed about this season so far. A big part of the reason for that is the whole storyline with Harris Ryland's story with his mother, and Emma. It just felt too over-the-top, hurt Harris and Ann as characters (both of whom were my favorite new characters on the show), and took up too much time away from other stories. Over the last few episodes, however, I have slowly started to enjoy the season more, and have been hopeful that the series will start to pick up again. And after this episode, I'm much more confident it will do so, as long as they handle the Cliff, Harris, and Pam stories well enough. Obviously JR's presence will be sorely missed, but hopefully the writers are able to prove that the show can still be great without him.
