Three reasons we watched all 357 episodes of 'Dallas' during quarantine

When April rolled around and the reality of many, many more weeks of quarantine set in, I started looking for anything other than reality on television.

The search was on for something I could lose myself in, and I found the answer on the free streaming service IMDb TV: "Dallas," the seminal prime-time soap that aired on CBS from 1978 to 1991.

Here are reasons this throwback held my attention throughout a 357-episode re-watch.

Larry Hagman became the defining "Dallas" star as the power-grabbing, blackmailing, philandering J.R., eldest son of Jock and Ellie.

It isn't just that J.R. engages in those activities so relentlessly, but that he does so with unabashed glee that makes him so fun to watch. Every episode of "Dallas" ends with a trademark freeze frame, and many of those are close-ups of a grinning J.R., just after he has double-crossed a business associate or driven his long-suffering alcoholic wife Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) to another sanitarium stay.

J.R. does have some redeeming qualities. The charm Hagman wrings out of uttering one "Darlin' " is worth both of those Emmys he was nominated for. And he genuinely loves his daddy, his mama, his brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) and his son John Ross (Omri Katz), even though they often take a back seat to his obsession with Ewing Oil.

During the Bobby funeral episode, which ends with a freeze frame of a heartbroken J.R. looking up at the sky, I realized that the slick but soulful oilman was my gateway antihero. A New Jersey mobster, an Albuquerque meth kingpin and a couple of suburban Russian spies later won my heart on cable, but it all started with a Stetson-wearing conniver on CBS.

But "Dallas" liked to leave viewers hanging at the end of every season, from the paternity of Sue Ellen's baby to the series finale, a two-part "It's a Wonderful Life"-style examination of all J.R. has wrought that ends with a gunshot that leaves the audience wondering if the guilt-ridden oilman had killed himself. (The answer came in a TV movie, "Dallas: J.R. Returns.")

And then there's the Season 9 finale, when Pam Ewing (Victoria Principal) wakes up to a surprise: her dead ex-husband, Bobby, showering in her bathroom. Duffy had quit the show at the end of Season 8, but when ratings started to slip, Hagman asked his best friend to return. Duffy agreed, sparking "The Dream Season," TV's most famous do-over. Season 10 opens with confirmation that Bobby is alive and squeaky clean, and that everything that happened in Season 9 had all been Pam's dream.

When the Ewings aren't fighting with each other for control of Ewing Oil, they're loving and fighting, fighting and loving like it's a sport. It's no small feat to keep the middle of a 31-episode season moving, so sometimes those dizzyingly frequent breakup-makeup cycles happen across just a few episodes.

In one infamous instance, a family affair proves to be too literal. Jock and Ellie's rebellious teen granddaughter Lucy (Charlene Tilton) has regular romps with a ranch hand, Ray (Steve Kanaly), during Season 1, only for Ray to later find out he's Jock's son. Yep, Lucy is his biological niece. From then on, Lucy and Ray's early history is ignored and he becomes an avuncular presence in her life.